140Char

There seems to be a lot more interest in paid Tweets at the moment, whether it’s discussing SponsoredTweets, Ad.ly, or Magpie. It certainly seems like more adverts are being placed by these services, judging by the testing I’ve done of Magpie over recent weeks and months.

And apparently brands like KMart are using these services top pay Twitter users either on a per-click or flat fee basis. Meanwhile a host of celebs have signed up for Ad.ly.

Which is fair enough in many ways – after all, it’s down to each individual whether they want to put paid advertising into their Twitter stream, and down to each individual whether they’ll continue to follow someone publishing paid advertising.

But why are so many people trying to dress it up as engagement, relationship building or starting a genuine conversation?

It’s advertising.

If you pay me to post about a product, it’s advertising – that what sponsorship is.

It’s not creating a conversation – that would involve creating something which people might talk about for themselves, or creating an event where people can get together and initiate their own discussions.

Which takes more work than assigning a few thousand pounds or dollars to pay a few tweeters.

I have no inherent problem with anyone accepting paid tweets – I’ve done it to test Magpie, and continued to occasionally do it to cover my hosting costs etc – and it has resulted in a few complaints and un-follows.

And I completely understand why people have exercised their right to un-follow.

The frustrating thing is that so many people are talking so much rubbish about how a sponsored tweet can help you engage, that few people are bothering to actually try to find a model which rewards content/network creators in a way which actually builds on what they are doing, rather than interrupting it!

The ultimate guide to Twitter applications has been an idea many people have had. In fact, I even blogged about trying to start one with other Twitter bloggers back in January. But now Laura Fitton (@pistachio) and an engineering team have unveiled oneforty (no relation!) which is effectively the Twitter version of the iPhone app store.

Sign in with OAuth, and you can fill out your profile, including listing your favourite Tweeters etc. The site will automatically list any applications it picks up from your account – and then you can start finding and adding any others that it might have missed.

badgergravling on oneforty

There’s a curated list of Essential Applications, Most Popular, and the ability to suggest apps that may have been missed. Developers can list and claim their applications, add screenshots and reviews etc, and members of oneforty can then rate and review any application they wish.

Laura is also the Principal of Pistachio Consulting, which concentrates on microblogging, and the author of Twitter for Dummies. So she knows her stuff.

Video microblogging 12seconds has released 12mail, to join the existing 12cast. Neither requires you to have an existing account, and whereas the earlier application would send videos to Twitter, the new app lets you send videos directly to your friends, which has far more potential for communication.

If you don’t have a 3GS you can send a picture and record an audio message on top of that – and either way, it will be direct messaged to all recipients on Twitter, or strangely posted to a user’s wall on Facebook.

The interesting thing is that I tipped the likes of Seesmic and 12Seconds as video microblogging which would grow hugely this year, but that hasn’t really happened. And the reason is I forgot to think about users more than technology – although there are some great people using video microblogging (for example @Documentally), most people are too self-conscious to be constantly updating to camera at the moment (Although the teen users of Ustream and Justin.tv etc might well disagree).

That’s why I love the fact this operates as more of a messaging service between people that know each other – the familiarity allows me to record a quick message when I don’t want to type or I want to share something visual, without worrying that the entire world will see my bad hair day.

Ad.ly is a self-serve Twitter advertising network matching advertisers and celebrities to tweet about products. The celeb gets to approve or decline messages, and advertisers get tracking for click-through rates, retweets and geographic locations for Retweeters. The celebs set their own price, but Ad.ly gives suggestions, and the celebrity has to tweet four times in the course of a week, netting them five figure sums for each message if they have more than a millions followers.

So that’s Magpie or Izea Sponsored Tweets system just with only celebrities. And apparently that’s enough to have attracted Kim Kardashian, Brooke Burke, Nicole Richie, Brody Jenner, Dr. Drew and Samantha Ronson for the launch.

It’s potentially a good move to only have celebrities involved – that way you only go for the big ticket advertising to generate the share for Ad.ly. But it’s not exactly an evolution of monetising Twitter for individuals.

I’m not going to rant about sponsored tweets as having tested them, I’ve continued to use Magpie on the odd occasion – within a few days each year it effectively pays for my hosting costs, and with a young family and little time to monetise Twitter in other ways, I can just about justify it to myself.

But surely celebrities actually have far more to lose? And less to gain considering the myriad ways which they can effectively monetise their followers and fans through their products? Particularly the hypothetical example Ad.ly is using

The Media140 conference has expanded following a great event which I attempted to liveblog back in May.

Much as my experience of liveblogging has increased a lot since then, the Media 140 experience now includes ‘around the world in 140 days‘, which will see events in London, Sydney, Bangalore and some locations still to be revealed.

The London event takes place on October 26th, 2009, and early bird tickets are available until the end of September for £135.

It should be an interesting event – there are a number of people speaking with whom I’ve had the pleasure of chatting on several occasions – and they seem to be cramming in even more people to contribute than last time!

There are quite a few events happening as it comes to ‘conference season’, but this definitely looks like one of the more interesting ones worth attending.

I’m determined to get back into covering non-Twitter news, so here’s the latest on Posterous, which now lets anyone customise their microblog/lifestreaming/’blogging lite’ site with themes or custom HTML and CSS.

Until now it’s been one of the big differences between it and rival Tumblr – hence why Posterous also allows you to drag and drop your Tumblr theme into Posterous. This will make it easier for anyone considering the switch.

Personally I definitely prefer using Posterous due to the ease with which I can upload everything I want via email – and I already use it to autopost to Tumblr.

