Wednesday, February 04, 2009
Confessions of a Twit(terer)
My tweeting started less than two months ago. I took the plunge because, like George Bernhard Shaw said, one should try everything in life once, except buggery and country dancing (look it up).
At the start, enthusiastic friends already using Twitter were evangelizing the service to the point where I wondered: is this addictive? After some 130-ish "tweets" since late December, and reading at least 100x as many from my contacts, I know the answer. Yes, but maybe not forever.
Despite the hype, Twitter is still flying below the radar for 99 percent of people who use the 'net. And that's what makes it so special at the moment. I wonder how long it will stay that way. I'm seeing various tweets about spammers being kicked off the service, plus various ham-fisted trumpet-blowing by some companies that have not really understood what Twitter is all about.
Despite all this background noise, there are today a few undisputed Stars of Twitter. Take a bow Stephen Fry, whose followers have increased from 80,000 to 110,000 in the space of a week. He's still got a long way to go to eclipse Barack Obama, perhaps the most-famous Twitter user of our times (so far), but he will - and fast. At the current growth rate alone, Fry will be the world's top Twitterer by the end of March.
Who? I hear non-Brits asking? well, tune in to his Twitter feed and you'll get the idea. Here's why: Stephen Fry is the rising star on Twitter for being himself.
That's part of the charm. I honestly feel that I've gotten to know the people I'm following a little better since early December. And that's also odd since I don't actually know at least half of them in real life aka meatspace. I've tuned in because they're on the "friend" list for other people I'm following, and so on.
If you checked out Twitter but then looked away around a year to 18 months or so ago, when it was competing with Dodgeball and based on SMS-ing, it is time to look again. I remember doing the same thing - and doubting that it was worth the cost of sending multiple SMSes to update folks on the minutae of my life.
Things have changed. Today I'm Tweeting via TweekDeck on PC and TwitterBerry on mobile. Both are super-easy to use and keep me up-to-date with my friend-cloud. Best of all is that I'm pulling info - dipping into the "tweam" of information - as and when I feel like it. It IS addictive though!
Looking for some stats to convince yourself that Twitter is the 2009 internet phenomenon? Plenty of places to look. Try Twitscoop, Retweetradar, and Cursebird for a start. These are among the mushroom cloud of Web 2.0 /mashup sites feeding off raw info from the Twitter API to produce information that ranges from the totally fascinating to the completely useless: maybe both at the same time. I found all three via recommendations from my Twitterfriends.
Doubting the real-world effect of Twitter? Today a tweet by Stephen Fry is said to have brought down a website, thanks to the sheer volume of followers who then tried to click through on his recommendation. I know that just one silly old website isn't a Government, but even so, Twitter has virtualized the flash mob.
Wondering how to tweet? Well, in your own style. Drop the "is ?" and try and add some useful or meaningful information. A weblink helps. My reaction to your tweet should not be "so what?". And I am not going to DM (direct message) you on Twitter for more info ? if you have something to say, say it, and say it in under 140 characters. Actually, in under 70 if you can ... this is a couple of lines on TweetDeck.
My personal Twitter style has already changed since my first tweet on 6th December. It wasn't "hello world" but "C&C on a wintry day / bulk buying frenzy / impulse shopping by the kilo", when I was thinking that twittering in Haikus would be fun. Maybe it would, but to do a real Haiku was too darn hard. My last Haiku-tweet was six days later. Those weather references were getting boring: It was a cold, but still wintry day today, almost two months later. Yawn.
I have also tried to stop posting meaningless stuff like my Jan 13th "Hmmm, an unexpected traffic jam" because unless you know where I was at the time (and there were no clues), it doesn't help. Since then I've added 12seconds.tv ? 12 seconds of tv ? anytime, anywhere ? and today also Latitude from Google, although not sure if I'll be using it. Maybe you should tweet @MrNesjo in 90 days or so for an update. Or look me up on Latitide. Might see you there.
