Did you know 4.0: The new age of media is here

If anybody still discredits social media, they might want to watch this:

Via Justin Spratt

How to save Twitter from being killed by Celebs

Twitter is a microblogging platform that has recently grown at a incredible pace, with more than 10 million current users. It is one of those ideas that is hard to understand for someone who has not used it before (that someone can be anyone). What recently started to happen is that celebrities are pouncing at it in droves. Think about Ashton Kutcher (who posts pictures of his wife’s bum), Oprah (like she does not have enough TV viewers) and P Diddy (who posts the most irritating, self important tweets ever) – they are joining this service because it is another way for them to contact their fans.

Twitter users traditionally used the service to contact like-minded individuals who would post messages of interest that would encourage interaction. Know the same individuals who purchase Hello or Heat are seeing this platform thinking – hey, another way to see what’s going on in Britney’s life! Lets join!

The true value of twitter is only apparent once you start posting tweets other people care about. Following every celebrity and never forming your own “community” will very quickly make the system a “has been” fad.

John C Dvorak, in his infinite provactive wisdom makes the very good point that instead of having a natural growth, the system is currently overloaded by certain key individuals who I mentioned who are not using twitter in the way it was intended. The system is used currently as another marketing channel which will ultimately make the system fail, especially if it becomes another spam channel. Perhaps twitter’s biggest mistake is the system recommending you “suggested” users.

Here is my idea:

I think a better idea is to tag users in say 5 categories that they can choose. I for example might tag myself as: technology, social media, south africa, blogger, mountain biking. In this way, like minded individuals (which is the success to twitter happiness) can quickly connect to one another through a smarter “suggested” list.

Also, perhaps another way to prevent “celebrity” fever is to systematically prevent insane growth of followers for certain individuals, for example, those with more than 10,000 followers. The only way their numbers grow is by them following more people. This will prevent twitter from becoming a one way communication channel for some people. Take this for example – how often do you get a reply from a celeb? Does that really belong in a well designed social network? Twitter should encourage users who actually create value for other users, and not put one way communicators in its suggested list. For example I use twitter grader to find people in my area who are highly rated – highly rated does not mean high number of followers. These are individuals who tweet regularly, reply and use twitter in the way it was intended.

Maybe twitter can look at a algorithim that can push you up in ranks according to how well you use the system (similiar to Twitter Grader). This will put all users on a level playing field.

So if you are joining twitter remember to tweet about something you believe others will read – and dont use it only to follow celebrities. You realize pretty quickly they do the same lame things you do, but get paid more.

Any other ideas? Or alternatively follow me at @mpieters

Harsh but Fair: Why your opinion of the new facebook design does not matter

In middle March 09 Facebook underwent major changes in its layout. While they make changes on a regular basis, the recent change is currently under sharp criticism. Instead of running on tabs like the previous version, the newsfeed is now divided into your contacts list groups – for example work, friends etc. While the “organizational” fundamental idea is fine, users are having major problems navigating the new design. It is fundamentally a twitter clone in that the newsfeed is a basically made up of status messages.

There is currently a app on facebook that enables users to vote whether they like the new design, and so far more than 624,000 comments have been made against the site. The first challenge is that the status message bar does not quite make sense – they changed the name “whats on your mind”, which is again very similiar twitter’s “what are you doing?”

The sad fact of the matter is that twitter is successful, but not making money. It is currently running on venture capital, and is it is one giant sink hole for funds. Facebook is taking the best elements of twitter while still trying to make it a sustainable network.

In a recent policy change (in which Facebook basically insinuated that whatever data you enter into facebook will belong to them, and not be deleted if you delete your account), the public were outraged (many users closed their account). This prompted Facebook to quickly change back their policies, with Facebook proclaiming “the customer is king”. So if users are king, and facebook respects their opinion, why keep the “stupid” new design?

There is the opinion that once a site becomes part of many people’s lives, they should perhaps listen to its users. After all, they will know best right?

Wrong. Facebook has gone out of its way to keep up to new trends in social networks. What is it that makes twitter so successful is its news feed that is constantly updating, which prompts users to retweet or reply, which keeps a conversation busy. Facebook is typically not a very “conversation” friendly platform – true, it supports chat, but chats do not make money. It is for this very reason that facebook is suddenly giving you choices like “I like this” or “comment on this” much more prominently than before on the news feed. After all, the more opinions there are on a post, the more interaction it promotes which – wait for it – has the potential to make more money out of you. So actually, the average Facebook user’s opinion is not listened to at all when it comes to user interface. Harsh, but (rightly so) fair.

