Category Archives: Social Media

Twitter’s “Suggested User” Feature

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twitter screen capture

I was directed to an LA Times technology blog by a @jowyang tweet. He called attention to the fact the article explains why the rankings on Twitter have been shifting drastically. Twitter has been incorporating a new feature called “suggested user”. When an individual signs up on Twitter one of the first things they are presented with upon completion are suggested users. Twitter co-founder Evan Williams explained that, “The reason we created this feature is because lots of people sign up to Twitter but aren’t following anyone, so we’re trying to help get them started”. The feature has been live for over a month and has featured accounts like:

  • The UK newspaper The Guardian. Within that time frame the Guardian has grown from 4,000 followers to 66,000 followers. Over the last 2 weeks the Guardian has been adding followers at an increase of 300% over the previous 2 weeks.
  • TechCrunch, a startup and tech news blog network, went from 41,000 to 111,000 followers.
  • The NY Times increased its base by 6x’s and is at 145,000 followers. All of this information is garnered from the LA Times post, you can read it here.

Reading this two different thoughts came to mind. One, Twitter users are upset. And they have every right to be. The time and effort put into building the relationships with your followers is no small feat. It is about being 1 part engaging, 1 part informative (or funny) and 2 parts creative. Some individuals put a lot of effort into building their presence and reputation. So for Twitter to create a a way for select individuals/companies to gain as many followers in a month, that people have been working on building (day and night) for a lot longer seems to unfair to the people who are not suggested. Rank (in followers) is equal to credibility something people work hard to attain. When an individual is ranked #5 two months ago, and 2 months later they are ranked 35th it can make a person be a little bit annoyed.

The second thought was more busniness related. Twitter should monetize this! People have been recognizing the phenomenon (it is 3rd on the list of social media platforms behind mySpace and Facebook) but have been asking two questions:

  1. How can business use social media?
  2. How can Twitter (like a lot of other social platforms) find a way to make money.

Within the LA Times post I see clear value add for being a suggested user. All the sites above are new sources, and at the end of the day they want people to get their news from them (not unlike any blogger or expert). Showing hard number on how the suggested user feature can do that for organizations looking to connect with an audience is what will get companies making space in their media budgets. If Evan Williams and Biz Stone are not thinking about this I think they should be. Mind you I don’t think the formula would work if it was as simple as $$$ == placement. Twitter hopefully understands it’s growing populace and will try to focus content that users will actually like.

I think it is just as important to find a better way to connect new users with engaging users. I would suggest that when users sign up, they fill out a small questionnaire about their likes and interests. Twitter can then use a list of criteria (keyword connections, bio, followers, engagement, retweets, etc) to offer up a list of users that would engage the new user. It would do a better job of connecting users to content of interest. Surfacing people based around similarities versus popularity would be a good way to target segments and keepthem engaged.

What do you think?

Twitter Remote (beta)

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Twitter Counter ( http://www.twittercounter.com ) recently released a widget called Twitter Remote. Twitter Counter is a great utility that shows you how you are trending on Twitter. It shows you if you arelosing followers, adding followers, projected numbers based on increases etc. It also allows you to compare you stats against another user and if your interested, it highlights featured users that are interesting and trending up. It is a great app if you are self obsessed with popularity (which I am!). No seriously it is a great little tool.

Over the last couple of days they released a widget that you can embed on your site (in the sidebar). It shows your twitter stats as well as the stats of people who come to your site. It also gives people the option of following those people showing up in your list. Once a user adds their twitter profile to your list, they can message you from the widget (sort of like a comment inline) as well as tweet about your site to their followers.

Right now I see limited usage for it. For people who are trying to get more followers, it gives them more exposure (free advertising!). For blog owners it replaces some of the functionality from a “follow me”  badge and incorporates some info, which is nice. Since it is in beta I won’t knock it too much, but the tweet functionality can use some design work. Scroll bars on a 100w x 60h box is not pretty. Check it out here

Facebook spins on a dime over TOS

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Here is a story evolving so fast it will make your head spin. Facebook changed it’s TOS (Terms of Service) agreement, and within 48 hours changed it back. Here are the events (as related to FB and Mashable):
2/16 (8:24 am)
- FB changes Terms of Services Agreement. Mashable blogs about it (1k diggs):

2/16 (3:45 pm)
- Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg responds to the concerns as to why the change in the TOS

2/16 – 2/17
- Facebook polls users in their feed to the changes. Mashable asks the same question.

2/17 (11:49 pm)
- Facebook reverts to it’s old TOS
The FB blog link is down (due to traffic), but here it is.

From a business perspective that seems a little weak willed. I assume there was a business objective for changing the TOS. I wonder what the impact was on the FB usage or business. I mean other than the uproar over the last 2 days. Like one individual pointed out here, how many people actually ever even read the Terms of Service for any web site?

Maybe FB looked at the people being vocal as a sampling of their user group. Maybe that combined with some vision statement that says, “We will put our users 1st” led them to some swift action. Seeing a company react to its’ consumers so quickly is great. I am just curious if the swift change is based around acknowledgment of a corp. misstep or back peddling due to public outcry.

These course of events may have worked out for FB, but can it really be applied to other organizations? I think the group that would fit into this category is relatively small at this point. First, a lot of companies are not connected to their consumers the way FB is. Second, changing the wording in the terms of service is one thing but in a lot of instances there are more factors that would need to be taken into consideration for change to be implemented (ex: features, pricing, options).

From a consumer perspective I think it is great that FB listened and reacted so quickly. From a business perspective it makes me wonder about the corporate flip flopping.

What do you think?

Mashable.com has been covering this topic pretty closely, you can follow it here for all the details:
http://mashable.com/2009/02/17/breaking-facebook-reverts-to-previous-terms-of-service/

The tipping point, too many social networks!

