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Tag: Twitter

  • What’s the (Google) Buzz?

    As anyone with Gmail or their ear to ground has realized Google Buzz has been released.

    The Buzz on Google Buzz

    I was both excited and hesitant to try it out. I was excited because Chrome in all its sleek simplicity has been my chosen browser for a few months, and Gmail and Google Talk have also been a daily mainstay for some time now. I was hesitant because Orkut never clicked with me and most importantly I really don’t want yet another social media hub.


    The main features as noted in the Buzz launch video are:

    1. Auto following

    2. Rich, fast sharing experience

    3. Public and private settings

    4. Inbox integration

    5. “Just the good stuff” – recommendations , 3 word status collapsed at the bottom

    The auto follow feature I can give or take. I see a small value in this but to me it’s nothing to write home about. We were all able to kick start all our other social media sites with little trouble. The next two features: Rich, fast sharing experience and the public and private settings don’t’ seem much different from Facebook. There maybe be small differences but again nothing ground breaking.

    Trying to see what the Buzz is about


    Inbox integration is a little tricky to gage in value. It is interesting that you get interactive buzz message directly in your inbox. But Google Buzz is one button away from my inbox, it shows up and crowds my inbox just like any other alert but it does offer some ease of use.


    Buzz includes “just the good stuff?” According to whom? I guess if I were going to let someone choose what I want to see and not want to see it would be Google. They seem to have done a decent job thus far. I primarily use their search engine. Did I just welcome Big Brother? Anyway, I am questionable about the way they achieve giving you “the good stuff.” If your friends buzz on something then it shows up for you even if you don’t follow the person who originally buzzed, I can deal with that but in one part of the release video they mentioned reducing noise in social media which makes this sound counter-intuitive. The other way they dictate “the good stuff” is by collapsing “boring” comments to the bottom.

    Boring to me seems pretty vague. In the launch video he used a “3 word update” as an example. I don’t like this because I love cryptic 3 word updates. I really do. Cryptic song lyrics are more interesting to me typically than knowing that you just washed your dog and it looks adorable wrapped in a blanket. This feature leaves me on the fence.

    My initial impression after playing a little was: a little Twitter and a little Facebook with a boring layout– but it’s accessible, since I already live in Gmail. I might try it for a while and see where it goes.

    Short on style but might look good after some time
    Short on style but might look good after it grows out.


    Then… I saw the mobile version and the sky lit up with rainbows. Unicorns jumped from cloud to cloud and I saw Google Buzz in a whole new way. Well, almost… the mobile app for iPhone and Android does look really impressive. The integration of Buzz, Place Pages and Google Maps looks amazingly useful. So, next time I’m bored on a Saturday night I can check to see who’s buzzed nearby and might be talking up a happening spot within my vicinity. I can then check the Place Page to see a review on their location and what others have to say about it. If it suits my mood off to the party I’m going. Then I can even buzz where I’m going and see if any friends want to join me.

    Yes, it does sound a bit Twitter-ish but with some added convenience. I haven’t tested this yet but at writing it’s Mardi Gras weekend. I plan on keeping an eye on the local buzzes and see what I can get myself into. If you’re in New Orleans this weekend buzz about it and lets see how this thing works!



    The app on android even has voice recognition so you can speak your buzz and post. I wonder if you can hold it in the air and post cryptic lyrics straight from the stage? As I mentioned before, you can seek out user updates based on location, find businesses close by, and view their Place Page and see Buzz updates regarding that business on the Place Page.

    We’ve all seen most of these things to some extent in a lot of other apps but after thinking about all the different apps that do various things you have to stop and account for the fact that this is one app that does all of it and its integrated with my already existing email.


    The first Buzz I saw upon signing up was “Hi, I‘m Google. I’m ripping off twitter and spamming all gmail users about it with a splash screen in front of their inbox. Have a nice day.” Earl’s comment made me laugh. I think I might have been ready to react the same way but I’ve decided to check it out for a while.

    One of the forward facing aspects of Google Buzz is their development of “a suite of open protocols to create a complete read/write developer API.” So, it looks to me like it will be up to the developers of the world to make it really take off but so far so good.

  • Twitter: Fad or Essential Business Communication Tool?

    From those who claim that Twitter is just a fad, to internet experts who believe that the impact of Twitter is being felt in ways never imagined, the news is abuzz with reports of this social media website.

    Love it or hate it, Twitter is here to stay, with its user numbers having grown at the rate of 752 percent in 2008 alone. Facebook is still the #1 networking site in terms of numbers and user loyalty and not all businesses might need to get into the social networking sphere.

