Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Talking is all good as long as it is purposeful

Photo by Pong

My friend Ash constantly talks about social media and human interaction which inspired me to write about the impact Twitter has on our lives (not just GEN-Y) and beyond the TV talk show's coverage on the technology...

I am not the most hardcore fan of the technology but I do acknowledge it is very much part of my life as it is Facebook and Myspace for totall different reasons. Social tools have become part of my way of connecting with different friends...

On Myspace I still find heaps of unknown bands which is hugely important to me.
Facebook is technically my secondary email, arguably my first.
Twitter has become my recreational newsfeed and a place for me to share my current interest to friends... and the beauty of it is, it won't let me write more than 140 characters!

First of all I would like to dispute the idea the more followers you have the better you are. This is simply misguided and not true. It is worthwhile to inspect how one uses their Twitter account. For me @jefske it is just an extension of me to my friends and people I have met thru work, and it is just a small update service on what I find interesting and to stay in touch with a subgroup of friends who have also embraced Twitter. I think people follow others for social curiosity at a very basic level of interest, for the more serious Twitters, it literally is a new source of information from people they find valuable to know.

A lot of people still don't see the value in Twitter and it is perfectly normal, because a lot of tweets are inspired bya lot
of nothing really but some people/brands have used the technology to really engage their audience to become more loyal followers/customers. The food outlets are a good example, they can really use this as a killer App as this AdAge piece has suggested.

The ability to tweet has revolutionalised the way to distribute info and essentially sharing content. Like the video below, normally it might take a few scans on my RSS reader to find some new obscure music for kicks. Now I am just a tweet away thanks to my music loving friends.

One thing to take away from this brief shout on Twitter is.... don't discard it if you haven't tried it and if you have tried it but don't really get it, there are LOADS of info on Twitter and how brands and Joe blogger are using it... people never seem to be bored of writing about it (at least yet). There are also some really useful applications that integrate Twitter as a greater communication channel, you can usually find a load of them on Mashable. So don't be shy.... give it a go and see whether you still want to sit in front of TV for news stories...

- jeff 

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Twaddle?

The Apple rumour mill was hot again this morning as word spread the ‘blogosphere’ and the ‘Twitterati’ that Apple had lodged a $700m bid to acquire Twitter.

Twitter, the media ‘darling’ of the digital world has rejected previous bids, most notably a $500m bid from Facebook last year, and another tickle from Google .

Few people are actually expecting a deal to go through however. Twitter is in a pretty strong position right now with traffic going through the roof globally, with thanks to Oprah and gang (although I recognize that it could peak), and the reasons for Apple to buy aren’t blindingly obvious (as opposed to say, a Facebook or a Google).

It might be that they want to beef up their web development expertise, in much the same way they have mobile but that’s not particularly convincing. Maybe they want to get even cooler? (is that possible?) Who knows.

The clearest reason why this won’t happen is that Apple are always involved in some of the most ridiculous buy out rumours. In the last few years Apple have been “at advanced stages” with no other than: Adobe, EA, Disney, Nintendo and now Twitter.

This one will pass like the rest of them I’m sure. Twaddle.

Nic