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The new side of things

Byrichard
Reading Time: < 1 minute

If you’ve got a lot of time but not much new content to surf through then the perfect place for you is seesmic because that’s where you can chat to 5-10 friends and listen to what you have to say. If you’re busy on the other hand just turn to twitter where your instant needs will be addressed immediately.

I’m thinking of this because I really think that people are using it (seesmic) as a forum. What makes a forum a forum is that you have to listen. You have to take the time to absorb the content and to react in more than one or two words. It’ a place where a “highly produced) form of content is shown.

Twitter in contast is very low keep. It’s simply writing 140 characters whilst doing five other things, whether looking through facebook, working on your blog or watching television.
They’re two different cliques which go well together. I’m combining the two, or at least trying. I’m trying to leave some personal video messages for people who have taken the time to converse with me in a different form. Seesmic wants all of your attention and everything requires user action. Twitter is the opposite, it’s like a CB, it’s like the radio. It’s something to keep you company rather than keep you entertained.

How many of you would agree with this view. How many people think I’ve missed an important aspect of these networks?

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A little bit of twitter history from 21/07/2007

Byrichard

Hello Twitter-ers!

As you may already know, Obvious is the parent company of Twitter
and it’s never a dull day around here. Today our little building
is abuzz with activity surrounding an announcement that Odeo
(another Obvious product) is ready for a new home. We’re
entertaining offers from potential buyers because Odeo deserves
the same love and attention we’ve been heaping on Twitter these
days. Have you been by lately? http://twitter.com

More about Odeo: http://tinyurl.com/2yoy84

Defamer Brings The Oscars to Twitter

Popular Hollywood gossip blog Defamer.com is going to the Oscars
this Sunday and they’re bringing Twitter! Sorta. Follow Defamer on
Twitter and you’ll get live from-the-scene updates. Who won what?
What’s happening in the seats? What are the stars doing? Get the
updates on your phone while you watch on TV to make things more
interesting or if you can’t watch, just get the updates.

Text FOLLOW DEFAMER to 40404
or, Visit http://twitter.com/defamer
Oscars: http://oscar.com

If you haven’t set up your phone to work with Twitter yet, now is
a good time! You can do that here: http://twitter.com/devices. The
Oscars are broadcast live February 25 at 5pt/8et on ABC. Speaking
of coveted awards, you can still vote for Twitter and help us win
the SXSW People’s Choice awards. We will be so psyched if we win.
Vote Twitter! https://secure.sxsw.com/peoples_choice/

SXSW Update

There’s going to be lots of folks from three industries
represented at the SXSW Conference in Austin next month. We’ve
heard from people in the Interactive, Music, and Film industries
who are excited to get on Twitter during the week-long event.
We’ll have big screens set up in the hallways and we’re setting up
a special, easy way for folks to get their updates on the screens.
Once we set that up, we’ll tell you more. Even if you can’t make
it to SXSW, you’ll still be able to catch all the buzz.

Office Full of Great Folks

Obvious employs less than ten people but the building is filling up
fast since we’ve opened our doors to some other really cool
companies working on interesting projects. Two of the projects are
still top secret, there’s a couple Y Combinator startups sharing
space with us, and the other folks are 30boxes.com, Boso.com, and
the illustrious Niall Kennedy. (Hi Niall!) When the secret
projects launch, we’ll tell you about them–they’re cool!

http://30boxes.com
http://boso.com
http://www.niallkennedy.com/
http://ycombinator.com/

Okay, back to work. Lots to do this week!

Happy Twitter-ing,
Biz Stone and the Twitter Team
http://twitter.com/biz

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Two Seesmic evenings later

Byrichard

For the past two days I’ve been monitoring and participating in the seesmic conversations and it’s been a really interesting experience. There are so many different people. You’ve got some people living in San Francisco, others in South East Asia, France, Australia and England and they’re all coming to chat via video.

