Fun Findings In The Twitter Ecosystem

I spent some time exploring the Twitter ecosystem over the Thanksgiving holiday and the past couple of weeks and found some fun, interesting and very useful Twitter tools and information sources:

• The first is Julia Roy's, A Digital Girl Blog show Tweet Week. She delivers a quick overview of the week on Twitter including gossip, what's hot, and cool new tools and apps. Spend 5 minutes a week with her for a fun and irreverent show. She typically uploads new episodes on Mondays.

• Another fun find this week is CelebrityTweet. A place where you can "Stalk Celebrities on Twitter." Fun place to hang out and check in on people like Shaquille O'neal, Kathy Griffin and Al Gore .... to name but a few.

• If you are interested in your Karma on Twitter, check out Twitter Karma. A very cool service that shows you who is following you, who you are following, and who falls into the mutual friend category. It is a great way to view your Twitter network.

• Mr. Tweet is another interesting service that analyzes who you are following and who is following you and determines who you should consider following amongst your followers and adjacent network. A lot of fun and it helps you find interesting and influential people to follow.

There were also some interesting posts this week from Beth Harte and Tim O'Reilly that I highly recommend:

• Beth Harte broached the subject Is Social Media Scalable? This post inspired many insightful comments and a lively discussion.

• Tim O'Reilly wrote a heartfelt and in-depth post titled Why I Love Twitter. Again creating a lively discussion that as of 12/01/08 had 76 comments.

These were but a few of the interesting sites, services, blog posts and Twitter tweets I observed. Send me any you find to my Twitter address or leave a comment on this blog.

ScobleizerTV - The Half Life Of An Online Conversation

This is an insightful perspective on how long conversation subjects last today by Robert Scoble. "Our systems are making the half life of a conversation shorter and more difficult to search and find" and "Comments increase the half life of any given conversation" are important concepts to understand as blogging and micro-blogging evolve. The power of the comment is growing everyday in the subject half-life conversation equation.

As more corporations consider entering the social media marketing arena, they must understand these concepts. Social Media only works if you are persistent and consistent. As the half life of the conversation grows shorter and shorter, it is the deployment of personnel, not financial resources, that become the most important component of a social media marketing strategy. This causes increased complexity in the integrated marketing planning process because the brand is now relying on employees to not only be strong executioners of the plan but also as content developers and deployers across the social media ecosystem.

Keeping employees engaged in this process can end up being the most challenging. Everyone is excited during the first 3, 6 or 12 months, but after that the process of constantly having to develop new, compelling content or having to search for relevant posts, positive to the brand, and making comments often becomes burdensome. That is why it is important to develop incentives, awards and recognition so that they know the work and process are valuable and valued.

Finally, the shortening of the half life of the conversation also poses challenges to search. Finding the important content and the context surrounding it are currently very difficult, as Robert Scoble points out in his video. If search services can help to increase the half life and thus add more value back to the conversation, we all will benefit. Some conversations truly need to have a longer half life, others not, but the community, as it should, usually has the final say through selection and prioritization by commenting, posting, tweeting, texting, vlogging, blogging and searching.

Take about 12 minutes to watch this video and think about where this is all going.

My Resume As Interpreted By TagCrowd

So, now that I tried it with Wordle, thought I would look around for other word cloud services. Here is another interpretation of my resume from TagCrowd:

award brand business campaign com corporate customer development driving efile electronic executive filing generated global gov including industry interactive irs launch led management marketing media million model network presentations press process product program project redesign returns revenues server services site social software strategic strategy systems tax team technology web www

created at TagCrowd.com

My Resume As Interpreted By Wordle

I decided to have some fun and enter my resume into Wordle to see what it would make of my career. See below for the results. If you want to have some fun, copy and past your resume into Wordle to see how it interprets your career.

Mobile's Role in Eighth Mass Media

This is an excellent presentation on the power of social media and the networking effect.

Mobile's Role in Eighth Mass Media

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: mobile media)

New Wordle Poster Based On del.icio.us Tags

Here is another cool Wordle I created based on my del.icio.us tags.

TAG - Technology Association of Georgia Speaking Engagement

I will be speaking at the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG) on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2008 in Atlanta, GA. The topic is "Consulting 2.0 .... it's all about the customer." The discussion will focus on the following statement:

"The proliferation of Web 2.0 tools is in top gear, countless number of platforms are available out there. Early adopters of these tools are practically creating a new type of “digital divide”, those who are in Web 2.0, and those who are not."

Should be an interesting panel and conversation.

Web 2.0 Summit 2008 - Kevin Kelly Video - Web Past & Future

Kevin Kelly delivers insightful perspective on the past and future of the Internet. All data will be shared, stored in the global machine, accessible by all with sharing adding the power. A take on Charlene Li's quote of "social networking will be like air" could go "information will be like air." This is a very cool concept and opens all types of entrepreneurial, strategic, service and product opportunities. Take 15 minutes to watch this thoughtful video.

The Break Up - www.bringtheloveback.com

Charlene Li showed this video during her presentation at Google on Social Media and its impact on marketing. It is a good, quick view on that changing relationship. Advertisers need to engage with consumers, not interrupt the conversation. Microsoft commissioned the development of this ad.

Authors@Google: Charlene Li - Social Networks Will Be Like Air

This is a fantastic presentation by Charlene Li on the latest in social media marketing. She makes excellent points about the future of Social Networking and Media - "they will be like air" - completely surrounding and embracing us.

More on Charlene Li can be found at:

The Altimeter Group

Charlene Li Blog

And The Altimeter Wiki where she lists social media resources (consultants, agencies and thought leaders):

The Altimeter Group Wiki