13 posts tagged “twitter”
An email message sent on 8th October 2008 to the Scotslink JISCMail list announced that “The Scottish Library and Information Council (SLIC) and CILIP in Scotland (CILIPS) have just introduced Twitter to their suite of Web 2.0 services“.
When I mentioned this recently a colleague made the comment “if you Twitter in a library, does someone Twitter Shhhh! back? ;-)” But librarian stereotypes apart, I think this illustrates how information professions are now beginning to make greater use of Web 2.0 services such as Twitter, in this case to enhance communications with CILIP members and library professionals in Scotland.
As I mentioned recently UKOLN has launched a series of IntroByte briefing documents which aim to provide an introduction to various topics of relevance to the cultural heritage sector. We have started work on the production of a number of briefing paper which will covers the potential of micro-blogging services such as Twitter, as well as video micro-blogging services such as Seesmic for use in the library and the wider cultural heritage sectors.
We would welcome examples of organisations which are using such tools in the cultural heritage sector which we can include in the documents. So if your library, museum or archive is an early adopter of such technologies please get in touch with me, either directly (email to B.Kelly@ukoln.ac.uk) or by leaving a comment to this post.
Posted in TwitterThe recent UKOLN workshop on “Introduction To Blogs And Social Networks For Heritage Organisations” was based on a half-day blog workshop which has been run for the library sector (on two occassions) and the museums sector at the Museums and the Web 2008 conference. The workshop has recently been updated to include a session on the potential of social networks, micro blogs and video blogs.
I described the potential of Twitter - and, indeed, made use of Twitter during the workshop in order to “ask a friend” for suggestions on how to respond to a question I’d received at the workshop: “Do you have any evidence that blogs provide a ROI for museums e.g increased visitor nos.?“. I’m pleased to say that I received a number of speedy responses on Twitter (with more in-depth responses from Mike Ellis on Skype). Phil Bradley suggested that I “smile at them and just say ‘yes, I was asked the same thing about the internet itself 10 years ago“ and Mike Ellis told me to “remember that one (actually, two, I believe) of the DCMS measures are virtual, i.e. not just physical that “counts“.
This example proved a useful way of demonstrating to the workshop participants how Skype can be used to support a community of peopkewith shared interests, and is less intrusive than email. I also mentioned how Twitter can be a useful tool for listening to what people may be saying about you and your organisation - and this use seemed to be of particular interest to the marketing managers at the workshop. So I was particularly pleased when I noticed that my TweetDeck client’s search window for recent tweets containing “UKOLN” listed a tweet from Steve Ellwood which said:
admiring UKOLN briefing docs on Web2.0/blogging etc. http://is.gd/7kcY - as usual worth a look for explaining “What’s it all for?”
Case proven?
Posted in TwitterImagine the following conversation:
“Where are you going?”
“Down to the High Street. I’ve just received a message saying that there’s a guy giving away free £20 notes. Are you coming?”
“No. And you shouldn’t.”
“Why ever not?”
“It’s clearly not sustainable in the long run”
“What!”
“Look, he’s clearly not got a sustainable business model.”
“!?”
“And don’t try and tell me that he might be bought out by Google or Microsoft. You know that’s unlikely to happen. You can’t base your decisions on such speculative thinking.”
“Oh no.” Shuffles back to office.
“Where are you going?”
“Back to work”
“I’m pleased that I managed to persuade you not to be tempted by someone with such clearly flawed and ill conceived idea.”
“**** ***! All the money’s gone - and I missed out, thanks to you. And my friends picked up about £1,000.”
This came to mind after I received a email from Biz Stone on the 14 August 2008 saying that:
Beginning today, Twitter is no longer delivering outbound SMS over our UK number. If you enjoy receiving updates from Twitter via +44 762 480 1423, we are recommending that you explore some suggested alternatives.
The message went on to explain the the delivery of Twitter messages (Tweets) via SMS would continue in the US, Canada and India, as Twitter had negotiated business deal with the mobile phone provers in those countries. They hadn’t been able to negotiate a deal in the UK, unfortunately, As the email described “Even with a limit of 250 messages received per week, it could cost Twitter about $1,000 per user, per year to send SMS outside of Canada, India, or the US“.
