140Char

UK Conservative leader David Cameron has created a storm in the mainstream media and on Twitter following an on-air interview on the Christian O’Connell Breakfast Show on Absolute Radio (disclosure: I’m Digital Marketing Manager at Absolute Radio).

In the interview he was asked about his views on Twitter, and responded with the view that ‘ too many twits might make a twat’ – due to the instantaneousness of microblogging, and the need for politicians to think about what they were saying.

See the original interview:

While my family and I deal with swine flu….

Backing-up your stuff is never a back idea, although there’s some debate over whether to choose the cloud or a local harddrive. But if the cloud’s your choice, then there’s a new company to add with BackupMy.Net.

You get to save emails, blogs, pictures, and most importantly here, Twitter.  It’s relatively fast, and you can download your tweets in HTML, JSON or XML format.

If you want to ask them a question directly, obviously they’re on Twitter as @backupmymail (not backupmytwitter?)

It’s free to back up your Tweets, no password is required, and their own counter is claiming close to 3 million Tweets are already protected.

The main concern that has been highlighted so far has been ReadWriteWeb pointing out that it auto-Tweets on your behalf.

Want to find the wisdom of the past in a different way to searching? iWise is an interesting new venture which has launched in a pretty comprehensive way to help you connect with the wisdom of the world.

Found via Techcrunch, it looks at first glance like a ‘Twitter for dead people’, with topic lists on popular themes, and the ability to follow famous quotable characters.

You can Tweet out good quotes, see searches from the Web/Twitter, receive private DM’s in your Twitter feed, use the free iPhone app, or use the API which ties into the semantic search engine that powers the service.

Which is all pretty effective, but the use of Twitter as an entry point, while familiar, does lead to unfavourable questions.

Whereas Wolphram Alpha attempts to reorganise knowledge in the manner of the familiar search interface, or Twine appears as a semantic service in the ‘social bookmarking’ family, iWise look like a blog site front end, married to the Twitter-like ‘Wisdom Tree’.

And there is a good range of sources. For instance, alongside the expected appearance of Einstein come the likes of Bruce Sterling or Peter Doherty (Peter? When did the controversial singer become so formal?).

The problem is that by proving a microblogging platform to consume wisdom and quotes (and provide your own after checking they don’t already exist), you’re led by the Twitter-like interface to expect more social interaction.

And wondering whether it would have made more sense as a lightweight Twitter app, rather than integration as a feature of an apparently heavyweight semantic search engine.

Microblogging is eminently popular, but if the success of forums, blogs, social networks and now microblogging shows us, the usability experience of functionality tends to evolve into a common approach which leads to certain expectations. And if you’re going to play around with that, it’s going to have to be something pretty radical and shocking.

I don’t think I’ve posted the interview that I did with George Hopkin back in April as part of his ‘Media People on Twitter’ series, but as he’s kindly agreed to share the whole series, I thought I’d start with myself!

‘More Twitter hints, tips, etc. from power Twitterers from the world of UK media. This time it’s Dan Thornton, Community Marketing Manager at Bauer Media (Heat, Empire and many others). (NB: I’ve since left, and joined Absolute Radio as Digital Marketing Manager)

* What did you think about the concept when you first heard about Twitter?

The idea made sense for quick communications with friends, but like the founders, I couldn’t imagine how it would grow in terms of size – and especially the ways to use it. The uses of hashtags are staggering in terms of potential.

* Do you recall your first tweet?

Thankfully no. Probably ‘Hello’ or something similar.

* How did you use Twitter to begin with?

Like most people, I signed up, posted a couple of messages, and then ignored it for a bit because I didn’t see the value.

That changed with my first @ messages, and suddenly I became addicted to being able to communicate so easily with so many people

* How has your use of Twitter changed?

It hasn’t really. It probably should, as I’ve gone from a small group of friends to having over 2,000 following and followers. But I find it hard to only talk about marketing or the internet. And at least this way, people won’t be surprised or disappointed in the long term when I talk about motorcycles or Xbox instead!

