140Char

If you’re been wondering about the slight lack of posts recently, it’s all explained by the fact I’ve left Bauer Media after eight years…

So I’ll be reorganising and rebooting things a little before starting my new role…

I’ve just seen a really flattering post by the guys at ShoutEm, the ‘Roll Your Own Microblogging Community’ tool, which puts this little blog in distinguished company as one of the 4 Best Microblogging Blogs on the Web (their words, not mine!).

It’s great to be listed alongside the guys at Microblink, the rightly micro-famous Laura Fitton, and the Problogger himself, Darren Rowse’s TwitTip.

It’s also made me feel a bit guilty, as I’d be the first to admit posting has dropped recently, due to some reasons I can’t share quite yet. But the next couple of days should see some things fall into place, and some changes happening pretty quickly. Plus much, much more posting!

It was also fun to see someone pick up on the Tweet of the Week series – definitely something which will be continuing on a more regular basis (hopefully weekly before I end up having to change the name!)

I’ve been a longtime fan of Blip.fm for much of my musical needs – I’ve decribed it as ‘crowd sourcing John Peel‘ because it provides a great way to discover new music, compared to Last.fm, Pandora etc, which tend to operate in practice more as players of music you already like with the very occasional new song you might enjoy.

But the biggest hindrance with Blip can be going back to the website endlessly to keep entering new songs and skipping others – particularly when I’m working. Hence why I’m not sharing as much as I used to (My profile is here).

And then I discovered Blipster, via DownloadSquad.

Blipster client for blip.fm

It’s an unofficial Adobe Air client created by Leo Lobato (also on Blip.fm and Twitter). So it works for PC and Mac, assuming you’ve got Adobe Air running – and if you’re using clients for microblogging, it’s worthwhile having the discussion with your IT department if you need to!

Blipster allows you to search, listen, add contacts etc, just as you would on the site, but without necessitating tab swapping etc.

Just the thing for helping me make more use of Blip.fm on a relaxing Sunday…

Rather than add yet another piece of commentary on the subject, here are the top three posts I’ve seen covering Ashton Kutcher reaching one million followers, and Oprah Winfrey signing up:

Twitter squarely on the mainstream map – Neville Hobson.

What Ashton Kutcher can teach us about the evolution of media – Neiman Journalism Lab, Matthew Ingram.

Ashton Kutcher and Evan Williams Talk Twitter With Oprah [Video] – Mashable.

I’m just about to pack up my laptop and head over to Aperitweat, a cool gathering of Tweeple organised by the inimitable @tojulius.

It’s been publicised via his Twitter friends, registration was via Twtvite, a live Twitterstream will be at the event (hashtags #aptw or #aperitweat), and the whole thing is being streamed live via Ustream.

So in addition to the skills and contacts Julius already has (see the eventmanagerblog for examples), the marketing cost is nothing for a brilliant range of coverage which has packed the place to capacity.

Another example of the ability for self-forming events for little or no cost.

And that’s just a relatively low-profile example in a week when Twitter was used to attempt revoluation in Moldova (see some coverage via Nick Carr and All Things Digital).

And it’s in the week when the first drill has been created with some of the amazing $250,000 raised by the Twestival event in 2020 cities worldwide.

Twestival Well Drilling – Day 1 from Ethiopia – charity: water from charity: water on Vimeo.

See more of the Twestival videos on Live Earth.

Just a quick post to say that George Hopkin has published a quick email interview with me as part of his ongoing series of ‘Media People on Twitter’ articles.

So if you haven’t heard enough from me already on here, then you can go and read the interview.

I’m still trying to compile all the effects Twitter has on the link economy, but now Louis Gray has added another one, in his post: ‘Are you writing your headlines for Google or Twitter.

As an online journalist and blogger, I’m well aware of the best practice for constructing a headline to maximise SEO opportunities – although as a blogger I often ignore it in favour of indulging myself by being able to write for fun.

But now Louis is noticing headlines which aren’t aiming to contain keywords and search terms, but are also restricting themselves to 140 characters (or 125 characters to allow for a short url). He quotes the example of Techcrunch making sure their articles work for microblogging.

Personally, I hope that most people write their own message if they’re kind enough to Retweet an article from here (although there’s also the automated option). I’d rather have a smaller number of heartfelt recommendations than a flurry of copy-and-pasted headline Retweets (although the traffic might be nice!)

What’s interesting is that rather than simply prescribing the ‘correct’ way to use microblogging services, people are experimenting and coming up with the things they see working for themselves, or for other people. Which is a better option, as it allows people like me to completely ignore the supposed best practice if I want! Although if it’s guides you’re after, you can start with Dan Zarrella!