Now when I wrote a post on Use of Twitter to Support IWMW Events in which I described how we used Twitter at the IWMW 2008 event to deliver SMS messages to participants for free using Twitter as the delivery mechanisms and then, a few weeks later, you heard that this service had been withdrawn did you think that that clearly demonstrates that organisations shouldn’t make use of free services with questiopnale sustainability models? Or did you think: “That’s an opportunity not to be missed. Let’s use it while it’s still going.“?
Some time ago I published a post entitled “Come Into My World” in which I described a Facebook application which could be used to visualise the links between your Facebook contacts. Recently, via a post on the Twitter Apps blog, I discovered a similar application, TweetWheel, which can be used to visualise the relationships between one’s Twitter followers - on, indeed, any Twitter user.
As can be seen in the accompanying image (or by viewing the live data) Matt Jukes is connected to many others of my Twitter followers, whereas the JISC Twitter ID is linked to only one of my followers and the Dulwichonline and RareEdge IDs are not being followed by any of my contacts.
Unlike Facebook, relationships in Twitter are, by default, open for everyone to view meaning anyone can make use of this tool, even if they don’t have a Twitter ID. I think that this is another tool which can be useful in helping to provide users with a visualisation of how they, or others, are using Twitter.
The front page of yesterday’s Technology Guardian (which I still normally refer to as the Online Guardian) had a very positive article on Making The Most Of Twitter which opened with:
An American student is arrested in Egypt, and manages to send a brief text with a single word - “ARRESTED” - which is picked up around the world, and leads quickly to his release, helped by a lawyer hired by his university back in the US. In Britain, the prime minister’s office decides people should be able to find out what their premier is doing; as of today, more than 2,000 people do. …People fleeing from fires in California say where they are’ that proves more useful and timely than official government information.
The common factor? Twitter, the free (at present) service which lets you send a 140-character message, or “tweet”, to a site where anyone can read it
Such views reflect those of Martin Weller who, in a post on Turning to Twitter in a crisis related a story on Jim Groom’s blog which described:
how a group of people at a presentation at the University of Richmond were suddenly told to turn off the lights and be quiet as a suspicious character with a gun had been spotted on campus. After the initial moment of fright, he relates how a number of them turned to Twitter, and how this turned out to be both soothing and useful
And I’ve remembered that last week a tweet from Josie Fraser pointed to a CNN article which was featured in the opening sentence of the Guardian article (where Josie leads, the Guardian follows!).
A great time for those early adopters of Twitter, with our commitment to initially puzzled colleagues now being vindicated in the mass media one might thing. It’s perhaps reminiscent of the excitement we felt in May 1997, perhaps the last time we felt the people were, at last, being empowered. But why do I feel that the dreaded Boris moment is lurking around the corner?
But what can we expect in the backlash. I suspect journalist have already been asked to dig for a story on the negative side of Twitter. I think we can expect the CEO of a large company (other head of the CBI would be even better) to provide figures on the amount of productivty lost due to Twitter. And, on a personal level, expect the tabloids to cover stories of the teenager who tweeted that their parents were away, and found a large horde descending on the place and vandalising the home (and I know that story was first used with MySpace as the guilty service - but we should expect such stories to be endlessly recycled).
Has anyone spotted the backlash in the press yet? And what other stories can we expect?
I’ve come across a great idea for improving the efficiency of businesses. The idea is based on the notion of what in the UK has been called ‘tea breaks’ - and it seems that businesses in the US are using a similar idea but call it a ‘coffee break’.
The idea is that the workplace pays people to have informal chats. ‘That’s crazy’ I hear the sceptics say. ‘There’s no sustainable business model’. But the research suggests that during the ‘tea breaks’ employees not only discuss the televison programmes they watched the previous night and their plans for the weekend, but also work-related topics. And the informal nature of tea breaks allows people from different parts of the workplace to engage in the discussions. This provides the justification to managers who wish to ensure that any new ideas provide a return on investment. And the latest research (which is still being evaluated) suggests that staff who are particularly active keen in tea breaks have also started to participate in social activities outside office hours. Typically a social networking environment is used, which are sometimes referred to as ‘pubs’, although ‘wine bars’ are sometimes used in metropolitan areas. And managers will be pleased to learn that the discussions which take place in these social environments sometimes relates to work activities - in these cases the organisation gains benefits for zero investment! What a brilliant idea!!