At the start, enthusiastic friends already using Twitter were evangelizing the service to the point where I wondered: is this addictive? After some 130-ish "tweets" since late December, and reading at least 100x as many from my contacts, I know the answer. Yes, but maybe not forever.
Despite the hype, Twitter is still flying below the radar for 99 percent of people who use the 'net. And that's what makes it so special at the moment. I wonder how long it will stay that way. I'm seeing various tweets about spammers being kicked off the service, plus various ham-fisted trumpet-blowing by some companies that have not really understood what Twitter is all about.
Despite all this background noise, there are today a few undisputed Stars of Twitter. Take a bow Stephen Fry, whose followers have increased from 80,000 to 110,000 in the space of a week. He's still got a long way to go to eclipse Barack Obama, perhaps the most-famous Twitter user of our times (so far), but he will - and fast. At the current growth rate alone, Fry will be the world's top Twitterer by the end of March.
Who? I hear non-Brits asking? well, tune in to his Twitter feed and you'll get the idea. Here's why: Stephen Fry is the rising star on Twitter for being himself.
That's part of the charm. I honestly feel that I've gotten to know the people I'm following a little better since early December. And that's also odd since I don't actually know at least half of them in real life aka meatspace. I've tuned in because they're on the "friend" list for other people I'm following, and so on.
If you checked out Twitter but then looked away around a year to 18 months or so ago, when it was competing with Dodgeball and based on SMS-ing, it is time to look again. I remember doing the same thing - and doubting that it was worth the cost of sending multiple SMSes to update folks on the minutae of my life.
Things have changed. Today I'm Tweeting via TweekDeck on PC and TwitterBerry on mobile. Both are super-easy to use and keep me up-to-date with my friend-cloud. Best of all is that I'm pulling info - dipping into the "tweam" of information - as and when I feel like it. It IS addictive though!
Looking for some stats to convince yourself that Twitter is the 2009 internet phenomenon? Plenty of places to look. Try Twitscoop, Retweetradar, and Cursebird for a start. These are among the mushroom cloud of Web 2.0 /mashup sites feeding off raw info from the Twitter API to produce information that ranges from the totally fascinating to the completely useless: maybe both at the same time. I found all three via recommendations from my Twitterfriends.
Doubting the real-world effect of Twitter? Today a tweet by Stephen Fry is said to have brought down a website, thanks to the sheer volume of followers who then tried to click through on his recommendation. I know that just one silly old website isn't a Government, but even so, Twitter has virtualized the flash mob.
Wondering how to tweet? Well, in your own style. Drop the "is ?" and try and add some useful or meaningful information. A weblink helps. My reaction to your tweet should not be "so what?". And I am not going to DM (direct message) you on Twitter for more info ? if you have something to say, say it, and say it in under 140 characters. Actually, in under 70 if you can ... this is a couple of lines on TweetDeck.
My personal Twitter style has already changed since my first tweet on 6th December. It wasn't "hello world" but "C&C on a wintry day / bulk buying frenzy / impulse shopping by the kilo", when I was thinking that twittering in Haikus would be fun. Maybe it would, but to do a real Haiku was too darn hard. My last Haiku-tweet was six days later. Those weather references were getting boring: It was a cold, but still wintry day today, almost two months later. Yawn.
I have also tried to stop posting meaningless stuff like my Jan 13th "Hmmm, an unexpected traffic jam" because unless you know where I was at the time (and there were no clues), it doesn't help. Since then I've added 12seconds.tv ? 12 seconds of tv ? anytime, anywhere ? and today also Latitude from Google, although not sure if I'll be using it. Maybe you should tweet @MrNesjo in 90 days or so for an update. Or look me up on Latitide. Might see you there.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Real-time info - but whose version of real time is real?
Checking real-time flight arrival times at Heathrow today - and noticed a disparity between the info offered by BAA, the airport operator, and BA, the carrier. For a flight landing planned for 2pm, BA was showing a 2.15pm expected arrival time and BAA a 2.11pm arrival until at least 2.25pm, when BA reported that the flight had arrived at 2.16pm.
