All posts tagged Twitter
#projectpink inspiration
One of our clients, Aaron over at Red House Media, sent me the most darling, precious video this morning that his team helped produce for a local alliance of towns concerned about breast health awareness. It’s not only moving and FUN, it has some educational information sprinkled throughout about how women can help themselves when it comes to breast health. A woman somewhere in the world dies of breast cancer every 68 seconds… that is why there is such focus on trying to help prevent, cure or put into remission this terrible cancer. Here’s the video…
In other #projectpink news, Michiel said that when he got up this morning he saw over 6300 #projectpink tweets. I don’t know what the deal is. $1 for 1 tweet generously donated by Puma should make it pretty easy to get to 25,000. Now we are not sure if Michiel has tracked every tweet, and I’m not even sure how he is doing it though his profession is web stats so I know he has some tricks up his sleeve. But I don’t think he is off by much. PLEASE spread the word to your friends and PLEASE add #projectpink to any random tweet you have room to add it to. The reality looks like the picture below… are we going to give the winning charity the full donation? Yes!!!
Breaking: New Features from Twitter Just Appeared: TLists & Also Followed By
I’m a bit befuddled but wanted to share some mysterious features that just showed up on my Twitter.com screen.
The first is TLists – a similar feature to Listorious, TList appeared on my page to show others the lists I am on. I had nothing to do with getting on these, and not sure what the criteria is exactly for being on these lists. One of them said that I was one of the most listed tweeters about social media. The main site is http://www.tlists.com. The feature looks like this:
The second feature is a straight-up knockoff of one of Mr. Tweet’s most helpful features. If you see the picture below, it shows me who of my friends is ALSO following this user, so that I might make the decision more easily about following him myself. I see now why Mr. Tweet shut down and will be releasing another product soon.
What do you think of these new features? I’m wondering what else they’ve got cooked up that we don’t know about!
UPDATE: My friend @yoni just found another feature that I don’t have:
The second feature is a straight-up knockoff of one of Mr. Tweet’s most helpful features. If you see the picture below, it shows me who of my friends is ALSO following this user, so that I might make the decision more easily about following him myself. I see now why Mr. Tweet shut down and will be releasing another product soon.
What do you think of these new features? I’m wondering what else they’ve got cooked up that we don’t know about!
UPDATE: My friend @yoni just found another feature that I don’t have:
Never More Excited About Twitter!
Ev Williams, CEO of Twitter said to Chirp attendees (most of whom are application creators or developers), “3 billion requests a day is what you guys make to our server, that’s just api traffic… Twitter is hard to compare to other services because there’s not been anything like Twitter. There’s no other major service that is as distributed, and is really a network, with so many in-and-out points.”
Ev’s entire talk is below, but I want to explain a bit about why I, Kristi, and all of us really at Fresh ID, are more excited about Twitter than ever before. First of all, there’ve been some grumblings and murmerings because Twitter is starting to do things it feels it must, like buy or partner with mobile phone developers to make official Twitter clients for various, oft-used smartphones (such as iPhone, Droid and Blackberry.) If you watch Ev’s talk you’ll see why they’re doing this – there’s an awesome clip of a real user experience of a woman trying to find a Twitter app in the iPhone App Store. It thrills us, as user experience people, that Twitter’s doing this kind of real-world research.
But the reason why we feel excited, despite learning we are going to have to make product architecture changes as every app must use oauth and not store Twitter account data as of June 2010, is because of the number of announcements and steps they have taken that show REAL caring for the Twitter ecosystem and all of the millions of people that make up our Twitter community of users, developers, stakeholders and their own company employees. Twitter aims to grow to hundreds of millions of users, creating significant opportunities for us all. Ev made it clear throughout the week, that Twitter is not looking to take out third-party apps, but they need to do what they must for new and existing users and and rather than rehash their features or worry about what they’re doing, we as developers and marketers and entreprenuers need to step up and use their tools to innovate, not imitate. And they are in the process of giving us MORE tools than ever. http://dev.twitter.com was launched during the conference and they are just beginning to give us api’s for virtually everything they do, and in some cases with less limits and better results (something called user streams.) They’re doing this for themselves and the third-party apps, to enable greater creativity and more exploration of what we can do with the base architecture.