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So I finally hit the tipping point. I have too many networks to keep up with. Now I don’t sign up and use a service just because it is new. I will check it out and see what it has to offer, but I definitely need to find value in the service if I am going to use it regularly. With that said I have hit the limit of the amount of sites and posts I can physically update. Even before this point, going to all the services I had made it hard to keep up with the witty repartee. At some point the well runs dry.

The latest service I have found is Yammer. The idea of being able to communicate with co-workers on a Twitter-like network is fascinating and needed. It is a great way to build your presence and share your ideas in the place it can have the most impact – your job! It is great way to find out what is going on within your organization for things like as projects, pitches, events, etc. I work for Sapient, we are an organization of 6,500+ people with offices all over the world (LA, Boston, Miami, London, Germany, Sweden….you get the point). We also have a couple thousand people in India (Bangalore, Dehli, and Gurgaon). The amount of projects, the use of technologies and the types of innovations happening in all these places is hard to keep up with. Yammer has allowed me to keep up with all this while building relationships and getting human context outside of an email.

I find Yammer useful, but I also find Twitter, Plaxo, Facebook, LinkedIn, WordPress, Flickr, and Delicious also very useful for different reasons. So adding Yammer to that list just pushed me over the edge. There is no way I can keep up with all those services and still find time in the day to eat, sleep and more importantly – work! Something had to be done. So what did I do? I started looking at other services that might help………It isn’t what you think though, let me explain.

I think we have come to a point where the marketplace is saturated with these sites and services. They are popping up all over and most of them with very similar features as their predecessors. Innovation is coming from the mashups of these services,  creating new services that allow you to access multiple sites from one interface. So I was doing some research, and found ping.fm. ping.fm allows me to access all the services I use and through an interface I already use. I can update Twitter, Plaxo and Yammer all thru AIM seperately or all at once. You can setup tags to send updates to specific services. For instance, if I preface any message in AIM with #tweet, it will send the message to my Twitter and Yammer accounts. If I preface any AIM message with #status it will update my LinkedIn and Facebook status. ping.fm has allowed me to consolidate all my communications and without an additional desktop application or website.

Whats your opinion? Do you use a lot of different social media sites? How do you ink them together? What are the best applications out there like ping.fm?

Sending a message to Ping.fm

Social Media That Works? The Obama Administration

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The Obama Campaign was successful in using social media to inform, gain, and mobilize voters. Awhile back I collected a bunch of the ongoing discussions on my delicious. All of it culminating in President Obama being selected “Marketer of the Year” by Ad Age. Well the Obama Campaign Administration has built on that with the new website whitehouse.gov. Here are some ways that the President is using technology unlike any other president before him.

Weekly Radio Address:

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s gave what are known as the “Fireside Chats” in the 1930′s  during the height of the Great Depression. Every president since has taken part in the custom in some form. For the first time, you will be able to access them on YouTube. Much like FDR in the 30′s, President Obama will be using them to discuss his policy decisions during these tough times. I have embedded the first official weekly address. You can visit the Whitehouse YouTube channel here.

The Briefing Room:

The title paragraph reads, “The White House provides timely and accurate information about the President’s latest events and public statements.  Here you’ll find photos, video, and blogs, as well as proclamations, executive orders, and press releases.” – whitehouse.gov

In an effort to to create transparency, the President of The United States will post his Executive Orders (five in two days!) and Presidential Memoranda (five in 3 days!) in an easily accessible format. And you can get it in an RSS feed…The Briefing Room and whitehouse.gov

Presidential Inauguration Committee 2009:

“The Presidential Inaugural Committee, at the direction of President-elect Obama and Vice President-elect Biden, will organize an inclusive and accessible inauguration that reflects the new Administration’s commitment to leadership that sets aside partisanship and unites the nation around our shared values and ideals.” – pic2009.org

The PIC (Presidential Inauguration Committee) utilized the site to discuss upcoming events (Neighborhood Ball), stream content from the events, and gather donations (to pay for Inauguration activities instead of just taxpayer dollars). The site also posted live feeds of the Youth Ball and the National Prayer Service. They provided text message updates leading up to and during the events. The PIC also has  Flickr, Twitter, Tumblr, and YouTube accounts.

USA Service:

“President Obama believes that we, as Americans, have a responsibility to help our communities and fellow citizens. In summoning a new spirit of service, he is calling on us to make an enduring commitment to our neighborhoods. Sign up today and let’s renew America together.” – usaservice.org

Want to volunteer but don’t know how? You can sign up to find out about volunteer opportunities and events. Visit the site to find out more information, you can find resources, events, and service opportunities. You can also join USAservice.org on facebook.

Transparency and Participation:

“President Obama started his career as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago, where he saw firsthand what people can do when they come together for a common cause. Citizen participation will be a priority for the Administration, and the internet will play an important role in that. One significant addition to WhiteHouse.gov reflects a campaign promise from the President: we will publish all non-emergency legislation to the website for five days, and allow the public to review and comment before the President signs it.” – whitehouse.gov

I think this is something extraordinary but I am curious to see how it works. No matter how dry and unreadable ( I am not a lawyer) I am going to try and sink my teeth into at least one of these a week. The tech side of me wonders how the comments are going to combed and moderated. In any case I think the presentation of information like this is vital to making people feel they have a hand in government.

Personally, I think all of this is incredible. Independent of political views, these and other initiatives are a step towards transparency, information organization, and participation. I think that some of these links should be staples on every school computer if not shipped as bookmarks in IE (why does it all have to be product based?).

What do you think about the usage of social media and the web? What do you think about the content, and the organization of content? I will continue to add additional resources/information/programs that I come across or as they are sent to me.