It's only a matter of minutes but with real-time flight monitoring, I want to know whose real time this is.
It's only a matter of minutes but with real-time flight monitoring, I want to know whose real time this is.
Labels: web 2.0
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Getting social (online)
I'm increasingly fascinated by online networking groups - like LinkedIn, Facebook (although I'm far too old for MySpace) - and will be focusing more on this subject in future.
To kick off, I've just found a new social networking site called InterNations that looks quite interesting, this time focused on expats. In my home town, Munich, there are a heck of a lot of members who are born-and-bred German, but it's good to have a mix.
Get it right, like LinkedIn appears to have done so (it's making money), and a social networking site is a money-spinner.
But how many sites do people really need? And is it really too late for a new site to launch? Right now I'm using LinkedIn for international marketing and general networking contacts, XING for German stuff and Facebook for goofing off.
Most are open to all, some are by invitation only - and the level of difficulty in getting an invitation varies. For Orkut, for example, just being Brazilian is probably enough to know someone who is a member and can invite you.
The hardest club to join right now is aSmallWorld. After spending a lot of time and effort in getting an invitation, I have hardly been enthralled - and to be honest I was equally disappointed when I met aSW's CEO Erik Wachmeister at DLD last week. He didn't seem to be that impressed that I was one of his members, and certainly didn't want to make conversation with me.
To kick off, I've just found a new social networking site called InterNations that looks quite interesting, this time focused on expats. In my home town, Munich, there are a heck of a lot of members who are born-and-bred German, but it's good to have a mix.
Get it right, like LinkedIn appears to have done so (it's making money), and a social networking site is a money-spinner.
But how many sites do people really need? And is it really too late for a new site to launch? Right now I'm using LinkedIn for international marketing and general networking contacts, XING for German stuff and Facebook for goofing off.
Most are open to all, some are by invitation only - and the level of difficulty in getting an invitation varies. For Orkut, for example, just being Brazilian is probably enough to know someone who is a member and can invite you.
The hardest club to join right now is aSmallWorld. After spending a lot of time and effort in getting an invitation, I have hardly been enthralled - and to be honest I was equally disappointed when I met aSW's CEO Erik Wachmeister at DLD last week. He didn't seem to be that impressed that I was one of his members, and certainly didn't want to make conversation with me.
Labels: social networking, web 2.0
Sunday, January 20, 2008
DLD - a new impression of Martha Stewart
The now-unmissable DLD Conference has opened in Munich, with author Paulo Coehlo wowing the audience and explaining how his quasi-innocent promotion of pirate digital copies of his best-selling novels have helped increase sales - perhaps because people get a taste of his writing and want more ... the same as has happened to many bands thanks to MP3 sharing.
Unfortunately it wasn't the modest Portuguese author of The Alchemist and other stories who was the most hotly-debated speaker of the day but US style icon Martha Stewart. Sadly for Martha, it was because of the way she crashed and burned during her rambling presentation. Worse still is that she probably won't realize - because she has, how can I put this politely? An exaggerated sense of her own self-importance.
In only four years, DLD has grown into a must-attend gathering of the good and the great in the world of digital, life and design: a chance to rub shoulders with an amazing array of inspirational people who have helped change the world in one way or another. The rest of the audience is made up of advertising agency people and venture capitalists. If you are looking for a place to get inspired, DLD is it. If you're looking to talk to VCs, just being at DLD is probably enough to score a follow-up meeting.
However, it looks as if Martha Stewart either was either badly advised, or too important to actually listen to her advisors. Because she began her 45-minute monologue (it was supposed to be an interview, but more of that later) by revealing the contents of her travelling "tech" suitcase.
