Twitter

Social Media – Nine Years In

Nine years ago this evening I sent my first Tweet. I believe this was after I joined Facebook, but it’s all a blur. For years I was energized by the small pipe platform of Twitter. I saw it as a way to connect with people all over the globe. A platform to learn, gain knowledge and better understand the world. I viewed Facebook as a convenient way to share and connect. I didn’t think Facebook was as pure as Twitter, and I still don’t. Facebook has always been burdened with; should I friend them? Why are they friending me? What about my boss or direct report? So much cognitive weight.

How did that work out? Social media, led by Twitter and the largest thing in the world, Facebook, have become the opposite of connectedness. Facebook and Twitter separate, segment and quarantine people.

Founded in 2004, Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected. People use Facebook to stay connected with friends and family, to discover what’s going on in the world, and to share and express what matters to them.

Houston, we have a problem.

Power – Opinions are frequently weaponized.
Open and Connected – Anyone can say or post anything, including their suicide.
Connect with Friends and Family – I’d love to see the real stats on this. For the most part, Facebooks tries to connect you to complete strangers or companies because they can profit from it.
Discover What’s Going on in the World – Facebook is it’s own reality. A planet Twilo. Keep your oxygen tank filled.
Share and Express – Totally nailed it. Bring it on.

I’m listening to Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s soundtrack to The Social Network (so brilliant) as I write this. All the while realizing the genesis of social media (losing the caps) is nothing new. I grew up in the ’60’s and I know what a revolution looks like. We stated, “The revolution will be televised.” Today the revolution is fractured. Hamilton has resonated precisely because it repurposed a timeless message. The brilliance of Hamilton shows us nothing has changed.

Silicon Valley thinks only of the future. Of what the next world could / should be. To that I say hooray. But don’t leave behind the foundation that gave you this privilege. Being able to express an opinion is a privilege, not a DIGITAL RIGHT. Rights are fought for, they can’t be coded. Silicon Valley is fighting mostly for profits.

Time is the ultimate teacher. The final arbiter. How much time do you have or are willing to spend in the world of bits? How much time will you spend in the world of atoms with your family and friends without a wall of code between you? Social media is a force multiplier. The question is, of what?

Amazon Prime makes my life easier because it delivers atoms to my doorstep. Things I use, need, and yes, indulge in. That’s worth my time.

Notation: I embrace technology on all levels. I am pre tech-innate. I am suspicious when opinion coupled with technology is peddled for absolute truth.

Six Years on Twitter. How Many More?

I was contemplating whether or not to blog about why I’m on Twitter and how I use it. My first Tweet was February 23, 2008. For some unremebered reason I put it on my iCalendar that day with a perpetual repeat. The internal food fight of whether I should give it life here went on in my brain for days. Guess which side won? Just couldn’t help myself.

Twitter is now a public company that requires it to adopt a solid business mindset. Quarterly earnings calls, more scrutiny and less tolerance for missteps. The platform continues to evolve as do the people who use it regularly. I’ve been pretty strict about who I follow and I am unfollowing more than ever.

Some still miss the basics after all these years and numerous resources to help do it well. Some of the duh’s are; no profile description, no photo, no location, and on and on. I have begun to use a new measure for who to follow. Their photos and videos. These are the visuals of their feed. I find the selection of what images people share reveals perhaps even more of who they are. If the images are lame, I think twice. If I’m on the following fence after reading a sampling of their Tweets, a compelling image footprint can nudge me to click the follow button. Is it varied? Humorous? Interesting? Numerous? The eye matters as much as the hand.

Today I see less spam on the service and have grown new friends. I’m noticing a cycling of connections. There’s a group of people one engages with for a period of time, then they fall out of the river of characters. You check back and find they’ve unfollowed you. I don’t’ take it personal. Chalk it up to the natural flow of life.

The parody accounts are becoming more interesting. There’s a whole cast of Mad Men accounts that are hilarious to engage with. They take it seriously. I haven’t gotten into following celebrity or sports figures. Most of the people I’m interested in wouldn’t follow back or engage. Many may have their PR teams reply.

I have engaged in dialog with Tom Peters, the business genius who wrote “In Search of Excellence” and invented the term MBWA, Managing by Wandering Around. I’ve heard him speak and have learned so much from him about many things. He followed me back years ago and we connected from time to time. In one exchange he gave me real mentoring advice and challenged me to get better. That would have never occurred without Twitter. Mr. Peters continues to follow me.

