Eggblogg

Favouriting tweets so as not to miss them...

Yes, it's another grammatical mashup, but there's no denying that 'favourite' is now a verb.

I'm always seeing interesting tweets with links to articles  I don't have time to read immediately, so when this happens I 'favourite' them. It means I can easily find and read them later, rather than have them disappear into the 'Tw-ether' (yuk!)

Here are some that I've favourited over the last couple of weeks:

How to build a Facebook community (by John Haydon via Sandy Guerriere) - a really useful article made better by loads of very clear screenshots

Audioboo brings instant podcasting to your browser (via Wonderful Creative) - an overview of the new web version of Audioboo and how it can be used as an easy podcasting tool

A short video on how Google Wave works (from Documentally) - yes, I tried to watch the original 80 min video from Google but didn't last the course... this is really worth watching for an 8 min review of the main points

15 suggestions for marketing your iphone app  (via Alice Elliott) - An in-depth piece with a lot of online marketing ideas that don't only apply to the promotion of apps.

I find I prefer 'favouriting' to bookmarking, because the tweets are there staring at me in Tweetdeck until I read them, so I don't forget.

Real-time, reality and blended reality

One of the things about Twitter that seems to have grabbed people's attention is what I call its 'in the moment' quality. The photo of the downed plane in the river at New York, Stephen Fry getting stuck in a lift... the speed with which Twitter bursts into activity following something big happening.

Like conversation, tweeting is over in an instant. Yes, it's archived and searchable (always important to remember before you say something you might regret!), but basically it's a tool for 'real-time'. Twitter's 'trending topics' is a fascinating way of watching the ebbs and flows of global conversation.

In a similar way, Google Wave looks like bringing electronic conversations into real-time, smoothing the way for better collaboration and clearer communication. (This is a great short video introduction to Google Wave, by the way.)

In a recent article in New Media Age, we learn that Google is investing big in real-time search, as the demand for up to the minute information increases. Certainly, I was interested to hear from Rosie Sherry recently that she always searches Delicious before bothering with Google, as topical content is produced and bookmarked long before the search engines pick up on it.

The November issue of Wired Magazine has a whole section on the digital city, and Andrew Blum talks about how social networking is making cities manageable, that tweets, status updates, mobile maps and such like don't replace waving at your neighbours or the way a place looks, but they form 'an electronic conversation overlaid on top of all that ...This is far more interesting than we were promised a decade ago.' He goes on to say that Anthony Townsend of Silicon Valley's Institute for the Future (how cool is that!?) calls it blended urban reality.

Blended urban reality is '..neither cyberspace nor an urban landscape blanketed with blinking TV screens, but the regular old city, albeit socially fused with real-time electronic interactions.'

So there's no need to worry about spending too much time online and coming over all Second Life. It seems we're getting back to reality. Or blended reality, at least.

Photo credit: DipNip

What I get out of using Twitter

I'm often asked 'what's the point of Twitter?' and in many ways the answer depends on the context.

They may mean 'what's the business rationale for using Twitter?' Or 'why does anyone use Twitter?' Or sometimes it's just 'why on earth do you spend time on that Twitter thingy?'

Twitter is like any large gathering - there are people sharing interesting news, private jokes, asking and answering questions. There are open discussions, people watching and listening, others touting their wares or showing off, others sharing stuff they doing, seeing or learning. There are the loud ones, the quiet ones, the excited ones and the bored ones.

I got into using Twitter when I first heard about it, early in 2007, because it's my job to keep up with what's new on the web. But it was a year or so before I started getting anything much out of it. Now I use it as a social network, a research tool and a way of sharing knowledge and experience with many great people, some in my industry and others completely not. Some of them I knew before, some I've subsequently met, others I will no doubt meet at some point, others I'll never meet.

Just to give you an idea, this week on Twitter I've:

...discovered the top 12 social media stories this week
...followed people's comments on a controversial Prime Minister's Question Time
...learned how beautiful a Sussex morning can be
...promoted my eTips blog post
...discussed whether to attend an industry event
...laughed at a spoof 'ebook' promotion
...recommended a supplier to one of my contacts

But, I hear you saying, what about the question 'what's the business rationale for using Twitter?' More on that in a future post!

In the meantime I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on what you get out of Twitter, or, if you're not a Tweeter, what your perception of it is.

Have technology, education and over-marketing fuelled the social web?

I've been working and re-working my 'short introduction to social media' workshop. It's aimed at small business owners who really don't know anything about it. In other words, the vast majority. And it's got me thinking about where the social web came from.

As with everything, the more you learn the more you realise there is to learn.

My thought is that the social web is very much a product of its time. It's straightforward enough to track the progress of technology - the microchip, the internet, the PC, the mobile phone, the iPod.

Less obvious perhaps is the relentless march of marketing, a discipline grounded in the era of TV and mass markets, when there were just a handful of channels and digital printing had yet to be invented. Instead of reworking itself in the face of a media revolution, marketing appears to have stood still. Or rather, it has proliferated. The thinking seems to be "do more of the same, and keep doing it". So now we are over-marketed to. No wonder the target market is fighting back.

The third piece in the puzzle is, I think, to do with education. Certainly in this country schooling has changed. Children aren't asked to write essays, hand them in and get a mark, which was the staple of my schooldays. I enjoyed my time at school and larked about as much as anyone, but everything came down to getting the best marks you could, and you measured your performance against others in the class.

Now, children work in groups, on projects, over a week or a term, collaboratively, co-operatively. No doubt the competition is still there and children are certainly 'scored' individually and possibly excessively by their teachers. But the idea of working with others, sharing ideas, doing stuff as a team is central to the way kids are educated now. And it's been that way for a while - it's entered the workplace and influenced the ways in which the internet has developed.

The 'digital natives' are growing up. They're reacting against over-marketing and they see no reason why they shouldn't be the ones creating, publishing and controlling the conversation. Sharing and collaboration come naturally to them, they're not scared by it, and they've never known a time when there was no internet or mobile technology.

technological advance + educational change + over-marketing = social web

I don't have any evidence I can quote in support of this equation, it's just a theory, and a rather UK-centric one at that. What do you think? Is this too simplistic? What other factors have I missed?

eTips - why ratings, reviews and recommendations matter

This month's eTips is about the currency of the social web - ratings, reviews and recommendations. Plus the usual round up of blogs posts, news and other ephemera that's caught my eye recently.

Here it is on the web or you could always subscribe to get it each month by email if you wished...