This chat is different from other chats in that it’s recorded segments. It’s about people speaking about key parts of their day. Both Documentally and Sizemore for example decided to meet up at Sizemore’s place to have a very entertaining evening of Seesmic video posting and discussion. As a result of this Jester joined in although quite timidly, at least for the start. With time I’m sure she’s going to become quite active.

There is a great range in age group from those that are children all the way up to their parents and beyond. As a result it’s a family environment, a community where people joke around and have fun. It’s a place that shows how a community can form without any ties in the physical world, at least initially.

It’s a great place and the best way for you to get a taste of the conviviality for this website is seesmix, the daily show that summarises the hottest conversation for the day. On some days it’s conversations about racoons, snow, a song that sticks into people’s heads and many more topic.

It’s also about the overheard conversation. It’s about someone putting something out there and waiting for people to respond. It’s about individuals talking and for others to involve themselves, community building. As a result of this it’s quite different from the culture and the use of video phones that we had envisaged many years ago.

I really enjoy the conversations on seesmic and I can see how strong a community it can become with the right discussion and time. I can see it as a video version of twitter and I’m wondering whether threading would be that useful, after all the conversations are working fine as they are.

It’s about actuality, about currency. If you want to get something out of this community then you need to participate rather than sit on the side and listen. You’ve got to become part of the storyline, to show your character to encourage others to interact with you. There are apparently about 1000 people currently active although no more than 50 people are trully active on the site at the moment.

As it moves out of Alpha we can expect a lot more fun.

The Feedly and Friendfeed way of doing things

Byrichard

Venture capitalists love to invest in something that works, something that’s concrete. If it’s got a 900% user growth rate overall and tripled in size in the UK alone then this is excellent. That’s the perfect website to invest in. Of course I’m speaking here of twitter. The 140 character twitter website that no one has time to use yet everyone flocks to. With the recent twestival you see that it’s gone local, and that can only mean one thing, that it’s gone mainstream. Perfect, now the web celebs can come in without looking too geeky. Cue Jonathan Ross and Stephen Fry to name just two individuals.

It’s passed though. The golden age of twitter is behind us. 140 characters and social presence have moved on from there and I think the companies we should be focusing next are feedly. friendfeed and google reader. The reason for this is simple. We all love to create content and we all love to talk about it. We all love to show others that we’ve found something but the drawback is that we create a lot of duplicates. These duplicates aren’t bad if you’re only following five or six friends. When you follow twenty eight thousand though it does start to get tedious however.

That’s where I feel real enthusiasm for feedly. As you go from blog to blog you find a lot of content that’s interesting but aside from what’s written in the comments for each post you have no idea of what others have thought or said about this. Feedly gives you a small box at the bottom right corner that tells you the number of conversations that have taken place and a quick method by which to see which are the most active references to this post. As a result you don’t need to wait for the kettle to boil to start a conversation. It’s already there.

That boiled kettle of course is Friendfeed. That’s where people will be moving next. That’s where we will find the conversation moving next. Watch the realtime thread and you can see who liked the post, who was vocal about it and when the most recent comment comes in. What this implies is that the limitations felt by twitter will become a thing of the past. We’ve got a high end solution for our content needs.

Of course we’re individuals. We all like to have our own rss feeds and personal content and that’s where google reader integration comes in. At the start and end of the day, when all those we are following are taking care of their children or walking their dogs we can go hunting for original content. We share that content and once people wake up they can comment and so the cycle continues.

Other websites are now providing more interesting options and deserve at least part of that pie.

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Last night’s Social Media Club event

Byrichard

Last night Hill & Knowlton organised a Social Media club event in central London to discuss a number of aspects surrounding blogging, marketing and PR. The Event started with a quick introduction to how certain bloggers have voiced their intense dislike of being pitched to by PR companies whilst others are more relaxed about the whole thing.

