140Char

I wish I’d been online at the weekend and spotted the following story first, because it’s probably my favourite example of national newspapers completely screwing up reporting on Twitter.

In summary, the Express published a story (since removed from their site), which claimed the BBC was publishing Twitter accounts with 0 or 2 followers. Malcolm Coles was quick point out that the two Express writers had managed to use the figures for the number accounts were Following instead of being Followed by.

Meanwhile No Rock And Roll Fun has a great detailed write-up of the complete article.

Even though the story has been removed from the site, the Google cached copy is currently still available.

The truly sad thing is that many people were pointing out the problems with articles this bad years ago. In December 2008, I wrote about ‘Probably the worst article on Twitter in the world’.

I’m beginning to suspect some kind of journalistic conspiracy – possibly due to the fact @ashtonkutcher has more followers than the UK newspaper industry. Either that or stories about websites are still seen as a bit of quick filler to be rushed through and stuck somewhere to fill a gap. Either way, is it really that hard to find a journalist, writer or blogger who actually uses and understands Twitter?

UK Journalists on Twitter.

Journalists on Twitter – MuckRack.

Due to injury and illness, blogging is taking a back seat at the moment…

Apologies and normal service will be resumed as soon as possible…

New service Twitwoop will help anyone who has an urge to tweet but can’t type at the time, as it allows you to publish to Twitter with a voice message from your phone.

Register your phone with the service, call the access number relevant to your location in the U.S, UK, Norway, Netherlands, Ireland, France or Germany, and your message gets published as long as you haven’t masked the identity of your phone – if there’s no caller ID, the message goes into the public Twitwoop timeline on Twitter.

It’s been created by German Voice Application Service Provider, Woopla, and the FAQs states that it uses the official ‘Sign in with Twitter’ process to avoid using your login and password.

All good so far.

Interestingly, the service doesn’t say how your voice becomes text, although it does state in the Terms of Service that your messages will be available to anyone on the internet with a direct link in your tweets. So hopefully not making it liable for the same debates and intrigue as voice-to-text service Spinvox has been experiencing.

Things not to like:

I can live with the service auto-posting that I’m using it, especially as I can delete it.

Not so happy about the following:

‘You furthermore accept to receive private messages from twitwoop on your private account or become informed about new twitwoop services or features using your registered phone number.

By signing up to twitwoop you automatically become a follower of twitwoop on Twitter.

You can delete the twitwoop messages from your timeline at any time because those were placed acting on your behalf. Deleting the files however can only be done by calling one of twitwoop’s numbers where you can delete your number and all of your data.’

So if I accidentally upload something I want to remove, I have to go through a phone menu to delete everything?

And in the meantime I have no choice about receiving private messages to Twitter, or worse to my phone?

Hmmmmm

The #songsincode craze has been taking over Twitter for the last 24-48 hours, as people worldwide are translating their favourite songs into 140 character code bytes.

For instance:

And interestingly, Andy Smith (@asmitter), a developer at Frogtrade in Halifax, UK, has written the history of how #songsincode started, and how it became a trend.

It all started with a tweet about having a bad morning as a developer:

Which then triggered a song-based reply, and the group of three developers at the company started a back-and-forth dialogue, at which point the hashtag #songsincode appeared.

Then someone retweeted an old message by Yahoo Evangelist Chris Heilman, who had a larger number of followers. And it was that rising fame, plus a day of continued effort by the original 7, which got the topic into the trending list by 5pm the same day, at which point blogs also picked it up. And it peaked at #2, behind the famous #FollowFriday.

What’s great is that Andy has identified some of the key factors in creating the trend:

‘Trendmaking 101: What you need
- An accessible, sustainable idea that encourages creativity and/or competition (which we had by accident).
- Friends, to begin the initial propagation.
- A champion (Chris Heilman) who will spread it to the wider world.

- Lots of time to keep the early ball rolling, and for all the time you spend checking back on it!’

Go and read the full story behind the creation of #songsincode, and keep in mind Andy’s warning that you’ll lose followers due to the need to keep pumping out odd messages to get the hashtag started.

My take:

I think there is one element of this which is universal – an accessible, sustainable idea. And I think it’s also vital to have something incredibly simple.

The fact that it encourages creativity and/or competition is also a key factor, but as my involved in UK politician David Cameron’s ‘Twatgate’ outburst showed, it could be something simple and quotable which prompts anger and indignation (See also the recent defense of the NHS).