OK, so we don’t quite see tea breaks and out-of-hours meetings quite in these terms. But people do ask what benefits social networks tools such as Twitter can provide. In my case, Twitter provides a similar function to the coffee break - but rather than providing a forum for a mixture of informal and work-related chats with work colleagues, it enables me to have such discussions with a wider group. This typically starts off with people I work closely with, but then extends to people I’ve met at conferences and sometimes people I may not have met but have some connection with.
A good example of this is Bryan Kennedy. I met Brian at the Museums and the Web 2007 conference a year ago. We discovered a shared interest in Twitter and have been following each other since then. This has enabled me to have a low-key insight into what Brian was doing at the Science Museum of Minnesota. And when Brian started twittering about this year’s Museums and the Web conference our informal connections through Twitter enabled us to restablish contact at the conference more easily than people I’d met a year ago and hadn’t had the opportunity to follow what they were doing,
What’s the business case for Twitter? Look at your organisation’s business case for tea breaks, and that may help you to understand. Now I wonder if, in ther future, staff will have a legal entitlement to a social network break?
The Background
I was talking to Gwen van der Velden, head of the Director of Learning and Teaching Enhancement at the University of Bath recently. We spoke about the evaluation of Twitter that Andy Ramsden is currently engaged in with his colleagues in the e-learning unit. Gwen asked me for my views of how Twitter could be used and, in light of my recent trips to conferences, I described it as an ‘interactive business card’. When you go to a conference you’ll often exchange business cards with people you meet. But when you get back to work you’ll probably find (well I do anyway!) that you can’t remember whose card it was or what you have intended to get back to them about - and if this has happened to you before, you might have decided to scribble a note on the card; so now you have the additional task of decyphering the scrawl written late at night in the bar after the conference reception!
Exploring The Analogy
Exchanging Twitter IDs enables you to receive an informal stream of information which can help you to develop a better context for any follow-up activities. And if you decide you are not interested, you can remove the Twittier address from the people you follow - the equivalent, perhaps, of tearing up a business card.
I noticed a good example of this when I returned home after my chat with Gwen and read a tweet from ‘homebrewer’ which said:
@briankelly It’s free for reuse, but I haven’t put a license on it yet: http://tinyurl.com/5b7fbf
This was in response to a tweet from me after I spotted this tweet from homebrewer:
Dusting off my Google Analytics talk for this afternoon - should have kept my presentation notes from last time…
I had asked:
@homebrewer is your Google ANl;ytics talk avilable online? And is there a CC licence for reuse
This to me provided a good example of the benefits of swapping Twitter IDs at conferences and the benefits of micro-blogging your work activities. Now the business card analogy is meant to refer to just one use case for twittering which works for me. Does it for you? And how might you apply this use case?
Applying The Analogy
How about creating a Twitter account before you go to a conference which you pass on to people you connect with? Then use the account during the conference to summarise your thoughts on the talks and provide some brief reflections when you return to work. This can then provide an ‘in’ for the contacts you’ve made - and there’s no need to sustain the micro-blogging or to worry about micro-blogging the minutae of your daily activities.
Why not give it a try - what’s there to lose?
In the opening planary talk on Hands On The Internet at the Museums and the Web 2008 conference Michael Geist mentioned the popularity of Facebook in Canada - apparently Canada has the highigest per capita Facebook usage in the world. And, as described in a blog post on the talk by arkrausehardie Michael described the “enormous pressure a sort of flash-mob FaceBook group can bring to bare (sic!) on public policy such as the recent group started by Geist on copyright issues in Canada, now with more than 40,000 members“.
The interest in the potential of Facebook for engaging with a museum’s user community was described in a number of papers at the conference. For example Shelley Bernstein’s paper on “Where Do We Go From Here? Continuting with Web 2.0 at Brooklyn Museum” dscribed the ArtShare Facebook application they had developed to “share works of art from Museums around the world“. And a paper by Brian Kelly and colleagues at the Canada Science and Technology Museum on “Social Presence: New Value For Museums And Networked Audiences“ described “specific experiments with social media, including a detailed analysis of a Facebook group used by the Canada Science and Technology Museum Corporation’s Membership Program“. In addition the paper described “two theoretical models – the “Innovation Radar” and genre analysis – to help analyze the nature of the opportunities for innovation, and to develop a better understanding of the distinctive characteristics of alternate communication channels“.
