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Feb 10 2010

What's the BUZZ Tell Me What's Happening with Facebook vs Google Buzz?

Category: community building, connections, lifestreaming, social media, speed the web, tech opinion, tech reviews, tools — jmacofearth @ 6:20 pm

Poor Google social media smart guys. They have sooooo much momentum and so much "buzz" around anything they launch and yet they really have not had a home run. And it's not that they haven't tried, they have: case Orkut = sharable profile. Jaiku = Twitter wanna be, and most recently the service I can't even get the advocates for the service to really respond to: WAVE.

So now enter BUZZ. Ho hum. Are you surprised that it doesn't sync with Facebook yet? Are you really surprised by that?

FastCompany tries to make news out of the launch, but comes up short with this scoring.

1. Media Integration: Buzz wins simply because it's easier to connect than Facebook. Well, at least to Picassa and Flikr and Twitter. (I'd actually score this for Facebook, cause you can integrate almost every account.)

2. Interface: Facebook wins. (Ha ha, we'll get to Facebook's new interface violations in a bit.)

3. Fun Factor: Facebook wins. (Yeah, it's a social thing after all. FB has games, causes, pages… Buzz has… well, g-mail.)

Okay so what's so great about buzz?

1. It's from Google. (Okay I think we've established that the Google umbrella offers little in terms of will we use it, will people flock to the party if we build a new party room bolted on the side of gmail?

2. Nobody's on it yet. (Are we really ready to start building our social networks again, on another service? Well, are you?)

3. It's got the big "so what" tag on it. What does buzz actually do that is interesting, unique or more efficient?

It might really be more of a competitor to Tweetdeck and Seesmic as a megaphone for initiating your tweets, bleeps, pings, wall scrivings and giving you some Google love in the process. *Might be.*

So what's the resistance?

Or for me, what's the value of spending time putting together my profile and my connections on Buzz? At the moment I don't see it. And I AM an early adopter, but not necessarily an early evangelist.

The part of Google I discovered last night when the "See Buzz in your G-Mail Account" link was not doing anything was this.

They might not get my mindshare with Buzz, but they got my Blackberry coming and going. I could care less about Buzz, frankly. But I want the WAVE to work, I just can't find anyone else quite as passionate about the WAVE as I am. At least not in my limited WAVE-lets here in Austin, Texas.

Let's see if anyone uses WAVE at SXSWi this year. I'm pretty sure you won't hear a word about Buzz. And I'm pretty sure you will still hear too much about iPhone apps and APIs and Twitter-enabled apps.

I can't wait to see how this pans out. Buzz – meh. WAVE – bring it!

@jmacofearth
permalink: http://bit.ly/you-buzz

Interesting note: Since I use FriendFeed to integrate all of my social networks, I wonder if I can add my BUZZ to FF yet? Or how soon will a WordPress plug-in like Sociable add BUZZ as a new option? Let's see: Jan 10, 2010, 6:24 CST.

Tags: advocates, blackberry, but is it fun, buzz factor, buzz vs facebook, early adopter, evangelist, facebook, FastCompany, friendfeed, fun factor, g-mail, google, google WAVE, jaiku, lack of buzz, media integration, megaphone, momentum, orkut, Picassa, ping.fm, seesmic, social media smart guys, social networks, socialable, spending time, the social media eyeball, tweetdeck, twitter client, WAVE, what's so great about buzz?, where the part is, wordpress, your social media eyeball

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Jan 25 2010

Of Quote Tweets and Deadbeats: How Do We Keep the Party Started?

Category: community building, lifestreaming, social media, tech opinion — jmacofearth @ 10:42 pm

So… I make no bones about the things I don't like on Twitter.

Why? Well, we're all learning. We're all failing. And we're all getting back on the horse again. At least I hope we are.

Let me lend my perspective to the current state of the tweet.

The Twitter of Yesterday

In 2006 when I first joined Twitter during SXSWi, I was passionate and connected. I really DID want to know where my 10 followers were. I really DID care that they were going for coffee AFTER the Keynote but before the Frog Party. I really did. My company, Axiomfire, and my favorite team I'd ever been a part of, was over. Finite! Caput! Two of my followers and people I followed were members of that team, and to this day, still close friends.