The bespoke, more creative trends also need more efforts to seed, as opposed to something which latches onto existing celebrity/anger.

But the key factor is that whatever you do takes some time and effort to maximise the effect.

If you dream of being one of the Twitter A-list and want to get closer to experiencing it for yourself, then cTwittLike is the service for you.

Just enter a username, and you’re able to see all the public tweets they would see, just without their chosen background. It updates whenever you re-enter the username. It hooks into Twitter’s API via Google App Engine, and now that @scobleizer has unfollowed thousands, you can see what his world looks like without blowing the entire internet apart.

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.

As an advocate and evangelist for social media and Twitter usage for business and individuals, I’m a big believer in the power of transparency and authenticity.

However…

It’s essential that you always remember anything you publish anywhere on the internet can, and will, be found.  Even if you’ve got privacy settings enabled, I’d still only ever publish the same things I would happily say in front of my family, colleagues and boss (luckily by being consistently open with them throughout my life/career, there are few times when it would become an issue, and I’ve built up a reasonable amount of trust).

I had a little sympathy with James Andrews, when he managed to slur the entire city of Memphis en route to speak about social media to a company based in Memphis. (You can read his own response)

But the current hot story is mindnumbingly stupid (especially in the current climate):

Someone offered a job by Cisco posted the following tweet:

‘Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose and hating the work.’

(Sadly the account, @theconnor, is now private, ruling him out of Tweet of the Week).

Within hours he got a reply from Tim Levad – Cisco channel partner advocate:

‘Who is the hiring manager. I’m sure they would love to know that you will hate the work. We here at Cisco are versed in the web.’ (Original here)

Info via I’m Not Actually a Geek.

And because I can’t resist:

I’m a big fan of the TED talks, the conferences which started by covering Technology, Entertainment and Design, and now include a huge range of thought-leaders on a variety of topics. (More about TED here)

Somehow I hadn’t got around to watching the talk by Evan Williams from Twitter until I saw a good article about it by Garr Reynolds at Presentation Zen.

One interesting point is how Evan has followed a couple of hunches to build projects – Blogger and Twitter.

Secondly – Twitter was designed as a broadcast medium – one message went out to many.

But users invented the @reply functionality, the API, the use of hashtags, and started using it to raise awareness around issues, raise money for causes, implement marketing and business use, etc.

It’s a pretty quick presentation at just 8 minutes – and worth watching until the end to see what happens when TED Curator Chris Anderson uses Twitter search to look for mentions of Evan Williams.

In an effort to be able to update a little more often….

I think it’s time for anyone writing about Twitter to realise and accept that the endless debate about becoming mainstream has become redundant – it’s mainstream, please accept it, move on, and let’s talk about something else!

There are 2,360,000 Google results for ‘Twitter + mainstream’, and 144,000 for ‘curing + illness’. Make of that what you will!

Everybody Knows by Harvard Avenue on Flickr (CC Licence)

@SarahM’s post for O’Reilly, isn’t a bad post, but the two examples against accepting Twitter as mainstream did start me thinking.

The reasons for Twitter not making televised Superbowl coverage were probably the scale of the televised coverage of the event, and gaining media passes/internet connections etc to moderate a live feed for broadcast – I’ve only ever covered much smaller events, but the manpower required can be surprising, and it can be a battle to get enough staff access.

Meanwhile the lack of TV adverts carrying Twitter ids isn’t surprising – most companies will see their main website as the hub of their activity and will want to keep the list of web address down to one simple name to remember – not supply details of the website, the Facebook page, the Myspace page, the Twitter account and the Get Satisfaction page! Being UK-based, there may be TV adverts promoting Facebook pages in the U.S, but I haven’t seen any yet…

But for mainstream, I’d state the following:

CNN and BBC cite Twitter for Mumbai updates.

@wossy and @stephenfry discuss Twitter on the BBC. @schofe discusses Twitter on ITV.

The Daily Mail, The Telegraph, The Washington Post,  USA Today, LA Times, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, Channel 4, The Guardian, New York Times, New Scientist, The Independent.

All in the last 2 or 3 days, and just the most mainstream titles I saw in a quick Google News search.

Meanwhile:

On Something for the Weekend, Working Lunch, On Jonathan Ross, This Morning, Channel 4 news. (I didn’t do the U.S TV channels because I have no way to tell which ones are more notable than others, and didn’t want to try and list every single use, but here’s CNN for some balance.