So far I have yet to work out the reason why, in a room full of laptop- and iPhone-toting attendees, an all American style queen should choose to share such info. I, for one, would have been 100 times more interested to know the contents of her handbag, or to see the names of the last 10 incoming calls on her mobile: an iPhone, of course - but a non-functioning one because her secretary had forgotten to unlock roaming in Germany. Did we all hear that? Martha's no-doubt well-compensated secretary getting a public bollocking.
So out comes a less-than-stylish suitcase which Martha describes as being "overhead locker size" (which I actually doubt, but, Hey! Being! Martha! Stewart! (did you get that? MARTHA bloody STEWART I said!!!!)) probably travels first class everywhere (good for her) and the prospect of her vitriol on a short-flight, let alone a trans-Atlantic, would probably make most flight attendants cower and acquiesce.
And inside the suitcase are ... everyday business items that most people at the conference probably carry. A laptop. (Gasp from the audience). Except that it's tucked into an under-sized Ziploc bag. Very stylish. A honking great top-of-the-range CANON (or maybe Nikon) digital camera ... yeah, you guessed it - in its $0.25c carrying case, another plastic bag. Her iPhone in a shocking pink leather holster, and a BlackBerry, as one phone is never enough. Two phone chargers. A massive camera battery charger the size of a sub-notebook, and ... an Amazon Kindle - but one of the FIRST models (did you note? Early adopter alert!!!) before they even signed licensing deals with the NY Times and various other newspapers. In its exclusive Martha Stewart plastic bag, of course.
After the tiresome dig into her suitcase, Martha then tells the audience (which includes luminaries such as Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales) that she personally uses the internet for many different things, she chats with all of her friends on Facebook (but is really, sincerely SORRY that she has not got time to reply to everyone), she checks her spelling on dictionary.com, and she even buys stuff online.
I really didn't want to knock Martha. But oh boy did she get up my nose with her facile pitch. She probably also annoyed "moderator" Tyler Brule, the editor of Monocle magazine, who was reduced to the role of bystander during the Martha monologue. Finally, after we'd all learned that Martha was very important, he got to ask a few questions - and managed to make those open jaws sag even further by asking Martha, a convicted felon and therefore ineligible for office, which position in the new administration she'd like in the US Presidential elections. This was either completely misjudged, or a deliberate poke at Ms Stewart. I can't even remember her answer but it was a fob-off.
Maybe DLD should be described as "a must-attend gathering of the good and the great in the world of digital, life and design ... and Martha Stewart". Whatever she was smoking, I want a drag. Even Paulo Coehlo's Alchemist would have had trouble in changing Stewart into a credible speaker at DLD today.
Unfortunately it wasn't the modest Portuguese author of The Alchemist and other stories who was the most hotly-debated speaker of the day but US style icon Martha Stewart. Sadly for Martha, it was because of the way she crashed and burned during her rambling presentation. Worse still is that she probably won't realize - because she has, how can I put this politely? An exaggerated sense of her own self-importance.
In only four years, DLD has grown into a must-attend gathering of the good and the great in the world of digital, life and design: a chance to rub shoulders with an amazing array of inspirational people who have helped change the world in one way or another. The rest of the audience is made up of advertising agency people and venture capitalists. If you are looking for a place to get inspired, DLD is it. If you're looking to talk to VCs, just being at DLD is probably enough to score a follow-up meeting.
However, it looks as if Martha Stewart either was either badly advised, or too important to actually listen to her advisors. Because she began her 45-minute monologue (it was supposed to be an interview, but more of that later) by revealing the contents of her travelling "tech" suitcase.
So far I have yet to work out the reason why, in a room full of laptop- and iPhone-toting attendees, an all American style queen should choose to share such info. I, for one, would have been 100 times more interested to know the contents of her handbag, or to see the names of the last 10 incoming calls on her mobile: an iPhone, of course - but a non-functioning one because her secretary had forgotten to unlock roaming in Germany. Did we all hear that? Martha's no-doubt well-compensated secretary getting a public bollocking.
