Month: January 2008

Twitterific

Twitter is becoming an indispensable tool for me – albeit one I didn’t know I needed until I started using it in a big way. I guess that as with a lot of these social networking type utilities, Metcalfe’s law applies – the more people use it, the more useful it is. Now I am following a number of people, and them tuning into my updates, suddenly I can’t get enough of pinging little messages around: about what I am doing, or what I need to know, or how I can help others.

So what is Twitter? Well, it’s a ‘micro-blogging’ service. You’re limited to 160 characters per post. That limit is important, because it means you can use text messages from your mobile phone to update your status, and also to receive them from others.

As every good Web 2.0 service should, Twitter has released an API, meaning that others can building applications which ‘mashup’ Twitter with other services to make it more useful. A good example is Dave Winer‘s Twittergram, which lets you post short bursts of audio onto Twitter; or hashtags, which allows people to post on, and follow memes through Twitter.

Dan York has an excellent post on the ways he uses Twitter. I’ve quoted his headings below:

    1. Twitter as News Source
    2. Twitter as Knowledge Network
    3. Twitter as Virtual Water Cooler
    4. Twitter as a way to stay up-to-date with friends
    5. Twitter as a Travelogue
    6. Twitter to Track Conferences
    7. Twitter as a PR/marketing Tool
    8. Twitter as a Learning Tool
    9. Twitter as Fun
    10. Twitter as a Daily Lesson in Humility (and Brevity)

Today the service has had a little trouble though, and I blame Macworld. So many people will be sending Twitter updates from their mobile phones and laptops about the big breaking news from Steve Jobs’ keynote that the whole thing is under considerable strain. And Twitter isn’t the hardiest service at the best of times. More on this from Duncan Riley at Techcrunch. How hard would it be, I wonder, for some to just copy Twitter, but back it with sufficient infrastructure to actually work all the time?

Finally, a quick real world example of how Twitter can genuinely be helpful. Last week sometime, my good friend Steve Dale sent out a message requesting that someone suggest an example of a ‘shout box’ on a website. I responded within a few moments, giving a URL of a site where I had just added shoutbox functionality. Steve was in a meeting at the time, and those who were waiting for the shoutbox example were left open mouthed at the speed of this forum of communication and collaboration.

You can follow my latest Twitter updates in the widget on the left of this blog. Alternatively, join Twitter yourself and add me to your follow list!

Podcasts

mp3player_mount I like podcasts. I certainly hope the current developments in streamed video don’t mean the death of downloadable audio and video in the near future. Here’s the list of ones I am currently subscribed to and listen on a regular basis. There’s a lot of ’em, but not every episode gets listened to all the way through – with a couple of exceptions…

  • For Immediate Release – Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz talk social media, communications and PR, and discuss the latest fads and spats on the way. Indispensable listening for me
  • Guardian Unlimited Football Weekly – Great discussion of the week’s footy news
  • Guardian Unlimited MediaTalk – I love hearing about all the media gossip and scandals. This is a world I will never be a part of, but I delight in hearing about it
  • Mark Kermode’s film reviews – flawless. Has he ever been wrong about a film? And Simon Mayo is the perfect foil for him.
  • Scobleshow – Very interested in what he does next.
  • Rocketboom – OK, so I just subscribed to this to see how video worked on my iPod. It’s stayed in my subscription list, and serves as a distraction now and again
  • In Our Time – Marvelously eclectic. My personal favourite was the one on negative numbers, which left Melvyn Bragg thoroughly bewildered
  • Start the Week – Again, high quality, mixed up discussed, ably chaired by Andrew Marr – whose A History of Modern Britain I really need to get round to reading.

Am I missing anything amazing?

Councillor 2.0

Just popped up on the Gallomanor blog – Cllr 2.0:

The Ministry of Justice Innovations Fund II approved a bid from Gallomanor and Norfolk County Council to help set this record straight.  We’re filming a group of six Norfolk County Councillors as we train them on how to blog.  The film along with a introductory booklet will be distributed to public sector organisations to help them convince their decision makers, their civic leaders that using the internet and blogging in particular are good communication tools.  We’ll also be setting up a series of Q&A session with local bloggers for the first 25 local authorities wanting to run them.