* What do you want from Twitter?

From a personal point of view I just want to be able to interact with more great people, and be able to build better relationships with them.

From a business/tech point of view, I’d like to see more disclosure from businesses of their direct results to be able to build up a bigger body of proven evidence, and I hope the use of Twitter will speed up the changes needed in almost every business strategy to become more relevant and useful to consumers.

And a way to delete multiple DMs at once!

* Have you attended a tweetup?

Yep. Some small gatherings, and the Twinterval organised by the founders of Twestival – really annoys me I’ve missed both Twestivals so far due to work/family commitments.

* Have you evangelised Twitter? If so, any success?

I’ve promoted it to friends and colleagues, and seen a reasonable number join – although the mainstream media coverage has done more if I’m honest!

I’ve also introduced several titles to using it, and the early indications are that it’s becoming a valuable communication tool for marketing, PR, customer service and engagement.

Oh, and I do run a blog dedicated to microblogging (Including Tumblr, Seesmic etc alongside Twitter) at http://www.140char.com.

* Do you have any self-imposed policies regarding your use of Twitter?

Not really – just apply a bit of common sense before I mention anything regarding work or personal items about my family. I’m pretty open about myself, but I have to respect my employers, colleagues and family.

* How do you see your use of Twitter developing this year?

I think the only change for my personal account is that I’m following less people – I’m reaching the limit of how many people I could hope to have meaningful interactions with.

For business use, I can’t really say until the Twitter monetisation plans are in place, but I’d expect it to be a core part of almost every digital marketing plan.

Daniel blogs at http://www.thewayoftheweb.net and http://www.140char.com. And you can follow him on Twitter here.

Interview originally posted at georgehopkin.com.

If you want to go beyond sharing text, pictures or audio on Twitter, you can not only share videos with Twitvid, but even upload from your iPhone 3GS with their new mobile application.

That’s in addition to their earlier integration into popular iPhone Twitter app Twitterfon.

Alternatively the site itself allow you to upload a video file or capture your webcam, tag people, tweet it, and also send to Youtube at the same time.

There’s also an API available.

Want to find Twitter users to follow? There are already a fair number of directories out there, but Followformation offers a slightly different approach.

Whereas Twellow, WeFollow or Just Tweet It display lists for users to explore and manually add followers, you can now select your area of interest, and automatically follow the Top 10 to Top 50 people listed on followformation.

The rankings within each area of interest, e.g. Sports, or Social Media, are all defined by follower counts, so essentially you’re just grabbing the most-followed people who have an interest in their profile.

The only people I can see getting much value from the service are new users, as it’s at least slightly more relevant than the Suggested User List.

Once upon a time, there were three prominent microblogging platforms, Twitter, Plurk and Jaiku. One became incredibly popular, one introduced a side-on view, and one was acquired and then released by the Google Fairy Godmother.

Others fell by the wayside, including Pownce, and Rejaw.

But how do they compare now, after the mainstream adoption of Twitter:

Obviously this doesn’t tell the complete story, as it tracks web visits only, but it’s safe to assume it’s proportionally correct. Twitter’s close to 25 million Unique Visitors, Plurk is holding steady between 250,000-300,000 for the past year, and Jaiku has dropped from 70,000 down to 30-40,000 for the last two months measured.

In fact, it’s not even winning the Open Source Microblogging Platform war – as Identi.ca has grown slightly while Jaiku declined.

Meanwhile, Google has listed the 46 official accounts it has on Twitter.

And in the meantime, we’ve seen the rise of Twitter clients such as Tweetdeck, internal microblogging such as Yammer,  the blend of micro and macro blogging in Tumblr and Posterous, and video and audio blogging with the likes of 12 seconds and Audioboo. Not forgetting the lifestreaming element of the likes of Friendfeed.

And although we talk about forums, blogs and Web 2.0 social networks as if they’ve reached the endpoint of their evolution, there’s still a lot more to come from them – I’d say the social elements of the web aren’t even 15% of what they’ll become in the next 10 years.