So out comes a less-than-stylish suitcase which Martha describes as being "overhead locker size" (which I actually doubt, but, Hey! Being! Martha! Stewart! (did you get that? MARTHA bloody STEWART I said!!!!)) probably travels first class everywhere (good for her) and the prospect of her vitriol on a short-flight, let alone a trans-Atlantic, would probably make most flight attendants cower and acquiesce.
And inside the suitcase are ... everyday business items that most people at the conference probably carry. A laptop. (Gasp from the audience). Except that it's tucked into an under-sized Ziploc bag. Very stylish. A honking great top-of-the-range CANON (or maybe Nikon) digital camera ... yeah, you guessed it - in its $0.25c carrying case, another plastic bag. Her iPhone in a shocking pink leather holster, and a BlackBerry, as one phone is never enough. Two phone chargers. A massive camera battery charger the size of a sub-notebook, and ... an Amazon Kindle - but one of the FIRST models (did you note? Early adopter alert!!!) before they even signed licensing deals with the NY Times and various other newspapers. In its exclusive Martha Stewart plastic bag, of course.
After the tiresome dig into her suitcase, Martha then tells the audience (which includes luminaries such as Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales) that she personally uses the internet for many different things, she chats with all of her friends on Facebook (but is really, sincerely SORRY that she has not got time to reply to everyone), she checks her spelling on dictionary.com, and she even buys stuff online.
I really didn't want to knock Martha. But oh boy did she get up my nose with her facile pitch. She probably also annoyed "moderator" Tyler Brule, the editor of Monocle magazine, who was reduced to the role of bystander during the Martha monologue. Finally, after we'd all learned that Martha was very important, he got to ask a few questions - and managed to make those open jaws sag even further by asking Martha, a convicted felon and therefore ineligible for office, which position in the new administration she'd like in the US Presidential elections. This was either completely misjudged, or a deliberate poke at Ms Stewart. I can't even remember her answer but it was a fob-off.
Maybe DLD should be described as "a must-attend gathering of the good and the great in the world of digital, life and design ... and Martha Stewart". Whatever she was smoking, I want a drag. Even Paulo Coehlo's Alchemist would have had trouble in changing Stewart into a credible speaker at DLD today.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Shiny new RSS feed
I got sick of all the posts showing up with a 1 January date (I was skiing that day, not posting, in case you wondered) so I have a shiny new RSS feed for occasional observations, for you RSS fans:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/occasionalobservations
It does RSS and Atom really well.
http://feeds.feedburner.com/occasionalobservations
It does RSS and Atom really well.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Plaxo: the social outcast of social networking sites?
"Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie." The Fellowship of The Ring - JRR Tolkein
So many rings, so many different uses - the same applies today to social networking websites! Just like Tolkein's rings, there are different sites for different needs - MySpace and Localisten for the kids, Facebook for friends, LinkedIn and aSmallWorld for business networkers.
The thing is, there are so many of these sites now that people are forced to pick and choose. I can't join them all: I'm already on XING so I don't need Viadeo, which I understand is quite big in France; I have a user:pass somewhere for the Calando Club but never got past the front page, and so on. I've Twittered a few times but when I'm also updating using Facebook, why repeat myself? As for Dodgeball ... well. I'm just too old for a site like that.
Perhaps when Web 2.0 really lives up to its name, one of these social networking sites will emerge as an aggregator for content from all the others - pulling everything together into one big, happy family.
So far Facebook is the surprise early leader here, allowing me to at least pull in lists from LinkedIn and XING, and to belong to the aSW user group.
Just like in real life there's also a social outcast among social networking sites. Step forwards Plaxo, a site that began life as an online repository of business cards. Boy, did I get sick of those automated emails asking me to update my contact details - sometimes even presenting me with a poor quality black-and-white scan of my business card.
Then last week, Plaxo reinvented itself, launching a service called Pulse, and I started getting invitations, starting as a trickle but by late last week, this had turned into a deluge (in terms of social networking site invitations, anyway).
