More marketing use of Twitter

Here is another way for us to parse the data in twitter. The more data we enter, the more it will be analyzed, processed, etc.

In a sense it is great. I can’t help wondering about what other data we would need for us to decide whether the data is actually relevant.

There was a study saying at least 40% of information in Twitter is not really useful like I am having a coffee, at the bar, etc. The next question is whether the remaining population is actually a representative sample. Or I suppose what type of population would it be representative of. If possible, it would be nice to dice the data using that information.

I can’t help but be reminded of the time where we had wars and lots of major things happening in the world and all the news were talking about was Britney Spears. It was cheaper and potentially more popular to provide celebrity news rather than world wide news.

I am a little curious though to see how much the top tweets would be influenced by the media. Let’s pick something that is potentially old news, or off the radar. Start using the regular media to talk about that and see how quickly or if this bottles up in Twitter (or any other social media).

Facebook vs Twitter

It is always fascinating to see the difference between the two. I have a preference for Facebook myself, at least you have the option to enter as much content as you see fit, or as little.

Facebook is a programming platform, although I do have some concerns about privacy and about how much each application has access to but let’s put that aside for a moment.

Facebook is making some steps to become more than it already is. This article details as Facebook is buying FriendFeed and will now (hopefully) be able to improve its real time search capability. This is one of Twitter’s strength, being able to view trends based on current activity.

The article seems to indicate that Facebook might be competing with Google but I am not sure that is the point. I suspect the gap is being reduced between the 2. You can upload pictures, videos for both of them.

The open architecture/api provided by Facebook does make me bet on them. You can also provide an open account (company and others) where it is not necessary for you to be confirmed to become a friend. I believe Facebook has a toned down interface which apparently looks more like Twitter for those who think the regular one is a bit daunting (I am one of them I suppose).

In the end, I believe those services will converge into a social platform (as opposed to a social product) where you can pick and choose the functionality you like. There will probably be specific platform for specific environments, business (Linked In), private (Facebook) and others I cannot really think of.

Twitter, the good

I have been posting so much about what I did not understand about Twitter, I suppose it was time to post about the good. As much as I find hard to get most of it, I think there are really good things coming out of it. It is just I think we could improve the current blogging/social solutions so that similar good things could emerge from those solutions. In the end, if people favor twitter more than the other solutions, it will not matter so much. In the end I believe all those solutions will meet in the middle, as it should be, driven by the user’s needs.

I suppose the biggest difference for most people between something like Facebook is the way you can follow someone without their approval. People who are already famous (and companies I suppose) can’t really validate all their followers on by one. Witness Ashton Kutcher’s challenge to CNN for a million followers.
The other cool feature is the open API which has been embraced by so many applications and devices. It makes it so easy to update Twitter any place, any time.

Even though I am still not sure why people would Twitter, not enough space for information and all, this any place, any time has some really cool applications in case of disaster (either political or ecological). I have not played with it but I believe you can directly upload pictures and movies now. That definitely will help with the lack of information that can be attached to it.

The best part is that while twitter represents the pulse of its members, you can get so much out of the chatter. Here is SalesForce.com trying to use the information from multiple social web sites including twitter.

I cannot help wondering if the social sites or blogs allow public/private profiles, with maybe a more granular level of privacy, and a cool public API, I am not sure if twitter will have much to stand one. On the other hand Twitter is looking more and more like a blog or the other web sites. Somehow I suppose they will all meet in the middle.

After I wrote this, a lot of things happened. Facebook acquired FriendFeed. Facebook has a Lite feature which apparently looks like Twitter. I suspect in the end, the one which will stay will be the one who manages to make money without offending its users. MySpace does not seem to be much in the news those days. Could it be that it was based on giving a music/performer’s platform. The music industry has been a bit in shambles with iTunes and the music industry not really knowing what to do. I have not heard of a platform dominating the market which is centered around music distribution aside of MySpace. Then again I am not really looking that much into it.

Web application or Client application

Just wanted to put what I thought down on paper (so to speak). I figure it would help trying to sort it out. The typical answer 5 years ago would have been a web application allows for quick deployment, avoids the dll hell but would have limited interface capability. Not sure any of this still applies.

On the client side, you can use java web start or the .NET equivalent. They can be downloaded and kept updated every time you launch it.

I suppose Applets, Silverlight and Adobe Flash take it to another level but you sill need to have a runtime engine installed. At least it would not change as often, the code gets updated on the fly and cached I believe if you do not need to change it. The size of the runtime is important, but I suppose not essential for me to figure out some more.

