Graeme Thickins on Tech

Reflections & analysis about innovation, technology, startups, investing, healthcare, and more .... with a focus on Minnesota, Land of 10,000 Lakes. Blogging continuously since 2005.

Category: The Web & Web 2.0 (Page 13 of 41)

Is Twitter Affecting Blog Frequency? An Excellent Discussion…

May 26, 2008 / / 2 Comments

A question keeps popping up for me: is "micro" blogging (as in Twittering) affecting "macro" blogging (as in what you’re looking at here)? I say it definitely is slowing down the frequency of regular blogging, because people are just spending so much time on Twitter — well, the rabid early adopters, anyway. But many of these happen to be long-time bloggers, too. So, Twitter’s bound to have an effect on how often they blog.  I also touched on this in a post a few weeks ago: Blogging Less, Twittering More.
But then I saw a discussion on FriendFeed a few days ago, which you see here in the graphic. [Okay, it took me a few days to post it because I was Twittering….and FriendFeeding.]  Twitteringcutsblogging_2

The comments to this post certainly tell the tale, confirming my own suspicions. By the way, I don’t know any of these people, including the poster, Veronica — but, yes, through the magic of Web 2.0, they’re all my "friends" now… 🙂

The original blog post that Veronica dugg on Digg was this one from Ryan Block, the editor-in-chief of Engadget: Does Twittering Mean You Blog Less?

By the way, if you want to keep up with me on Twitter, just go here and follow me: www.twitter.com/graemethickins.  And to subscribe to my FriendFeed, go here: http://friendfeed.com/graemethickins. There quite a discussion now going on amongst the digerati as to whether FriendFeed will overtake Twitter, with all the downtime and scaling problems the latter is having.  I even questioned in a recent tweet whether FriendFeed might be bought by Google (which would be interesting, since it was founded by ex-Googlers).

What do you think? Do you like one over the other? Have you even tried either one? Does any of this matter, or it is all just about the kool kids trying to find the next fad?

General Mills, Target, Best Buy, and Fingerhut Bare Their Social Media Souls

May 15, 2008 / / 1 Comment

I blogged about a big event here in Minneapolis last night, featuring four of our larger hometown brands (well, three, plus one pretty big direct-marketer you may have also heard of). The topic was social media, and you can tell it was hot by this shot I grabbed with my iPhone of the very crowed room. Mimasocmedia051408
My post about it is over at my NewMediaWise blog, because that’s where I talk more about marketing and all the changes happening in that field. The session was excellent, if for no other reason than I felt the panelists were sincere and candid in their remarks, and yet had as many questions as answers. It wasn’t fluff or BS — I think we heard what’s really on their minds, and they got us thinking about how much more still needs to be done….by big brands as well as small.

Thanks to our great local interactive marketing organization — MIMA.org — for putting on this gig.  They said it was the largest of any of their regular monthly meetings to date.  Hot topic, and lots of good networking before and after.  I had the opportunity to chat at length with two of the panelists afterwards, Jim Cuene of General Mills and Gary Koelling of Best Buy, and also to meet several other folks as well.

Tell ya what, after experiencing Minnebar on May 10 and MIMA on May 14, I’ll say this…..this town is rockin’ this spring!!

Can Twittering Add Value?

May 13, 2008 / / 4 Comments

Apparently so, based on two recent studies.  In the first, I’m once again honored to be included in a ranking by the Technobabble 2.0 blog, which is written by Jonny Bentwood, an analyst relations guru at Edelman PR in the UK. His latest ranking is called the Top Analyst Twitters (Micro-Bloggers).  Topanalysttwitterslogo
Earlier this year, my blog was chosen (for the second time) as one of his Top 100 Analyst Blogs, and now it’s great to be recognized in this newest ranking — at #18. As Bentwood said in his latest post, "It is not a massive shock that the people who have scored highest are the same as those who use blogging to great affect."

Technobabble’s methodology for its Twitter ranking was based on four data points, which were then weighted. Topanalysttwitterslist_2
The data points were 1) number of followers; 2) number of updates, which is what posts are called on Twitter; 3) conversation, or how many people have engaged in conversation with each analyst; and 4) "Technobabble points,"  the only personal, subjective measure in the algorithm, said Bentwood, with those scoring the highest in this category "having frequent, relevant, and high-quality content — asking questions, posting links or commenting on discussions." The following weightings were then used to come up with each analyst’s score: Followers=30%, Updates=15%, Conversations=30%, and Technobabble Points=25%.