Twitter really needs to address its money issues, and they need to be creative in the way they do it. While it is currently not ad-supported or asking subscription fees, the sad truth is that is eventually it has to something. A well placed, context sensitive ad that pops in every few minutes might actually not harm the user experience at all. Google can of course buy Twitter (they already bought it’s main rival, Jaiku) and it can be one very beneficial tool for both parties with Google gaining massive ad revenue from a very popular social network.

Because after all, which business is going to succeed? The money-slurping media darling or the one that actually keeps making money (which in turn keeps on improving the product hopefully?)

Update: Seems that Defamer, of all sites, has a pretty good read on this issue. They also mention the following:

A tipster tells us that Zuckerberg sent an email to Facebook staff reacting to criticism of the changes: “He said something like ‘the most disruptive companies don’t listen to their customers.’” Another tipster who has seen the email says Zuckerberg implied that companies were “stupid” for “listening to their customers.” The anti-customer diktat has many Facebook employees up in arms, we hear.

Blogging tools I use, Updated

Updated on 16 March

These days its pretty easy to get a blog started – you can open one on wordpress or blogspot and and keep a log of anything you feel someone would like to read. Or you can even consider twitter a method of (micro)blogging. However, it can become quite a hassle to open up the platform’s website and type out a post. Sometimes inspiration can come at any moment, and you need to be prepared. So here goes my list of best blogging tools.

PC/Mac:

Scribefire: This is a tool that acts as a plugin to firefox which quickly opens up a editing window, and all your past posts in a easy to use pane on the bottom of the screen. Seeing as it comminucates with your blog’s API – be it blogspot or wordpress, it gives a user quite a lot of flexibility to quickly and easily upgrade a blog’s effectiveness. For example, cross linking to a different post on your post is as easy as selecting it on the right on pasting the URL as hyperlink in you current post. Much more effective than using a web platform editor. The Windows client version is not as stable as on the Mac, but works nonetheless.

Also handy is the promotion and monetizing tools that can help any would be blogger enhance their site. Must have.

Tweetdeck: After using Twitteriffic and Twirhl, Tweetdeck is a breath of fresh air. The interface is well designed, and intuitive. Dont even look at other clients. Tweetdeck divides its window into feed, reply messages and direct messages (but you can obviously customize this). This makes it easy to filter out all the junk. A built in URL shortener functionality works well, giving you a variety of services to use. Disadvantages – its a Adobe AIR app, so you need to obviously download AIR.

Mobile:

None: I am currently using a iPhone and I am actually alarmed at the lack of a proper blogging client for the device. While there does exist a wordpress client that is free and is decently made, I cant seem to find a decent blogger/blogspot app. Users can still of course use the Mail to Blogger which seems to work well enough. Shozu (link witheld to save you trouble) is supposedly capable, and is certainly pretty, but is so buggy, it deserves no spot on the appstore. It is available for Symbian as well, but equally buggy.

Have any ideas? Have you used a good blogspot capable client for the iPhone?

Twitterific / Twitterfon: (both available form AppStore) Both of these clients work well, but twitterfon seems to be more fully featured. Twitteriffic lacks the basic ability of following a new person – how can it be possible. Maybe I am missing a feature somewhere. Twitteriffic does however have a better looking dark UI which is nicer on the iPhone screen.

Tweetie: Tweetie might actually be the first application on the app that is worth paying for. The interface is smooth, reacts quickly and easy to use. If you are a active twitter user, you need to take a look at tweetie. True, it is $3, but is worth it. It is just in a completely different league.

Well there you have the blogging tools I use (or lack!)… Any ideas?

The merit of Twitter

Call me anything, but I would not say I am a luddite. Except when it comes to twitter. I am really having a tough time finding a productive use for it. I started to use it actively this week – although I use it more to follow tech pundits in the US – like Paul Thurrott, Leo Laporte, Jason Calacanis, Kevin Rose etc. It is great for that little bit. But to twitter posts on myself is something I dont quite get yet.

At least with a facebook status all my actual friends can actually see what I am upto or thinking. Twitter is a little different – I inputted my Google address book details and it did not find one single person I know on twitter (this is out of a list of more than 500 people). So even if I do update my status in twitter, who is going to see it? I have started to get a few followers, but I have to continually question what exactly am I contributing their lives?

One area I can see twitter maybe being useful is if you are trying to self promote your web presence. After putting myself on twitter my site visits have gone up quite a bit in only a short few hours – so if only for that, I might actually make an effort to update my twitter status.

Here is a good article on the merits of twitter.