Tag Archives: micro

words and pictures by Brian Solis

During SXSW Interactive 2009, interesting, notable, and unexpected geeks as well as the Internet Famous filled the streets in and around the conference and the after hours parties.

Some of my best encounters happened simply by walking from point A to point B.

I’ll let the pictures tell the rest of the stories…

Corvida

Drew Olanoff shows us the bid-winning @melaniemitchell tattoo

Chris Brogan, @geekmommy, Justin Levy throw up Hashtag signs

Dan Patterson of ABC

Sarah Townsend performs on a random Austin street corner

Gregarious Greg Narain vs. Corvida

Scott Beale of Laughing Squid and Brian Solis

Violet Blue, Robert Scoble, Alexia Tsotsis

Frank Gruber channeling Johnny Cash

Sun/Nokia Fogo De Chao

Francisco Dao, Lynne Johnson

Brian Solis, Jessica Berlin, Ilana Arazie, Gregarious

Please read:

The Human Network: The Social Economy is Influenced by How We Communicate Online & Offline (My philosophical analysis of what makes SXSW so special)

Which parties did you hit or miss?

Check em off at Diddit: SXSW Interactive Festival 2009 Party List

Pictures:

SXSW – The Calm Before the Storm

SXSW Day One

TechSet + Windows Mobile Rat Pack 2.0 Party

SXSW Day Two

Diggnation Party at Stubbs

We Flashmob the Driskill

AllHat @Allens Boots

Brian Solis Book Signing @SXSW

Are PR Agencies a Dying Breed: Brian Solis joins the panel

Kirtsy, AllTop Party @Allens Boots

Pool 2.0 – SocialMediaClub

SXSW Day Four

Paul Nelson Performs in the TechSet + Windows Mobile Blogger Lounge

Dell Adamo Premiers at SXSW

Power Geek Girl Tweetup in the TechSet + Windows Mobile Blogger Lounge

Rackspace + Scoble Party

Blurb + Mashable Party

SXSW Day Five

WorldSings.com

Connect with me on:
Twitter, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Plaxo, Plurk, Identi.ca, BackType, or Facebook

by Brian Solis

TwitterFriends is one of the most compelling analytical tools for identifying relevant conversationalists, revealing conversation patterns, and visualizing material conversation networks, by Twitter ID. The services aims to map the “relevant net” for any given user, which is incredibly valuable to any communications or service professional identifying influential voices and associated social graphs. For example, stats list to whom you (or any username) reply most often and those who reply back.

The system determines a Conversation Quotient (CQ) that attaches a metric to the volume of tweets that include @ replies. For reference, the average CQ is 25.4%. The reports also provide the size of the relevant net (those you reply to or receive replies more than once in the last 30 days) outgoing and incoming, number of fans, loyalty, Twitter Rank, ratio of outgoing/incoming contacts, the follow cost, the conversational rank (number of public conversations with users), number of replies, a Retweet Quotient, Link Quotient, among many others. Perhaps most interesting, is the visualization of the TwitGraph which displays the rank of any user across multiple axes, Twitter Rank, CQ, LQ, RQ, Follow Cost, Fans, @replies.

But it doesn’t stop there. Benedikt Koehler aka @furukama provides the ability to measure your network redundancy, density, and network efficiency.  The part I found most fascinating is the ability to visually map your incoming and outgoing network and how your contacts/nodes also connect. For those who wish for a deeper analysis, Twitter Friends can also provide a network map for Friends of Friends (the network of your followers’ followers).

INCOMING:

OUTGOING

Read more about Twitter Friends, the relevant net,  and the social sciences that serve as its undercurrent here and here.

For more on tools and services for Twitter, please visit the directory on PR 2.0.

Connect with me on:
Twitter, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Pownce, Plaxo, Plurk, Identi.ca, BackType, Jaiku or Facebook

By Adam Jackson

This is an unedited excerpt from my upcoming book project that is still unnamed. You can follow the book’s progress at 140 characters.com.

Choosing your username is very important depending on what you plan on doing in the twitterspehere. Individuals who frequent social networks and have many logins or have built up their own brand on Twitter, will go with a name that they use on every other network. I use AdamJackson on every network as the default username. Other users have aliases that they use everywhere. Where things get complicated is when you are going to use Twitter for business and then choosing a name becomes a little challenging.