In an earlier study, a few weeks ago, Louis Gray asked What’s Your Twitter Noise Ratio?  He said this in his blog post, explaining how he came to do his study: "I feel there are different categories of Twitter users, from those who
have a listening audience, measured by a high ‘followers’ to ‘updates’
ratio, those who are engaging, seen with near equal ‘followers’ and ‘updates’, and those who are more noisy, with a lot more ‘updates’ than
actual ‘followers’."

He explained how he did his analysis: "Taking a look at 48 Twitter users I either
follow or engage with, I found the average number of ‘tweets’ per ‘follower’ was almost exactly 1, measuring at 1.02. But the ratio of
updates to followers varied widely, from the sleepy 0.06 to the firehose-like 9.75."  I left a comment on Louis’ post, noting I was very glad to see, upon calculating my tweets-to-follower ratio, that it was 4.84, ranking me quite high in his "Converationalists" category.

In another article just published today, How Valuable Are You on Twitter?, Daniel Terdiman of CNet examines the topic from some other angles, including Twitter coverage of the China earthquake, and citing the opinions of other some leading observers and Twitterers in regard to measuring the value of this new micro-blogging medium.

What do you think?  How do you use Twitter?  Is it valuable to you?  In what ways?

Minnebar ’08 Rocked the Mouse, the House, the State, and the Twitterverse

May 11, 2008 / / 3 Comments

The third annual Minnebar unconference, Minnesota’s own Barcamp event, definitely was the place to be for the local Internet developer/entrepreneur community yesterday. (That was an understatement.) The t-shirt we all got, below, says it all. Minnebar08tshirt
More than 430 stormed the Coffman Union at the University of Minnesota, record attendance for the event (and likely for any Barcamp to date in the U.S.). It was pre-Twittered like mad in the days leading up, but the volume of tweets during the day itself — the real-time conversation — was nothing less than awesome. I think we even surprised ourselves. Check it out: just go to Summize and type "Minnebar" in the search window at the top. You’re looking at a lot of energy, folks! You can scroll through pages and pages of conversations — who knows how many! At one point yesterday, Minnebar was in the top four or five largest collective conversations going on in the whole, freaking Twitterverse! Pretty cool. (My own coverage is at www.Twitter.com/GraemeThickins, and four of us were also tweeting all day at www.Twitter.com/Minnov8.)

The event drew techies from not just the Twin Cities, but throughout the state, and even from places like Madison, Des Moines, and South Dakota, to name a few locales I heard in passing. And I know people as far away as Florida and Colorado who were really wishing they could be there. But, you know what?  Thanks to the magic of the Internet and this little thing we call Twitter, there were a whole lot of people on both coasts who were noticing and wishing, too. Thankscoffmanunion

Something very cool was happening on the campus of the U of MN yesterday. And everyone who was there can be damn proud. Minnesota Tech, you rock! Huuge thanks to the organizers, the awesome  sponsors (I’ve never even seen so much pizza in my life!), and to everyone that showed up — who all contributed and benefited. And, doggone if the whole world wasn’t noticing while we were at it…

Minnebar ’08 Schedule Announced – It’s Hot!

May 7, 2008 / / 1 Comment

The program for our annual Minnesota Barcamp — Minnebar — was just released late yesterday. The event is being held Saturday, May 10, at the Coffman Union on the U of MN campus. Here’s a look at where things are so far, and note that it’s subject to change.

Minnebar08sched1

Don’t miss the panel at 12:00 noon: "State of the State: Technology in Minnesota" in the theater on the first floor. Panelists include:
• Doug Olson, who heads a Microsoft developer team in MN
• Jamie Thinglestad, Mpls-based CTO of Dow Jones Online 
• Michael Gorman, Partner at VC firm Split Rock Partners
• Robert Stephens, founder of Geek Squad (a unit of Best Buy)
• And Dan Grigsby, our infamous local rabble rouser at Unpossible.com 🙂 and original lead organizer of Minnebar/Minnedemo.
Minnebar08sched2_3
Note the "Lightning Demos" at 4:00 and 5:00 — which I think will be especially good!  These are five-minute presentations available to new or existing startups, or anyone who has a new idea or favorite topic to talk about. If you want to add yours to the list (which is not yet published), just send an email to event co-orgnanizer Luke Francl at look (at) recursion (dot) org — telling him your name, company name, and what you’ll be talking about. Minnebar08sched3_3

See you Saturday! This will be fun — how could it not be, with a frenzied crowd of some 400 of your fellow MN tech enthusiasts? 🙂

I’ll be there Twittering and shootin’ pix all over. And I’m also part of the Minnov8 team, who’ll be Twittering as well. But, trust me, there’ll be plenty of hot networking in between!

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