I’m keen on film. Have you noticed? I became hooked in the 1970’s and ’80’s, which were the best decades for movies during my lifetime. One of the producers I admired was Robert Evans. He was the real Hollywood in my book. He ran Paramount Pictures and turned it into a profit machine for the then parent company Gulf+Western. During his tenure the studio turned out an impressive list of pictures including; Barefoot in the Park, The Odd Couple, Rosemary’s Baby, The Italian Job, True Grit, Love Story, Harold and Maude, The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, Serpico, Save the Tiger, The Conversation and The Great Gatsby.

I responded to a random Tweet from someone that had attached a photo of Mr. Evans in his prime, sitting by the pool reading a stack of scripts. My response to that Tweet was followed up a few days later by a follow from Mr. Evans. He followed me! Another Twitter moment. Having that brush with history was a thrill. As of the writing of this post Mr. Evans continues to follow me.

The longer one is on Twitter and maintains connections, the more of a view one gets into life’s passages. People get fired, start businesses, become ill, get married, grow older. You name it they express it on Twitter in 140 characters. I love the spontaneity. One’s true self comes front and center when they commit to Twitter.

I don’t spend much time thinking about how long I’ll stay engaged on Twitter. I’ll know when it’s time to fade away.

The Department of if You Care: Previous blog posts on my Twitter adventure: 2013, 2011, 2008.

Photo Credit: The New York Times

Five Years on Twitter, or How I Spent 18.1 Days of my Life

Updated April 5, 2013. Some content previously published.

I’ve been using Twitter for five years. It’s amazing to see how much Twitter has changed over that time. Actually it’s only over the last 24 months or so that they have made significant leaps, with the first years serving as setting the foundation. Twitter is about interests and has content from individuals (mostly), but brands are beginning to use it effectively as well. There are about 450 million Tweets per day with over half of the members active on mobile devices. It’s worldwide and has played an important part in furthering the Arab spring. Can you imagine how the Civil Rights movement in the U.S. would have benefited if we had Twitter back in the ’60’s?

Twitter.com has undergone a redesign and is better, but it still falls short for me. I mostly use Osfoora on my iPad. It’s fast, easy to use and enjoyable. I’m not a Tweet Deck fan. On the iPhone I use the official Twitter app.

Here’s my Twitter take

(note some of this content has been repurposed from earlier posts about Twitter)

Serves as a window into what’s going on in someone’s mind. These can run the emotional gambit from joy, disappointment and challenge, to triumph or simply stating a pet peeve. You are there with them as they experience it.
Allows you to visualize what someone is doing at that moment, and one step further, what’s most meaningful to them about that moment. For instance, when someone Tweets that they are in a familiar restaurant enjoying a fine red wine and chatting with their spouse. It’s a rich picture that comes alive, especially when you know the couple and the restaurant.
Can become the catalyst for later conversations. What were you guys talking about over dinner? What did you have? The wine? Etc.
Provides the cadence of someone’s daily life. If they Tweet with regularity it’s a GPS of their thoughts as they navigate their day. They are turning left… right… now on a long straight track. You can sometimes watch them go off road.
Is a rich digital network. In my unscientific study I have observed that Tweeple are generally early technology adopters, tend to be influencers, have fascinating jobs at leading companies and brands and generally love what they do. Of course some are just bored, which is to be expected with a media service with over 3 million channels. Surf past the noise.
Keeps you in the know. Twitterers are constantly scanning the Internet for interesting and insightful ideas; including breaking news. Their Tweets are littered with tiny urls that lead you to a treasure trove of information and value hidden in the cloud. Great for impressing your friends and neighbors.
Accelerates your knowledge. Tweets flow freely from user to user within the ever-growing social graph. Re-Tweeting, forwarding someone else’s Tweet, acts as an afterburner, further propelling that knowledge. A convergence of channels.
Gets right to the point. After all you have to with only 140 characters. Short, sharp observations. Haven’t seen much Haiku though.
Is entertaining. Some people broadcast on comedy central.

This is how I use Twitter

Share my knowledge and experience I’ve collected over the years. I love solving problems and helping people solve problems. If I can give them a nugget or spark that advances their lives I’m thrilled. No great thought exists in a vacuum. If it’s a good idea then several people have it as well. If it’s a revolutionary idea then hundreds probably have it. It’s the universe’s way of improving the odds that great things reach the real world. Doing the work is much harder than having the idea, so share freely. when you share you get it back in large degrees.
Learn from others much smarter than me. Of course not all smart people are on Twitter, and Twitter does not have only smart people. But it’s full of ideas and insights.
Expand my network. All successful people are well connected. Who you know is critical. The smarter your connections the more power you have.