The web applications those days are fantastic, to the point where desktop applications try to look more like them. The boundaries are constantly being pushed. I am still amazed we can have a work processor and a spreadsheet with just html code (and JavaScript of course). Not always up to par but getting closer and closer. Not sure where Flash and Silverlight fit in, they can of course interact with the web pages. But they are not necessarilly part of the page. I am on the fence here as to where they belong. If they serve the page as opposed to be the page, I would be tempted to make part of the web technology.

However I have come across a few screens that I don’t believe would be possible in a web page. I am not one of those who think web applications are not user friendly, although I have found quite a few of those. The choice, as always, is it depends. What the requirements are should be the main driver. For complex screens, use Flash, and applet or Silverlight (no preference really). I think it should be the preferred solution and should only be rejected if notthing else can be done about it.

One of the greatest benefit I can see all applications benefited from the merge of those options is a greater freedom for designing the interface. We are not longer bound by what Microsoft thinks it should look like (the visual basic look I like to call it) or the not so good java look and feel. Every product should have a graphic designer, no matter how small the product.

A Culture of Communication

I had to present to my list of peers a list of initiatives  we had been taking in our group to facilitate communication and sharing of information. I felt some of the things we were doing would have been easily applicable to us. For a while I have been frustrated of the lack of communication within our group. We have so much in common:
- same job title
- same process to follow
- very similar challenges
- same base technology
In short we are all development managers within the same company, the only true difference was that we were working on different products.
We had no real communication or shared experiences. It was hard to feel we were working for the same company or worse, individual developers could not imagine being assigned to a different team.

So, I did the presentation, asked for feedback and nothing. I was a bit disappointed but then I thought about it. All the things we were doing within our group had been implemented over time and that it required quite a lot of work on my part to get people on board. It was not something we worked hard at until people saw the benefits and then we moved on to the next one. It was first thought as extra work that needed to be done in addition to anything else. It was a way to loose what made them special, the information they were holding onto.

Then I realized I was facing 2 things:
- resistance to change
- failure to understand that you grow by sharing information a lot more than by hanging on to it.
I remember trying to explain my manager 10 years ago we should have an intranet and him asking ‘why should we bother?’. Not everyone sees the benefit of creating a repository of the company’s IP.

What I probably need is getting support for their management so I can get them started on communicating and then hope that by doing they will understand the benefit of sharing. As we do it more and it then becomes a habit, the less of a chore it is and the more we benefit from it. I think it is one of those skills that you can develop by making it a habit. The more we communicate, the better we are at it and the easier it is. It dawns on me that we might not all be born communicators but it is something we can learn by doing. That is something worth thinking about.

About Creativity

I have just been to a project management class on creativity. The class was mostly about convincing people that they are creative machines. It was a series of quotes from motivational speakers and of exercising designed to convince us we can be creative and think out of the box. The presenter was very likeable and had some nice stories and jokes. The course created a few reactions for me.

• The presenter used some of his life experiences to make a point, I was then again reminded how we learn better through storytelling. It makes the material more enjoyable and easier to remember.
• It is really a shame that people need convincing they are still created. The presenter was agreeing with Sir Ken Robinson, one of my favorite presentation from TED talks, people are educated out of creativity.
• The course tried to convince us we are creative, but it did nothing to tell us how to cultivate it and and to create an environment of creativity in our own environment. That is a bit of a shame.
• He said he loved project managers and that we would be the ones to get the economy back on its track. That was a bit of a cheap shot, I suppose that might be part of the plan to make people feel good about themselves. Still the thing about project managers is that when something is wrong, it is all your fault but when all is good, it is thanks to the team. A project manager is nothing without his/her team, in the end, they are really doing the ones doing the work.

I think, with my limited experience, that the best way for us to encourage creativity is to create a safe environment where it is acceptable to make mistakes and fail sometimes. Especially if you are trying something new and out of your comfort zone. Of course you want to make sure the consequences of the failures are not too dramatic and affect the project. But then again, there is always something going wrong. During the course, someone mentioned that when something bad happens, they do not blame and address the issue. In a way it sounds nice but I also believe in accountability, I am not sure how to reconcile the 2 at this point. I think it is ok to tell someone they made a mistake and move on. The issue should be looked at to make sure it can be avoided in the future and does not become systematic. Sometimes it is just a mistake and there is really nothing to do beyond acknowledging it happened.

A follow up on Twitter

Just a quickly follow up on my previous post. I am not sure I made my point so well. I don’t mean to say we do not have a lot of applications possible from mining twitter information. I read this article (How NPR Tweets Topical Archive Material) and I really liked the idea. How a program identifies trends in Twitter and publishes content from existing material which will support the trend.