The question is how you as a person, you as a company, or you as a developer can find clarity through it all…

(There is also the question fo what Google were thinking re: Jaiku, and how it’s managing to miss out on the rise of Open Source as much as it did on the rise of microblogging – after all, the platform itself doesn’t appear to be the cause)

I’ve just logged onto Twitter to see many of the people I know are sharing messages and pictures of a fire in Dean Street, in the Soho area of London.

A quick look at the BBC and Google News doesn’t seem to show any coverage yet.

But you can see the amount of content on Twitter already by searching for #sohofire or dean street.

I’d normally be at work just around the corner in Golden Square if I wasn’t on holiday this week, so I know the area pretty well and hope everyone is OK and noone is hurt.

Dean Street, London fire by @DrPlotka via TwitPic

Technorati, the blog tracking service, has now launched Twittorati, which tracks the tweets of the Top 100 Blogs they track. Apparently the plan is to include more of the web’s ‘most influential voices’.

Oh dear.

I don’t care how influential the voices are, if they’re in subjects which are completely irrelevant to me, and if they’re all presented in a jumbled stream which I can’t filter.

Interestingly it’s based on technology provided by Muck Rack, which aggregates journalists on Twitter – which makes a little more sense, but is still far too general.

The entire point of Twitter is allowing me to filter who I read by letting me follow them. And by seeing what is influential via Trending Topics and Twitter Search.

If you’ve built a third-party application for Twitter, you’ll want to think carefully about what you call it, following the company trademarking the term ‘Tweet’.

The official response has been posted on the Twitter blog by Biz Stone, after Robin Wauters highlighted the issue over at Techcrunch. The official announcement is:

‘We have applied to trademark Tweet because it is clearly attached to Twitter from a brand perspective but we have no intention of “going after” the wonderful applications and services that use the word in their name when associated with Twitter. In fact, we encourage the use of the word Tweet. However, if we come across a confusing or damaging project, the recourse to act responsibly to protect both users and our brand is important.

Regarding the use of the word Twitter in projects, we are a bit more wary although there are some exceptions here as well. After all, Twitter is the name of our service and our company so the potential for confusion is much higher. When folks ask us about naming their application with “Twitter” we generally respond by suggesting more original branding for their project. This avoids potential confusion down the line.’

Which is interesting from a marketing point of view – Twitter has namechecked and praised some of the great apps currently using the word ‘Tweet’, including Tweetdeck for example, and suggests it may only use the trademark to go other apps which try to pass themselves of as official, for example.

Then again, ‘to tweet’ or ‘I’ve just tweeted’ suggests common usage of the word as a verb anyway. I’d be interested in hearing from any legal experts about what that would mean for any trademark cases.

And Mark Evans points out that Tweet.com is currently a site claiming to be about birds.

So if you can’t use ‘Twitter’, and might want to stay away from ‘Tweet’, what about Twit?

Well, that could cause problems as well – Robert Scoble reports that Leo LaPorte has trademarked ‘Twit’ for his longrunning TWiT TV netcast network (It stands for This Week in Tech if you didn’t know, rather than being Twitter related, and is something I recommend having a listen to…). There’s a related Friendfeed discussion going on…

So you might want to steer clear of Twitter, Tweet and Twit.

There are obviously reasons why Twitter wants to maintain some clarity between company products and 3rd party applications – particularly when they might be launching more of their own for premium users. At the same time, the constant referrals to ‘Tweet’ and ‘Twit’ have definitely helped publicity and common usage of the parent service, as has the availability of such services.

At the same time, the generic terms aren’t as well used – for instance, microblogging. Which is a bit of a shame, given 140char’s ranking for the term ‘microblogging blog‘!

Personally, I’d recommend building your own brand name – it’s a long term win but means you aren’t tied to one service or risking trademark problems. The short term benefit of going for the most common Twitter terms is likely to be waning as so many exist, and you’ll be able to carve out your own niche.