On May 1, 2011, it was announced that Osama bin Laden was killed by a team of Navy Seals in a compound inside Pakistan. The conversation on Twitter exploded.

I took a look at my Twitter bookmarks folder saved on my Safari browser today. Early on, when I earned of a new tool that leveraged Twitter feeds and users, I would check them out and if I found it useful I’d bookmark it. I have 56 bookmarks in that folder today. These days I hardly ever go back to this folder and pull one of them up. They might have been amusing at the time, but it’s only all about the content in the stream.

Time Investment

During those five years I have Tweeted 20,996 times. It takes me about 13 seconds to craft a Tweet, so here’s how it stacks up.

13 seconds x 20,996 Tweets = 272,948 seconds = 4,549 minutes = 75.8 hours = 3.1 days

Doesn’t seem too bad spread over 5 years. That’s the publishing part. Now for the incoming. I spend roughly 25 minutes per day reading (more like scanning) the river of Tweets. I do it on an array of devices; desktop computer, iPhone, iPad, and occasionally my TV screen, but that’s pretty much a pain in the butt, so I don’t do it often. My scan time is spread throughout the day at breakfast to mid-day, and late afternoon, with a break in the early evening so I can spend time with my son. Then comes my favorite time. Twitter After Dark. The night owls are out and many of them are under the influence. I make no judgements. It’s more fun and interesting, but not as professionally insightful. Out of 365 days a year, I’ll say that I check it 95% of the time, so that’s 347 days.

347 days x 5 years = 1,536 days x 25 minutes per day = 43,375 minutes = 722 hours = 30 days

Now to be fair, I’m scanning Twitter while doing something else, like surfing the web, participating in a webinar, attending a boring meeting, waiting in various lines and of course the all time favorite, driving (just kidding on that last one). So it’s not like I’m setting aside dedicated time for Twitter When I adjust for multi-tasking it comes out to.

30 days absorbing Tweets – 50% multi-task benefit = 15 days

Total days on Twitter over the past 5 years = 18.1

Eighteen point one days of my life over the past 1,825, is .9% of my time. Sleeping has taken up 365 days of my life over the same span of time, which works out to 33% of my life! Note to self. Next killer app wil enable me to Tweet while sleeping. Warren Zevon was definitely on to something.

I’ve made some good friends thanks to Twitter and it’s fascinating to observe how those relationships have progressed. Some of them move from Twitter to the off line world. Conferences, business meetings, even just passing through Chicago to pause for a drink or dinner. Others become Facebook friends and we have never met in person. I’m happy to say that I’ve blocked only one person in the four years. Not a bad record.

Three Years on Twitter, or How I Spent 10.2 Days of my Life in the Stream

Today, February 23, 2011 marks the third anniversary of my first Tweet. Honestly, I don’t remember what I Tweeted. It would be great to say it was something memorable like, “Watson (the IBM Watson), come here I need you.” But alas it probably wasn’t that profound. During those three years I have Tweeted 7,665 times. It takes me about 13 seconds to craft a Tweet, so here’s how it stacks up.

13 seconds x 7,665 Tweets = 99,645 seconds = 1,660 minutes = 27.7 hours = 1.2 days

Doesn’t seem too bad spread over 3 years. That’s the publishing part. Now for the incoming. I spend roughly 25 minutes per day reading (more like scanning) the river of Tweets. I do it on an array of devices; desktop computer, iPhone, iPad, and occasionally my TV screen, but that’s pretty much a pain in the butt, so I don’t do it often. My scan time is spread throughout the day at breakfast to mid-day, and late afternoon, with a break in the early evening so I can spend time with my son. Then comes my favorite time. Twitter After Dark. The night owls are out and many of them are under the influence. I make no judgements. It’s more fun and interesting, but not as professionally insightful. Out of 365 days a year, I’ll say that I check it 95% of the time, so that’s 347 days.

347 days x 3 years = 1,041 days x 25 minutes per day = 26,025 minutes = 433.75 hours = 18 days

18 days absorbing Tweets – 50% multi-task benefit = 9 days

Total days on Twitter over the past 3 years = 10.2

Ten point two days of my life over the past 1,095, is .9% of my time. Sleeping has taken up 365 days of my life over the same span of time, which works out to 33% of my life! Note to self. Next killer app wil enable me to Tweet while sleeping. Warren Zevon was definitely on to something.