I actually Twittered about this article where we learn about some of the usage a company can use the information in Twitter to understand how ‘the mob’ perceives the company.

My issue I suppose is not so much about what can be done about the data but the incentive there is for people to Twitter. It is definitely a fad at the moment, people join just to be in. Technically I am joining to find out what the fuss is all about. I suppose its strength is the asymmetric associations which allows you to follow someone without first requiring their approval.

The conflict for me is that the benefits depend on the information entered and you can only enter 100 characters. You can only really enter keywords and then link to other page with the full information. That is quite restrictive.

Maybe the quick fix for me would be to just allow entering as many as you want and then it is a nice and easy way to have a blog. Maybe I just don’t get it and it will become a real source of information and not just a marketing tool.

Will twitter survive?

I know a lot of people have been writing about this already, I probably don’t have that much more to add that has not yet already seen but I do not get it. I can’t see how it can survive.

Here is what I know:
- You can only enter about 100 characters, this means you can reference information or not say too much. I suppose that is why it is called micro blogging. Of course referencing other pieces of information is very useful but as to publishing some, you can only really give a quick status update. I have been following a few people and unless I have some background on their status, it does not really say much.
- You can follow anyone you want and they don’t even have to approve you. Cool for me, it is a bit embarrassing to have to refuse someone because you don’t really know them well enough. On the other hand, you might end up by having so many followers that you don’t really know anymore who you are saying things to. That must be quite a restriction, of course I don’t really know, but it is not about sharing your status with your friends anymore.
- You can send messages directly to someone, whether you are following them or not. If you are a fairly popular person, again which I am not, that can make it very difficult for you to keep up with the ones you actually care about.
- There is certainly a good reach, lots of tools for you to be able to post from lots of different devices. The benefit of an open API I suppose.
- There are ways for now to search/tag/monitor the data going through twitter. This is great stuff, I remember looking at a map of the world and a popup would come up every time someone would twitter.
- They do not seem to have any business model yet. In this day in age, that is a small miracle. It does say a lot about how popular this is.
- Every now and then some suspicious user is trying to get me to follow them, I suppose we should invent a new word for this, it could be micro-spam.

I can see the benefit for a company to look for keywords about the company, the product and keep a pulse on what is being said. It seems to be a very good PR tool. It seems to have been used a lot during key and significant events.
Maybe I just don’t get it, but I still don’t really see the point. I can’t say anything of consequence, I could be referencing something I wrote from somewhere else but then I could just write it in Facebook and all the people I do care about will read it from there.
At this point twitter seems to be used so you can update your status in other applications at the same time, again the benefit of open APIs, but I can’t see why it can’t be done in the other ones.
You can apparently follow publishers you care about and read the news that way, but I already have a news reader, is twitter giving me anything different?
The bands, famous people and companies seem to be using it to be cool and publish ‘good’ information about them. They have other people populating the information for them.

If it stops being a fad, what else is there? Is it more a reflection on the fact that we focus less and for shorter period of time and all we can come up with is about 100 characters? Maybe I am just missing the point, the fad is the point and it will always be there. Some part of me can only hope that it is not the case. Maybe all we need is easier tools for blogging and we can still make quick and easy posts to the web for all to know.

Where is the internet going?

I am sure it is not an easy answer, we can try to look at where we have been, where we are and predict where it will go. But that is not really going to work.

I use the Internet all the time without even knowing I am, kind of. I work from home using VPN, I use an RSS reader, a webcam, social networks, etc. I just joined a French social web site and I have finally started to reconnect with some of my old pals. Although it seems most of them are not really there. I have to say we do not really watch TV as much, most of the shows are available on-line, when it is convenient for me to watch and not when the network think I should.

I am probably a bit behind my times, I refuse to put my list of contacts on the internet, I don’t really trust any location would be that secure for sensitive information. I have been resisting using something like Mint, putting all my $ information for all to hack or steal, seems way to sensitive. For those, I use a local (desktop) application and make sure I backup all the files. I am not sure whether I would actually publish my location with Google latitude yet, but I know someone who did and I often check to see where they are.

Now there seem to be 2 currents to look into. The whole web 2.0 towards web 3.0 (semantic web) and also now about Software as a service and all. We have so much information, I can only hope we will find a way to organize it better and personalize it a little bit more. I have not really used Amazon’s storage services yet but I can see how it is where we will eventually all go. Having my own drives to maintain and backup, with all the pictures and movies I have, it becoming a bit of a burden. You have to like the idea of someone else handling that for you and not to have to worry about noise in your office and how to scale without denting your savings.

