Archive for the ‘Twitter’ Category


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A Social Experiment May Prove TV News Is Obsolete

February 3rd, 2010 by Erin Posted in Twitter | No Comments »

I come from a television news background. My husband is a television news anchor.

Television news was, and is, our life blood. If it goes away, we’re screwed.

That’s why I hate to admit that TV news really is dying a slow death thanks to Internet news Websites and social media, like Twitter and Facebook.

And now, a new social experiment may really leave me in a cold sweat.

It’s called “Huis Clos su le Net” or “Behind Closed Doors on the Net.” The experiment will lock five journalists, who are all from other parts of the world, in an isolated French cottage, leaving them without access to print newspapers or magazines.

So how will they keep up with the world? Through Facebook and Twitter.

The experiment will judge how well the journalists can interpret news of the world solely through social websites and how they might go about verifying the facts presented through Facebook and Twitter.

I have yet to get a handle on when this experiment will begin mainly because every website and blog associated with Huis Clos se le Net is in French, including their Twitter feed.

I do expect, however, that when it actually does begin news will spread like wildfire here to the United States.

My gut tells me that the findings from this experiment will not be earth-shattering; that, indeed, you can get ALL of the day’s news right there on Twitter. Facebook I’m not so sure about.

TV news is toast.

My husband better start looking for work.

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Social Media, iPhone Apps Help Make A Difference

January 27th, 2010 by Erin Posted in Technology, Twitter | No Comments »

I’m no stranger to adversity.

Sure, ALL of us hit a rough patch now and then – but what I’ve been through, and what the people of Haiti are now growing through, is anything but rough.

It’s pure hell.

My husband and I, and our then 9-month-old daughter, were in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. As you know, the storm sucked the life out of the vibrant city – leaving it flooded and in ruins. The images you saw on TV were bad. But you have no idea what it was like to be there in person. No idea.

I expect the same can be said for what is unfolding right now in Haiti. I’ve seen the footage on the evening news, but being there is another story.

There is a silver lining though.

It is the monumental effort to give and help.

Back in 2005, I was astounded by the generosity of people across this country, and others, to help New Orleanians deal with Katrina’s aftermath. Donation after donation helped the city heal and rebuild. The call to action back then was, what I thought, unprecedented.

What we’re seeing now in Haiti is historic.

Aid is pouring in at an unbelievable rate – more so than ever before. And, it’s all because of technology.

Social media sites like Twitter and Facebook have helped people spread the word, and many one-click FREE iPhone applications make donating effortless.

I often wonder how things would have played out in New Orleans – or even in tsunami-ravaged southeast Asia – if Twitter and more smartphone applications were around.

Funny, it was just five years ago – yet it seems like a completely different time.

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Peer Into Microsoft’s LookingGlass

January 20th, 2010 by Erin Posted in Technology, Twitter | No Comments »

Personal branding.

Professional branding.

Online reputations.

For some, livelihood depends on what’s being said and passed around on the Internet.

Given the power of sites like Twitter and Facebook, online reputation tracking has never been more important.

After all, you want the power to react after someone has hung you (or your small business) out to dry, right?

Months ago, I touched on an application - Salesforce CRM for Twitter - that allows small businesses to track their complaints through basic searches.

Sure, that is all well and good – but now there’s a new, bigger breed of tools that can help you monitor your rep.

Enter Traackr’s Authority List.

Squidoo’s Brands in Public – which is a total (and expensive) waste of time.

And, perhaps the biggest and most controversial one of them all, Microsoft’s LookingGlass.

LookingGlass monitors conversations on social media sites, including Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube, so that companies can track consumer sentiment about their products in real-time. The product can also connect social media feeds with elements like customer databases, CRM centers and sales data within an organization. Most importantly, it will keep a log of what’s been said. Where, when and by whom.

LookingGlass is still in its testing phase but, in good Microsoft fashion, the company is singing its praises.