What do I have to show for this? Well there’s my Twitter Grade, 98 out of 100. So I got that going for me, and that’s nice.

And of course my Twitter mosaic. Couldn’t have one of these unless I was on Twitter. Do you see yourself in this snippet?

But I digress.

Am I smarter for being on Twitter? I wouldn’t say smarter. But I am better informed and learn about things sooner than people who are not engaged with Twitter. How much is that worth? Impossible to calculate. But here are some things I’ve done on Twitter over the last 3 years. The point is not to call out what I’ve done, but to point out that without Twitter I would not have known about these opportunities, facts or stories. Twitter is a distribution medium. Here is a sample of activities.

Assisted at least 9 people in their commitment to walk to cure cancer
Donated 4 times to help families who have lost their homes due to disaster
Connected people who are looking for jobs with people who have jobs available
Celebrated the personal accomplishments of my friends
Recognized co-workers for their tireless efforts
Forwarded over 100 articles or stories to co-workers
Met interesting people who have helped me solve problems

What’s next for Twitter?

The search world is giving way to the app and networked world. Twitter is a lubricant. It helps remove some of the friction and complexity that exists with connecting people wherever they are. They focus on distribution and their 140 characters is snack-sized and a huge advantage, allowing them to worm their way through even the smallest of pipes. They seem to be angling to deliver more than just random thoughts. They could deliver alerts, photos, videos and more. One of their challenges will be to deliver the stream in other forms. Sort by relevance vs. time is potentially a huge opportunity. Trends are their first step towards this. Lastly, there might be a commerce play on the roadmap. As I referenced above, Twitter is sometimes a catalyst for transactions. Why not bake it into the service?

On November 19, 2008 I published a blog post entitled Why I’m on Twitter and How I use it. I provided my perspective and insight into Twitter and how I put it to use. Here is that content, unedited. It’s surprising to me how well it holds up.

Here’s my perspective. Twitter…

Serves as a window into what’s going on in someone’s mind. These can run the emotional gambit from joy, disappointment and challenge, to triumph or simply stating a pet peeve. You are there with them as they experience it.
Allows you to visualize what someone is doing at that moment, and one step further, what’s most meaningful to them about that moment. For instance, when someone Tweets that they are in a familiar restaurant enjoying a fine red wine and chatting with their spouse. It’s a rich picture that comes alive, especially when you know the couple and the restaurant.
Can become the catalyst for later conversations. What were you guys talking about over dinner? What did you have? The wine? Etc.
Provides the cadence of someone’s daily life. If they Tweet with regularity it’s a GPS of their thoughts as they navigate their day. They are turning left… right… now on a long straight track. You can sometimes watch them go off road.
Is a rich digital network. In my unscientific study I have observed that Tweeple are generally early technology adopters, tend to be influencers, have fascinating jobs at leading companies and brands and generally love what they do. Of course some are just bored, which is to be expected with a media service with over 3 million channels. Surf past the noise.
Keeps you in the know. Twitterers are constantly scanning the Internet for interesting and insightful ideas; including breaking news. Their Tweets are littered with tiny urls that lead you to a treasure trove of information and value hidden in the cloud. Great for impressing your friends and neighbors.
Accelerates your knowledge. Tweets flow freely from user to user within the ever-growing social graph. Re-Tweeting, forwarding someone else’s Tweet, acts as an afterburner, further propelling that knowledge. A convergence of channels.
Gets right to the point. After all you have to with only 140 characters. Short, sharp observations. Haven’t seen much Haiku though.
Is entertaining. Some people broadcast on comedy central.

This is how I use Twitter

Share my knowledge and experience I’ve collected over the years. I love solving problems and helping people solve problems. If I can give them a nugget or spark that advances their lives I’m thrilled. No great thought exists in a vacuum. If it’s a good idea then several people have it as well. If it’s a revolutionary idea then hundreds probably have it. It’s the universe’s way of improving the odds that great things reach the real world. Doing the work is much harder than having the idea, so share freely. when you share you get it back in large degrees.
Learn from others much smarter than me. Of course not all smart people are on Twitter, and Twitter does not have only smart people. But it’s full of ideas and insights.
Expand my network. All successful people are well connected. Who you know is critical. The smarter your connections the more power you have.