By day 3 of SXSWi I had actually met one of my new Tweeple face-2-face and had lunch with them. We could not have been from further planets, but I still follow her to this day.

By day 4 of SXSWi the novelty of having my BB vibrate 3 – 6 times an hour was wearing thin. I mean I loved these people, but my goodness, so what if you are going to take a shower before heading out for more fun at XOXO bar. See the idea, back then, back in the day, was that Twitter would mainly be a phone app. (Ha ha!) Seems kinda funny now… Oh, wait. You said that 80% of all Tweets are from mobile devices. Oh… Nevermind.

The point I was aiming for was the same one I say to myself every single time Gowalla or 4square tells me "I am at…" about some one, I want to shout, "TURN OFF THE LOCATION UPDATES." If I want to find you using Gowalla or Dodgeball or MyPlanet or whatever else you're packin on that mobile computing device of yours, I'd a asked ya. Oh, I did ask you? Dang!

Let me put this another way. If I wanted to know you were going to the dry cleaners at 4th and Congress, don't you think I'd a checked the preference: [ ] please alert me for mundane updates 24/7?

The Reality of Twitter Today

So that brings up an idea for Twitter.com the Company to make some money. (We know they are still trying to figure that out.)

Give us powerusers, us sheep willing to pay for your service to kick ass, give us a power prefs setting. And here are my top opt-out prefs.

[ ] ignore all gowalla, 4sq, dodgeball, {insert new service name here} updates

[ ] ignore all autoDMs. Yep all of them! 100%.

[ ] ignore all quotes (if you didn't say it yourself, well… why tweet it?)

[ ] ignore all "using TwitCheck" type account validators (I unfollow these people anyway, but… please!)

[ ] ignore anything about "whitening" or "thousands of followers" or "sexy pics"

[ ] ignore any account without a bio or a bio link

[ ] ignore any account with < 2 tweets

[ ] ignore accounts without a geotag

[ ] ignore any account with 3x duplicate tweets (retweet offenders)

[ ] ignore any account with > 100 other people ignoring them

In a future post let's explore some "pounce" or "actionable" preferences that Twitter could implement.

@jmacofearth
permalink: http://bit.ly/retweet-offender

More interesting Twitter philosphy under The Twitter Way tab.

Makes me think of a line of jokes we should start, "Back when I joined Twitter…"

"I only had 10 friends and AT&T didn't have any cool phones."

*/sloppy drum fill/*

Tags: 4square, actionable, autoDM, autoDM sux, bb vibrate, current state of the tweet, deadbeats, dodgeball, duplicate tweets, google WAVE, gowalla, I am at, I am here, i don't like on Twitter, ignore all quotes, ignore prefs, ignore the ignored, ignoring me, ignoring them, keep the party started, mundane updates, no bones, pay for services, pay for twitter, please turn off your 4sq, please turn off your gowalla, pounce, quote tweets, REAL prefs, retweet offenders, sexy pics, sxswi, sxswi 2006, sxswi 2010, sxswi 2101, turn off location updates, tweespam, Tweet Prefs, twitcheck, twitter joker, twitter needs money, twitter spam, twitter the company, twitter validation, twitter.com, Twitter.com the company, unfollow me, unfollow this, what's twitter for?, when I joined Twitter, whitening, willing to pay

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Jan 04 2010

CES Day One: Apple BUYS Twitter and Shows their Tablet Computer, the iSlate iPad

Category: iPad-iWay!, just for fun, social media, tech opinion — jmacofearth @ 10:40 pm

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Monday Jan. 4, 2010, Las Vegas
Following directly on the surprise release of the Apple iSlate iPad on opening day at CES 2010 in Las Vegas, Apple and Twitter announced Apple's purchase of Twitter for 2 billion dollars in cash and stock. Jobs says they will phase out all non-Mac OS apps and access to the popular microblogging service. "We liked Twitter from the beginning. And we think people will like it more on a Mac so in 2011 we will begin phasing out all access to machines running non-Apple OS services."