Meanwhile I’ll keep mixing personal messages with recommendations, and occasionally go mad whilst chatting about an event like #motogp. And, most shocking, I’ll keep using Magpie to send out the occasional (less than one a day) advertising message as long as it helps to cover hosting costs and some new projects! I’ll just keep relying on the fact that a surprisingly large amount of people continue to see value in interacting/following me despite the fact I’m rubbish at following rules outside of 9-5.30pm.

I’m in the process of collating various posts and search into the effect of Twitter on the link economy for a post later this week – but I want to include your views and comments.

It’s been sparked by a few things – including the the fact that despite receiving the same amount of traffic to both my blogs, and numerous Retweets, the ranking of them by various lists has gone down. And much of this seems to be due to a lower amount of inbound links as measured by Technorati and Yahoo.

In the grand scheme of things, the only reason measures of popularity are important for my personal blogs is it makes it easier for people to find them via search or relevant lists, allowing me to hopefully meet and interact with more people (I’m not aiming to build a media empire at the moment!).

But are you seeing the same things happening?

Do you wish Google/Technorati etc started counting Retweets as a metric of authority for a website?

Do you think the effect is proportional to the time you invest of social networks rather than interacting via blogs?

Does it matter to you?

Like most people with a career/interest in the online world, I’ve spent a fair amount of time coming up with ideas for internet startups and businesses. Some are quite fanciful, but others have a reasonable business case behind them. And sometimes, some were implemented by other people because I didn’t move fast enough or didn’t have enough passion.

But just about the only thing I wish I’d invented was Twitter, and it’s nothing to do with the money.

Instead, my wish is because Twitter is becoming successful due to a convergence of various elements which combined into a perfect storm. And on the timeline of digital communication, from IRC and newsgroups, through forums and silo’d and semi silo’d social networks, Twitter is the beginning of the next stage of an evolution which is perhaps 20% of the way to it’s ultimate evolution.

Twitter’s perfect storm:

• The ability to initiate conversations and self-form communities of purpose (Thanks Dave) on the fly.
• The integration of fixed internet and mobile.
• The simplified nature of the core service – 140 characters, @ replies and # hashtags. That’s it…except…
• The external ecosystem and open API which has produced an almost infinite list of tools and services -meaning there’s almost a suitable tool for every individual user, and if not, wait another minute and there will be!
• The growing understanding of the utility of providing customer service quickly and efficiently – leading brands towards the idea of VRM.
• It’s asynchronous, with the ability to be synchronous.
• It’s ‘Many-to-Many’ communication.

Those are just my initial thoughts – I’m sure there’s at least a couple of things I’ve missed. Do add more in the comments.

20%? Really?

There’s a tendency to see the existing state of things as continuing forever – but nowhere is that further from the truth than in the digital (Fixed internet and mobile) world.  For example, from Friendster (2002) , to Myspace (2003), to Facebook (2004), to Twitter (2006), to Friendfeed (2007). (Dates from Wikipedia).

There are still large numbers of people who don’t have access to the internet throughout the world (whether via PC or Mobile). There are large numbers who don’t see the value and haven’t joined a social network. And there are countless companies and businesses who aren’t even close to understanding how to use new channels effectively, and the effect it will have on their business strategy and practices. And advertisers (and therefore lots of the money in content), are way behind.

But there’s a growing number of people who are familiar with the principles of the Cluetrain, even if they’ve never read it. They’re picking it up by living as part of it, and as my friend Tim recently commented on one of my blog posts,

I can’t wait to see the next generation do something with the mature version of the tech having grown up with it being nothing to be afraid of…

But while we’re waiting, the older generations are coming to Facebook and Twitter – and whether or not you’d pick Friendster, Myspace, Facebook or something else as the definition of early Web 2.0 and the social networked world, I’d guarantee Twitter would be the main name quoted for the next version. And there’s nine more before we even get to Web 3.0!

Much like the constant updates of Twitter itself, picking what to write about after a break enforced by work/family is tricky as a huge amount of microblogging and Twitter coverage flows through my RSS feeds on a daily basis – so expect plenty of catching up shortly.

The admirable Laura Fitton (@Pistachio) reminded me this morning that there’s only a week left for open contributions to Twitter for Dummies.

The good thing is that you don’t need to write everything up:

‘Want to see your tip, idea or case study in Twitter for Dummies? Submit it today and get your friends to vote it up. We can’t include everything, but we’ll mention as many of the best ones as we can.

We’ll keep taking ideas for one more week — until Wednesday, April 8, 2009. We can’t guarantee your story will make it into the final edition. We CAN guarantee that the most popular charity submitted and voted up will get 10% of the royalties from book sales.’

So as long as you interact by Wednesday, you’ll get to share some knowledge, possibly be listed in a Dummies guide, and raise some money for charity.