No Regrets

Do I wish for that 10.2 days back? Since it’s not possible right now to recapture time, it’s a non-question. I will say that I have found a place for Twitter in my life. Could I live with out it. Well of course. Bottom line, it keeps me pointed forward and that’s just fine, because for me it’s usually about what’s next.

Think + Action = Results

Today we honor Martin Luther King, Jr. He was a man who obviously thought long and hard about important things and how to change them so more people could have equal opportunity to pursue their dreams. Dr. King knew his actions were putting him in danger, but he calculated that risk and determined pursuit of this particular cause warranted such action. Thought alone is never enough. Action without thought will not reliably yield desirable results. Pairing thought and action is what moves mountains.

Many firms have set aside Dr. King’s birthday as an official company holiday. I’m proud to say my company falls in that category. As I awoke this morning I casually checked my Twitter stream; nothing unusual about that. But today it seemed to be positively on fire. Maybe it was just me, but it seemed the volume was higher than normal and the quality and deepness of the created and linked-to content was on an elevated level.

I began to wonder about that. Perhaps it was the day itself. MLK day sneaks up on you. Just two weeks after the long holiday break, we get a surprise day off. We have fewer professional responsibilities. And it’s a Monday at that! Much better than a Friday. There is no family gathering expectation, so no spending time prepping, cooking, entertaining or refereeing family conversations. Instead we can relax and reflect. It’s truly a bonus day. Thank you Dr. King for giving us this gift. Perhaps it was the significance of this day that triggered more in depth speculation over what I would have normally seen everyday.

Which brings me back to my theme today. Think; absolutely. Take Action; required. Things will then begin to move.

I purposely left out speech. It could just as easily have been think, speak, then act. The voice is definitely powerful, but one can speak without much thought. Yes, Dr. King moved us to tears many times with his oratory gifts. But as he once said,

A superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions.

Here’s one of my favorite Tweets of the day and it has nothing to do with business or social media or frameworks, roadmaps, predictions about the next iPad or anything else that is of marginal value when measured against the backdrop of Dr. King’s accomplishments. Instead, someone thought, took action, then Tweeted. Something is going to happen.

There is No Social Media Playbook

As the calendar has turned to 2011, we have been inundated with an endless barrage of Social Media predictions compiled by experts and dabblers alike. Some of what I have read are excellent and well informed perspectives backed by data and research, while others appear to be, well, nil-informed. As Yogi Berra once said, “Prediction is very hard, especially about the future.” No predictions here, just some observations about Social Media based on 3 years of experience working inside a large firm.

There is No Playbook

This medium or channel, or whatever you wish to call it, is way too new to have a reliable playbook. What works for some brands will not work for others. I would go so far as to say that Social Media does not have any common marketing ground. Direct mail and basic advertising principles are largely transferrable across brands and verticals even though retail is very different from financial services which is different from manufacturing. Social lacks such helpful fundamental truths.

Outcomes are Slippery

Save one or two examples (Dell Computer coupon codes on Twitter comes to mind), there is low confidence that a marketer could reliably forecast results from activity in the social sphere. Your CMO wants to know what she/he can book if your Social Media team is given $500,000. The CMO isn’t getting good answers to that challenge.

Mobile Adds Complexity

Social and mobile are matching luggage. They just naturally go together. A very different beast from the early web days of the late 1990’s. Back then the channel was confined to the desktop computer, a narrow pipe and a basic interface. We were able to make progress with a measured development roadmap. But with today’s always on, high speed connections and smart phones, there’s so many more variables to consider. Location, screen size, gestures, cameras, text messages, etc.

You Will Always be Outnumbered

One of the things that raises the possibility that there may never be a Social Media playbook is the injection of the consumer into the mix at every turn. They chime in when you least expect it and on topics that are completely unpredictable. When they called you had a private conversation. Today it takes place in public. Consumers sometimes comment because they just don’t understand, or have unrealistic expectations, or forget (don’t care) that we run a business and need to make a profit, or are just plain angry over something. We need to respect the fact that employees in a firm will always be outnumbered by consumers. People will just keep coming at you.

Fail Fast and Often

We can’t take our own sweet time. Social years will make online years look like we were standing still. Remember 2000 when we joked about “Online Years?” One year online was equal to five years off line. If you thought that ratio spun your head, try “Social Years” where one month might equal five Online Years! Social Media is not about what we’ve been doing all along. It’s about what we’ve never done before. We will need to learn faster than any previous time. It’s not just a new language, it’s an entirely new world and the wheel has yet to be invented.

