Posts Tagged twitter
Is Google Buzz the Twitter Killer?
Posted by Paul Holmes in blogging, business, internet, social media on February 16th, 2010
Will Buzz Kill Twitter?
Some have compared it to FriendFeed, some have called it Google’s answer to Facebook, and some are just annoyed and can’t wait to turn it off (in GMail, you can scroll to the bottom and click on “turn off buzz”, by the way).
Others have predicted Google Buzz will annihilate Twitter! They make a compelling argument.
- It’s a sophisticated broadcast notification system, much like Twitter.
- It’s public.
- You can send images (and you don’t need third party applications like TwitPic).
- You can automatically feed Buzz from other services (Blog RSS Feeds, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, Digg, etc.).
- Your Google profile is now your Google Buzz profile, and has much more information than a Twitter profile (yet, uglier).
It’s overwhelming like FriendFeed, but this is offset in part by neatly integrating right into GMail (which is certainly the most open tab on my browser). This means you can have a peak, or you can completely ignore it – but it will always be at your fingertips, beckoning you…
And does anyone have any doubt that “Buzz” will very soon be searchable (and from Google, no less)?
Will Buzz kill Twitter? Maybe. Maybe not.
What do you think?
Top 10 Social Media
Posted by Paul Holmes in blogging, business, personal, social media on December 1st, 2009
I have written various articles on social media in the past, and a few people have asked what my favourites are. The following list is not “the best”, nor specifically “the best for application X”, rather my favourites – those I enjoy using or gain specific benefit for using.
10. Ning’s (like Your Canada)
Ning is a really cool product that allows you to launch your own social networks around specific themes. Your Canada is an example of one I launched to add a social component to our popular Your Canada website.
9. FriendFeed
Everyone was getting excited about FriendFeed, the ultimate social media collaborator. It’s a cool tool because it let’s you tie all your social media activities into one stream. It can be a bit overwhelming though, so I find myself using it sparingly these days.
8. YouTube
Anonymity is still the name of the game on YouTube. As a result, you get poorly spelled and otherwise idiotic comments on videos all the time. This is too bad, given that it otherwise is the best place for exposure, and the tools to connect people socially are actually pretty good. The social aspects of video are still developing, and I suspect a number of other sites may take the lead in “social video” while Google focuses YouTube more on commercializing what they have (and doing this primarily by pushing sponsored videos, vs. an advertising model). Some to watch include Vimeo, DailyMotion, 12seconds.tv, Ustream.tv, blip.tv, and about a few dozen others.
7. Flickr
Yahoo! has one product that kicks ass and totally owns it’s vertical, and that is Flickr. Flickr is the best social medium for sharing photos/images. Picasa is Google’s alternative, and it is OK. A few others are Photobucket and Flixya, but they are a long way from successful at this point.
6. Digg
The DiggBar has revolutionized Digg (much to the chagrin of the ol’ skool Diggers). I use it all the time, and am a bit of a Diggaholic now. It’s a great tool for sharing interesting stuff you find on the web. It also has some great integration tools to very easily share “Dugg” stuff on Facebook and Twitter. I use Digg every single day.
5. Instant Messaging
Three years ago this was number one (followed by blogging and online forums). Three years ago, I did 100% of my instant messaging using MSN Messenger. Two years ago, 80% was MSN and 20% was GoogleTalk. Today, 50% is Facebook, 30% is GoogleTalk and 20% is MSN. As always, ICQ and AIM are 0%. Instant messaging is still a great way to get ahold of people in a hurry.
4. Blogging
I love to blog. I have at least 5 blogs I update regularly, and I love posting comments to other people’s blogs (which is what makes it a social medium). I also love WordPress; I am a total convert to the platform. I even organized a WordCamp in Victoria a few weeks ago, which was tonnes of fun.
3. Facebook
I was a Facebook holdout for ages, but have grown to like it. I like it because almost everyone I know is there. The platform itself is annoying sometimes, and frustrating at others, but they have the critical mass, so it remains a tool I continue to use, even if I use it despite itself.
2. LinkedIn
LinkedIn is great for business. At a recent presentation I gave at the University of Victoria to all of their business students, I asked several hundred students how many of them were on Facebook, and almost every hand went up. I then asked how many were on LinkedIn, and about 5 hands went up (I think a few of those hands were faculty, too). This is ashame. LinkedIn is a great tool for business, but also for career building. The guy sitting next to you in class today might be CEO of some big corporation in 10 years. Stay in touch and add them to your network on LinkedIn. I’m not sure if I got through to them or not.
LinkedIn is easy, passive and a great way to introduce people. It’s sort of like a virtual business mixer, but doesn’t require you to smile and dress nicely.