When Microsoft spokesman at CES, Haywood J Blow, was asked about Apple's daring move he said, "When the corporate customer starts asking for Twitter, we will buy or invent something like Twitter. Apple has not won this war yet." Shares of MSFT, DELL, HP all fell sharply in after-hours trading.

Tweetdeck and Seesmic announced their immediate support of the move saying it would reduce their development costs and give the end-user a more mac-like experience. Google had no immediate comment but shareholders voted to up their purchase of Apple stock by 20% a year. And a new version of Mac-only Google WAVE was also rumored to be only a few months down the roadmap.

Asked for a comment, the creator or Tweetdeck Iain Dodsworth said, "I'm a Mac. And all of our developers are on Mac's so why wouldn't we be the first open Twitter client to close down other platforms? By the end of 2010, if Windows is still the dominant computing platform, I'll start using Seesmic and Hootesuite. Seriously!"

Michael Dell was contacted via his iPhone after the announcement, but offered no comment. He did update his Twitter status with this "Oh, that's funny. I think that guy's been writing about Dell for over a year now, ever since he left." Bill Gates' iPhone was forwarding calls to his Google Voice account.

@jmacofearth
permalink: http://bit.ly/apple-CES

Even before the announcement Apple's new ad campaign was plastered across the CES walls today read, "Of course, tweeting is Better on a Mac."

Tags: apple buys twitter, apple inote, apple ipad, apple iSlate, Apple's new ad campaign, better on a mac, bill gates, ces 2010, CES day one, CES las vegas, day 1 CES, google voice, google WAVE, google wave for mac, Haywood J Blow, hootesuite, i'm a mac, iain dodsworth, iphone, islate demo, islate on youtube, islate video, it was my idea, mac, mac-only, micheal dell, more like a mac, non-apple execs, non-Mac OS, opening day of CES 2010, seesmic, steve jobs, surprise islate release, tablet computing, the year of the Mac, touchscreen tablet, tweetdeck, tweeting is better on a mac, twitter, twitter fun, twitter humor, year of the iSlate, year of the tablet

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Jan 03 2010

Signs You Might Be Working Twitter Too Hard: Or Not Workin It At All

Category: community building, social media, tech opinion, trust & reputation — jmacofearth @ 7:24 pm

So these days I think you've got to feel for the folks just getting into Twitter. When it was first released to the public in 2006 during SXSW Interactive, I didn't get it at all. The phrase "microblogging" still rings hollow to me. Twitter is NOT BLOGGING folks.

These days you can really tell when some one, or in this case a new conference/organization is trying to gain followers. I mean, what's a new tweeter supposed to do? In order to get followers you have to follow. In order to be successful you have to have lots of followers. So you have to follow a lot of people.

Well, the metrics don't work out quite that simply. And these days sooooo much of the tweets filling the Twitter.com web browser version of Twitter are in a word: CRAP. The scammers and RSS content drivers are out in mass. And as the golden egg is pursued via social media, what better way to get things going than creating a spankin new Twitter account.

So this unidentified tweeting org has begun following others in order to spread the love. But I have a hard time taking them seriously when I open their bio page and almost all of the people they follow have no bio pic yet. (A really good sign that the twitter account is bogus, spammy or scammy.)

But it gets a little funnier when you start looking at the accounts they are following that DO have pics. Notice the pentagram symbol. Now I'm not sure about your perspective on this, but I would guess if you were looking to join a professional organization and you saw Bruxinha0666 as one of the honorary or promoted members… Well, I'm just saying, it doesn't always present the appropriate impression.

So nothing against Bruxinha0666, but if the number doesn't clue you in what about the actual bio should you happen to click on his icon?

So I guess just plain bruxinha was taken?

and so on and so on…

Need a new bogus account just add another number on the end of bruxinha and you're in business. So… what about 666?

Final question, so if this professional organization is looking to grow it's membership and gain credibility through it's effective use of social media, don't you think they would pay a bit more attention to who they are "friending" in order to get the expected reciprocal "follow?"

I guess I'll ping the association and let them know that 666 stands for something less cool than "open source" or "hacker." But I can't help them with all those faceless bios. Cause a bird icon doesn't stand for a tweeter, it stands for pecker.

@jmacofearth
permalink: http://bit.ly/not-blogging

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