My best advice. Do lots of things and count on failure. In fact welcome failure so you can rule things out. The list will grow quickly, but so will your knowledge. Make Social Media everybody’s business in your firm and eventually you’ll develop an edge over the competition and who knows. You may be able to walk into the CMO’s office and say. Give me this and I’ll give you that.

Is Twitter Losing its Value Exchange Power for the Individual?

It’s only 3 years old, but Twitter seems to be transforming faster than it’s adding users. Two years under the radar, one year in steady growth; the fourth year (over 14 million members) is shaping up to possibly be “thee” year it will flirt with the mainstream. And that’s when I will have to completely re-evaluate the time I invest in it. I just don’t know if it will be up or down.

I’ve been carefully observing usage patterns to Twitter over time. There are the “I don’t get it” people but they Tweet anyway (annoying). There are those who join, become infatuated and after a while the shine wears off so they slow down or stop. Some are so generous with their thinking and ideas. For others it’s about collecting mass quantities of followers, no matter what (you know who you are).

If you have 50,000 followers and 50,000 people that you follow you we know you can’t keep up, so what do you do? Well, you start missing lots of Tweets and quite possibly retreat to a smaller group for regular communication. Some of my fellow Tweeters I connected with regularly a year ago have grown their base so much that I can barely break into the stream anymore. It’s like we’ve dropped off each others radar screen. Sure there is the direct message, but that gets lost like a Nigerian Prince financial plea buried in between two Viagra offers.

I am beginning to think that the more Twitter grows the less worth it will have for the individual. Value transfer is one of the big benefits of Social Media and nothing was more simple, pure or immediate than the Tweet. I once described it in an earlier post, Why I’m on Twitter and How I Use it, as being a spectrum of individual radio stations. That spectrum has now grown so fast that the value for the individual is at risk of being left behind.

It seems we are in a”star” phase. Celebrities are getting on board more and more and using it as another weapon in their PR arsenal. I have heard some celebs talk about how they are making more connections with fans, and use it as a way to do an end around the media. I like that. Direct, to the point, personal. Social Media at it’s best. But it will only have value as long as it’s sincere, which will of course vary.

Big brands continue to get on board and some are finding it to be an effective channel to communicate with prospects and customers on a personal level. The cost for a brand to be on Twitter is very low and worth the effort right now. The more followers a brand has the better, But it’s an inverse relationship for individuals. The more they have, the harder it is to extract value.

It’s good for Twitter that high profile people and brands jump in, but I wonder just how good it will be for everyone else. We don’t need Twitter to communicate with our friends, e-mail, text and oh yeah, the phone work great. So if you can’t break through to the interesting people for value exchange, then it just may end up not being as useful.

Still evolving, but you may want to set up an informal value-tracking mechanism of your own.

Mumbai Tragedy will be Game-Changer for Social Media

I was up very late last night tracking the terrorist attacks in India on Twitter using TweetDeck and Tweet Grid. My mind flashed back to September 11th and the parallel was immediately made by dozens of people and news agencies. My wife was upstairs watching the events unfold as Breaking News on CNN. I was in the study with two very active computer screens. The two experiences couldn’t have been further apart.

One was a polished, worldwide news organization keeping to standards and practices, while trying to report it as it happens. Their viewpoints are limited to one or two, and those reporters may not have the ideal vantage point. It’s all about timing. The other experience is powered by ordinary citizens who are in the moment, positioned in precisely the right location. They aren’t being paid to report. They don’t have formal journalism training. They simply type, most on their cell phones. It’s raw, emotional and astounding.

If the London bombings signaled the emergence of Social Media as a citizen news platform, last night’s event has solidified its place. Hundreds of people on the ground in Mumbai, some inside the Taj Hotel were Tweeting their thoughts. It was mind numbing to experience.

There were reports that Indian the authorities were requesting the public to stop Tweeting, as they feared the terrorists would be monitoring and get intelligence on what the police or army were planning. This has not been officially documented. You can read a great post by Amy Gahram here, who has done some sleuthing on this issue.

