Saturday, February 28, 2009

Twitter on the Tube

 

A few interesting Twitter videos that were released this week that you may have missed. Pretty interesting.

Good Morning America’s John Berman describes Twitter (thanks for providing embed codes ABC) and interviews MC Hammer about his Twitter usage (50 tweets/day).

Here is Nightline's John Donvan explaining the Twitter “phenomenon” with an interview of Ev and Biz. Since it’s geared to a mainstream audience that is probably unfamiliar with Twitter, it includes the great Common Craft video, Twitter in Plain English, which has garnered over 2.6M views.

 

And here’s Ev at TED telling the story of Twitter and how Twitter’s growth is being driven by unexpected uses.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Twitter and the Oscars: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

We all love the Oscars and we all love to Tweet about them.  Like other events, Twitter enhances the experience for everyone. As you can see in the Twist chart, the Oscars have been the most popular conversations on Twitter over the past 24 hours. Hadn’t you felt that there was great data and insight hidden in all those tweets? It would be an extremely arduous task to unlock it though.  That’s why I was so excited to learn about Thummit.

 popular More than just an aggregator of Twitter discussions about the Oscars, Thummit is a social/mobile recommendation service in private beta used to evaluate sentiment of Tweets.

Unlike the plethora of polls and aggregators of #Oscars hashtags, Thummit delivers rankings based on everyone's first impressions.  It's also an interesting example of putting engaging structure around the unstructured Twitter data.

Thummit tracked the Oscars chatter in real time by: 

  • aggregating/filtering thousands of Twitter updates relevant to the Oscars
  • Analyzing sentiments to see which updates are positive (Thumbs Up) and negative (Thumbs down) and 
  • Ranking the Tweets based on most popular and least popular.

Other Highlights included:

  • Hugh Jackman got a big Thumms Up, (over 80%), despite many people's concerns before the show on how he would do.
  • Among the bombs: Jessica Biel, (only 13% Thumms Up), Zac Efron (13%), and Miley Cyrus (16%).  And Philip Seymour Hoffman's hat didn't earn him rave reviews.
  • The big Oscar winner, Slumdog Millionaire, did quite well  (76%), but struggled to crack the Top 10 list.  Perhaps they were too successful; as the night wore on and the awards piled up, the negative comments increased.

Thummit has also been used to rate the Super Bowl commercials and the Inauguration. It's cool to see Tweets analyzed as opposed to simply aggregated, which I think is the value here. Hopefully, we will see much more of Thummit as I think it is a great service, don’t you?

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Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Big video from Radian6 and news too.

da If you’ve been long time reader (thanks, Mom), you may have noticed that I don’t blog much about my work. Kind of like the separation of church and state. Actually in the past, I worked for a company that didn’t really appreciate blogging. But now at Radian6, there is obviously a strong understanding of the benefits of blogging in social media. Many of the principals like CEO Marcel LeBrun and VP of Marketing and community David Alston blog. In fact, I highly recommend Marcel’s blog, Media Philosopher, and David’s TweetPR. Also, don’t forget Amber Naslund’s very popular Altitude Branding.

Now on to the lead. We’ve got a new release coming out shortly at Radian6. It’s pretty major and we think our customers will be quite pleased. The multi-talented David Alston even created a song and video, summoning the great Johnny Cache.

Sing along!

There's a new release a comin'
It's coming round the bend,
Developments seen no sunshine,
since, I don't know when,
New slice'n dice'n features,
all part of the plan,
Unleash those analytics,
oh you know you can.

Mama always told me,
listen's number one,
And comments are the building blocks of con-ver-sation.
Yes posts they are important,
but so are replies,
Now when you see something go viral, you'll know completely why.

I bet there's people speakin' bout their favorite brands out there,
They're probably asking questions & hoping that you'd share,
Source tagging is coming,
and organized you'll be,
So let those people keep a talkin'
You'll have the history.

Well if we freed you from the dashboard,
And if emails all you had,
Real-time notifications wouldn't be that bad,
You'd know all the conversations,
no matter time of day,
And you'd monitor social media,
cause you had a way.

Ok, so what’s the Twitter angle? We shared the link to the video and it seemed like everyone loved it!

zw

Over 30 people retweeted it.

rt

And many people gave it a digg! You can too. Or check out more photos of David singing. As you can see, we have a lot of fun at Radian6.

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Friday, February 13, 2009

Twestival inspires Twitter for a good cause

twestival It seemed like half of Twitter was partying at the Twestival last night. A great cause that inspired people in almost 200 cities around the world to help charity: water. At home in Seattle, there were about 100 people who helped raise about $1100 for the cause. As part of the event, several people and sponsors donated some great prizes. One guy donated a date (dinner and a movie) with himself! Desperate or ballsy, what do you think? I even won a prize in the raffle, no, not the date, but a Home Depot gift card. I met a bunch of new Tweeters and even got to catch up with a few friends that I’ve only talked to online like Veronica Wei Sopher and Charl Pearce. Danielle Morrill streamed the event which was pretty cool. It was also great to see and hang out with friends Amanda Wolfman, Claus Loos, Eric Weaver and Eric Berto.

As mentioned, there were close to 200 Twestival events, so many Twitter friends checked in and shared stories about their events.