Some of the reason for why I am a bit behind has to do with lack of internet access at home. For a while (a long while) we only had a one way cable connection (that means ok download and really bad upload speed) and no real other alternative. I have no reception with my cell phone at home and so the mobile phone is not really always on. I also try to make sure people from work find me easily accessible through my personal mobile phone. Uploading my Flickr pictures has been a pain for a very long time. But now we have a dual cable connection, I feel I can finally see the light. Most services are finally viable. I am afraid the US will not really be at the forefront of the internet revolution until we all have a decent access to the internet.

Once Internet access is granted and we have figured out the privacy issues, look at all the issues Facebook had, and when data packages for mobile phones are a little cheaper, I believe the Internet will be in everything we do. I am still not sold on watching shows on such a small screen though. Once that happens, Google will be able to give us tailored searches based on where we are and what we like. Ideally also based on time of day, am I asking about tech job related things or am I just trying to find a place to eat? People’s life will be mostly on the internet for all of us to see. We will have some video standard and we can watch each other without worrying about which program I should be running to be able to see a specific individual (Skype, MSN, GTalk, …). Geographical disparity will no longer means we cannot stay involved in each other’s life anymore. The world will indeed be a lot flatter then.

Corrections:
I am now a fan of Hulu, I do not need to be in front of the TV at the right time in order to be able to watch my favorite shows. I have been using streaming videos from Netflix for a while but I find the selection a little disappointing. I plug the computer into the TV, so no more small screen. On the bad side, I must be watching too much now. I need to catch up with current offerings so I can go back to my old life.

A friend of mine has an apple TV, he linked to my flickr account so I could show off my pictures. Unfortunately the resolution was a bit weird so overall a bit disappointing. But I see now that soon we will have media boxes, blur the line between TV, internet and what not. Apparently Microsoft Media Player is pretty good, I am just afraid if I get started I will never have time for physical activities or family time anymore. As we watch the shows, we will have links to youtube videos about the movie, Wikipedia articles for the location and historical references. We will not need DVD and their special features anymore. Is Blu-ray still viable with so many internet services providing HD downloads? Add the social dimension to this and you can recommend movies, compare notes. Just imagine, there would be no need to have screening anymore, you can target the whole web and develop your film while it is being reviewed. Not sure networks and distributors will ever agree to a standard that would be necessary for this to happen.

What interesting times we live in

I think about what is going on in the world and wonder how I will ever be able to explain this to my son. We have a recession, our parents went through one or more already; the US is involved in 2 wars, my dad fought in one. The next American president is more tanned than his predecessors, we nearly had a woman president… My parents never had anything like that. We are going through tough times, and the worse is yet to come. Yet I find myself somehow sheltered from all this. I have a job, which I am hoping to keep for at least a year or so, but then who can really be sure. I am very lucky, I do not fight in Irak, I did not know anyone in the twin tours. And yet I find myself somewhat involved, I suppose at this point it is more of an intellectual exercise and my parents would probably laugh on how sheltered my life still is.

Somehow though, I still feel the pain I see in the world. It is hard to ignore, bad news get spread because they sell and no-one really care about good news. Everyday, something bad happens somewhere, it is hard to ignore it and not be affected. I am in no way feeling directly as my parents did, I am so much more sheltered than they were. I am hoping that my son will be as well sheltered as I have been of course. Life throws enough at all of us to gain some perspective. But how will I be able to explain the significance of the events we are currently going through. A black president will be something common, maybe it will have the same significance as ‘one man, one vote’ for me. How can see how good it is, but I can only imagine the impact the right to vote was for those who did not have it.

The next question I will hope he will have would be ‘What can I do about it?’. It is a hard question for each of us to answer I suppose, I don’t really have one formulated fir myself yet. Best I can tell, we have to start with ourselves, and I still have some work there.

The whole point of the reflection I suppose is that what is information without the appropriate background, historical context, can it still be used as efficiently? Is it still relevant? Is need driving relevancy of information? I suppose that is just another way to say for information to be useful, you need to want it, you need to be able to understand it. So the only way for a search engine to deliver what we are looking for, it needs to understand what we know and what we are looking for. Are we the sum of our knowledge? Even that one is a bit too deep for me. But for the sake of argument, that would mean the search engine would have to know me to be able to give me an efficient result. Ouch.

Was supposed to be a reflection on the times, I got distracted :). Without going into politics, I am not sure there ever was a US president who had so many issues to resolve, I wish him well.