Twitter

Yesterday someone twittered about tweetgrid, a simple to use web interface that allows you to see, in real time what people are tweeting about. It filters as many key words to chose and dedicates one portion of the screen per word. If you select four words then you can watch as four topics are discussed. if you select just two then you see only two. The reason this is a useful tool is that it makes trend watching easier. Imagine the new year’s celebration. You could watch as a few people speak about what they’re doing, as they wish you a happy new year. The point of tweetgrid is that it’s a quick, easy to use interface that you can use from any computer.

This morning whilst tweeting with Fahran Rehman we decided that we would like to organise a twitter event in London with a difference. Twestival and twinterval are great ideas but we’re thinking of doing something over a period of two days that would be like a podcamp but over two days and we need your ideas to make it worthwhile. Already we have 27 people on facebook interested in the project and another 6 so far on tweetcamp. It would take place in London in the not too distant future normally. The reason for it taking place in London is that there are over 10,000 twitter users theoretically based in London already so we might expect at least two to three hundred to come along to participate. If you’re interested in participating then put your name down and let’s get the project underway and see how much interest we can gather.

This morning I spent three hours chatting to people in Australia, Sweden and France via both twitter and plurk and it felt great and the reason for this is that it was personal. We hear so much and read even more about the social media and the social web but there is one fundamental flaw and oxymoron in this vision. That is that there is an utter lack of the social aspect. Everyone is here, trying to promote their work, their brand, their friends and everything. They re retweeting what other people say and do to promote work. They are promoting things that they think can promote a person’s value. The trouble is that how many of these people do you know as friends. Do you know anything than their marriage, their recent hirings or their job. Do you know where they’ve been out with friends? I could name a hundred locations where podcamp have been, where tuttle have gone and many other things but I couldn’t tell you where more than two or three people like to go for drinks or good food. That’s because the social media are hidden. Everyone is hiding their real identity, their real friendships and their real passions. That’s why some of them have a public twitter account and a private one. That’s why there is so little conversation left on twitter. That’s also why you want to have 20,000 followers. The truth is that if you use the social media as a professional tool, as a branding tool then you might find work, and you may find those who provide you with an increased profile but is that what the web is really about? How many of you will send more than two tweets to anyone except for work? How many of you will spend an hour just chatting? You see for most of the people I follow on twitter it’s about work and nothing else. Sure there’s the charity for breast cancer and the organ donation drives that give good results but what about the mondane conversations? That’s lacking on twitter. That’s why plurk is more fun at moments. In reality if what you called the social media were truly social then I would have had nothing to write and dream about in my nanowrimo effort. That’s why I lampoon most of you. You haven’t understood the social nature of the social web because for you it’s a work tool, not a play thing. Learn to play with the social media and you will get a lot more out of it. You will build friendships and the transparency will result in some positive things. I’ve seen the Francofous community, how it grew, how it meant there were many meetings and how they talked behind closed doors. i’ve also seen the consequences of the lack of openness and what it can do to people’s involvment in the communities they’re part of. How many francofous still use seesmic for example. Of those I follow I see just one person still on seesmic. Plurk at the moment is more social, you see conversations between friends and they have fun. it’s about funny images, it’s about night shifts, it’s about waking up, or going to sleep. In general it’s just a convivial social space where no one is using the network as a professional tool. I’m not saying that you should be social all the time, what I’m saying is that you need to think about how to give time to the communities you’re part of. Ping.fm, hello text and others provide no value to those that are listening. Engage with your audience on a personal level. SHow them that you’re interested in the individuals, not the professionals.

[caption id=“attachment_826” align=“alignleft” width=“500” caption=“Reason for twitter downtime”][/caption] Yet again twitter hoped for the best and as a result went down for several hours. It’s a simple illustration of why I remain critical of the way twitter is run. What I love best is the “It’s a problem we knew about…”

is twitter changing your blogging habits? (original post) Yes and no. Twitter is replacing instant messaging and chatrooms. It’s an open method by which for people to communicate instantly with others. It’s also about the overheard conversation although that term has dissapeared. What does “overheard” mean? Well simply that whenever two people discuss a topic hundreds of people are following this conversation and when they decide they have an opinion they can cut in. They do have that 140 character limit though, so they need to get to the point is efficiently as possible. When that isn’t possible then they can do the next best thing. Write a comment in a blog post or even write a blog entry of their own where the conversation that took place on twitter is synthesised into a more digestible chunk of information. As a result twitter is changing people’s habits but the question is why people want to chat publicly rather than in an enclosed space. Today people like transparency.