Regardless of whether officials asked for Twitterers to stop, when the dust settles there will be a lot of study and debate over Social Media and specifically Twitter, and the role it should play in reporting news or events. I believe there will be an attempt by some to change the landscape and place limits on this medium to prevent terrorists or organized crime from leveraging it to forward their political agendas or commit crimes. It’s a debate we should welcome, as it could have serious consequences.

Last night the Tweets were coming in so fast the updates were like flashes, staying on the screen for mere seconds before being pushed down by another, then another, then another.

Is this a convergence of society, media and technology? I think it’s probably more like a collision.

Why I’m on Twitter and How I Use It

twitter-chat — "I Tweet, therefore I am"

When I welcome my latest Twitter followers I link them (you?) to this post. If you have arrived here from that Tweet, thank you for following me. If you simply found your way to my blog, and you’re on Twitter, please feel free to follow me at twitter.com/stevefurman. If you’re not on Twitter I’m NOT trying to convince you to use it. The purpose of this post is to explain why I’m on Twitter and what I use it for.

Initially I was skeptical and wondered why people bothered. But when it comes to Social Media I’m open to experimentation, so I gave it a try. It’s a small investment of time and no monetary risk at all. Twitter is a snap to set-up and then you start typing in 140 characters or less what you are doing/thinking. I quickly found the more I used it, the more I used it. There are downsides to giving into to the call of Twitter. It can be a time suck, distracting and you can sometimes end up frustrated and wondering why you even tried. That frustration comes if you are expecting to use it like facebook or e-mail. The key to enjoying being part of Twitter Nation is to set expectations and objectives.

Twitter is not a web site, although you get there from a URL. Tweets are what someone is either thinking, doing, saying, watching or listenting. They are radio waves that can only be received if you are on the same station as the broadcaster. People who follow you, or you are following, are human content channels. The size of your antenna (lots of followers/followings) is completely controlled by you. Should one channel not meet your objective for using Twitter, simply remove it. If you find a very helpful one, you can see who they follow and probably get more channels you will like.

Here’s my perspective. Twitter…

Serves as a window into what’s going on in someone’s mind. These can run the emotional gambit from joy, disappointment and challenge, to triumph or simply stating a pet peeve. You are there with them as they experience it.
Allows you to visualize what someone is doing at that moment, and one step further, what’s most meaningful to them about that moment. For instance, when someone Tweets that they are in a familiar restaurant enjoying a fine red wine and chatting with their spouse. It’s a rich picture that comes alive, especially when you know the couple and the restaurant.
Can become the catalyst for later conversations. What were you guys talking about over dinner? What did you have? The wine? Etc.
Provides the cadence of someone’s daily life. If they Tweet with regularity it’s a GPS of their thoughts as they navigate their day. They are turning left… right… now on a long straight track. You can sometimes watch them go off road.
Is a rich digital network. In my unscientific study I have observed that Tweeple are generally early technology adopters, tend to be influencers, have fascinating jobs at leading companies and brands and generally love what they do. Of course some are just bored, which is to be expected with a media service with over 3 million channels. Surf past the noise.
Keeps you in the know. Twitterers are constantly scanning the Internet for interesting and insightful ideas; including breaking news. Their Tweets are littered with tiny urls that lead you to a treasure trove of information and value hidden in the cloud. Great for impressing your friends and neighbors.
Accelerates your knowledge. Tweets flow freely from user to user within the ever-growing social graph. Re-Tweeting, forwarding someone else’s Tweet, acts as an afterburner, further propelling that knowledge. A convergence of channels.
Gets right to the point. After all you have to with only 140 characters. Short, sharp observations. Haven’t seen much Haiku though.
Is entertaining. Some people broadcast on comedy central.

This is how I use Twitter

Share my knowledge and experience I’ve collected over the years. I love solving problems and helping people solve problems. If I can give them a nugget or spark that advances their lives I’m thrilled. No great thought exists in a vacuum. If it’s a good idea then several people have it as well. If it’s a revolutionary idea then hundreds probably have it. It’s the universe’s way of improving the odds that great things reach the real world. Doing the work is much harder than having the idea, so share freely. when you share you get it back in large degrees.
Learn from others much smarter than me. Of course not all smart people are on Twitter, and Twitter does not have only smart people. But it’s full of ideas and insights.
Expand my network. All successful people are well connected. Who you know is critical. The smarter your connections the more power you have.

My perspective on Twitter evolves regularly, so I will probably come back and revise this post. Hope to see you out there on Twitter. What channel will you create?

Twitter is constantly changing. Read a more recent post on Twitter here.

