api The Thing About Twitter The thing that bothers me most about Twitter’s API announcement is that very few of the most useful features of Twitter were actually their ideas. Hashtags. Retweets. Location. Search. Lists. Conversation view. Inline images and links. Short URLs. The entire mobile user experience. All of these appeared in user
Education New Information Processes Robert Pondiscio started a great discussion on Twitter in the classroom over on The Core Knowledge Blog. In particular, I’m interested in one of his comments: If someone invented a 21st century hammer it wouldn’t dramatically change the training and experience a contractor would need to build a
Marketing Social Media Marketing: This is your Chance If I could’ve sat down with Chris Brogan and Laura Fitton six months ago and asked them one thing, it would have been: “Who, exactly, are you marketing to?” There has always been a small thorn in my paw about social media marketing. It’s the same thing that
Social Media Communities within Communities There is an op-ed floating around Twitter today: As a social network, Twitter is a dud. Is it ironic that an article deriding Twitter is being spread on Twitter? Irony is so ill-defined. Twitter is not for everyone, and I respect that, but the author, Alex Groves, seems to be
citypulse A Twitter Turn-Around A little while ago, I criticized a local newspaper, Lansing CityPULSE, for their use of Twitter. They were following the spammer model: follow hundreds of people, then post nothing but links to your own site. I’m happy to say—though I’m a bit late in saying it—that
influence Why I Unfollowed You Try these strategies to lose followers and waste your time on Twitter. 1) Have no name, photo, bio, or website. Avoid looking like a real person at all, in fact. If you arbitrarily capitalize and ignore the 140 character limit, you can look even more like a robot. These are
bots Oh the Humanity (of Twitter) Twitter creates a powerful opportunity: no matter who you are, or how big your business, you can put a human “face” on Twitter. Comcast (@comcastcares), JetBlue (@jetblue), Biggby Coffee (@biggbybob) and Starbucks (@starbucks), even Britney Spears (sorry, I refuse to link that one) have all shown up on Twitter with
2.0 Identity 2.0 - A Primer Google your name. Right now. I’ll wait. Put your name here: Good. What came up? Look at the first page of results and ask yourself these questions about each one: Is it really me? Did I create this? Do I control this? You need to be able to say
identity New Twitter Name To all my Twitter followers, and those not yet following me: Twitter lets you change your user name, so I did. Instead of the very long and misspelled “urbaneexistance,” I am now @jamessocol. Shorter, easier to remember, more meaningful. If you were following me, Twitter says you still should be,
authority Expertise and Authority 2.0 Jeff Atwood is a self-proclaimed amateur: “It troubles me greatly to hear that people see me as an expert or an authority, and not a fellow amateur.” “There is absolutely no reason any of you should listen to me. But somehow, I have 75,000 RSS subscribers and over 50,
behavior A Twitterer's Tipping Point Explaining Twitter to non-tweeters is still a difficult process. “It’s like Facebook status without Facebook” doesn’t do it justice—or sound very appealing. “It’s a public, non-realtime messaging system” convinces no one to sign up. All the Twitter users I know have learned about it through word
discover Exploring the Web Last week, as I was demonstrating Ning in my office, someone asked me how I find things like this. Honestly, I could not remember when or how I discovered Ning, which prompted me to pay attention over the past week, and to ask you. (It was also a good excuse
Back-end Help Me Scale I’ve been reading Eran Hammer-Lahav’s intelligent posts on microblog scalability, and now I’m concerned about my own “microblog” site, Picofiction. Similar to social networks, social updates, social messaging, social… Like many social web sites—amongst our weaponry…—Picofiction lets you “follow” your favorite authors, displaying all their
facebook Dr. Voyeurism, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Twitter I’ve been thinking a lot about social networking lately, partly because my job deals with it, partly because I’ve got some Obsessive-Compulsive tendencies. Then Mostly Lisa wrote about the “big three”—Twitter, Pownce, and Facebook, according to her—and got them back to the front of my mind.