We set up a Twitterface page at the last minute, and you can still see tons of tweets from people who attended the conference and people with questions. I encourage you to check it out and watch Ev’s talk there, or below. There are some more great links below about the content and news that’s come out of Chirp, so you might want to check those out too.
- Watch all the recorded videos from the Chirp conference at Justin.tv
- Watch our developer Joe Taylor talk about changes we’re making with our product from the conference (about 5 min. in)
- Crib sheet for what happened at Chirp
- Ryan Sarver (director of Twitter’s api platform) Talks Developer Happiness
- Music from the conference (seriously awesome mix)
Checkin' Out Chirp… The Twitterface Way
Given the widespread debate and discussion surrounding the apparent conflict between Twitter and third-party developers following the acquisition of Tweetie, today is a very important day for both parties. Twitter is holding the first official Twitter developer conference, called Chirp, in San Francisco, CA where, hopefully, some questions will be answered.
As third-party developers of a twitter-based product, all of us at Fresh ID would have loved to attend the conference, but it just wasn’t a viable option. However, our developer Joe happens to live in California, so we decided to foot the bill to send him to the conference and do a little recon. To make it even more exciting, we decided this would be a great way to use Twitterface for ourselves and others who aren’t able to physically attend. Fortunately, Twitter decided to live stream the entire conference via justin.tv, allowing Kristi to setup an Intefy (new name for Twitterface) page for Chirp at www.twitterface.com/chirp. Thus, we have been able to sit in the office and watch the entire conference (and, of course, get nothing else done).
Having Joe on the ground at the conference has also provided a “non-Twitter official” view of the conference. When the official live stream goes off-air, we are able to switch the feed over to our developer and watch what is going on in between presentations. We also got to watch some interviews with other attendees. During the lunch break, Joe was able to interview Tyson Lundbech (@tysonlundbech) and learn more about ecoVouch, a project he is working on. It’s as if we are actually at the conference.
Though being able to attend the conference virtually is extremely cool and convenient, more important is what we are learning from the conference. What valuable information have we gleaned from listening to Twitter Execs and fellow developers talk about the history and future of the platform? Good question.
Yes, we are learning a lot about the history of Twitter, including the terrible design of the first home page, and the future of the service, such as improvements that are being made to the system. However, there is more important information to gain from this conference than how Twitter was created and how it’s being improved. It’s a little too early in the conference to make conclusions about the future of third-party Twitter development, but a few things have become quite clear. Based on the first wave of speeches and presentations, it is clear that Twitter wants to be upfront about the challenges that face a company valued at over a $1 Billion. Though many will be sad to see Twitter start acting like the large-scale company it has become, the fact of the matter is that there is business to be done and money to be made. There is no doubt that Tweetie will not be the last acquisition, as Twitter has to find some way to justify the massive investments that have been made to the company. This is simply something that developers are going to have to swallow.
In the midst of all the uncertainty, Ryan Sarver (@rsarver), Director of Platform for Twitter, offered a ray of hope for those of us who want to continue customizing Twitter through third-party development. Sarver, in presenting the future of Twitter and updates to the service, stated multiple times how important third-party development is to Twitter. Sarver said, “We want to learn how to work together as opposed to working against.” Twitter thrives off third-party development that only extends the reach and capability of the service, and it is clear that Twitter Execs don’t want to see that disappear.
Hopefully, as the conference continues and the after parties kick off, the conversation will revolve around the opportunity in the future for third party developers to continue to work with Twitter and extend the value of the service with innovations and features, rather than continue to focus on the debate over Twitter’s corporate policy.
If you are sitting at work or home and want to catch the rest of the conference, you can do so at the Chirp Twitterface page. It will be live for the rest of the conference today and tomorrow.