There are some factors when choosing a Twitter username that you need to keep in mind. One of those is the length of the name. The name needs to be as short as possible for a couple of reasons. First, if someone wants to reply to a tweet, having a long name will mean that their reply of 140 characters will be affected because your username “@my-really-complicated-name” just consumed a great portion of the typing space. A short name like “@dom” or “@t” means there is more room for the person to write their reply.  The second issue with having a long or complicated username is the issue of spelling your name when they are interested in viewing your twitter replace or manually typing your name into their cell phone when trying to reply. Avoid using a lot of hyphens, uncommon spellings and of course keeping the length down.  There have been situations when I wanted to direct message someone via my mobile phone and typing in “@ipwn_mst$r” into my phone is just too time consuming so I’m less likely to send that person a reply.

This book won’t help you decide what username to pick but I can offer some basic suggestions when it comes to picking a username when joining a social network. Generally, your first and last name will do as a username. If your name is John Smith then your name might already be taken but uncommon names usually aren’t used. Why not use an alias? It’s fine to use an alias or nickname but “applepimp101” takes away some intimacy and you’re hiding behind a mask. I always encourage people to use their real names and here’s another reason. Google Page Rank is something everyone is fighting for and Twitter can really help. By Twittering as AdamJackson for the past year, a search for my name will result in links to my Twitter page above other people by the same name. When I apply for a job, it’s not “applepimp101” applying for that job and I want employers to find my Twitter account because they can see the real me. If you’re Twittering about things that should remain secret then by all means choose a name that keeps your identity secret but if it’s just day to day things about you then using your real name is the most widely adopted way to become a part of social networking. Of note, you can change your Twitter name anytime via settings so don’t stress too much on the name choosing session.

If this Twitter presence will be an extension of your business then it’s a little more complicated. Will you be tweeting as the business for the purpose of interacting with customers or will be you tweeting as an employee of this company and mixing personal & professional thoughts onto Twitter? If the boss has asked you to join Twitter for the sake of interacting with customers and increasing brand recognition then create a Twitter account that matches the company name. Try to keep it small. Of course, it’s in your best interest to not Twitter too many personal thoughts when Tweeting as your company. We’ll go into this a little later because this has gotten some employees in trouble. If you’ll be Tweeting day to day things and mixing in company tweets then join as yourself and mention that you work for this company in your bio on Twitter.

Carefully choose your name because there are a few factors involved. Short, simple and relevant names garner the most attention from other Twitter users.

You can find more about 140 Characters on my website, via Twitter and my personal Twitter account.

by Brian Solis, sourced from PR 2.0

Ev Williams, Biz Stone and team have created something so significant, that it’s changing how millions of people communicate with each other – and it’s only growing beyond imagination.

Twitter boasts a substantial community that is emphatically hyperactive, evangelical, and religiously loyal – all in productive and positive ways. The first two legitimate competitors, Jaiku, acquired by Google, and Pownce, a company co-founded by Digg’s Kevin Rose, ultimately learned that Twitter’s momentum was untouchable. Jaiku is migrating to an open source model to allow developers to roll-their-own microblogging services and deploy them on the Google App Engine. Pownce was acquired by Six Apart and shuttered, in its current form, for the time being.

In just a couple of years, Twitter has soared to new heights reaching 4.5 million visitors – that’s a 752.9% increase in just one year.

At its current volume of traffic, Twitter recently surpassed Digg according to Hitwise.

Twitter not only represents a detour in human interaction, its community is building highways, roads, cities, and a support infrastructure to power this new direction. It has created its own vibrant and flourishing ecosystem known as the Twitterverse.

From this point of view, Twitter already has created an important and promising new conversation platform.

Twitter has influenced how:

- Media connects with audiences

- Businesses listen to and respond with customers

- Communications professionals, marketers, and advertisers connect with the new world of influencers

- Journalists, bloggers, analysts, event organizers can get help and answers from the community, instantly

- Everyday people can create an in-demand personal brand to open new doors and create new destinies

- People are made aware of news and important information from all over the world

As Twitter gains in relevance and prominence, its conversation platform will ring the alarms of any business that monetizes relationships, connections, and information exchange.

Simultaneously, another company is also building a conversation platform that will force an intersection with any direct and perceived competitor and further reshape the mechanics of human interaction.

Facebook is a dominant player in the world of social networks and reports show that Facebook is now nearly twice the size of MySpace worldwide.

According to Comscore, 222 million people visited Facebook, representing a 10.8% monthly growth rate.

Facebook’s news feed combined with the new Facebook Connect infrastructure is setting the stage for a global conversation platform that may go unrivaled.

Facebook is already hosting channeled conversations sourced from Twitter, FriendFeed, and many other notable communities with an audience that is undeniably substantial, captive, and vigorous.

Recently, Facebook quietly explored the prospect of acquiring Twitter, which resulted in both companies concluding discussions without alignment.