Great stuff! And perfect for my Public Sector Social Media meet on the 26th Feb. I have emailed Shane at Gallomanor to see if he and maybe someone from Norfolk CC can come along and chat to us about the project, which has its own blog (of course!) at http://cllr2pointzero.wordpress.com/.

Andrew Brown is also involved in Cllr 2.0, whose blog I have been subscribed to for a while now.

Another good example of councillors blogging is at Chester City Council, with their Chesterblogs project. I had emailed their generic web team address about this, and whether they would like to be involved, but sadly never heard anything back.

I’m a bipolar blogger

Writing for a blog is like writing for any other form, you have highs and lows in terms of producing content. What’s important is that you remain consistent in the numbers and length of posts that you produce. People are far more likely to respond positively to what you have to say if they have some idea of what they can expect from you.

This doesn’t mean you have to pigeonhole yourself into producing only certain types of posts. What it does mean is that you have an obligation to be smart about how you use the content you produce to create a better experience for your readers.

For example, I would definitely describe myself as a bipolar blogger. That is, I have manic episodes of producing stacks and stacks of content – my mind is buzzing with ideas for posts, I’ve got the time to get them written, I don’t have too many distractions. But there are also times when I’ve got blogger’s block and can’t bring myself to produce anything. The trick is to try and manage the ebb and flow of my content creation to try and appear more consistent, even if I’m not.

It helps that the blogging I do can be split into two main categories. Firstly, there are posts like this one, longer, maybe more thoughtful and most importantly, time unspecific. Quite frankly I could post this entry today, or next week, or next month, and it wouldn’t lose (or gain) relevance as a result.

The second type of blogging I do is more news based, whether it be reviews of new services, reports of goings-on in the world of web 2.0 gleaned from sources like TechCrunch which are shorter, to the point and very time specific.

If I am in a manic writing mood, I try and get as many of the longer posts written as possible, and save them on my desktop PC for use later on. I don’t post them all in one go – it would be a waste because, if nothing else, readers won’t pay attention if ten massive articles appear on one day in their reader. Instead, I hoard the non-time critical articles for blogging slumps, when I might be struggling for time or concentration to write them.

WordPress, the blogging platform I use here, provides two ways in which I can store the blog hoard online. One is simply to add posts and save them as drafts, only clicking the publish button when the time is right. Another option, which is great if you are going away, is to publish a post with a future date on it. This means the post will only hit the front page on the date one specifies, thus automating the publishing process to a certain extent.

As for the time specific news posts, well, I consider them to be non-critical to the blog. Most people that read DavePress will read other blogs too, and while my efforts to put my own spin on them might help people see how they could use certain technologies or why developments are relevant to them, I don’t think folk would miss them if the bigger bits are still being produced. So, when I am terribly busy, good quality content is still being produced, albeit it’s all of a longer nature than the short bursts of news.

Of course, it’s quite possible that trying to manage my bipolar blogging will break down at some point – like an extended period of struggling to find the time to write – but by stretching out the longer posts over time, I can hopefully make this a less likely occurrence.

What about your blogging? Are you a bipolar blogger – or can you achieve effortless consistency (if so, then I hate you)?

FeedDemon 2.6.0.21

I was alerted by Neville Hobson‘s tweet that a bug fix release of FeedDemon was available for download. This announcement came through the FD support forums, which I never look at, so am thankful to Neville for bringing it to my attention.

The upgrade fixes bugs like:

  • New instance of FeedDemon loads with misleading “application is hung” error message when attempting to subscribe from Firefox (123414)
  • Cyrillic characters don’t display correctly in FeedDemon’s desktop alert
  • Buttons cut off on keyboard shortcuts dialog when running at 120dpi
  • Exception when importing invalid OPML (123539)
  • Exception after synching on Windows 98
  • Exception in prefetch options when setting “max items to prefetch” (124117)
  • Wrong/ugly colors in newspaper header with some XP or WindowBlinds themes (124000)
  • Thousands separators missing from large numbers displayed in panic button dialog and elsewhere (123986)

The top one (my emphasis) was a big fix for me, as this was proving a major pain in the neck, as I mentioned here.

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