Insights&Inspiration

My Tweets Over Time (via TweetStats)

Now that I have been using Twitter for some time – from jumping on the bandwagon, to experiencing the learning curve, to really beginning to understand the value – I thought I would share my experience in hopes that I can educate some of those who are still misinformed about usefulness of Twitter and as such have not yet given it a shot.  Though Twitter may not be for everyone, not giving it a shot due to being misinformed is just a shame.

So heres a summary of my experience with Twitter, in all honesty, in hopes that it will enlighten those who are still struggling to understand the platform and its usefulness.

• Stage 1: Twitter, Shmitter!
  Why would I want to listen to people Tweet that they are “on the porch”??  Come on..

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I owe the inspiration of this post to the following quotes:

“To leverage Twitter to its strengths for maintaining more personal dialogs, well-educated personnel need not just monitor the Twitter presence, but actively engage. Getting value out of the free Twitter service is an investment in itself.” from Bryce Marshall at imediaconnection.com:

And “How many participants you have on your social media properties is far less important than how you interact with them.” from Larry Weintraub at imediaconnection.com. (more…)

Part 2: Using Foursquare via Twitter for Local Marketing

With the new trend of utilizing social media for getting out marketing messages, there has been a lot of buzz around here lately.  Most of the office is not on Twitter, and I don’t think any are on Foursquare, so when an email with this link from AdWeek circulated around the office, a lot was bounced around.
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When I heard the announcement of Google Wave, I was particularly excited. Not only because I trust that anything coming from Google will be just what the doctor ordered, but also because I have become interested in researching project management and collaboration tools that can fit today’s needs – and specifically my needs.

A Little Background

For those of you who are not familiar, you can read about Google Wave here.

Google Wave is Google’s latest project, and began with this question: “what might email look like if it were invented today?”.   So they reinvented email in the form of Google Wave, and it has become a communications platform encapsulating various communications technologies – a platform on which groups of people can share, collaborate, socialize, and interact. And developers are currently working on APIs that will further enhance the service.

So Once Wave Takes Hold…

Emerging as a tool that brings together all of the communication technologies that we have become so fond of – namely email, IM, and social media, it got me thinking:

• What will Google Wave’s impact be on the communications platforms we have been become so used to using to date – email, IM, and more recently, the various social media platforms that are so widely used today.
• Will Google Wave take over the online communication universe in the way that it took over the internet? Or do companies now know better to where they will recognize the threat and immediately begin to develop similar technologies that will enable them to compete with Google Wave? Will the result render all “old” communication mediums – email, IM and social networking platforms – useless?
• Will the Waves be publicly searchable, to where the keywords in the conversations can be tracked and measured? In that case, if we begin to use Google Wave in place of email, that means our emails will also now be trackable and measurable, and possibly public. This is certainly a new concept.
• So I then wonder, will we just become accustomed to everything we ever electronically write being public, except for possibly the select few conversations we choose to make private?
• And what will come of sites like Facebook and Twitter? Will they be able to maintain their unique position in the social media landscape, or will Google Wave’s capabilities become so powerful and versatile that it will render sites like these useless as well?

In Summation…

The thinking behind Google Wave is brilliant – how would we design email if it were invented today. Answer: incorporate all of forms of online communication that we currently use separately for various different reasons, and instead create a one-stop shop for collaborating, socializing, communicating and sharing.  Simple and brilliants.

I’m excited for what Google Wave will bring – and I don’t know how Google intends on handling this Pandora’s Box it may be opening – but am very curious to see how it all unfolds.

Post and share your thoughts on the topic!

It seems that as of late, the pedal is to the medal when it comes to social networking. The average user probably has at least 3 social networking pages – the advanced user I would say 5, at the least. This increase in number of social networking sites has given way to options. But the more I see what is possible in these spaces, the more demanding I have become of the functionality I want/need and the usability I expect. That being said, I think the time has come for me to let go of myspace and move on to bigger and better things.

My synthesis of why I think I am not the only one who is making this transition:

Facebook’s hold has grown stronger than MySpace’s over the past few years due to a number of variables. I think the number one and number two variables here are the convenience of posting photos and the status update features (in conjunction with the convenience and thoroughness of the news feed). The ability to comment on anything in a news feed has only increased the interactions the average user has day to day within Facebook. Afterall, since the beginning, the main fascination has been the ability to snoop on your friends and acquaintances without them knowing. At first you feel wrong for doing it, then overtime everyone admits they do it too. It was at that point that Facebook made a smart move and played directly to that snooping desire we all have, creating the news feed. This allows you to get the entire scoop from all your friends with minimal effort. The ability to comment on the news feed has made it acceptable not only to obsess about what others are up to, but to actually insert yourself into the conversation anytime anything of interest to you occurs within your friends space. Consequently, I believe this has had an adverse effect on the amount of time average myspace/Facebook user spends on myspace.

Over the past year, myspace has been forced to attempt to attempt to mimic the features that we have grown to expect, thereby copying Facebook and in effect, losing its unique identity that it had entered the space with. I think at this point myspace is just too far behind the race to catch up – unless they somehow come up with a mind-blowingly impressive feature that Facebook has not yet come up with. And then implement it before Facebook comes up with something better – quite a feat. Facebook also developed a more useful mobile app before myspace did, which only added to the myspace to Facebook migration.

Don’t get me wrong myspace – your innovation spurred quite a shift in how people use the internet socially, and you deserve your props for that. But your ability to keep up with the times and continue to adapt to respond to the market’s demands seems to have been proven inferior to that of Facebook – and I think the time has come for you to pass the torch. I’ll always remember you though ;)