1. Twitter
Even people who love Twitter make fun of it. Twitter is an amazing tool for connecting with people and getting a message out. Through the power of the retweet, your potential network is huge. That conference I organized back in #4 above – I used Twitter as the primary medium through which to promote it, and over 100 local (and international) people showed up. Not too shabby for something people love to make fun of.
Loading ...I’ll review my list every once in awhile as my tastes change. It’ll be interesting to look back in the future and see what has changed.
I can already say that “FriendFeed” used to be much higher up the list, and I expect there is a good chance Google Wave and Foursquare will appear here in the next year or two. The influence of mobile and video (and mobile video) should introduce a few new angles to the equation, too.
A few others that I use that didn’t make the top list are Plaxo (11), Yelp (12), Identi.ca (13), Vimeo (14), Meetup (15), SlideShare (16), MySpace (17), and StumbleUpon (18). I have profiles on a few others, but don’t use them much.
I’m always happy to connect with people I know on any of these networks, see my social media links in the right column to link to my profile, or visit my Contact page.
Happy 5th Birthday Firefox!
Posted by Paul Holmes in events, internet, social media on November 11th, 2009
The Mozilla Firefox browser is 5 years old! Now that Internet Explorer isn’t nearly as awful as it once was, and Google Chrome has started to raise some eyebrows, we often forget the effect Firefox had on the world.
They made a cool site, and a cool video.
And, of course, they published it on Twitter and Facebook.
Admittedly, I use Chrome most often these days. But Firefox is still an amazing product, and perhaps one of the best examples in the world of how a great open source community can contribute to a better world – literally.
Facebook Pages and RSS – A Step-By-Step Guide
Posted by Paul Holmes in business, internet, social media on June 16th, 2009
The most annoying thing about a Facebook Page is that it is called Facebook Page. A page is not the same as your Facebook Profile, it is a separate feature that allows you to build a fan base to promote your website, brand, or company within the Facebook community.
But do any search for “Facebook Page”, and I guarantee 85% of the results will relate to the Facebook profile.
Overview
This entry is how to get your blog to feed on your Facebook Page, and is a step-by-step guide. I wish I had this a month ago, but here it is for the rest of the world.
If you do not know what a blog is, or an RSS feed is, you need to go research this, then come back here later.
Process
- Create a page in Facebook, or load your existing one (this is the easy part).
- In your page, under your image, click on “Edit Page” (sometimes Facebook forgets what page you are on, so make sure your page image and name are correct after you click – restart your browser if it doesn’t work – this is a major source of frustration in some browsers).
- Scroll down to the “Notes” application, click on the little pen icon on the right side of the screen, then select “Edit”. (Note: if “Notes” is not in the list, use “More Applications” to find it, then add it to the page.)
- To the right side of the screen (left of the ads), you will see a link titled “Import a blog”. Click this. (Note: If you have an existing feed, you can delete it by clicking on “Edit import settings”, then click on the “Stop Importing” button.)
- Enter your RSS feed URL in the “Web URL” box, click the consent checkbox, then click on “Start Importing”. (Note: Your RSS feed URL is different then your website address. In WordPress, for example, you typically add “/feed” to the end of your website address.)
- Assuming all was done correctly, a “Preview” screen appears. You must scroll to the bottom of this, then click on “Confirm Import”.
- As per item 2, go back to the “Edit Page” screen. This time, click on the pen icon next to the “Notes” application, and select “Application Settings”.
- Make sure the “Box” and “Tab” are showing as “Added” (you can configure this part of the page as you wish later). Click on the “Additional Permissions” tab, and check the “Publish to streams” item, so your blog entries will appear in your fan’s streams. Click OK.
- Wipe your brow, you’re done! Wasn’t that easy, and don’t you wish you had found this article a week ago?
Twitter RSS Feed
Twitter, technically speaking, has RSS feeds. Given Twitter’s highly volatile state, they are not terribly reliable, and often get rejected. (Perhaps they are also not technically correct RSS feeds, I’m not entirely sure – they don’t import into Facebook or Feedburner, so that’d be my guess.)
So, how the heck do you get your Tweets to import into your Facebook page easily?
I’m glad you asked, because we recently did this with our CanWire.ca Facebook Page, using FriendFeed.
- Set up a new FriendFeed Profile (I recommend using something other than your main account, as you may want to add other stuff to your personal one.)
- Import your Twitter account into FriendFeed.
- Scroll to the bottom of your FriendFeed profile page, and click on the RSS icon next to “Other ways to read this feed”.
- Copy the URL, and paste it in for item 5 above.
Media Overload
If you want to overwhelm your friends on Facebook, set up a FriendFeed account for yourself, and add all your social media sources, then use it’s RSS feed in Notes for your Facebook profile.