An excerpt from Clickz:

“While testing the system during the past nine months, Marty Taylor Collins, a group marketing manager for Microsoft, said the information acquired on at least two occasions saved her department from a serious misstep. First, the tool halted her team’s plan to discontinue an ad campaign when it helped them discover that a lead character had quietly become popular. In another instance, a PR disaster was averted during the beta-test release of Windows 7, after a system crashed just after launch.”

LookingGlass appears to be the total package, right?

Wrong.

There’s a hitch.

Microsoft is limiting its LookingGlass services to companies that purchase its suite of Microsoft products.

Way to share to the love Microsoft!

Given the bitter disgust surrounding the Windows 7 release, Microsoft better rethink its strategy.

Or, better yet, Microsoft should take a good hard look at itself through LookingGlass.

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The Social Media Revolution That Wasn’t

November 18th, 2009 by Erin Posted in Twitter | 1 Comment »

Remember that canon I wrote back in early June about Twitter and the Iran election?

You know, the one about the power of social media and the influence it had on the dissemination of crucial, otherwise censored information following Ahmandinejad’s brutal win?

Well, it turns out the social media-driven revolution that was unfolding on Twitter didn’t have the impact we thought it did.

Charles Leadbeater, a British writer and analyst, and Annika Wong, his fellow researcher, decided to empirically explore Twitter’s role during that time. Making use of data provided by media analytics company, Sysomos, Leadbeater and Wong found that Twitter’s impact was negligible – at best.

And why not?

After all, a mere .027% of Iranians are registered to use Twitter – and of that minuscule figure includes some Westerners who changed their Twitter address to Iran as a show of solidarity.

Duh!

Given that only a third of Iranians have Internet access – these findings make complete sense.

I – like so many others who spent countless hours pondering the powerful link between Twitter and Iran’s potential regime change – was dead wrong.

Perhaps, Twitter isn’t has effective as we thought.

Or, perhaps, I was naive enough to get caught up in, what I thought, was a “big” event unfolding before my eyes.

Fool me once, but not twice.

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Is Email Dead?

October 15th, 2009 by Erin Posted in Business, Small Business, Twitter | No Comments »

There have been a lot of rumblings lately about email.

People say that with the invention of Google Wave and rise in social media – email has died a slow death.

The philosophy is this:

According to Jessica Vascellaro at the Wall Street Journal, we still use email – but not the way we used to.  It wasn’t that long ago when we would log on and off the Internet – in turn checking our email periodically throughout the day.

But that isn’t the case anymore.

Now, we’re always connected either through Facebook, Twitter or some form of instant messaging.

Put it this way. Let’s say you want to catch a movie with a friend. You send him an email – and wait. Two hours later, still no response. As you get ready to shoot off a second email to your friend – or in fact pick up the phone to call him – you see on your Facebook mobile app that your friend is indeed sick with the flu (H1N1?) – and is at the doctor’s office.  Your friend has, in a sense, answered your email via a Facebook status update.

Ok. I get it.

Social media has taken the place of email to a certain extent.

But let’s not forget how many folks out there – hardworking lawyers, investors, software developers, accountants, small business owners – who find themselves composing and responding to emails several hours a day. I, myself, am one of those people.

Email is not dead in the working business world. In fact, it’s alive and well.

WSJ’s Vascellaro points it out herself, writing that email continues to grow. In August 2009, 276.9 million people used email across the U.S., several European countries, Australia and Brazil, according to Nielsen Co., up 21% from 229.2 million in August 2008.

Business professionals simply don’t communicate with each other via social media or IM.  In fact, many employers – roughly 54% - ban social media sites at work.

Will Google Wave change the way we communicate with colleagues and friends?

Probably so.

But in the meantime, let’s not get carried away and cast off email before it’s past its prime.

I like my Yahoo and Gmail accounts – and I’m not ready to give them up just yet.

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