Davy Sims Posterous Site

Google Buzz or Google Zzzz?

This is a version of my Belfast Telegraph column for this week: 

Less than a month ago Google launched their social networking and messaging tool Google Buzz to a largely lukewarm reception.  In late 2007 Google acquired the Jaiku social network that could have been strong competition for Twitter, but they didn’t appear to give it much support. So will Buzz have the support Jaiku should have had and be real competition? I asked the question through both Buzz and Twitter. 

The first response was from James Scott (through Buzz) who runs the NITech Blog.  “Simplicity is the key. With Twitter you know exactly what you’re getting - it's simple and does what it says on the tin. What's the killer feature of Buzz to draw in the masses?”

And these comments through Twitter

@webireland – “Google zzz in my opinion. Half hearted attempt using Gmail user base for leverage.”

@iChrisTaylor - “Buzz allows more user interaction, better development of conversations. Don't think it'll replace FB just yet.” 

More expansive comments were posted on my DavySims.com blog. Russell McQuillan said “The problem with getting into ‘another’ social networking site, is finding friends that you regularly converse with on other platforms. Google have made this slightly handier with your Gmail contacts being already in the “following” list however Facebook and Twitter go way beyond that, how am I supposed to find them? Ask them for an email address? Did emails not go out with the fax machine?”

Patrick Kane said “Privacy concerns have been a major, major talking point.  Within the first few days of launch the tech community have been pointing out things such as the automatic integration with Gmail, private email addresses being revealed in replies etc. Yes, Google have tackled some of the issues but it’s been a bit of a PR disaster.”

Phil O'Kane’s comment was “Like so many of Google’s products, Buzz is not integrated into Google Apps, which I use rather than my old Gmail address. There is a mobile version available which I have been using, and by going to their Google profile (or checking my friends list of followees and followers) I have been able to follow people.

“There isn’t much difference between this and FriendFeed - and like Wave, it seems to have been released a little earlier than it should have been in order to iron out its numerous flaws.”

But the last word goes to @_d_a_v_e_ “Thanks for the reminder to check mine. Definitely ZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz”

(Very) Basic Twitter Tips for Business

This is a version of my Belfast Telegraph column from 2 Feb 2010

It is more than a year since the Great Twitter Adoption.  Within a few months Twitter stories were all over the media. @StephenFry earned acres of coverage when he sent a photograph and Tweets from inside a lift stuck between two floors.  This was the new frontier and Mr. Fry was elevated to be the great public Twitter leader of the non-digerati – rightly so.  Stories of an easy way to communicate with strangers (in or out of a lift) emerged just as the economy was crumbling. Businesses saw this mass migration to one platform as a new way to market.  

Some blundered in and started firing off marketing messages to an audience they hadn’t got to know and without understanding that the great thing about Twitter (and other social media) you can chose not to listen to someone. 

Some got it right. From their experience I offer the following as “learnings”.  Businesses can use Twitter successfully; they just have to appreciate the local customs.

1 – Human or Business?  People like people and they tend to be less interested in corporations and businesses.  A business is there to sell – social media is about being social.  Be a person, use your own name not your businesses.  There are some exceptions – information providers like newspapers and magazines are generally OK to use their business name, only.  But a person is even better.

2 –Write with a personal voice, write the way you speak.

3 – Beware, 140 characters does not lend itself to subtlety or irony.

4 – Follow and be followed. Twitter is a place to get to know people.  Find followers.  What are you interested in? Find people posting on the same topics. Follow them and some will follow you.

5 –Sell? Sell? Sell? – No! No! No! But do provide information.

6 – Reply. If someone sends a message – reply, unless you want to ignore them.

7 – Share.   Don’t just promote your business.  Tell people about what you are doing, reading, exploring and find interesting.

8  – Unless you are amazingly talented – humour rarely works.

9 – Re-Tweet.  Someone you follow said something interesting?  Then Re-Tweet.  Support your friends and they’ll support you.