-Matt
As third-party developers of a twitter-based product, all of us at Fresh ID would have loved to attend the conference, but it just wasn’t a viable option. However, our developer Joe happens to live in California, so we decided to foot the bill to send him to the conference and do a little recon. To make it even more exciting, we decided this would be a great way to use Twitterface for ourselves and others who aren’t able to physically attend. Fortunately, Twitter decided to live stream the entire conference via justin.tv, allowing Kristi to setup an Intefy (new name for Twitterface) page for Chirp at www.twitterface.com/chirp. Thus, we have been able to sit in the office and watch the entire conference (and, of course, get nothing else done).
Having Joe on the ground at the conference has also provided a “non-Twitter official” view of the conference. When the official live stream goes off-air, we are able to switch the feed over to our developer and watch what is going on in between presentations. We also got to watch some interviews with other attendees. During the lunch break, Joe was able to interview Tyson Lundbech (@tysonlundbech) and learn more about ecoVouch, a project he is working on. It’s as if we are actually at the conference.
Though being able to attend the conference virtually is extremely cool and convenient, more important is what we are learning from the conference. What valuable information have we gleaned from listening to Twitter Execs and fellow developers talk about the history and future of the platform? Good question.
Yes, we are learning a lot about the history of Twitter, including the terrible design of the first home page, and the future of the service, such as improvements that are being made to the system. However, there is more important information to gain from this conference than how Twitter was created and how it’s being improved. It’s a little too early in the conference to make conclusions about the future of third-party Twitter development, but a few things have become quite clear. Based on the first wave of speeches and presentations, it is clear that Twitter wants to be upfront about the challenges that face a company valued at over a $1 Billion. Though many will be sad to see Twitter start acting like the large-scale company it has become, the fact of the matter is that there is business to be done and money to be made. There is no doubt that Tweetie will not be the last acquisition, as Twitter has to find some way to justify the massive investments that have been made to the company. This is simply something that developers are going to have to swallow.
In the midst of all the uncertainty, Ryan Sarver (@rsarver), Director of Platform for Twitter, offered a ray of hope for those of us who want to continue customizing Twitter through third-party development. Sarver, in presenting the future of Twitter and updates to the service, stated multiple times how important third-party development is to Twitter. Sarver said, “We want to learn how to work together as opposed to working against.” Twitter thrives off third-party development that only extends the reach and capability of the service, and it is clear that Twitter Execs don’t want to see that disappear.
Hopefully, as the conference continues and the after parties kick off, the conversation will revolve around the opportunity in the future for third party developers to continue to work with Twitter and extend the value of the service with innovations and features, rather than continue to focus on the debate over Twitter’s corporate policy.
If you are sitting at work or home and want to catch the rest of the conference, you can do so at the Chirp Twitterface page. It will be live for the rest of the conference today and tomorrow.
-Matt
Live Nude Events… Behind the Scenes of Like Minds 2010's Online Event
We had an interesting Thursday/Friday last week. For those who don’t know, our product Twitterface has come out of beta and is now a paid product. Pricing is still being finalized. We have a new feature that allows video on the page, as you can see by clicking the image, and the Like Minds conference held Friday in Exeter, UK was kind enough to partner with us on our first ever debut of this offering, to show their event live online while it happened in Exeter.
What we learned, was more than we bargained for. Things blew up. We had to make adjustments, there were issues and confusion. And of course, all of it happened in front of everyone watching… talk about exposing yourself! It’s a bit nerve-wracking to do these experiments in the social space where things could go horribly wrong and people may jump all over you about it. But it gave us so much real experience, and mostly worked well, so I am thankful we are offering this now. I wanted to recap what was going on behind the scenes of this fantastic conference and tell you what we’re doing to make these events better in the future.
The Twitterface page for Like Minds had the aim of using an assortment of services, and whenever you combine technologies, mayhem often ensues before you get it totally right. Our goals were:
What we learned, was more than we bargained for. Things blew up. We had to make adjustments, there were issues and confusion. And of course, all of it happened in front of everyone watching… talk about exposing yourself! It’s a bit nerve-wracking to do these experiments in the social space where things could go horribly wrong and people may jump all over you about it. But it gave us so much real experience, and mostly worked well, so I am thankful we are offering this now. I wanted to recap what was going on behind the scenes of this fantastic conference and tell you what we’re doing to make these events better in the future.