UDATED September 30, 2009

Twitter is now a huge target of spammers who like to wreak havoc and others looking to make a quick buck. My criteria for following somebody who has followed me is as follows.

They must have a physical location. An IP address or iPhone or “everywhere” isn’t a location.
There must be a name.
The avatar cannot be inappropriate.
There must be a biography present that explains why that Twitter stream exists.
There must be a link to a site with real content (not “Here’s a video of how I make millions everyday”).
There should be a reasonable balance between followers and following.
There must be a reasonable number of Tweets that have useful or interesting information or links in them.

Image Credit: Hongkiat.com

Twitter: Marketing Platform or Online Pen Pal Service?

twitter_fail_whale — Twitter's Fail Whale

I started using Twitter on August 7th of this year. Like so many of us time is a premium and even though I am quick to try something, I will drop it like first period French if I don’t see any value for me or a path to providing value back to a community. Twitter intrigued me as a way to experience what people were thinking and feeling at a particular moment. A kind of a freeze frame into someone’s life. If they Tweet a lot, then that freeze frame becomes a stop-motion window. If they are always Tweeting, then you begin to understand their persona.

What’s really interesting is when you connect with someone on Twitter, then several months later meet them in person. This was an experience I recently had. She was one of the first ones I followed and followed me in return. That’s the contract on Twitter. Follow then be followed. It’s tricky, but when it works, it’s very cool. I then met this person a couple of weeks ago after seeing her Tweets for months. I knew so much about her. What she looked like, where she lived, the make up of her family, what she did for a living, even some of her hopes and fears. When I met her we very naturally continued a conversation as if we had known each other for years. Fascinating.

Twitter is way of expressing yourself that’s more personal and immediate than a blog. Sometimes you write a post (like this one) and it goes into a black hole. But once you establish some followings/followers you get immediate responses. As an amateur photographer I take a lot of pictures and most of them are uploaded on flickr. I can Tweet something related to a photo and include a link. Within 15 minutes I will have 20 people viewing that photo, and probably one or two reply Tweets about it.

As an E-Business marketer for a very big brand this gets me very interested. If I can do that on my own, think what a mass market company can accomplish.

twittergrade97 — My Twitter Grade on 11.8.2008

There’s a site that scores your Twitter grade. Oddly enough it’s twittergrader.com (love it when people call it what it is, thank you). Not so sure how valid it is, or what the methodology is behind it, but it’s the only game in town right now to gage Twitter self against others. In mid August my grade was 25. Today it’s 97, on a scale of 100. That’s satisfying, but not nearly as much as being able to contribute back to a community and meet new people. Twitter is still an experiment, but things are getting somewhat serious now. If you’ve not experienced it, you should at twitter.com.

Fall Semester is in Session – What’s Your Twitter Grade?

If you Twitter and you’re serious about it you will want to know your grade. Mine is 25 out of a possible 100, so I’ve got some work to do. The Twitter king right now is Barack Obama. I rank way down on the list, but aspire to move up. My grade this morning was 24, so I’ve gained one point in one day.

Visit Twitter Grader here, enter your nickname and go. You will be graded on the number of followers, the power of those follower’s as a network, the pace of your upgrades, the completeness of your profile, and a few others… Whatever that means.

No I’m not obsessed with this, at least no more than my normal obsessions. It’s partly for fun and mostly for experimentation. We need people with the vision to put out alpha versions regardless of the worts and learn. Hat’s off to them.

What I’m always looking for is how this can become a source of value for my company. Social connectedness is more powerful than any advertising or marketing campaign, but it’s so early days. Efforts like Twitter and Twitter grade accelerates the learning curve.

Twitter Friends Network Browser – For Those That Tweet

Neuro Productions, the company that created this application seems to be one person, Hris Timmerman. He lives in Antwerp (Belgium) and is a self-proclaimed Adobe flash addict, and apparently a good one. He created the Twitter network browser application. It allows you to enter a Twitter name and see their network blossom in your browser window right before your eyes. The results show the avatar of the Twitterite, their last update and all their connections with their avatars and last updates.

You can then click on other Twitterers as well and drag the images around on the page to get a better look at who’s in the various networks. It keeps expanding each time you click. There’s also a full screen mode. So what is it good for? Well it’s hard to say. More than anything it’s just a fun way to see the Twitter networks come alive, and maybe find someone you’d like to follow. Does everything really need a reason?

Give it a spin here.