Twitter games

Can’t help but think that the Twitter ARG is going to be a re-occurring theme over the next few months.

See @Resistance2018 and @Simeonhobbes

Not sure whether to be exicted or not….

Twittering about Twitter

I know, I know; another thought piece on Twitter. Or more accurately, a confession interspersed with an observation or two. I hope that makes this all slightly more palatable. Oh, and please don’t expect anything revolutionary, these are just the musings of someone trying to understand more of how all this crazy hoo ha works. However, first things first; I’ve been converted. Any initial misgivings of a service which I presumed was created and housed solely by self absorbed egomaniacs convinced in the overarching importance of their breakfast menu has been replaced by a committed and complete embracing of all things Twittersphere. I’m a tweet geek.

But why? I’m still not remotely interested in the inane chatter of idiots (of whom they are plenty) but what Twitter has provided me, completely unexpectedly, is the best information aggregation tool on the internet. I follow interesting people who post up interesting links which I read. Simple, but great.

The harder part is trying to work out what Twitter actual is, or more pertinent, what does Twitter represent. From a purely personal perspective, there seem to be two prominent themes.

1. An open instant messaging style service compatible with a wider circle of friends then practical with actual instant messaging and less reliant on immediate response.
2. An open forum to advertise links, resources and information of interest to your followers

On purpose 1, which I think many would presume to be the more prevalent, and also, I’d argue, the description to which non Twitter users would be more likely to subscribe, the service falls down hopelessly. Unless all your friends are all social media experts it is unlikely your social circle will be well represented. Similarly, as soon as you begin following even a moderate number of people it is pretty much impossible to engage in any type of real conversation. Quite simply, how many @replies do you see on the average twitter feed? Not many.

So, purpose 2. And this is where it gets much more interesting because here we see an interesting shift in regards to one of the most fascinating aspects of the internet – and to date, one of its greatest failings – aggregation.

This has been something that has troubled me for some time. Take any subject; media, advertising, fishing or postage stamps, and you’ll find such a plethora of information online that even 24/7 dedicated Googling would only scrape the surface of what’s available. You can subscribe to your favourite blogs, add RSS feeds to Google reader, search high and low for new sources, but ultimately, as we all know, there are never enough hours in the day. Sourcing information online is a truly inefficient process, one where you the inevitable conclusion is of inadequacy and frustration as one feels ever further behind in the great knowledge rat race.

Today was the first time I had visited my Google reader in over a week. The number of unread posts was enough to close the window, turn away, and conveniently forget to visit again any time soon. Why had I failed to keep more up to date with my reading? Well, simply because the latest selection of articles, blog posts or reports I have found the time to enjoy have all come from links posted on my twitter feed, humming happily away in the background on my tweet deck (or tweet dick, as I have heard it amusingly, and possibly accurately, called)

In short, Twitter provides me with the ability to RSS feed not just blogs or news sites, but people. And people are MUCH more interesting to RSS feed because they are multi-faceted beings offering insights into their bookmarks, their sources of info, and their nodules of knowledge – wherever it may be, wherever it is from, and whatever form it comes in.

Put it this way. My personal profile and photos are housed on Facebook. Some further photos on Flikr. I write a blog, occasionally, which are mostly rehashes of cool things I’ve discovered on other people’s blogs. By default, adding a blog entry takes time, so inevitability I may only blog about 1 in 50 interesting things. This is especially true if I don’t get time to blog for a few days by which point, so many other people have done so there’s no point in me doing the same. Oh, and my blog, like so many others, is theme specific. Believe it or not, there are other things out there which I find interesting beyond media. Gosh, I’ve never written the term ‘blog’ so many times in one paragraph in my life. Web 2.0, baby. Anyway, my bookmarks are on Delicious, my videos stored on my YouTube video channel. Etc etc

So what if you were really interested in me? You’d need to be my friend on Facebook, subscribe to my Flikr stream and YouTube channel, and RSS feed my blog. It’s as if facets of our personality are pieces of real estate housed in different compounds, and for an outsider a comprehensive view of what makes me tick involves troopsing around the internet visiting each of these pieces of real estate in turn. Time consuming, inefficient, and ridiculous.

Of course, no one is interested in me. But viewing this from a purely personal perspective, we can look at the type of people whose content I find interesting and whose content I want to be kept up to date with. And this, ladies and gentleman, is where Twitter suddenly fits snugly back into the equation as the beginning of a shift in information aggregation which treats the individual as the gatekeeper to their online personalities (of which we have many) and allows this information to feed through, from their plethora of sources, to their followers. As I said earlier, it’s an individual, personal RSS feed, through which content from delicious to Flikr to Facebook can be filtered and distributed in the form of 140 characters and a tiny url.

