Twitter?

Sometimes the only way to learn something new is to try it. That is the approach I chose with Twitter. Here is the story.

I opened an account in April 2007 (not an early adopter) and abandoned it out of shear ignorance. After meeting my Twitter evangelist friends in September I decided to give it a try.

Chris sent a message on Twitter, called a tweet, to let the folks know that he had met me and I was worth following. I had 20 Twitterers following me in about an hour.

Explain Twitter

Twitter is a micro-blogging social media tool.

You can send a message out that is a maximum of 144 characters.

It will be sent to anyone that chooses to “follow you.

How I started

I opened a free account. While out in real life I meet some Tweeters, by accident.

I visited them on Twitter, read their profile page and clicked the “Follow” button. From then on I see all of their Tweets. Most are quite judicious in their tweeting, so it is not overwhelming at this point.

Now, every time they send a Tweet (yeah, a message through Twitter) I see the message.

“Following” is voluntary. So, is following no longer.

When you follow someone, they will often follow you. It is a sort of courtesy, but not automatic.

There are a few metrics associated with each account.

• How many follow you
• How many you follow
• Number of favorites you follow
• Direct messages.

I ran across one account that showed over 7,000 for the follow and following stat. Yikes.

In addition to sending message to everyone that follows you, you can send a message to one person by adding a “@” before their Twitter name. Then the message goes only to them.

Laura answered a handful of questions in the first few days. This combined with observing how others were using Twitter left me feeling relieved. Thanks Laura.

A Huge Laugh

The first Tweet that I ever sent, back in April, was short and sweet indicating that I was adding memory to a slow computer.

The first Tweet that I received was Laura saying that she was laughing her “head” off at the five months intervening and agreeing that the computer surely was slow. Five months slow. She included a nice welcome to Twitter as well.

I was laughing, which really endeared me to the potential of Twitter.

So What is the Verdict?

The jury is still out. What has impressed me?

1. Received two referrals for potential clients
2. There are many Tweets about local social media events in the Boston area
3. Discovered some useful resources – people and web sites
4. Provided needed information requested by a Twitterer
5. Received updates during events that I could not attend
6. Discovered a few locals that I look forward to meeting in person
7. Opened my eyes to micro-blogging
8. The need for a Crackberry became obvious for mobile Twittering. Mobile’s half the fun.
9. Twitter as a source of immediate assistance grows as you have more “followers”. Lost in New York?
10. Early Twitter adopters are professionally tech focused and evangelistic

I think the benefit is really dependent on who you follow and what you are looking for. I appreciated real time updates from an event I could not attend.  Chris described being lost in NY and getting directions immediately via Twitter.

How do you use Twitter?

Happy Twittering from fairminder!

97th Floor just released a cool social media tool for Firefox users (which should be everyone). I guess from the 97th floor, these folks have a good view of the social media landscape. That is what this tool will do for you.

Social media for Firefox places five indicators down in the status bar, near GreaseMonkey and SeoQuake etc..

Manual / Automatic – Click it while you are surfing and it provides the count.

Manual / Autmatic – Automatic is the best choice when visiting Digg, Reddit, Stumbleupon or del.ico.us because the tool inserts the counts below each listing on the page.

Digg – Displays how many Diggs

Reddit – Displays how many votes

StumbleUpon – Displays how many reviews

del.ico.us – Displays how many book marks

You can also click on each icon to vote, bookmark etc. the page your are visiting. How cool is that?

Keep socializing, but not so much as to pollute the waters.

Last night I attended the WebInnovatorsGroup in Cambrigde, along with 600 other folks. Nine new technology companies were showcased, most of them just breaking onto the scene.

I sat in the audience listening to the six minute descriptions of each business, with the ear of an investor, multiple consumer personas, reseller, vendor or as part of the management team. I found with some offerings there were reasons that “this just isn’t going to fly”. Others caught my fancy, despite having zero interest in the product or service.