Boston

From the home in my heart, over 200 people celebrated Twestival at OM in Harvard Square. It was an awesome time and a fantastic turnout for a great cause. Rachel Levy took some amazing photos of the event. Below are Rachel, Pamela Rosenthal and Todd van Hoosear.

rachel

todd

Montreal – From Adele McAlear

Montreal was one of the first 25 cities to sign on to host a Twestival and we're excited to see more than 175 cities participating in what has become a truly global event. The Twestival Montreal event is in both French and English, reflecting the bilingual nature of our city. This means that Tweeting, blogging and event blog badges are in both languages. Twestival Montreal, at the chic and modern Suco Lounge had over 200 people with two local DJs and a local radio personality MCing the event. Renowned concert photographer, Eva Blue, staffed the photobooth where, for a donation, party-goers had their picture taken with water-themed props as a souvenir of the evening. Twestival Montreal raised over $5000 for the event. But most of all, we're proud that through all of our efforts - sponsors, volunteers, supporters and party-goers - we are helping to save lives with clean water. And that is something to cheer about! The Grand prize winner for the trip to Vancovuer was Jean Aymeri (below right), who sadly became another victim of the economy and lost his job this morning.

twestivalmtl

jeana

Dallas – Lauren Vargas Reporting

Three weeks ago, I did a crazy thing, I signed up Dallas/Fort Worth to be a participating city in the global Twestival. Three weeks ago, I put out a call over Twitter asking for volunteers to help put on such a venture. Thirteen other crazy people I had never met before volunteered to make Dallas Twestival happen. In three weeks, over Twitter, email and numerous conference calls, we organized our first Twestival…not to be our last. Although, we will start planning at least 51 weeks in advance of Dallas Twestival 2010! Dallas’ event was at Mockingbird Station, where tweeters and non-tweeters, alike met to enjoy live music by local artists, take in a free film at Angelika Theater and eat good food and drink. The Dallas Twestival was 100% volunteer and donation driven. There was no overhead for the event. All proceeds benefited Charity:Water. Dallas’ goal was to raise $4,000, roughly the cost of drilling one water well in Central Africa. We met and exceeded goal to raise $4,302 and counting! Thank you to the brilliant people I worked with to make this event a reality, our generous sponsors in tough economic times and to the Dallas Twestival goers who came to the event.

TWITTERLICIOUS

Denver – Erika Napoletano Reporting

The Denver Twestival gathered over 200 Tweeps and non-Tweeps from the Denver and Boulder area at the Fox and Hound in Littleton, Colorado. Between online donations, a book sale and a kickass silent auction, current funds raised over $4000 We with to thank Chuck Blakeman, Ringmaster of Ceremonies for the evening and the generous donation of venue by the Fox and Hound for making the Denver event happen. Chuck and Erika are below.

Twestival 008

An amazing event for an amazing charity! As Laura Fitton pointed out on Twitter, there were over 6,600 Twestival photos posted on Flickr. As you can see from the Twist report below, Twestival was rocking on Twitter this week. Here’s to Twestival!

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Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Taking a hike for the Twestival

Today is the big Twestival day where over 175 cities around the world will be hosting Twestivals which bring together Twitter communities for an evening of fun and to raise money and awareness for charity: water. I will be attending the Seattle Twestival at Spitfire Grill, in Belltown. I hope to see the Seattle Twitterati there. Please let me know how the Twestival goes in your city.

In case this is all so new that you are scratching your head and asking what’s a Twestival, here is the back story.


charity: water for Twestival from charity: water on Vimeo.

In addition to the Twestival, Lidija Davis wrote about another unique approach to fundraising for the charity on ReadWriteWeb. Paul Smith, a reporter for the Guardian in the UK is planning to travel as far as he can, based on the generosity of fellow tweeters. Living in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, the furthest that he can go is just about to New Zealand.

There are five rules he needs to follow:

  • He can only accept offers of travel and accommodation on Twitter from users who are following @twitchhiker - if none is offered, he'll be sleeping 'rough'
  • He can't plan more than three days in advance
  • He can only spend money on food and drink
  • If he gets more than one offer, he can choose; if he only gets one he has to take it with 48 hours
  • If he can't move on from a location in 48 hours, the challenge is over and he goes home.

Pretty interesting, don’t you think?

Meet the Twitchhiker.

The Twitchhiker will raise money for charity:water by getting sponsorships and donations.

The Twitchhiker’s journey starts March 1st. Let’s wish him well. How far do you think he will get? Do you think the generosity of the Twitter community can get him to New Zealand? And how much money do you think the Twitchhiker will raise?

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Become a Twitter Ninja

Today I was fortunate to present a webinar with the great folks from The Society for Word of Mouth, Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba, Become a Twitter Ninja. We had a great crowd on the webinar, all excited to learn more about taking the next step on Twitter and engaging with their audience. That was exciting to see.

Feel free to download the presentation.

AS you would expect from a Twitter webinar, there was some great dialogue/ feedback on Twitter. Here are some sample comments:

swom2



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Saturday, February 7, 2009

More people tweet with mobile than desktop

Mashable published a study showing the 10 most popular Twitter clients and the percentage of users posting from each service based on data from Twitstat. These 10 applications below represent over 70% of all usage.

Rank Client % Users Category
1 Web 29.57% Web
2 Tweetdeck 10.58% Desktop
3 Twitterfeed   5.54% Utility
4 Twhirl   4.92% Desktop
5 Twitterrific   3.79% Mobile
6 Tweetie   3.65% Mobile
7 Text   3.40% Mobile
8 Mobile web   3.00% Mobile
9 TwitterFon   2.96% Mobile
10 TwitPic   2.94% Utility

Some interesting conclusions when you group the data by category:

Rank Category % Users
1 Web 29.57%
2 Mobile 16.80%
3 Desktop 15.50%
4 Utility 8.48%

So more people use Twitter from their phone than from the desktop. Interesting! Are you surprised by that?  How do you usually tweet? Please answer in the comments.