And yet in some circle such use of Facebook is being derided with comments such as “It’s a closed garden“, “Its popularity is on the wane” or “Twitter is a better development environment” being made. I have to say that I foind that such comments tend to miss the point. A recent post on “The Becoming Uninteresting Complex - Facebook versus Twitter” commented on the “pretty irrational questionings like “is Twitter replacing Facebook?“, Twitter doesn’t allow socialization. It simply allow instant interactions“.
And as can be seen from a SIteanalytics snapshot which compares usage of Facebook and Twitter, it you want to make inappropriate comparisons, it’s Twitter which fares badly.
Making these points, I should add that we shouldn’t explore the potential of Facebook uncritically. But the early adopters do acknowledge some of the concerns which need to be recogonised. Dawson et al have commented that “There are, however, a variety of potential pitfalls with social networking sites. One concern is whether such sites are a fad or flash in the pan“. The paper goes on to add “Issues of privacy are another important factor. Users of social networking sites appear to be willing to live with great compromises in their privacy. However, even these broad boundaries have been tested a number of times. Facebook, for example, has risked alienating its users in controversies such as the introduction of the news feed in 2006 (boyd, 2006a), and the more recent introduction of the “Beacon” in 2007 (Hirsh, 2007).“
So let’s be realistic and continue the experoimentation and debate. But let’s also be critical of our preferred environments. And although I’m a happy user of Twitter and participated in its use at MW2008, looking at the hashtag data for the mw2008 tag I would acknolwsdge that it was used primarily by a small group who knew each other - and indeed went out drinking together. Twitter can be useful for some - but it’s not neccessarily the killer application for everybody.
In the recent discussion about Twitter there was a feeling, from some, that it wasn’t well-suited for discussions. Indeed Andy Powell commented:
i think you are right to question whether using Twitter for one-to-one or few-to-few conversations is the right approach. i (eventually) stopped Twittering on Friday cos it felt like we were mis-using it.
And yet a few minutes ago I smiled at the following comments from Andy, Paul Miller and Pete Johnston:
andypowe11 The moment i wake up / before i put on my makeup / i tweet a little tweet for you … about 1 hour agofrom im
paulmiller @andypowe11 - makeup? about 1 hour ago from iTweet in reply to andypowe11
PeteJ @paulmiller: Company dress code about 1 hour agofrom im in reply to PaulMiller
PeteJ @paulmiller: (senior staff) about 1 hour agofrom im in reply to PaulMiller
Brilliant! I have to admit, I enjoy Pete’s witticisms. But if on Twitter you follow Pete or Paul but not Andy, you’ll miss the context and just get the two of them talking about make-up with the reference ot the Aretha Franklin song.
The pithy one-liners are useful, I feel, but I’m not convinced that Twitter is the best tool for this.
But also on today’s Twitter feed I received an announcement from TechCrunch saying that Pownce is now open to subscription, after a closed testing period. The Pownce About me page states that:
Pownce is a way to send stuff to your friends. What kind of stuff? You can send just about anything: music, photos, messages, links, events, and more. You can do it all on our web site, or install our lightweight desktop software that lets you get out of the browser.
Now isn’t our requirement to send stuff (witticisms, jokes and useful snippets of information)? Time for experimentation, I think. And it might be useful to subscribe quickly - before your preferred user id is taken.
The Background
Friday turned out to be a day of experimentation with Twitter for myself and some of my Twitter friends including Andy Powell, Pete Johnston, Paul Miller, Owen Stephens and Josie Fraser.
Friday actually began with an email discussion with fellow members of the Internet Librarian International advisory group over the theme for the conference. I expressed some reservations that the suggestions, which focussed on tangible benefits and return on investment, although important, could detract from the needs for experimentation and intangible benefits. I feel these points were accepted, and the conference organisers will shortly be announcing details of this year’s conference.
In contrast, the discussions held on the Twitter micro-blogging service appeared to cast me in an alternative role in which I argued the need for guidelines on best practices to support use of Twitter. In response I received tweets (Twitter posts) along the lines of “The day we have best practice for Twitter will be the day I stop using it!” and “Global order is …boring. And massively unhelpful, sometimes“. So is it time to start developing guidelines or is it too early and will such attempts stifle innovation?
