June 30th - Relevant Links
Sunday, June 29th, 2008Sharing the links for the day:
June 25th - Relevant Links
Wednesday, June 25th, 2008Sharing the links for the day:
Dozens, Hundrends and Thousands OH MY!
Tuesday, May 27th, 2008I was talking to some friends of mine the other day and pondering what I should do here on this blog, mainly for input, since I can’t seem to figure it out myself. Ultimately I find myself continuously in search of an original idea - not a whole lot of those out there these days, if any. It’s not so much the amount of available content, as it is the amount of non-original content centered on the modest number of content opportunities which exist. So I’ve been on this particular task for a couple of weeks since I realized that I want to participate online differently - specifically on a more personal level.
The main reason for the discussion in general, was my current ability to scale. I’m personally finding it difficult to scale with quality. In general, I think social media has a scale issue, not just from a technology framework perspective, but also as you focus on it as a topic theme. I think in general most topics/areas of focus have content scale issues, but the issue in social media is more acute.
A quick content analysis of key folks appears to validate that there are just a good deal on non-events and events which are leveraged to go back to the bag of tricks and highlight a key concept. Not a bad thing, in fact upon review some of the best writers in the social media space are effectively recycling content every 3-6 months in context of the latest Twitter outage or which new platform is where the cool kids should hang out at.
Back to the task…
Fundamentally how to scale a set of activities is always an interesting thought experiment and made for an interesting afternoon for the group. We circled the topic for a while and I paused to check twitter - glad I did. Wouldn’t ya know - the Gods of the Twitterverse presented a series of tweets by Amanda Chapel in the stream which addressed the scale issue. I have to paraphrase the tweet in question with over 140 characters, since the back function is disabled due to Twitter “stressing out”/service issues.
The cost of obtaining a customer/the profitability of the initial transaction is greatly diluted by the cost of service delivery over time. The delivery of customer service doesn’t scale.
True Enough! Sales transactions are the easy things for the most part of any initiative. We actually discussed this tweet for a while in and out of the context of blogging. A very productive exchange - each had their personal insights on the topic with a mix of varying industry experiences, company sizes and diverse set of current roles: operational, strategic and creative. So this one cat offers up the following:
Technology businesses are aren’t about the transactions, but the repeatable transactions and supportability of the revenue. Anyone can sell something to dozens, some folks can sell to hundreds, but the market leaders can sell AND support 1000’s.
So I’ve realized I’ve encountered a scale issue with how I’m participating online and I’ve seen a great number of businesses which have the same issues. Great ideas, great product, crazy transactional revenues, but no ability to scale the business. With the general realization/acceptance that blogging is no different, I’ll contiue my gedankenexperiment on focusing my content, but at least I have 3 questions I’m going to work:
- What content do I consume and where do I participate online? Quick quick scan indicates technology, people & the environment.
- What passions do I have? Family, politics, education and science.
- Where are there 1000’s? Where are there 1000’s of things to track? 1000’s of interested people?
Ideas?
May 11th - Relevant Links
Sunday, May 11th, 2008Sharing the links for the day:
May 1st - Relevant Links
Thursday, May 1st, 2008Sharing the links for the day:
April 6th - Relevant Links
Sunday, April 6th, 2008here you go:
Relevant Links for March 14th through March 16th
Sunday, March 16th, 2008Relevant links for March 14th through March 16th:
- Urban Review STL » Blog Archive » Big Picture versus Little Picture -
- 10 Questions Every Blogger Should Ask Themselves Before Posting - I promise I will do this in the future.
- How to Grow Your Blog with Viral Copy - A reasonable problogger piece.
- CICLing-2008 Conference - the International Conference on Intelligent Text Processing and Computational Linguistics? Really?!? Cool website -text.
Twitter is not just a toy - it’s a tool - 5 ways to USE it
Sunday, March 16th, 2008So I continue to just be amazed with the increasing value of Twitter for me as a person. Twitter is helping me be less verbose, although you can’t tell from my posts and it continues to expose me to new folks, ideas and online resources I would have never known about without Twitter. That being said, the Big Bang of the Twitterverse continues to expand the population at an amazing rate, it is increasingly becoming a the platform of choice for communication for many folks.
Twitter-centric content is everywhere! I am easily able to find posts on Twitter which are rewarding and provide for a better understanding of the value of the platform, but there are increasing number of ideas around effective Twitter management which is an interesting twist. The growing number of how to better manage the stream recommendations are not only interesting, but confirmation that the community is evolving. Perhaps the most honest piece on managing the stream I have read is Dopp’s. (If you haven’t read the Juice you should, the content is amazingly honest and insightful - not the kinda stuff you will find here.) Tips, tricks and how to’s are becoming a staple when it comes to Twitter references online.
With the changing landscape on Twitter there is a growing amount of content espousing the good, the bad and the indifferent on the benefits of the platform. The worst post I have seen so far has to be How to Increase your Twitter following by 438% in 30 Days.
Despite the Twitter land grab underway, the utility of Twitter is still non-trivial. With the recent increase in reliability and the platform stabilization of late, which is much needed with the increasing visibility; there is a growing need to understand the use of the platform by new folks. The community does self-monitor and reject poor form, but it will take some time for users to push back against the over crowding, so anything that help improve the usage hopefully is a good thing. So how can you use twitter as a tool for more effective communication? Below are 5 areas for consideration to improve your Twitter experience:
- Listen and Participate: People are on Twitter to connect. No, really… use twitter to express and share. If someone in your group asks a question and you have input, respond - that’s sorta why they asked. You may want to listen for a while until you participate, your call.
- Use it for a Place to Get Ideas: The people in your stream will amaze you with their creativity and insight in <140 characters. Actively use the information and the links shared to understand more about what interest you and your followers. You just might find a topic or two which you can share with others or even blog about.
- Meet New People and Develop Relationships: You will find people on Twitter who will expand your network and your understanding of a topic or a region - it will also expand others views of you and your region.
- A Place to Find Stuff: This could be content you are looking for or other stuff, such as restaurants or other things to do. I’ve been reminded I need to go see a movie and how much fun an afternoon at a museum can be.
- People Watch: Sometimes passive is good. More than likely there will be many folks in your network that you won’t engage, but just watch. That’s ok, just because I don’t play with some of my kid’s toys, doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy watching them play with them.
Need to understand a little more about twitter? Here’s a brief little video for you:
Have fun with your new shiny toy and find a way to make it useful and productive for your and your friends.
