Taking the blog for a walk - All Comments

re: Does it matter if 24% of tweets are automated

Paul Dillon — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 12:09:35 GMT

I began to understand the relevance of Twitter once I upgraded myself to a smart phone (android) and now I simpy cannot ignore the 'new tweets available' icon every time it appears on my home screen. I think Twitter or its successor will reach critical mass once the mobile internet is widely adopted.

re: Does it matter if 24% of tweets are automated

Sweton Fleming — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 05:51:47 GMT

hi..This is really great...nice way to say your thoughts... ..

re: Does it matter if 24% of tweets are automated

N PERKIN — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 16:35:33 GMT

The Sysomos stuff is a little old now (June) but I agree with what you're saying. Too often people focus on the wrong things and miss the value. To often criticism comes from people who are not on it or clearly haven't attempted to try it out properly. Shame.

re: Blackberry detox

Ed Lamb — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:43:58 GMT

I have a controversial view that blackberries massively reduce efficiency and you and your colleagues would be better off without them. If it's urgent then voice or face-to-face is best, and if it's not it can wait until you can receive email and respond properly (which with a dongle is pretty much anywhere these days). There is nothing worse than getting a 2 line blackberry reply when you actually needed a properly considered and more lengthy response. And of course there is the inefficiency of people not concentrating or leaving meetings because they feel incapable of turning their blackberry off.

The question is, is any business willing to buck the trend and really consider what is the most efficient way of working and enforce it? For some businesses blackberries may be needed, but I'm sure they aren't the most appropriate solution for all.

re: Twittering Skittles

Jonathan Phillips — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 12:11:53 GMT

Interesting article, thanks Ross.

Several twitteryskittles thoughts:

1) Skittles and Twitter have two different age demographics. I don't know if linking the two does either any favours. Is this just opportune brand marketing?

2) The Skittles PR machine have done a magnificent job. I received this news via twitter, 3 blogs, techcrunch and various other newsfeeds.

3) There is an age restriction on seeing the Skittles website, but no age restriction on visiting twitter and doing the search yourself - that does seem odd. Indeed, try going to Skittles.com and entering an underage birthdate -- in the background, you'll still see the site.

4) There's a buzz on the site today generated by vanity-publishing. What happens in a few months when people are bored of tweeting about Skittles?

re: Confessions of a Twitter sceptic

CF — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 16:11:51 GMT

I guess I'm a reformed twitter sceptic, in that I tried once, hated it, and tried again. Second time round it all made sense - now I see the appeal and can't imagine not using it.

If I could be so bold as to make a suggestion to both Ross and Jason - neither of you seem to be following many people. With twitter, the best lesson i learned was that it's not about who is following you, but about who you're following: who you can learn from, who you can interact with. There are lots of interesting people on there if you know where to look! I'm @claire_foss, btw.

re: Confessions of a Twitter sceptic

Richard Stacy — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 14:02:05 GMT

Don't make the mistake of confusing content with a means of distribution. In social media, the two are separate (that is its essence). Thus many thought (and still think) that blogging is all about an on-line personal diary, forgetting that a blog is simply a publishing platform accessible to anyone. Thus twitter is not simply about status updates, it is creating the first level conversation and connection space within a totally new audience - the connected crowd. For clues to where this goes, check-out this http://tinyurl.com/b7cq8c released today by McKinsey - not just an interesting report, but go to the end and notice how they are using twitter to create a conversation space. See this http://tinyurl.com/bnlk6r which I wrote a couple of weeks ago. See how people are starting to ask twitter a question and get an answer http://tinyurl.com/cwkysn. It is the first place you say something or hear something. It is a very important thing to get your head around - stick with it!.

re: Confessions of a Twitter sceptic

Jason Edge — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 11:32:17 GMT

Finally a like-minded soul. I too have tried to Twitter for the past 6 months but wondering who the hell is it for. I don't get the feeling of achievement that I do from posting a blog or the engagement from Facebook or LinkedIn and my army of 3 followers are not getting much from it either. I'll keep plugging away at it though in the vain hope that one day I will have my Eureka moment and finally 'get' Twitter. twitter.com/Doublemadforit in case you are interested..........

re: Nabaztag - not quite the future

CF — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 14:50:09 GMT

Undeniably cute for a techno gadget - however - once stayed at a friends house - where they had one of these (it lived in the spare room - indicative of how quickly the novelty had worn off). Initially I was quite intrigued and excited by it - but after a night punctuated by its wifi witterings (and unable first to work out how to turn the damned thing off) I was less enamoured. I hope you have better luck with Fluffy than we did.