Architectural Issues
That was a simple and easily understood and easily resolved problem. But on Friday the Twitter discussions led to aspects of the Twitter architecture which may be more difficult to resolve. Although a tweet may be a very simple resource, based on up to 140 characters, possibly including a hyperlink, tweets may have dependencies now only on the Twitter service, but also on the service used to provide the short force of URLs which are often needed to keep to the 140 character limit. So an individual tweet may have a dependency on two services, and if the TinyURL service is not as sustainable as Twitter in the long run, it may not be possible to resolve the hyperlinks. A problem, then, if future generations feel that Twitter records provide useful information on the topics we are talking about today. This is an area of concern which has already been identified in the blogging community, with one blogger having posted on URL Shorteners List and Why It’s a Mistake for Twitter.
And as we look at the different ways in which Twitter can be used, we can spot other limitations in its architecture. Most tweets I have encountered use the Tinyurl.com service but the client I use, Twitteroo, uses the Rurl service: multiple dependencies on URL resolutions, then.
Such concerns may be legitimate, but they are not specific to Twitter: these issues simply reflect the complexities of a Web 2.0 environment. Perhaps of greater interest to the majority of Twitter users and potential users are the ways in which Twitter is being used.
Twitter Usage
Andy Powell recently drew attention to his Twitter followers in a tweet which pointed out that the emerging usage pattern amongst his Twitter friendswas infringing the Twitter Ten Commandments. In particular I think it’s fair to say that we were using Twitter like a private chat room. As I have 80 followers and follow 38 others (Andy has 92 followers and is following 120, Pete has 21 followers and is following 24, Paul has 186 followers and is following 182, Josie has 227 followers and is following 128 and Twitter newcomer Owen Stephens has 9 followers and is following 10 others) I would question the value of our use of Twitter for public messaging especially when most of the followers are likely to see only half of the conversation or when the messages are based on in-jokes.
I do feel that we need to start to discuss the patterns of usage, why Twitter fans find it so useful and to be able to identify potential problem which may lead to Twitter failing to be sustainable in the long term. But I also realise that it is very early days for Twitter and attempting to mandate particular ways of working may stifle innovation. And there’s a denager that focussing on Twitter’s potential in a work capacity could lead to missing out on the informal banter, jokes and discussions which can improve the quality of the work place - for example, the tweet I’ve just received from my colleague Paul Walk “off to Nottingham. No.1 Son is concerned that I don’t run into that old Sheriff….” made me smile.
I feel that the compromise position is to document experiences and encourage debate - as this post aims to do. I also feel that it would be useful to explore ways in which Twitter can support our professional activities.
One area in which Twitter experimentation is taking place is to support conferences. Indeed Robert HC has blogged about JISC’s plans to use Twitter to support their conference. As he describes “so that we don’t all feel mega stupid about it, the Comms team is slowly turning into Twitterers (sigh) - with the fabulous results of us now knowing if we’re sitting on trains, waiting for offspring or having slugs creep under our kitchen doors - no doubt this will all be a prelude to something more useful and productive and we are just getting used to how it works…“
I think encouraging members of the organisation to use Twitter in this way is useful. It can help to gain an understanding of the issues and also of the things that can go wrong, prior to more formal use. From my experimentation, for example, I know that delivery of tweets via SMS can cause problems if there’s a lively Twitter discussion. On Friday evening, for example, I received an influx of 35 text messages - too many!
But perhaps delivery of tweets to conference delegates via SMS can be a useful application for Twitter. In previous IWMW events we have invited delegates to provide their mobile phone numbers on the booking form, for use in case of emergencies (this decision was made after the London bombings on 7/7, which took place midway through the IWMW 2005 event). Might Twitter have a role to play as the delivery channel, I wonder? And could this be used for other purposes (e.g. notification of changes to the programme). And I think it would be fun, after the welcoming talk which asked everyone to set their mobile phones to silent mode, to send a tweet to check that everyone has done so
Your Thoughts
I’ve given some suggestions for use of Twitter in one particular context. And I’ve suggested that Twitter users need to reflect on the strengths and weakness of Twitter, but that we need to have an open debate before rolling out rules for use of Twitter - and, like others, I would be worried if organisations required editorial approval before tweets could be sent.
But we need to have the discussions. What are your thoughts?
