Latest from the Blogosphere

The new issue of Marketing magazine is out now and as usual it features my regular Around The Blogosphere column. My column from last month has just been posted online. Click here to go take a look.

We're becoming more social

That graph comes from a recent survey by The Neilsen Company.

As you can see we are spending more and more time on social networks.

So much time in fact it makes me wonder what the future holds for corporate websites.

It looks to me like social networks are about to become a channel unto themselves.

Making it harder and harder for advertisers and brands to attract people away from their socialising and onto their website.

Are there any big thinkers or agencies out there pondering this situation?

I certainly hope so.

Social media habits

My social media habits seem pretty stable. Yet on closer examination they are constantly changing.

Each time I adopt a new social media tool it impacts on the others.

Some amount to no more than a passing fad. Others have impacted heavily on my media consumption as well as my day to day life.

I was an early adopter of Flickr and still have a Flickr widget on this blog. Yet I haven’t posted a photo there in close to 2 years.

Why?

At first it was because I could not see the value in paying a yearly fee to put my photos online.

But once I got involved with Facebook I started posting photos there instead.

I was sceptical of Facebook at first but quickly became a convert. After just a few weeks it became part of my daily routine.

When Twitter came along I resisted that too.

After a breakfast chat in Sydney with Julian Cole and Gavin Heaton I decided to give Twitter a go.

Suffice to say this also impacted on my social media habits.

In fact you could say it consumed them.

The more I used Twitter the less I looked at Facebook. Apparently this is common behaviour.

However because of Twitter I also found myself reading fewer blogs than I used too. I was also commenting on blogs a lot less.

Over the last few months my habits have started to change again.

I now have connections with such a large number of people on Twitter that it has almost become a broadcast medium for me.

Meanwhile my long neglected Facebook account has been rediscovered anew.

And the new kid on the block – Google Wave – sits unused and unloved because I just can’t find a way to fit it into my social media regime.

Are you in good company?

One of the things that bugs me about Twitter is the way they are constantly tweaking it.

I'm a big believer in not fixing things if they aren't broken.

One of their most recent initiatives was the introduction of Lists.

I have no idea why. I really don't.

Seems I might be in the minority though if MustExist is correct.

According to their site I appear in a whole bunch of Twitter Lists.

No idea why. But I was very interested in seeing who else was in some of the lists I appear in.

If you're on Twitter click here to give it a try.

Twitter on average

Love this visualisation of an average 100 people on Twitter. It's by David McCandless. You can see more of his clever visualisations here.

Click the pic if you need to enlarge.

Show me the money

It's been reported on TechCrunch that Twitter is seeking investment funds from venture capital firms.

No surprise really given Twitter doesn't appear to have any obvious or substantial revenue stream.

What did surprise me though was the valuation put on the company. One billion US dollars!

Obviously a large perecentage of that billion is the brand that has been built.

But how did they determine a valuation of that magnitude? Especially given it could be years before Twitter turns a profit.

If it ever does.

Just think about how quickly Facebook outgrew MySpace then imagine what would happen if a better cooler Twitter alternative came along.

Of course I could be completely wrong.

But having lived through the dotcom bust I can't help having a slight feeling of deja vu.

He's right you know

What are words worth?

Twitter spam?

Spam is starting to become a real problem on Twitter.

So many brands have jumped onboard and set up automated replies to tweets that contain references to the brand.

I find this highly annoying. I suspect I'm not alone in this.

Today's piece of Twitter spam is particularly weird.

I posted that I was culling a few live tracks by the Rolling Stones from my iTunes.

Moments later I had a reply from someone purporting to be a Stones fan.

Like most people sucked in by spam I clicked on a link.

My clever Macbook told me it wasn't such a good idea to have clicked on the link.

As you can see from the pic above I wasn't the only person to get this piece of spam.

Which as I said before is becoming a real problem. But what can we do about it?

And more importantly what are Twitter doing about it?

No tweeting please

After seeing this video snippet I suspect that Zac Martin and his buddies will not be applying for a job at the Whitehouse any time soon.

Good advice

Creative Twitter

These tweets by @grahamcreative appeared on Twitter yesterday.

Whilst I'm no fan of people offering to work for nothing, I love the silliness of advertising your creative services on Twitter.

So much more interesting than the usual social media guru self promos we normally see on Twitter.

To find out more click here to visit Graham's blog.

Wonder when we'll see an Aussie creative trying something like this?

Tweet it!

Those who know me know I'm no fan of Michael Jackson. But I have to admit that I am a fan of Billie Tweets. Click here to go check it out.

Twitter commerce

Who says you can't make money from Twitter? Certainly not Dell.

They've netted around $2million in revenue from offers broadcast exclusively over Twitter.

That's a pretty impressive figure, I'm sure you'd agree.

But not when you consider that Dell's revenue for 2008 was in the region of $61billion!

Still it's only early days for Dell on Twitter. So I'd imagine they'd see these results as very encouraging.

What happened to Lester?

In my early days on Twitter I interacted a lot with Lester Wunderman.

He's the man with his name above the door of the agency where I work.

At least I think it was Lester Wunderman.

I recently wrote about Lester on Twitter for the ADMA Update magazine.

There's a scan of the article over on the Wunderman Australia blog.

Click here to go take a look. When you get there be sure to click the pic to enlarge for reading.

Twitter on Paper

Introducing a new old fashioned way to enjoy the written word - Twitter on Paper.

It's pointless and kinda silly. But that's what makes it so much fun.

Great tagline too - Putting Tweets On Paper Since May 26, 2009.

Click here to go check it out.

New uses for Twitter

Two interesting yet not totally unexpected uses for Twitter arrived in my inbox this morning.

First up is career based.

Dutch company Energize is looking to hire some key people and has set up their job application page to look like something from Twitter.

Applicants need to submit why they're the right person for the job in 140 characters or less.

Sounds a bit gimmicky to me but I guess it's no different to pitching a movie using just a poster line or soundbite.

This morning's other Twitter derivative comes from Canadian dating service Radaroo.

People looking to find a potential partner sign up by sending a Tweet that mentions their sex, their sexual orientation, stuff they're interested in and even things they might like to do on a first date.

Sounds like a lot to squeeze into 140 characters, but obviously preferable to meeting someone in a cafe and listening to them drone on and on about themselves.

Twitter magnets

I've been developing an idea using magnetic poetry for a while now.

Fingers crossed it'll be ready sometime this month.

In the meantime I'll be killing time playing Twitter magnetic poetry.

Click here to give it a go.

Bombing with Twitter

Twitter is seemingly everywhere these days.

It's on the web and mobile phones.

It's been on TV thanks to the likes of Rove and John Stewart.

It's in dozens of mags and newspapers too.

And now it's started to turn up in graffiti.

I wouldn't be surprised if we started seeing more of these graffiti tweets. They're kinda cute I reckon.

Thanx to Dave Birss for the tip.

Introducing Flutter

If you can't find time for the 140 characters required for Twitter, why not give new nano blogging service Flutter a go.