Apr 10, 2008 | blog
So I just found out that Hugh MacLeod of GapingVoid deleted his Twitter account today. There is bound to be talk far and wide on how this is a sign that Twitter’s popularity is waning. I’m going to disagree with those assessments, but I do know one thing – Hugh says that he “found it too easy”. I’d agree with that – it’s too easy to just Twitter the day away.
I can relate. There are days when I think I’ve wasted too many hours, too many creative ideas on Twitter. I’ve even tried staying off Twitter for a week back in December. I finally think I’m finding the right mix of Twitter attention for myself. However, I can easily understand why anyone would simply leave Twitter if they believed it was interfering with their work.
Hugh, we’ll miss you on Twitter, but I’ll be following up at www.gapingvoid.com!
UPDATE: It seems that Hugh couldn’t stay away! He’s back on twitter. You can find his Twitter profile here.
Mar 29, 2008 | blog
That’s the question I Friday morning, mainly because I’m just curious what people thought. Originally I had planned to post this later that day, but… life intervened. Anyway, a number of people shared their thoughts and I thought I’d put them together in a short post. So the question was…
What makes today special for you? Is today the day?
I want to say thank you to all my Twitter friends that sent responses, and I really appreciate you letting me share your Friday! I hope that everyone get’s a bit of insight and inspiration from what we share in these Q&A sessions on Twitter – they’re fun!
Mar 14, 2008 | blog
It’s up, it’s live, and it’s waiting for you! Come on over to the new SMB-TC social network hosted on Ning:
http://smbmsp.ning.com
I’ve got a few forum topics I’d love feedback on, things like location ideas, topic ideas, and a shout-out for someone to create a logo for the site.
This’ll be the official site for news, schedules, ideas, and topics for SMB-TC – head on over and share your thoughts!
Mar 4, 2008 | blog
So today marks a full year of Twitter use for me. I posted my first Tweet on 3/4/2007… something about reading feeds.
But that isn’t what I really want to talk about. Rather, I’ve been thinking of how integral Twitter has become as a part of my communications toolkit. It’s changed how I interact with my online friends, heck it’s provided the means to really meet most of them. It provides insight into my fellow social media explorers, and personal branding experts that I follow. It is just as critical to my daily comms as my mobile phone and email.
However, it’s not changed how I communicate with family, or old friends, or some corporate types since they don’t “get it” – or so they say. (That’s another discussion altogether.) However, it has made for interesting conversations with many of these folks. For many the constant barrage of messages, many from people one doesn’t interact with much, seems like a waste of time. They also can’t conceive of a reason that they would want to share their current activities with dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of people at once.
Of course those points miss the boat. As I’ve followed more and more people on Twitter, and have more people follow me, I’ve grown in my ability to absorb the data stream. I’ve become accustomed to having bits of information stream past all day. I find it interesting when someone chooses to vent frustrations. I’m invigorated by the short conversations on topics I rarely think about. I get excited to be able to answer someone’s question. I’m happy when I hear good things happen to these people who are familiar to me. I’m proud of the way the community itself pulls together and makes things happen.
Imagine, all this is captured and shared in 140 characters or less.
Technorati Tags: Twitter, Communications
Feb 28, 2008 | blog
FriendFeed just made it on my browser’s link toolbar. Why is this important? Because, it delivers on the promise that Facebook seemed to offer to me, but was not able to deliver (like many social networks). Easy interaction with friends with the ability to simply share relevant information.
I can give you a laundry list of what’s wrong with Facebook from my point of view, but I’ll instead share the big secret of FriendFeed for me. Feeds. There’s more – it’s the way you use the feeds. It’s not another feed aggregator, it’s a tool that lets you bring feeds from your various online profiles and share them with friends. Yeah, sure, sounds like a “lifestream” right, and yes, you can do that with Plaxo Plus.
However, FriendFeed is different in that, like Twitter, you can view a combined stream of your feeds and your friend’s feeds. Within this feed, you can comment on anything – it’s fantastic as a conversation starter. You can see what other people have said about a post, a link, a picture, a news item, etc… whatever someone has happened to share in a feed.
I can’t describe it much better, like Twitter, FriendFeed rocks. Kudos to Louis Gray for really bringing attention to it. You can find my FriendFeed here.
Anyway, it’s made it’s way to my toolbar – which means it’s just one click away and not buried in a bookmark menu (like others). It’s that addicting useful.
