TweetDeck has come out with a 3 column interface for the iPhone as seen here.
Granted, I am obsessed with twitter but I’m also not big on scrolling the standard interface. I’m more the “has it running in the background” guy that checks periodically for updates from groups, @’s, and DM’s. I see this as a viable option for the on the go time.
I admit, I just titled it that way because I like the song. Beatles… they’re like a warm hug from a long lost family member. Moving on…
For those who’ve been wondering about my lack of posts, fear not, I have been writing, just for other people. The first of these guest appearances will be at UpYourSocial.com on or around Thursday, June 18th. Kyle Judkins of Lost In Technology was kind enough to allow me a submission on his new social media blog. Want to know more? You’ll just have to go visit. I would suggest visiting now and acclimating to the site and subject matter. It’s good stuff.
Another place you’ll find me regularly is on the Organizational Champions Forum. They’ve recently updated their site to include several interactive features and I highly recommend taking a look, setting up a profile, and getting involved in the movement. There are a lot of smart people hanging around that forum and they will make you think. Tell them Jay sent you.
With nothing more for the moment, I leave you with a joke…
A young executive was leaving the office late one evening, when he finds the CEO standing in front of a shredder with a piece of paper in his hand. “Listen,” said the CEO, “this is a very sensitive and important document here, and my secretary has gone for the night. Can you make this thing work for me?” “Certainly,” the young executive says. He turns the machine on, inserts the paper, and presses the start button. “Excellent, excellent!” says the CEO as his paper disappeared inside the machine. “I just need one copy.
Have a great day and don’t take life too seriously.
Today is a perfect example of how social networking should work. There are engaging conversations going on at Twitter, linkups being made on LinkedIn, Facebook is all abuzz with talk of the weekend and projects and all of this is going on between people that until last night knew each other only by screen name and avatar.
A quick background:
For those that missed it, last night was the world release party for The Organizational Champion, a book and movement started by Mike Thompson of SVI. To date, the book, site, and movement have been marketed through social media networks to quite an impact, thanks in part to Murray Williams (@MurDog), communications director of SVI. I came to know Murray via mutual friend on Twitter and quickly became wrapped up in the pre-release blog, podcast, and twitter chats. Through these mediums I also came to know Mike and a host of others that have contributed to the Champions movement, all in 140 characters or less. You can click on the image above to see my pictures from the even.
Last night we all met and let me tell you, the energy in the room was amazing. I have to tell you that the meetings and introductions were a bit clumsy on my part because I already (kind of) knew the people I was introducing myself to… sort of. We expanded conversations beyond the 140 mark on several occasions and learned a lot about each other and our respective lives, dare I say “IRL”. Rockfish was a phenomenal host and a good time was had by all, but back to the point of all this, the proper function of social networking.
Social networking brought this varied and dynamic group of people together and even expanded the group in public, in person thus growing the social networks of all, as early as this morning. I think that some people forget that, in most cases, there is a person on the other end of a Tweet. Closing the laptop and stepping out into the world for social events like this, tweet-ups, and Social Media Club meetings puts the social back in social networking.
I read an article tonight on social networking and its influence on modern business and started considering the rolls of various networks and how they’ve changed in recent months. Twitter started out as a glorified text messaging tool that now hosts most of the big players in the corporate world. Facebook has made the jump from college MySpace to corporate connector as much, if not more than LinkedIn. All this said, I offer my second poll:
As my network on Twitter has grown the question of quality has come more to light. I’m good at skimming TweetDeck for a couple of minutes and getting the gist of today’s trends among my friends and the twitterverse but the staggering growth of random comments and twitter spam (twam? Spitter… yeah, let’s go with Spitter) can be, at best a distraction and at worst, a good way to waste an afternoon trying not to miss your real friends’ tweets.
So now the question arises of whom should you follow? Everyone is different and uses Twitter for unique reasons. I look at it as a way to connect with like-minded industry types and local social media and ad types, which means I’ve got some serious cleaning to do. Here is my cleansing strategy. It’s loose but effective.
The Sniper approach – This is where most of my casualties of followership have occurred. During the day I’ve typically got either TweetDeck or the TwitterGadget for iGoogle running. As those I follow break my cardinal rules (20 posts in a row, consistent “get 16k followers overnight” posts, etc.) I unfollow. It’s an active pursuit and you have to be monitoring but it’s better than going line-by-line on your following list.
The Time-to-Burn approach – As the title suggests, this is one of those rotting in front of the television on a rainy Sunday afternoon while the kids are napping activities. It’s also recommended that you have a movie you’ve seen a million times running in the background. All you do is open your following list and scan down the list, line-by-line, page-by-page, unfollowing any and all that appear to be spammers. They’re usually easy to find. Usernames like @12kfromtwitter or @asdfjhsaduew (names are made up, but you get the point) are a dead give away.
The Anti-Social Networking approach – are you the victim of your own early naivety? You’re following any and everyone from an early attempt to gain followers and now you miss the few and far between messages from the 6 people you actually want to hear from every day? Maybe you need a clean slate. While I don’t recommend it, there are tools out there that will let you unfollow everyone on your list. Take a look at the Mutuality tool from Huitter (http://www.huitter.com/mutuality/). This tool will allow you to unfollow everyone on your list, those who don’t follow you, and even make sure you’re following everyone who’s following you (not recommended). The trick here is to view the report upon completion and re-follow those you actually wanted to keep hearing from.
These are just a few ideas on maintaining a healthy network on Twitter. I find twitter infinitely more enjoyable with a well groomed following list. Remember, twitter is like proper diet, Garbage in = Garbage out. Get focused and you’ve got yourself a powerful tool.
For those that have yet to find this browser, pop an Adderall and try to keep up. Here’s the skinny. This browser was put together for that 95th percentile user that lives, breaths, and sleeps via LAN connection. It comes boxed to handle all your social networks, tabbed browsing, multiple search engine capability, and tool bars to quickly and cleanly display all you need to know all the time.
It will, in fact, make your brain sweat the first few times you use it but you learn quickly to turn on only what you need and keep the rest a click away. I keep mine plugged into several of my most favorite info sources but have yet to plug the thing completely in. As of right now, this is what Flock is running on my laptop:
There’s room for several more connections but these are the ones I use the most. I like the sidebar for streaming my people comments from Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Flickr, and MySpace and the top media bar for the latest and greatest from either YouTube or flickr photostreams from my favorite people. Those running with my typical 3-5 tabs and I am a happy guy. Everything I need on a regular basis is visible and easy to reach.
Adversely, you can build most of this functionality into FireFox with their long list of add-ons and some people prefer that as it tends to eat a little less memory than Flock running wide open. I’m more of a turn-key kind of guy on browsers. Should I decide to expand though, most FireFox extensions work perfectly on Flock. I learned that from their support guys that camp out on Twitter, and I didn’t even seek them out.
So there you have it; fun product that’s expandable and comes free with great customer support. Sign me up! Try it out by downloading here: http://www.flock.com
Funny t-shirts are a guilty pleasure of mine despite the fact that I only wear them when I’m working in the yard. Regardless, despair.com has done it again. This is one of those “funny because there’s a little truth in it” shirts.
Take a look at their latest designs and buy a couple. They’re always a good ice breaker at your next Tweetup!
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