Tag twitter

Entries 5 Total

The State of Twitter

Jul 19, ’11 11:46 AM

With the introduction of Google+ and its asymmetric follow philosophy, some think Twitter may suffer some loss of users. The ability to follow anyone and have public/circle-based posts with threaded conversations makes the interactions more compelling without the Twitter’s 140 character restrictions. My view is Google+ is best at content sharing, while Twitter still rules for content discovery. While Google+ has yet to develop a monetization plan, Twitter is firing on all cylinders. For more insight, check out this video featuring Twitter CEO Dick Costolo who remains clearly bullish on the platform.

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Visualizing Social

Apr 24, ’11 9:46 AM

It’s early days for social analytics, but ever since the term “viral” was coined, there have been many attempts to determine how and why content gets rapidly disseminated across the social sphere. While there probably isn’t a single formula that works for all, understanding social amplification is a bit of art and science. The NY Times’ R&D group has taken an analytical approach through Project Cascade, a beautiful visualization of how some of their content spreads over time, seeking patterns and trends.

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Dropping the D

Mar 12, ’09 11:58 PM

Digital photography
Digital music
Digital marketing

Enough already!

When are we going to just drop the “Digital” and call them what they really are? It’s easy to think this is a minor point, but qualifying something as “digital” is old-school, traditional thinking. No wonder companies have such a hard time becoming digital. This is not a new topic by any stretch and it’s generally created by the incumbent as a way to distinguish the traditionally accepted way of doing things with potentially new and disruptive methods. It’s a subtle change, but an important one because in some ways, de-legitimizes the new way of doing things and forces the new to prove its worth. Fair enough.

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Juggling Priorities: Email > Twitter > Facebook > Breakfast > RSS

Mar 6, ’09 12:01 AM

As information sources become more and more numerous, it’s becoming more and more challenging staying on top of things. When I was a kid, my dad would grab the morning paper and he’d read the headlines while I grabbed the sports section for the box scores. And that’s all I had to do before heading off to class. Fast forward to the present and there’s so much more to catch up on these days and I’ve jiggered up my morning routine now:

Email > Twitter > Facebook > Breakfast > RSS (on the go)

A few years ago, my email was the last thing I looked at before going to bed and the first thing I did when I woke up, often during breakfast. Fast forward to the present and now a bunch of “news” compete for my attention: email, RSS feeds, news sites, Twitter and Facebook updates and so on. Because the time-space continuum isn’t changing and I still need to rush out the door to work, there’s less and less time to cram all of this reading in.

As a result, the stuff that I actually read becomes shorter and shorter. While email is still my top priority as it probably is for many others, my priorities have shifted. I find I am more efficient when I compartmentalize my attention. It used to be that I’d login to Facebook on my computer but now, I simply scan status updates on my mobile. I used to catch up on RSS feeds through Google Reader, but now, I refresh them on the mobile and read them cached on the train to work. Most recently, I’m finding Twitter gaining in the attention competition. If one is judicious about who to follow, I believe it’s possible to get a timely pulse of what’s going on at a glance because the 140 character limit enforces efficiency and blends nicely with my morning caffeine spike. I am sure a couple of years from now, there will be something new that will shake things up.

What does your morning routine look like today?

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Ask Not What Twitter Can Do For You, Ask What You Can Do For Twitter

Mar 3, ’09 12:01 AM

Since the outset, there has been furious debate as to whether Twitter can become a sustainable business. How could a company run for over 2 years without any revenue or a sustainable business model? It defied the business strategist side of me, especially when they they turned down a $500MM offer from Facebook. There was even a “Twitter business model contest” to see who could come up with one. Part of the challenge comes from the fact that Twitter has evolved from a single-purpose status bar into a very efficient and direct 1:1  or 1:many communication platform. Increasingly, it’s how I find things out before it hits the news (anyone remember Flight 1549 that crashed in the Hudson? It was reported by Twitterers on the scene within minutes and a full 15 minutes before any major news organization).

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