Here’s the handy site guide to themes:

The one thing I haven’t seen tried anywhere else, and that I’m keen to experiment with, is whether using custom HTML will allow advertising into the platform – it isn’t something I’d stumbled across on any Tumblr/Posterous sites yet, and given that it’s about the only reason I can find for picking Google’s Blogger over Wordpress as a hosted service, it could be a major feature for either of the two lifestreaming sites.

A couple of interesting posts have highlighted both the positive and negative of the increase in customer service by brands on Twitter.

Andrew Grill has written a detailed account of his dealings with British Telecom in a post titled ‘Why call centres need to embrace Twitter and IM for customer support’. In it, he details a familiar bad experience with an endless chain of Interactive Voice Response systems and staff.

In the midst of it he contacted @BTCare who directed him to the helpline, but the eventual solution came from the section of BT.com which offers an interactive chat service with an advisor.

Meanwhile Dave Winer writes ‘Sorry I still hate Comcast’ – critical of the company which has received plaudits for using Twitter effectively to reach out as a customer service tool – in Dave’s case they couldn’t stop him getting ‘fired as a Comcast customer’ and offended him even more by telling him that they liked him during the process. Which is why Dave now prefers to avoid being cut off or dealing with Twitter reps for his AT&T account.

I’m not sure it’s about the tools being used, or even the amount of resource directed to each one (Andrew suggests that the 7 people he spoke to via the phone would have been better served monitoring places like Twitter etc).

I’m fairly sure it’s about customer service people being helpful and having the authority to solve problems etc proactively, whether that’s via the phone or Twitter.

It’s important to be in the place customers want to reach you, and equally important in the modern internet age to be monitoring for those people who might have a problem that they announce to others without contacting you directly.

But being aware of a customer’s problem doesn’t solve it.

I’ve had good experiences with some companies via Twitter – for example the chap who was running www.twitter.com/godaddyguy was incredibly helpful when I had hosting problems. He chased for answers, emailed, and even offered to call to ensure the problem was resolved – and all this was in the same time as it took to get a cursory email response via their online help service.

Partly, Twitter is a great tool for customer service, because it’s easy for companies to monitor, and quick for customers to use to share information, praise and complaints.

But partly, I think, the most proactive customer service people are eager and excited by using new technologies like Twitter, so you’ll tend to find more helpful people on there than in the call centre hiring whoever they can at the most cost-efficient wage.

I think we’re a long way from Twitter, Get Satisfaction etc replacing call centres – but I can’t wait for the day they do because it will enable everyone to highlight the proactive, useful, customer service staff from the bad far more easily, and mean that everyone gets a better service no matter who they’re dealing with.

I’d be surprised if you’ve avoided mention of Techcrunch’s TC50, but if so, it’s one of the biggest conferences and events of the tech year, with startups able to pitch for a cash prize, investors, and the like’s of Kevin Rose in attendance.

Although the Techcrunch interview mainly focuses on Digg, they do ask whether or not starting Pownce was a mistake – skip to 7.26 if you just want the microblogging:

And then I’m having a family weekend, so updates will resume properly on Monday/Tuesday next week.

Details of London Twestival 2009.

I never fail to be amazed by the Twestival movement – it seems to get bigger and more spectacular every time, and all for a great cause. And it’s grown incredibly quickly, although the earliest events were always fantastically well run and offered, with hindsight, a good idea of what might be to come…

There’s a slim chance I might get away with tweeting discretely during ‘family time, so feel free to check @badgergravling.

Just for today, UK department store retailer Debenhams is embracing Twitter in it’s Oxford Street branch in London.

To coincide with its big annual sale, it has given six members of staff a smartphone and nominated them as ‘Twitter Assistants’ to answer questions sent to @DebenhamsRetail with the hashtag #debtwtasst.

The store has said that as it’s an experiment they’re not sure what questions will be asked – mine will be whether this is something they plan to continue, or if it’s just a quick bit of bandwagon-jumping for PR purposes?

London Twestival takes place on September 10th, and more details are being revealed about the entertainment for the evening – including a performance by The Hours, after their tour supporting U2.

There’s also music from One Taste and The Parks Dept, 3 DJs, a live, collaborative story from The Dreaming, free drinks, games and more.

Tickets are £15, and it’s in support of Childline, who will also be there on the night to chat about their work

London Twestival tickets are still available – I’ve got mine, so if you’re going, drop a comment below or catch me at @badgergravling if you fancy chatting on the night.

There is one feature I dearly wish Twitter would implement as soon as possible. Although I understand they need a business model, and my day job will hopefully be made slightly easier with their proposed marketing/business tools, there is one thing which is becoming ever more vital to me as a user.

Let me search and organise my Direct Messages easily, please. Tweetdeck does.

(I’m trying to check through some of the other popular clients, such as Seesmic Desktop)

For me, Twitter is easily my most used social network – I do use the messaging functionality in Facebook and Linkedin, for example, but Twitter is the stream of contacts and information that I follow and interact with constantly.

And as my network has grown, and Twitter has increase in popularity, an ever-increasing amount of business and personal messages are flowing in and out of my accounts.

It’s starting to replace email as my primary form of conversation with many people.

And yet I have over 200+ Direct Messages, and more coming in every day. And despite my best efforts to sort and file the information, there’s so much getting lost in a list that I can’t order, filter or search.

And although I’m a fan of Tweetdeck, there are times when I can’t install Adobe Air, or I need to use the web interface for other reasons.

Cheers.

A User.