    Social Media One Hit Wonder?
    Social Media One Hit Wonder?

    But a social media presence is no longer considered ‘optional’ for businesses with an online audience. Here are some of the ways in which Twitter is changing the marketplace.

    • Source of Breaking NewsIn the recent past, Twitter has proven it’s mettle as a source of breaking news, especially with the death of Michael Jackson, and continues to be a leading source of real-time news stories.
    • New Exclusive ContentAs a WebProNews story noted, Twitter features new content, created on the fly and accessed in real time. More importantly, this content is exclusive to Twitter and not available through search engines like Google, Bing or Yahoo.
    • Sales Booster While Twitter has helped Dell rake in the sales, New Orleans-based Naked Pizza, has seen a sustained 20 percent of sales dollars from its Twitter presence. It is primarily using Twitter to market to an area with a 3 mile radius and has now replaced its “call for delivery” billboard in favor of one displaying its Twitter handle.

    As the article on Twitterrati notes, for any company that deals with consumers, Twitter is must-use tool simply because it’s another way to communicate with existing and prospective customers.

    Image courtesy of: keiyac

  • Twitter: Fad or Essential Business Communication Tool?

  • Twitter for Local Business

    This is the slide deck from my presentation at Local Search Summit “Using Facebook & Twitter to Drive Local Leads” this afternoon.

    We had a great crowd and I enjoyed the heck out of putting this slide show together. I was trying to position some real tactics in using Twitter for local business.

    I’m hopeful that it was tactical versus theoretical and I look forward to your feedback.

    Twitter for Local Business

    View more presentations from Will Scott.

    Please, please, please ask questions and let me know what more you’d like to know.

  • delicious Links from Today 5/12/09

    I have come to love >delicious.com (formerly del.icio.us which I liked more.

    For those of you not already familiar, delicious.com allows you to store all your bookmarks in one place organized by date with tags for secondary management.

    I was very fortunate in my reading today, thanks mostly to my friends on twitter .

  • Twitter is a 1978 Fax Machine – Metcalfe’s Law and The Twitter Nielsen Data

    First things first: this post is a bit of inside baseball – it may be conceptually interesting but it likely won’t help you market your business.

    Metcalfes Law And The Network Effect
    Metcalfe's Law And The Network Effect

    What’s interesting to me about the recent Nielsen data regarding “Twitter Quitters” is that it makes a prediction based on current data without looking at how this technology is like others before it.  Surely Nielsen

    doesn’t have data on adoption of all technologies since the beginning of time, but if they thought a little harder they might find some similarities.  Or perhaps they just want the attention of controversy.

    Metcalfe’s Law

    states that the value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users of the system.

    The most common illustration of this is the fax machine.  One fax machine = paperweight, two fax machines = dialog, ubiquitous fax machines = global communications in the pre-email era.

    So what’s the point?

    My contention is this: Twitter (per the Nielsen data) is a 1978 fax machine. If you had one you thought you were really cool, but the reality is you were probably only impressing yourself.

    If you’re not aware of the concern, here’s a little background:

    Fax Machines - Theyre Everywhere
    Fax Machines – They're Everywhere

    I mean think about it.  If you’re not one who is naturally tapped into online communication you sign up, cruise around without an instruction manual or map and it’s boring.  “Where to now?” you must think.  Then the phone rings, the teapot whistles or the dog barks and you’re outta there.

    Unless you’re already in the know it’s hard to find the great resources there are out there:

    It’s no wonder there’s a 60% dropoff rate.

    If you believe TechCrunch, at the end of April there were a few more than 1 million users of Twitter with only around 200,000 really active.

    From TC :

    March 2008

    • Total Users: 1+ million
    • Total Active Users: 200,000 per week
    • Total Twitter Messages: 3 million/day

    So let’s look at that in context.  With around 1 million users worldwide 40% of whom are in the U.S. that means that only about 400,000 U.S. folks are on twitter.

    Its Lonely Out There
    It's Lonely Out There

    So… if you’re not one of those 400,000 you’re one of the other 299,600,000, or thereabouts, U.S. folks who aren’t yet on Twitter.  That means you’re not one of the 13/100ths of 1 percent who are already hip.

    That’s a really small number.  I mean really small.  You might be lonely.

    So, I come back to likening Twitter to a 1978 fax machine.  Currently Twitter lacks mass utility — so did a fax machine in 1978.  Where’s the fax now?

    The Fax is ubiquitous

    .

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