10 – Remember #followfriday.  Recommend people you find interesting to others.

Slacktivism

This week's Belfast Telegraph article

It's called “Slacktivism”: a mix of Activism and Slacker describing how some people support a cause by doing no more than signing an online petition, or joining a Facebook group or taking part in a Twitter-storm. 

Slacktivism is a pejorative term, but the motivation behind a person’s engagement in an issue can be positive.  Most of us are not in a position to change public perception or opinion even if we had the time and resources, even the inclination to put our boots on and take to the streets. Following the Iranian elections in June supporters of the Iranian opposition did take to the streets in protest.  Some Twitter users outside Iran added a green tinge to their profile photo to show support to the protesters. Some even changed their profile location to Tehran believing that this would hinder the Iranian authorities.  We were told Iranians were using Twitter to arrange protests, the government was trying to monitor them and it was though that the more people on the platform with a false Tehran location the harder it would be to track the real organisers.  Who knows whether it did or not.

In October newsrooms were prevented from reporting information about Trafigura by threat of severe legal action (http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/commons-protest-as-trafigura-gag-lifted-14530143.html).  It was a Twitter-storm that brought the story into the public domain showing the “super-injunction” to be impotent.  While some registered outrage others became online detectives digging up the information that the public was being prevented from knowing.  This was not slacktivism, this was mass collaboration that confounded the legal status quo. But every hash-tag helped.

Signing up to a Facebook page in protest or support doesn’t take much effort.  People have been hoodwinked.  As a part of a psychological experiment, Anders Colding-Jørgensen created a Facebook protest group that went from 125 to 27,500 members in two weeks. The cause, “Save the Stork Fountain” was a totally fictitious protest against the demolition of a famous Danish fountain.  He wanted to understand if political campaigns like that could work.  His conclusion was that they don’t. People sign-up to the headline not the issue.

Some Twitter and Facebook campaigns might be superficial and transient but Slactivism is surely better than apathy. It is us Slackers 40th birthday present to the Internet.

The World's Editorial Page

This is my column for Belfast Telegraph for this week.
Only occasionally will you find “breaking news” on Twitter. If you are following the right people and reading at the right time you might. If you follow any of the newspaper feeds including the Belfast Telegraph, you will get a headline linking to the story online.  Once or twice news has been broken on Twitter.  The biggest story was the US Airways plane crash landing on Hudson accompanied by Photos on Twitpic.  It is said – although I’ve yet to see the evidence – that Michael Jackson’s was announced on Twitter 13 minutes after it was declared from within the hospital.  News of earthquakes is Tweeted and sometimes other major disasters are covered by citizens caught up in them.

Instant communications about events are enhanced by micro-blogging.  Although back in the summer on 10 July when there was a bomb alert in Belfast, only two people Tweeted about it – me and someone else milling around the Waterfront.  At that time there was smoke coming from a building in west London which was getting a lot more attention from the Twitterati.  London was recently recognised as the Twitter capital of the world.  So we haven’t got the bulk users yet.

Short form messaging will play a real part in breaking news in the future, but for now Twitter and similar are reactive spaces. Throughout September there was hardly a mention of the Nobel Prize. Yet on 9 October according to trendistic.com the Nobel Peace Prize was the biggest topic – for a day.

  • Great comment on TIME: Nobel committee should be given a peace prize for uniting the twitterverse in sarcasm
  • Was that thunder we heard? Or Alfred Nobel rolling over in his grave?
  • Must have been the "beer summit" that put #obama over the top for the Nobel Peace Prize. What else could it have been?

You don’t get a lot of analysis in 140 characters, but you do get sense the mood.  Sometimes you’ll find pithy observations.

But that’s what it’s for.  If there is something more interesting or important a link with the comment will take you to there.  It’s not news, but it is a global editorial page where everyone’s view has equal exposure.