What does this mean for me? Well, it’s easier. And in a world of time constraints, ease is paramount. And like everything about the net, those people who offer the greatest number and most interesting selection of insights will rise to the top and enjoy the cultural, and advertising, capital associated with such a position.

But, I hear you say, Twitter is all good for feeding blog updates, or posting ad hoc links to great content, but it hardly provides the one size fits all gateway to an individual’s life. Where’s the Facebook profile, or Flikr stream? Well yes, exactly, and that’s why Twitter is the first step towards this new reality and not the celebrated solution to everything.

Information aggregation should be an opt out process. If I want to follow Mr Interesting, that one click should provide me instant access, through one platform, to their Facebook, YouTube, delicious etc etc (or whatever Mr Interesting is willing to allow public access to) at which point I should be able to chose not to be kept updated on certain aspects of their life. Do I care if Miss Fascinating has been tagged in a series of dinner party photos? No, of course not, but if Miss Fascinating is happy to share that information with her followers, the mechanisms should be available for me to opt out of receiving that information and access without having to venture across a number of different websites, log ins and feeds.

In a world obsessed by opinion formers and key influencers, the next logical step is for these people to do the job of information aggregation on our behalf, filtering to us through their personal funnel the best, most interesting and relevant insights and information they have access to from whatever sources or format that information comes in. This fundamental shift from ‘real estate’ sources (blogs, profile websites, photo hoisting sites) to personal sources is the vision of the future offered by Twitter, a vision which will fundamentally change how we source knowledge on the internet and one which will make all of our lives a hell of a lot easier.

I think.

TwitterFeed, Tweet Deck etc etc

Twitter tools are plentiful. Sure, a lot of them are probably pretty useful. Aggregation time…

Fingers crossed this (useless) little update will filter itself into my Twitter Stream. In about an hour, hopefully.

Twitter + Social Media experts

So, I’m a twitterer. Granted, 12 months too late – but early adopting is not a term I’m overtly familiar with. Some initial thoughts? Ok, sure. Firstly, a couple of healthy caveats. A: I’m a month old twitterer, so maybe I just don’t get it yet. B: I’m not very bright, so maybe I just don’t get it.

But, and there is a but, something bothers me. Three days after joining I found myself with five new followers. All but one of these followers’ bios stated themselves to be ’social media experts’. (I wonder what percentage of Twitter users are ’social media experts’?)

Why was I being followed? There is no information in my profile, I am not a minor celebrity and I had, up to that point, two very non-descript updates. The only reason I could find is that I had chosen to follow Chris Brogan and that this validated me as Social Media fodder.

Not that this hugely bothered me. Follow me if you feel, and I in turn will follow you. (Does Twitter etiquette exist?)

But then I looked upon my twitter feed. ‘Off for a shower’, ‘Seven hours until the plane’, ‘OJ for breakfast’ etc. Not only do I not know these people, but I’m having minute by minute updates of their hugely inane lives. Sure, before you shout ‘duurrr – that’s the point of twitter’, I appreciate that fully. But why did these ’social media experts’ follow me in the first place? To hear about my life, or to possibly penetrate my network in the hope of building business connections. Supposedly, in doing this, they want to impress me, or my network with their social media expertise – or ‘hey, look at me, I totally get Twitter – let’s connect’.

Well no, you’re now blocked. Your crap choked my twitter feed so anything interesting from either yourselves or others was lost among your twoddle. It smacks very much to me of the ‘add as many friends on MySpace as you can’ school of online marketing. Just because the technology is different, it doesn’t mean that the lessons we have learned over and over again from other social media platforms don’t exist. Don’t add everyone and anyone, don’t shout at me all day, don’t assume that I’m interested in anything you have to say. Because I’m not, and actually, I find you marauding into my social circle like a bull in a china shop massively insulting.

Ironically, those people who I have chosen to follow, the likes of ViralBlog, whose updates are relevant, regular and insightful are the ones who do not have ‘Social media expert’ in their bios. Continue to wear your sandwich boards, I just hope people don’t fall for it. Alas, as brands clamour onto Twitter and the undoubted benefits that can derive from a well co-ordinated campaign (see Eureka, the US sci fi series) I think, sadly, that they will.

Ho hum