You could take this feed, too, and fire it into Feedburner, and allow people to subscribe to your social media as an RSS feed from your personal site.
Egad!
Twitterlebrities I don’t understand
Posted by Paul Holmes in humour, social media on May 22nd, 2009
So Oprah and Ashton Kutcher are big celebrities, and they go on Twitter, and tah-dah, they are Twitterlebrities.
Then we have the Robert Scoble’s and the Guy Kawasaki’s – the technical wizards, self-help, and marketing gurus. Celebrities in their fields.
Then we have those Twitterlebrities that just don’t make any sense. I found a few. Help me out here.
#31 – DrDrew – Some funny stuff, but I’ve never heard of him until Twitter. Why is he #31?
#58 – someecards – Uh, some e-cards.
#45 – ICHCheezburger – something about cats, eating cheeseburgers, and using very poor grammar.
#70 – sockington – A cat. Just one cat. I had a website for my cat, too … uh, in 1998.
#38 – woot – Not Arsenio Hall, but apparently some sort of shopping website. They must have given a bunch of stuff away to get that many Twitter followers.
#18 – algore – What is this? It sounds like a type of fungus.
Twitter Radio Interview
Posted by Paul Holmes in business, internet, social media on May 3rd, 2009
I was interviewed yesterday on the weekly technology program for a local news radio station, regarding Twitter.
It has certainly been awhile since I was on the radio. Lots of fun, and some super guys running the show.
Here is the edited version, in case anyone is interested…
Thoughts on Twitter Followers
Posted by Paul Holmes in social media on April 30th, 2009
Want to get 17,537 followers on Twitter in 90 days?
Umm … sure, if 17,537 people are truly interested in what I have to say.
Otherwise, what’s the point? Ego?
I’m sure some genius out there has been tracking which accounts auto-follow. And, yes, some of those accounts belong to me – namely the ones I don’t check very often.
My personal account, though? No thanks. I’d rather follow Twitter users that interest me and be followed by people who care what I have to say.
I used to think people who professed a love of “quality over quantity” were just lazy and out of touch with the medium.
I have definitely come full circle on this.
So, like what I have to say? Then, please, follow me on Twitter (@tpholmes). Let’s connect.
Don’t like what I have to say? That’s OK, I won’t be offended.
WordPress Plugins, Widgets and Must-Dos
Posted by Paul Holmes in business, internet, social media on April 27th, 2009
Now that I have so many websites running on WordPress (I count 27, but I might be missing some), and have played around with so many plug-ins, widgets and features, I figured I’d write a little article all about my experience. Maybe it will save you a headache or two in your development.
This article does not tell you how to install WordPress, the basic setup, or how to choose a template. Maybe I’ll cover these topics another day.
WordPress is a good platform for both blogs, and “traditional” websites. Many of our websites just happen to run on WordPress so people may post comments and so forth. I only have a few “blogs”, per se. Just keep in mind that different uses require different options.
Akismet
This is a comment spam filter, and it is amazing (I recently discovered 1,009 spam messages on this blog that I was completely unaware of). The only reason not to install this is if you plan on always turning off user comments. It is standard, and well worth the “hassle” of signing up for an account at WordPress.com to make it work properly.
All in One SEO Pack
If you are a hardcore SEO guru, maybe this isn’t your bag. But if you are a novice at such matters like myself, then this little SEO tool makes the process tolerable. Hopefully 1,452,822 downloaders weren’t all wrong.
Google XML Sitemaps
Another bit of gospel from the search engines is that standard sitemaps are important. Who has the time to build these stupid things? Thankfully, this sitemap building plugin does it for you!
Submit Your Blog
I guess this is also something you should do for a bit of SEO juice, or just to be found better. Here’s a list of places you could submit to: Technorati, LoadedWeb, BlogCatalog, and, well … forget the list, there are a zillion other blog directories and aggregators out there!
WP-Polls
Want to add a poll to your WordPress post? Too easy with this little tool.
WordPress iPhone Application
If you have an iPhone and a WordPress blog, this tool is not to be missed. I could not imagine writing long blog entries on my phone, but certainly updates and short entries while on the go. This application requires XML-RPC to be enabled in Settings, Writing.
RSS and Social Bookmarking
There are many different ways to add this to your site. A link directly to your feed page with an RSS image, perhaps? Hook it up to FeedBurner so you can track subscriptions? One cool utility is AddThis.
Twitter Integration
I fell in love with Tweetmeme Button because it very cleanly adds a little Tweet Counter and Retweet option to every one of your posts. One drawback is that it doesn’t promote YOUR twitter account in it, it promotes theirs. But for the novelty and convenience factor, this is A1.
I use the nifty, simple TwitterCounter Badge in a few places.
Of course, you can insert your Twitter posts nicely into your blog with a little snippet of code on the sidebar.