I had to try - and Pulse isn't too bad - it looks like the Facebook friend updates. There are still some glitches - for example it doesn't seem to want to let me confirm all of my network contacts. It also shows promise in being able to sync with other sites like last.fm and Flickr, and some others I don't (yet) use such as Furl, Jaiku and ImageShack.
For many people, Plaxo is still the social outcast but perhaps Pulse is the start of its rehabilitation?
It's clearly going to take a while for Plaxo to win the hearts of many - who, like me, tired long ago of those facile "update your business data" emails that would have bounced anyway if I'd changed my email (doh).
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie." The Fellowship of The Ring - JRR Tolkein
So many rings, so many different uses - the same applies today to social networking websites! Just like Tolkein's rings, there are different sites for different needs - MySpace and Localisten for the kids, Facebook for friends, LinkedIn and aSmallWorld for business networkers.
The thing is, there are so many of these sites now that people are forced to pick and choose. I can't join them all: I'm already on XING so I don't need Viadeo, which I understand is quite big in France; I have a user:pass somewhere for the Calando Club but never got past the front page, and so on. I've Twittered a few times but when I'm also updating using Facebook, why repeat myself? As for Dodgeball ... well. I'm just too old for a site like that.
Perhaps when Web 2.0 really lives up to its name, one of these social networking sites will emerge as an aggregator for content from all the others - pulling everything together into one big, happy family.
So far Facebook is the surprise early leader here, allowing me to at least pull in lists from LinkedIn and XING, and to belong to the aSW user group.
Just like in real life there's also a social outcast among social networking sites. Step forwards Plaxo, a site that began life as an online repository of business cards. Boy, did I get sick of those automated emails asking me to update my contact details - sometimes even presenting me with a poor quality black-and-white scan of my business card.
Then last week, Plaxo reinvented itself, launching a service called Pulse, and I started getting invitations, starting as a trickle but by late last week, this had turned into a deluge (in terms of social networking site invitations, anyway).
I had to try - and Pulse isn't too bad - it looks like the Facebook friend updates. There are still some glitches - for example it doesn't seem to want to let me confirm all of my network contacts. It also shows promise in being able to sync with other sites like last.fm and Flickr, and some others I don't (yet) use such as Furl, Jaiku and ImageShack.
For many people, Plaxo is still the social outcast but perhaps Pulse is the start of its rehabilitation?
It's clearly going to take a while for Plaxo to win the hearts of many - who, like me, tired long ago of those facile "update your business data" emails that would have bounced anyway if I'd changed my email (doh).
Labels: social networking, web 2.0
Friday, November 02, 2007
RSS = really overwhelmed
The number of my unread RSS feeds just passed 1000. And RSS was supposed to be the way of streamlining all those blogs and news streams I wanted to read but never found the time to do.
Game over. I'm tempted to delete all my RSS feeds and start over.
Game over. I'm tempted to delete all my RSS feeds and start over.
Labels: rant, RSS, tech, web 2.0
Thursday, August 09, 2007
At last - compelling "Web 2.0"
It's taken me a while to appreciate the benefits of the over-hyped "Web 2.0" - social networking sites where everything's linked. Way back in 2004-5 or so I tried sites like Flickr, del.icio.us, Last.fm - they were all cool in their own way but I was missing the interaction thing.
Take a bow Facebook. If you haven't created a profile yet, do it. This is the one: the site that best integrates info from other 2.0 sites although it's still early days. I'm very impressed. The site is just addictive, which is always a good sign. Thinking about ousting my 10-year homepage (My Yahoo) in favor of Facebook.
Take a bow Facebook. If you haven't created a profile yet, do it. This is the one: the site that best integrates info from other 2.0 sites although it's still early days. I'm very impressed. The site is just addictive, which is always a good sign. Thinking about ousting my 10-year homepage (My Yahoo) in favor of Facebook.
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