140Char

Just a quick update that I won’t be online much, if at all, for the next week, so updates might be quiet until my return…

Security North by James Cridland on Flickr (CC Licence)

Funnily enough, searching for a suitable image on Flickr just gave me the above picture by James Cridland, whose blog and Twitter accounts I started reading recently – and the discovery of each was almost entirely unrelated!

Anyway, a good friend and colleague is aiming to supply some guest posts for here and www.thewayoftheweb.net while I’m offline, so you shouldn’t be alone. And as he’s a video expert, hopefully he’ll redress a slight lack of Seesmic, 12seconds, and Mobatalk coverage due to my lack of good looks a webcam.

And after the soul searching I mentioned in my last post, there are several really good things which have renewed my commitment to the site in the jaws of posting something once a week to just keep it going. So this week is a great time to contribute ideas, suggestions, topics, applications, tools or anything else which might be of interest, as I should be online long enough to access my email and even print off some ideas to work onn for my return…just drop your input to thewayoftheweb at googlemail dot com

It’s amazing how the use of social networks, and increasingly microblogging networks like Twitter, can lead to the most wonderful examples of perfect timing!

I’ll be honest and admit that there have been times recently when I’ve wondered whether I’m committed enough to maintaining two blogs – particularly with the slow loading of the site and admin pages I’ve recently experienced, and the fact that all the other lovely contributors have managed to all get busy with their day jobs at the same time. Plus other sites have started appearing which have developed some of the original ideas for 140char a little further (particularly if they’ve had access to developers!). The most recent example is Just Tweet It, which does great directory listings for Twitter. Plus there’s some great blogs keeping track of the latest apps, like Twitterholics, the overview at Twittermaven, and the always great Pistachio Consulting Touchbase blog.

Plus I’m happy to be getting asked to contribute more and more to various projects at work to integrate social media – and I’m about to take a bit of an offline break.

So it took me a day or so to catch up with the source of a lot of buzz on Twitter – Luke Razzell’s awesome guide to Twitter.

Luke Razzell's great Twitter guide

I know there have been several guides to Twitter, and various posts about Twitter etiquette, but having finally sat down and had a look at Luke’s 11 page short paper, he’s combined being accessible for new users with being comprehensive for the more experienced. It’s also packed full of great examples (all hyperlinked). It really is that good!

And having read through it, I was amazed to find, on Page 10 ’see 140Char for some sharp analysis of Twitter and its competitive landscape’

Blimey.

I had to check the url twice to make sure he meant me!

So I guess I better keep going! I’ve had quite a few ideas recently around revamping some of the site, and making sure the focus is on something different and complimentary from the other great blogs and sites out there. And there are a few things I think I can offer.

So although I may or may not have the opportunity to update over the next week, rest assured I will be back – and the site will be new and improved on my return (once I’ve sorted the email overload etc!). And there should be some new and interesting bits.

And in the meantime, go and download Luke’s paper. Read it. And then tell your friends, colleagues and readers.

And make sure everyone thanks Luke at @weaverluke.

It’s late in the evening, but the site appears to be running properly again. So here’s some quick links while I try and catch up:

Scott Rosenberg has an interesting post looking at whether Twitter could be improved as a link sharing tool in a way that could improve on social bookmarking site Delicious.

Nick O’Neil looks at the Future of Twitter: The Public Conversation Backbone, laying out some of the opportunities for the company/application.

Everything Twitter has spotted a new Windows client with advertising, Tweetybot.

David Krug has a suitable response to warnings that terrorists could utilise Twitter.

Leslie Madsen Brooks has a great post collating museums using Twitter.

And Twitterholics appears to have gone into overdrive over the last few days with Twitter applications. Some I’ve covered, but there are some new ones in the mix.

I think I may have found the culprit!

For some reason, I’ve been having some upgrade and access issues here, despite the fact I run an identical blog with no problems!

I don’t know why but trying to do anything with the admin is running incredibly slowly, so please be patient as I run through checking the database and isolating which plugin might be causing the problems!

Found via Twittermaven is the news that Twitter is the fastest growing social networking site, according to Nielsen Online. Traffic has grown by 343%, from 533K to 2.3M in the space of 12 months!

More worrying is the fact that a site I don’t like for previous spamming-type techniques, Tagged, is second. It’s followed by Ning, Linkedin and Last.fm. Largest on the list is Facebook at 39M, but all the top ten are witnessing above 57% growth year-on-year!

I’ve realised that although I’ve been blogging just as often at my social media blog, TheWayoftheWeb.net, my frequency here has slipped a bit.

I’m starting to wonder whether that’s due to the fact I’m spending more time on my day job and other matters, or whether the financial situation etc has meant less focus on the microblogging boom? There is certainly a change of focus by the majority of blogs I’m reading, and what coverage remains in general blogging is generally all about Twitter and monetisation. Perhaps it’s also the fact Twitter has led the way to the mainstream with the arrival of celebrities from the wider world, rather than just social media agencies and bloggers!

