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.
Jan 31, 2008 | blog
Yep, again.
Not sure what’s going on this time either. I’ve tried the web, Twhirl, and via IM (Google Talk). Nothing is connecting, though oddly, IM is showing that Twitter is “online”.
Moving on… reading feeds instead. Will try to get more writing out of the way tonight.
Jan 31, 2008 | blog
I have to immediately thank Dave Delaney (Twitter: @davedelaney) for this tip. Revealed in his 5,000 tweets and counting post earlier today, he suggests the following to find your first tweet:
- Browse to your Twitter profile page
- Click on the “Archive” tab
- Scroll to the bottom
- Click on the “Older” button
- Notice that the URL is now something like http://twitter.com/rickmahn?page=2? Change the “page=2” to “page=200”
- See anything? Start decreasing that number until you find your first post.
- Or, if you’ve been especially productive, you may need to try higher page numbers! 😉
Mine just happens to be on March 4th, 2007 at 1:13pm (found here) where I tweeted the very informative “Reading RSS feeds” to the world.
So, thank you Dave for that tip, and congratulations on crossing 5,000 tweets. I had been curious about that first tweet lately because I know I was starting to get close to a full year on Twitter. Just over a month to go!
Technorati Tags: Twitter, Dave Delaney
Jan 30, 2008 | blog
Doh! Again?
Earlier today when Twitter went offline, I was only marginally annoyed. Mainly because I had a lot of work to get done. I’m quite surprised tonight when I pop on to check out what’s been happening for the last several hours.
Hmm, now I’m frustrated. First time I’ve felt that way towards Twitter. Not sure I really like that either.
Come on guys, this has got to be addressed.