The Twitterface page for Like Minds had the aim of using an assortment of services, and whenever you combine technologies, mayhem often ensues before you get it totally right. Our goals were:
- Live Streaming of the Conference
- Watching Real-Time Conference Conversations
- Tweeting from the Page
- Links to Conference Information
- Delivering Live Blog Feeds
- Providing an Online Experience that Extended the Live Experience
- Events must be monitored every single minute, by someone. I got up at 4 am because in the UK they were going to start around 10 am. Joe had stayed up – it was 2 am his time in California, and thank goodness we did get up/stay up because the api limit issue would have made this page unusable had we not started making changes to refresh times and adjusting pane settings to not display the error when it happened. The opening of Like Minds was smooth and fun there it seemed, but it was a nightmare for us and drove home the continual monitoring issue, which we had not planned for. I’d had two hours sleep because of getting the page finished Thursday night, so though I didn’t plan to stay up, it wasn’t optional. My team was also not around – Joe eventually went to bed and Lisa and Matt were en route to meetings and the office. So during their lunch, I got ready very quickly and drove to my office to continue monitoring until Matt got there, and then he took over the rest of the day. We will be offering this as a service to companies who need it, but people who do not hire us to do this DEFINITELY need to plan to have a person attending the page and making constant adjustments to keep things flowing.
- One of the things Like Minds did to us was use video from two different ustream channels, which I sort of figured out on my own. LOL! We did not have a member of their web team on a phone speed dial or even Twitter. I mostly worked with Scott Gould to set this up, one of the founders and event organizers, and I didn’t want to bother him because I knew he was busy at the event. Fortunately, I happened to notice he had streamed from both a LikeMinds and a ScottGould ustream channel, so if one went off-air we checked the other to make sure we weren’t missing something. But we needed communication with a member of the tech team there – it would have helped us know what was going on and when they were going to stream or not stream.
- We have to talk to Twitter directly about these api issues, and we’ve never worked with them directly. Fortunately for me, I am making that Lisa’s job. Haha! I hope we can get that improved, but if not, we know how to get around it during an event.
- The official hashtag for Like Minds is @wearelikeminds, but no one tweeted from it all day and we needed it when we had to switch from a search to profile views only because of api issues. I really recommend that you assign someone to tweet from the official account – even if you have to ask a participant to do it and hand over the login temporarily. For people wondering what is going on, that would make a big difference and it would have solved some of our problems doing this live offering also.
- The presentations could not be viewed behind the presenter, but with some adjustments they could have been. We are going to design a combo video/slideshare page I think, but it would have been very nice if the presentation had been dropped down behind the presenter (almost even with his feet) so online viewers could see the slides and hear the person talk at the same time – in fact, that would totally rock!
- Organizing the remote event team, with the team on the ground, for fast communication via skype or twitter makes sense. We will make sure to do this in the future. I actually think it helps for the remote monitoring team NOT to be at the event, to minimize distractions. It is too easy to have to put out fires at the event and lose track of monitoring this page – for us, our sole job was to watch the page, fix issues and keep things flowing online, and we were not hit up with other issues that took focus off of that task by being in the building where it was happening.
- When Like Minds broke for lunch, there was no Ustream feed for at least an hour and a half. I think we lost some online viewers then. I know that in the future Scott wants to enable video at the lunchtime talk sessions – that would have helped, or even having an event take place on stage (maybe one of the lunches is done there) would have helped not break the momentum of online viewing. I loved the lunch idea though – they had numerous mini-sessions over lunch at different restaurants around the city! Such a cool idea. Attendees got to choose the type of food, speaker and type of conversation they wanted to have.
- One of the things I noticed, was that this conference WAS very pleasant to attend online. When I got up at 4 am I was still in bed. So here I was in my jammies, comfortably propped up on pillows in the dark, while everyone in England was looking dapper and had makeup on and their hair done. Yet I was learning the same cool information they were – it was REALLY pleasant! And watching the tweets from people actually there, plus being able to tweet without leaving the page was very nice. This is an experience I would want to repeat at tons of other events… not just conferences, but musical events or education of some type – it really did work like I envisioned it, aside from our little issues (which we will find a way to make better!)