A number of conversations took place as sub groups were split to discuss specific topics. The group I was in discussed Pull factors and how to encourage them to come to see your message, how to generate interest and take advantage of the social media and what they’re good at. A few case examples were given and discussed by this group. People from a variety of PR firms joined in the conversation.

Two key things that were talked about in the debrief to the whole group found that no one knows how to deal with the social media and that at this moment in time it is about experimentation to find what is most effective and with whom. Blogging and social media were seen as a hard thing to quantify because conversations don’t have any concrete measurable effects until later. This led on to the point that at this moment in time it’s a challenge to value how you are attempting to raise awareness of what the company would like people to know about.

It was an interesting event and i hope to go many more of this type.

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Last time I went to the cinema my name was in the credits

Byrichard

Last time I went to the cinema I was in Paris and my name was in the credits. This time I was at the 20th Century Fox offices on Soho Square in London as a guest, along with Loudmouthman, Suzymiller, Danacea, Rupert Howe, Sizemore and many other social media participants.

We were invited to preview the film Juno, which will be out in British cinemas around the 8th of February 2008. It’s nice to be two months ahead of the crowd. It’s also nice to be in a private cinema. I enjoyed the leather seats along with the press package and the fact that when you lean back the seat tilts back at the same time.

It was also amusing to see all these faces. It’s a funny thing to be part of the social media mainly because you recognise and feel that people are familiar although you’ve never met them in real life. What makes this particularly appealing is the fact that it’s not someone saying “oh I’ve heard something about you”. They’ve actually looked at, and appreciated your work, or at least we hope so.

I enjoyed the film and so did the rest of the crowd. Frequent laughter could be heard from around the room quite frequently. I did enjoy quite a bit of the dialogue and the story is a nice one although the end is typical of American films.

Aside from the film and the crowds we did get to interview the organisers of the event as well as Danacea of Forbidden planet, Rupert Howe, vlogger and Robert… whose last name eludes me. It’s 1am and I’m tired.

The Twittervox video should be up by tomorrow evening at the latest. More concise information on those interviewed will of course, appear accordingly

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The Temptation to Give Up On Social Media

Byrichard

I find myself tempted to give up on social media and focus on blogging instead. I am tired of social media after decades of use. I am tired that users, that provide all of the value are ignored, and that greedy boards of directors can sell users as if they were lumps of coal or sugar beets.


By being sold to Musk Twitter has become a symbol of the Far Right, and Far Right ideologies are being pushed. Musk pushed a poll asking whether Drumpf should be reinstated and for now Drumpf is winning. This means that in a few days Musk will be able to say “I brought back Drumpf because that is what people wanted.” He already said that he would skew the algorithms to favour what he thinks of as positive.


That’s why I don’t want to use Twitter anymore. That’s why the last social network that I have been using discourages me from staying around. It’s not that I don’t like the community. It’s that I don’t like what the person in charge represents.


Yet again, we, the early adopters, who provided a social network with value, and the inertia to become one of the leading social networks, are homeless, and in need of a new place to use socially.


I am not convinced by Mastodon because people are too eager to onboard, get people to add alt text to images, and use hashtags. It doesn’t feel like a community. It feels like a sect trying to find converts. I want to have conversations, not be nagged about alt tags, and the use of hashtags.


When twitter was young, around 2007 or 2008 the introduction of hashtags, to a large degree destroyed the conversation, and turned social media into a popularity contest, rather than a network of friends, conversing with other friends. I am on social media to be sociable. Social media is a shell of its former self. I’d rather revert to blogging and generate content that will benefit me, rather than billionaires who do not see any value in users.


Before I end this post, it feels as if social media has become like normal life. The loud popular extroverts have huge followings and we are competing against them, as introverts. Fighting for attention takes away a lot of the pleasure of social media. I might as well meet people in the physical world, for that type of competition.


I might as well blog. If I am heard, then that’s good, and if I am not then I have practiced writing.

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