A good old-fashioned graphic linked to your Twitter page is still a nice touch.
PHP Code Integration
Want to run PHP code from within WordPress? You could spend 6 hours trying out a bunch of plug-ins or work-arounds (like I did), or you could download Exec-PHP which works flawlessly, and with little effort.
Make Your Blog Talk
Completely non-essential, but hours of fun. The Odiogo Listen Button plugin brings your blog to life!
Adding Community Features like Google Friend Connect
WordPress has it’s own built-in community of sorts – through comments. Is this good enough? The jury is out. Then there is Google Friend Connect, Yahoo!’s MyBlogLog, and even Twitter Remote.
I’m kind of impressed with MyBlogLog, though I cannot seem to get it working perfectly yet. Imagine that: Yahoo doing something right!
There are actually dozens of these widgets and people aggregators out there, so be sure not to put too many on, and slow your website down to a crawl!
Note: if you use the Google Friend Connect bar along the bottom of your blog, be sure to have enough space in your footer so that content doesn’t get cut off (behind the bar).
Feedback
I’m keen to keep this article updated. Did you find anything useful? Do you have anything useful that should be added? Please comment!
My Latest Twitter Applications
Posted by Paul Holmes in business, humour, internet, social media on April 10th, 2009
After using Twitter for 28 days, I wrote an article about all the cool stuff I did with it. Since then, well, I went a little crazy.
- For the Victoria Flower Count, we set up the website so that it would announce all the incoming counts on Twitter. This was fun, but it got a little crazy some days … next year we’ll do some sort of digest-style reporting instead.
- In conjunction with our Canadian News Aggregator, CanWire.ca, we launched a wireless edition – Canada’s Mobile News Aggregator at commuter.ca. It syndicates the same breaking news, but in a much friendlier format for iPhones, BlackBerries and other mobile devices. We also tweet CanWire.ca headlines in real time. We use our own URL shortener, tweeting.ca, for the headlines.
- Our Twitter-based Instant Restaurant Advisor is still going strong, of course you can find this on Twitter too.
- For our web design division, we are syndicating our Twitter updates directly into the web design blog. This isn’t rocket science anymore. We Tweeted out a call for people to vote on a new design for one of our websites. We had some great feedback.
- Last, and certainly least, we launched a for-fun site called Twoater. It is like Twitter, only twoats have a maximum of 20 characters, and no vowels or zeroes. Why? Hey, why not! Join the 20-character revolution! Best of all, you can Twoat to Twitter. Now say that 20 times fast!
- I now have 472 “followers”, and follow even more than that – there’s just some amazing content streaming in all the time from all kinds of sources. All told, I’m now involved with (to some extent or another) 11 Twitter accounts.
Best of all, this Twitter stuff is incredibly fun!
Smartest Twitter Spam Ever
Posted by Paul Holmes in advertising, internet, politics, social media on March 25th, 2009
We’ve all had “spam followers” on Twitter. Presumably this is done to promote websites and products. Most of it is idiotic, and the accounts get closed pretty quickly. I just discovered one, however, that impressed me greatly. Some smarter spammer out there came up with this.
At the risk of educating spammers, I have reviewed some Twitter spam to help educate ordinary folks who use Twitter. Here it is:
Where are the updates?
In detecting a spam account, the most obvious bit is no updates and following lots of people. This spammer solved this with the following update:
i just deleted my old updates. i don’t like living in the past. lol
Where is the picture and website link?
Twitter reviews pictures and website links. If you are spamming, it’s a great way to ensure your account gets manually reviewed. This spammer clearly knew this.
But lots of people follow this person.
Spammers have started to track the “auto-followers”. It wouldn’t be hard to figure it out. Follow somebody and see if they follow back 30 seconds later. In order to appear not to be “spam”, this spammer followed all the auto-followers first.
Demographics.
Most Twitter users are male (I’ve seen demographic stats all over the map, actually, so this is actually a “best guess”). Nonetheless, males are probably more likely to follow absolute strangers than women. This person chose the name “Kristen”, which implies “female” and “under 40″. Judging by the text (no capitals, poor punctuation, “lol”, they were trying to appear younger). And what red-blooded Twitter male gentleman isn’t going to want to follow a young lady named Kristen from Miami.
The Spam.
They waited about 9 hours before updates. It appears more natural than one that’s 5 seconds after the other – then none for days after that. In the second update, they put the spam. And it says nothing about the site itself, other than her “sweetheart” sent it to her.
So, how do I know this is spam?
Well, I’m guessing. I suppose it’s possible this is a real person with something interesting to say that happened to delete all her old updates. I’m just guessing it’s highly unlikely. Spam rating: 8/10.
Social Media
Network