And of course – Twestival’s 140+ global events (with LiveEarth as broadcast and video partner!)

And to finish off -

‘If you want to know what technology will change the world, watch young mothers…and don’t watch teenage boys – young mothers have no time for any technology that isn’t useful and doesn’t work.’

Clay Shirky in 2005, via Broadstuff.

So – Twittermoms.

Can I stop yet?

No it hasn’t got the scale of TV, print media or Facebook – yet. But it’s never been about scale for anyone except those wanting eyeballs for the same old display adverts.

But social networks are built for exponential growth (in theory, if not in scalability of the backend!). And after growing 974% in 2008 (Hitwise) it’s not going to slow down now. I’m seeing more and more non-technical friends and family appearing, just as happened with Facebook – and more and more people asking me questions without trying to hide the shame of using a silly-sounding word like ‘twitter’.

So can we all accept it’s not going to get any smaller, and it’s reached the mainstream now. In a bit of time the audience will be in a similar range to the biggest social networks of the moment, and we’ll be discussing something new – maybe nano-blogging!

Obama Wins! by annethelibrarian (Flickr CC Licence)

Plinky is a new service which aims to ‘help you create inspired content on the web’ by prompting you with questions and topics each day – e.g. ‘Which wild animal would you have as a pet’, or ‘Which three songs would you have on your roadtrip tape’.

It’s got some pedigree, with CEO and founder Jason Shellen formerly of Pyra Labs (which developed Blogger), formerly Product Manager of Google Reader, and also VP of Product Development at LiveJournal.

Not only does he know his stuff, but his name has meant favourable coverage on ReadWriteWeb, Scobleizer (including a video demo), Louis Gray and Venturebeat.

I think Louis made a good point that it isn’t a tool for early adopters as much as it is for people who might not have updated their blog for a month due to a lack of inspiration.

But still…

I’m on there. I quite like the idea. I’ve discovered that one of my best friends loves a song I’d never have predicted in a million years. I’ve written about the most bizarre animal I’d like to own. And I like the ability for my answer to be posted to my blog.

But I think my favourite query for any new service is going to be a stumbling block.

Relevancy.

So far, there’s only 9 prompts (I believe one is posted daily), and I realise I’ve got a pretty specific focus on my blogs – microblogging on one, social media marketing/digital publishing on another, and my Nissan on a third, rarely updated Blogger site.

But even on a general lifestyle blog, I’m not sure it wouldn’t look completely random to answer more than one or two prompts from the limited selection of 9 so far.

And I’m not sure it’s more informative yet than looking at a Facebook profile etc.

I think there is a space for an inspiration tool like this – but I suspect the number of prompts needs to increase pretty quickly, and perhaps be categorised by topic to make more sense for many people.

It wouldn’t be hard, for example, to use Plinky once a week to create a post from a selection of prompts on whatever your focus might be e.g. all sport prompts, or all music prompts.

Add that relevancy, and the ability to easily schedule posts for a certain day – e.g. a regular ‘Plinky’ Friday post, and I’d be more convinced of the ability to scale and grow. It would not only become a useful tool for inspiration, but also a way to minimise blog guilt and missing days/weeks of posting due to other pressures.

And even for those of us who try to get one or two days ahead at the weekend, having Plinky inspiration could be a great way to get some ideas out without my usual Google Reader marathon session on a Sunday!

I’m just about to restart my PC to see if the error continues, but at the moment, it appears I’m only seeing Tweets posted 40 minutes ago – and all my updates are being displayed in order at the top…
If it continues after a restart, I’ll grab a screenshot and start trying to get some more details…

Strange Twitter error occurring

Update: 19.52 GMT

I’ve also just noticed that the Twitter warning about the recent phishing attacks which was visible on the main page has now mysteriously vanished for me.

There’s nothing on the official Twitter blog, but it comes strangely soon after the first major Twitter hacking of 33 celebrity accounts, and the first large scale Twitter phishing attack.

Update: 19.56 GMT

Checked the @Twitter account, and there’s a simple sentence on the Twitter Status Blog.

‘We’re experiencing some delays in the amount of time it takes for updates to appear in timelines. Working on this now.’

It was apparently posted an hour ago – I do wonder why messages are split between the official blog and the status blog.