In 1999 I decided that I would spend 21 days without touching a computer once. That’s because I was in Tanzania for a trip during which we helped to build schools for children in the area. I had decided to do that because so many spoke about the illness of spending too much time online, of internet addiction. I came back from that trip realising one thing. It’s a way of life, not an illness or an addiction. It’s also based on how easily you can meet people and how open the community is. Look at the university environment. Some people would come to university for the lesson and leave straight after that. They would never once take advantage of the social elements that university would provide them with. As a result they would be isolated and to some degree solitary. Other people would come and participate in everything, go to the student theatre, participate in the student theatre, help post grad with their work. These people would gain a lot from university. They would learn about team work, they would see who has which skill and more to the point they coul go out at any time and meet so many people that they could spend five hours chatting to one person after another without difficulty. That’s what you get from social media, especially in a place like London or if you’re ready to travel. Join myspace and it’s all strangers with unusual nicknames so it’s daunting. Go a little further and you find facebook. That’s a nice place. That’s a place where those from an international or certain age group can find all their peers. That’s the case for people like me. As a result the community which they had known in the physical world is also online. It’s an extension of the social scene, come there as much to discuss past events as to plan new ones. it’s a place to share all the material from a night. That’s what student magazines and radios attempt to do, to bring the community to you whilst you’re “alone”. You’re social without being social. Of course there’s another dimension. That of social networks like twitter or seesmic. Both of these communites are interesting because you start off not knowing anyone, either in the physical or online word. As you spend more and more time chatting to these people, via text with twitter or video with seesmic personality comes through. Some people always joke and are fun. Others are serious, always into their work and showing their innovative ideas. Occasionally the “meetup” occurs and to some people that’s a daunting idea. If I speak to some friends they would never ever think of meeting someone from the online world because of all the negative stories that are blown out of proportion but as long as you’re wise enough those online friends you meet online may become good friends in the real world. That’s what happened for me after meeting many social media friends at tweetups and podcams, seesmeetups and more, even bloggy fridays to name a local event. Those people that I had only seen or read were now there in person “with feet” as some joked, “in 3d” as others would joke. Finally it’s possible to chat with them, to share a drink and a meal. With some people you find that a strong and enduring friendship will form in the physical world. That’s when you know it’s a community worth being a part of. In particular I’m thinking of what twitter used to be and what seesmic is. It’s a way of meeting people around the world before you travel. I really enjoy it, that’s why i spend so much time in this world. It’s not about being at a computer. it’s about having a conversation with people I hope to meet in the physical world for real friendships and real “vécu” as it’s called in French. I’m in social media for all those fun meetings in the physical world. The more time progresses and the more I enjoy this lifestyle. That is in fact why the mobile web is so important to me. I like it, I think it’s going to expand. How about you? Do you feel the same about social media. Are you using it the same way? Is it just a business tool? Think about it because what you get out of it will be affected.

richard - Sep 5, 2008

i always wake up early after a good night out. Enjoying the fresh air today :-). What time did you end up leaving last night?

It was lovely last night, I’m surprised your up and logging so early today though…you had quite a bit to drink ;-) Maybe Trafalgar Square has that effect on you!

The first tweetup I went to saw a crowd of no more than sixty people. The twestival had many more. Enough to fill the Doon club. So many new faces but not many new people to follow. It’s fun to see how big the London twitter community has become. The usual people were there, sizemore, loudmouthman, documentally, danacea weaverluke and a few new faces like digitalmaverick, amandita, Poppyd and a few more people. Some video was shot of the event but I’m not sure by when they’ll go up. There was no wifi so no opportunity to do some live streaming. At the same time I’m thinking it’s time for a plurk up of the same scale, since for the moment there are so few people. Now it’s time for Tuttle.

[caption id=“attachment_695” align=“aligncenter” width=“500” caption=“I’m in two categories. “][/caption] Random fact

Tweetrush is based on the rushhour engine and aims at providing information on the volume of tweets that are sent every hour of the day. At the present 800,000 tweets are sent a day. That’s an average of 33,300 an hour. I only tweet at about 86 (not 200) a day depending on conversations. You can see user’s tweet rate as well. It’s a fun litle app that can help picture how twitter is growing at present.