Speakers

SNIF Labs caught my fancy. They produce a dog tag with an accelerometer that monitors and uploads to the Internet your pet’s daily movements. You can tell when your dog is sleeping, eating, playing and so on. The info is presented on a web site where you can interact with other pet enthusiasts. Fun idea that I would tell a dog walker or someone who loves pets and technology, but nothing I need. I don’t want a dog.

Frame Channel provides software to allow you to feed images and text to a wireless connected picture frame. Imagine an LCD picture frame at the grandparents house and you control what is displayed, including, sports, weather, stocks, images from AP and National Geographic images, your own phots and more. It is advertiser supported – ads in the bedroom, or you pay a small subscription fee. The catch is, there is no way for the grandparents to control the images as they fly by. What if they want to look at a photo of the grandkids. Well, they are captive until it comes around again. That is a show stopper for me. Otherwise, a cool idea that reminded me of the display screens you see in modern elevators.

Design My Room featured the most effective and experienced presenter, by far. The product was also the most developed. In addition they already have many major brands, celebrity designers and other factors in place and providing value to the visitor. Upload a photo of your room, or use a stock graphic and then add flooring, wall color, drapes, area rungs, appliances and more. Looks quite useful.

To read about other presenters go here

Speaking

On my way out the door I met Laura Fitton, who coaches speakers. We agreed that a couple of the presenters, with an attentive audience of over 600 people, did a poor job of maximizing the potential benefit of the opportunity.

• Who is your target market?

• What is your core message?

• What can you say that will be memorable?

• Speak clearly and directly to the audience, not from a note card.

• Tell the audience what you want them to do.

• Be enthusiastic and authentic.

Speaking First

Our host David Beisel is a venture capitalist with Venrock. Thanks for the free event David.

He began the meeting by surprising the crowd by simply stepping up to the microphone and introducing himself after a faintly heard, “we’re going to begin”.

My suggestions for the next great meeting:

• Find a catchy signal (air horn, play music, quiet coyote or something) to let folks know that it is time to stop networking and sit down. If all else fails, dim the lights twice.
• Allow more than two questions – these folks have a lot of ideas, lets hear them.
• Provide some standard data points about each presenter, preferably on paper or else/also on the web site.
  • What is the funding situation – self funded, vc funded, need funding, profitable and so on?
  • What is the business model – how they will make money?
  • What kind of technology is in use – storage, programming technology, communication etc?
  • What is up next for them or what do they need – need money, staff, ideas, space, partners, affiliates?
  • A significant quote about the originator’s purpose and motive – why did they start this?
  • Is it meant to be profitable?
• Behind tables. I know it is conventional wisdom to stand in front of your display table, but I don’t like it.
  • You are blocking your own table
    • I can’t reach for a tear sheet, card or flyer
    • I can’t see the display on your table
    • I can’t walk around the room because everyone is out in front
  • If you are behind the table, I know for sure that you work with the company represented
  • Stand beside your table if you feel you need to be “out there”, rather than hiding behind your table
  • Maybe the room needs to be larger so people can circulate more easily

Speak Louder

After the event I headed over to the deafening CheeseCake Factory with some new friends. They are official Twitter evangelists.

I opened an account back in April and did nothing with it. I did one Tweet and thought “what is this all about?” and moved on .

I met Chris Brogan at an SEO Meetup in Arlington, MA and he evangelized about Twitter. He provided clear explanations to my questions, but I wasn’t moved enough to do anything about it.

Last night Chris, Laura, Andrea, Susan and I think Doug gathered for a meal. Twitter, Twitter, Twitter. I got the inside scoop and figured I had better “try it” again.

Laura was good enough to follow up with an email about Twitter, (Andrea followed up with a LinkedIn invite) . So, I now follow the four of them on Twitter and posted one Tweet. More later about Twitter.

Thanks to my new Twitter friends – Andrea, Chris, Laura and Susan. Cheers. It was, will be fun.