I don’t think a period of slight consolidation is a bad thing – for one thing it might allow us more time to consider which applications really are more useful, and which are just adding to the noise. It might also give me a bit more time to actually play around with alternatives to Twitter. I gave up on Yammer after just a few days, and suddenly found in my absence a new group of colleagues had joined! I rarely get a chance to Plurk, Pownce or Jaiku (can any noun be a verb?). And then there’s getting a decent camera to use with Seesmic, Mobatalk, 12 Seconds etc.

Then there’s updating the tools list – for instance, there’s a new, improved version of Posty to play with (v1.6). And getting some more interesting people to interview about their microblogging or their application.

And there’s the long-needed recommendations for the other blogs which focus on their area. I have a few in my RSS list and more appearing all the time, so it’s about time I shared some link love.

I might even get time to find where all my other volunteer authors on here have vanished to!

So a bit of a quiet spell definitely wouldn’t be a bad thing – but I just know there’s a revoluntionary new app or tool around the corner!

There’s been some commotion over the fact Britney Spears (or at least the PR team with her), has a Twitter account to accompany a new blog-type site.

Aside from the fact it’s disapointing she isn’t texting entries herself, and I’m not entirely sure how many of the Twittersphere will respond (1720 followers at the time of writing, only 360 more than your good author!), it’s a sign of a growing move towards the mainstream for Twitter.

After all, I’ve been meaning to post that Twitter doesn’t need a single new member to be perfect for me with the memberships of legendary British wits John Cleese (7084 followers) and Stephen Fry (7400 followers)

Plus MC Hammer has established himself before Britney, with 6019 followers. And sci-fi fans will appreciate the presence of former Star Trek star Wil Wheaton (19504 followers).

Strangely the Twitter Fan Wiki lists Hammer, Wheaton, and anyone else within a ‘Minor Celebrities‘ list. Seems a bit harsh! Perhaps we might need to make room on 140char.com for a more updated list – particularly of those celebrities who are tweeting for themselves and making a great job of it (Looks like everyone except Britney then!)

In case you haven’t caught the new, Evan Williams is replacing Jack Dorsey as CEO of Twitter, with Dorsey now stepping into the role of Chairman.

The full explanation and announcement is on the Twitter blog.

It certainly seems to be in line with a new drive towards monetisation, possibly triggered by the financial crisis?

Blog Action Day 08 takes place today, October 15th, to try to raise awareness and debate poverty.

If you’re interested in what Tweeple around the world are doing and saying for Blog Action Day, check out the Twitter Search.

Personally, I don’t want to patronise anyone with an ill-thought post. So instead, I’m recommending The Big Issue Foundation as a great way to help empower the homeless with improved self esteem and ways to stay off the streets, as well as financial earnings.

Here’s an interesting guide to live twitting from events – guest posted by Julius Solaris, blogger and event planner extraordinaire.
On the 29th of November 2008, I’ll be involved in ecoCampLondon a BarCamp about the environment and sustainability. The aim of the camp is to produce a document with all the discussion of the sessions. For the previous edition we just gave out a template which the session promoter needed to fill in. Boring and time consuming.
We felt that this solution was a bit 1999, so we decided to look at new ways to collect discussions. And here it goes: LiveTwitting

How does it work?
- Every attendee needs to follow either @livetwitting or @livet

- There are very simple commands to learn

- You can manage all the sessions talks on the LiveTwitting website.

BarCamps are a fork of Open Space Technology. The aim of these unconferences is to produce something in a team effort rather than just loosing all that precious interaction among attendees. When the method was elaborated it was the mainframe era and static websites were common. With Web 2.0 things change.
Twitter allows to capture conversations in a great unbiased manner and therefore should be used for most if not all conferences, tradeshows and events in general. The 140chars nature of the service pushes attendees to actually summarize what is going on and synthesize the content in a great way.
Making your event more compliant with new technologies is the way to go and you may be missing out on precious feedback and content if you fail to do so.

Could the current financial situation force Twitter to start monetising microblogging with a newfound urgency?

Yes?

• Within the $20 million in VC funding, there is bound to be an element feeling a little twitchy at the moment.
• Would anyone buy a service for the valuations Twitter has had, without a working financial model?

No?

• $20 million can go a long way, if you’re careful!
• If Facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg is being honest that the social network is concentrating on growth over revenue for three more years, then as the pre-eminent microblogging site, Twitter could follow a similar plan. The only flaw is that Facebook is already making money, just not as much as it could!

These are some initial thoughts, so it would be great to hear some opinions and ideas! Personally I think that we may see some of the smaller microblogging sites, perhaps Plurk for example, need to find revenue generation before Twitter, simply due to the lack of funding reserves. Twitter has the advantage of being able to sit back, and perhaps see some of the experimentation take place before acting.