As a conversation platform, Facebook will only gain in importance, creating a precedence that may prevail as it aggregates the ability to share, read, and respond across multiple communities, from one centralized social hub.

In the meantime, Twitter will also continue to increase its stature as both a category-defining conversation platform and also an illustrious community that will further influence the dynamics of engagement and dialog, while attracting new users en masse.

Connect with me on:
Twitter, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Pownce, Plaxo, Plurk, Identi.ca, BackType, Jaiku or Facebook

by Adam Jackson

Source

This is an unedited excerpt from my upcoming book project that is still unnamed. You can follow the book’s progress at 140 characters.com.

Twitter is an awesome conversational tool. Twitter is not a replacement to e-mail, instant messaging or a phone call and this is what makes Twitter so ideal for making connections. However, if you don’t master how to interact over the service, then you’re missing out on a huge opportunity.

Twitter has helped individuals in a few ways:

- Solve a problem or answer a question.
- Get ideas for where to go for dinner
- Helpful info about where the party is
- Finding a new job
- Helping a customer who is having problems

There are so many ways that Twitter can benefit people but most of these things happen through a conversation. Learning to master this will help you tremendously. There are a few things that we’ve already gone over but I will highlight them again:

- Don’t treat twitter like a chatroom
- Make each post, whether it be a thought or reply, unique and meaningful
- Bring up the people that are new to Twitter
- Remember the ratio  and don’t post more replies than unique posts
- Don’t be afraid to take the conversation to direct message or Email

In order to master the conversation, you must be able to come to a resolution in no less than 4 tweets. Tweet #1 is the original post.  #2 is a person’s reply and #3 / #4 is one more back and forth. After that, you’re putting things in the timeline that will cause you both to lose followers and the conversation really should be taken to direct message or another medium. If I see someone’s updates coming to my phone that are always replies to a conversation I’m not involved with, I will un-follow that person. If two people in the timeline are going back and forth for half an hour, I usually do a quick tweet in a joking manner asking them to take it to email or DM (direct message).

You must be unique and meaningful. If you’re not, people won’t care what you have to say and a conversation will never occur. Here are some examples of posts that will never receive a reply no matter how many people are following you.

- My computer just froze up
- Traffic sucks today
- Hmm it’s raining
- I’ve never liked country music or jazz.
- Who’s using the new iPod software?

Let’s look at those same posts reworded a bit and it will spark a thought in your mind and a reply.

- 2nd time this week my computer froze up. Maybe it’s the latest software update.
- Anyone heading north on 280 into SF that’s stuck in traffic *raises hand*
- First time all month that it rained and I don’t have an umbrella!
- Why does this club insist on playing music that I just don’t like? Country music is great but not for me.
- A new iPod software update came out last week. Anyone having problems?

Let’s say you post the third example regarding rain and 4 people reply. You can’t reply to all of these so, instead a reply to one of them with something witty and follow that with a tweet that recognizes the replies you did receive.

Here are replies that you get following the post #3:

- Amitchell: totally, that happens all of the time. I always have an extra shirt.
- Mross: I haven’t seen rain in a month either
- Surferdude: it’s been raining every day here in SoCal.
- Larrygee: You’re dumb for not having an umbrella. I hate your posts.

First of all, there’s an old saying, “don’t feed the trolls” and this is extremely important. Trolls are individuals who are constantly cruising various websites with an opportunity to comment on something off topic or something damaging. Ignore them and that’s the only rule you need. By replying to larrygee, you’re bringing attention to him and only fueling what will be a reply war back and forth. Simply ignore it in your mind or open his profile and click “block” next to his name so he’ll never show up again.

Of the other 3 replies I’d do a single reply to one of these individuals by saying, “@amitchell Totally! The extra shirt is a good idea so I won’t always be lugging around an umbrella.” The next part is completely optional. It’s up to you whether to ignore the other two posts or post a message that says, “looks like I’m not the only one with rain comments. It looks like @mross and @surferdude are too.” Now you’ve ignored the trolls, made a reply and posted something unique that gets them some linkage and possibly some more followers but it also shows them that you saw their message and didn’t just ignore it. It’s like writing a letter and never getting a response.

Oh but wait. Now, Amithcell is responding back to you again. Now is a time to cut it off. If the response is captivating enough that you want to continue the conversation, send them a direct message but don’t keep the conversation going. Talking back and forth about the rain is going to bore everyone that’s following you or Amithcell. It would be nice for Twitter to have a chat feature but they don’t so you’re forced to use direct messages.

You can find more about 140 Characters on my website, via Twitter and my personal Twitter account.