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My Take On Timeline and Ticker

By on September 23, 2011 in Life Online

Lots of people have said what they like about Facebook’s announcements at yesterday’s f8 conference. I’m all for innovation, and I agree that many users (including myself) whine about changes, get used to them, and then whine when the next set of changes comes down. But I do have some observations and questions about these impending updates:

  1. FB needs to make it a Privacy option (which should be the default!) that one’s comments and likes don’t show up in the Ticker, or that they only show up in the case of mutual friends. I’ve now lost count of those posting “please unsubscribe to my comments and likes” as their FB status. People do NOT want everyone, even their friends, seeing their every move on FB.
  2. The “set it and forget it” aspect of the “frictionless” app experience is going to upset people, as well. What if you don’t WANT everyone knowing what you’re listening to, what you’re cooking, what you’re doing? What if in your early enthusiasm you add Spotify, or Nike+, or whatever… and don’t (if the option is even there) only make it for certain Lists? Recruiters and bosses are going to have a field day with this.
  3. FB is assuming that people will spend all day, every day, with FB running to document their lives. I’m not convinced that will be the case with the majority. Even among those who might be inclined are many who can’t or won’t use FB while they’re at work, on vacation, etc. I suspect many will begin populating their timelines with gusto and then, like so many bloggers, lose the pace once they realize the ongoing effort and disclosure required.
  4. Many people (especially those in high school and college) have hundreds, if not thousands, of Friends. That ticker’s going to whiz by like a slot machine. How useful will the discovery aspect be if the ticker’s scrolling rapidly?
  5. The huge unanswered question: What is FB going to do with all the data it’ll be compiling on its users? With whom will they share it? What will the ramifications be for privacy, identify theft, marketing?

What are your thoughts?

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Your Own Site Matters More Than Ever

By on July 20, 2011 in Life Online, twitter

In under a month and still in beta, Google+ has attracted 18 million users, or 2.4% of Facebook’s base (per Business Insider). That’s a fairly impressive figure.

Time is a finite resource. The time people are now spending on G+ (or turntable.fm, or Namesake, or any other hot new service) is, almost certainly, time taken away from Twitter, Facebook, etc. You’ve probably spent a considerable amount of your own time building and engaging on those services. And now your fans – and you – are turning at least some of their attention elsewhere.

You can’t be everywhere at once. Neither can your customers, fans, clients, etc. You can try… but in spending so much time trying to build and maintain your presence on the various social services you can end up neglecting your own site.

And that’s a danger.

Your own site is the one place where YOU control the content, the context, and – perhaps most importantly – the list. If your Twitter or Facebook or Blogger account were wiped out tomorrow, could you easily reach or recreate all those followers and fans? No.

Even with apps to help, it’s just much easier to tweet than to blog. I get that, and am as guilty of it as anyone. The social services make it incredibly convenient to post a photo, thought, or video. Apps like TweetDeck and HootSuite make it even easier by letting you post to multiple services at once.

I’m not advocating that you stop doing that. In fact, I’m a big proponent that businesses, artists, etc. should be, within reason, where their fans are, and not try to force customers to come to them. Having said that, there will always be another service, another app.

Your only constant online is the content that YOU own and control: your site, your mailing list. Reward those who do visit your site/blog with exclusive content or offers, with being the first to get exciting news (via your blog, RSS, mailing list) before you post it elsewhere. Make sure the content there is as rich and valuable as what you post elsewhere, and you’ll always be able to reach your core base regardless of whatever services they (and you) use.

What are your strategies for managing the shifting social media audience? Please add them in the comments below.

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Tune Up Your Twitter Feed

By on July 8, 2011 in Life Online

If you’ve been on Twitter for any length of time, you’re probably following a fair number of accounts (for those who have the opposite issue, I’ll post soon about how to find good accounts to follow). If you follow many more than a few hundred your stream can become unruly, if not entirely unmanageable.

You can handle this in a few ways:

  • Do nothing.
  • Use Twitter lists and apps (e.g. TweetDeck, HootSuite) to prioritize feeds into lists, groups or columns.
  • Pare down the number of accounts you follow.

It’s the last option I’ll address here. I use a combination of techniques to regularly manage the accounts I follow, and I use several different services to accomplish them.

1. I unfollow accounts that no longer add value to my feed. To help assess this I use a service called TwitCleaner. TwitCleaner doesn’t charge for its services. It analyzes all the accounts you follow, and lets you know which ones it thinks you might want to unfollow. You’ll get a DM with a link to your report page once TwitCleaner finishes its analysis. It will display its findings, in summary and in detail.

Here’s what the categories mean:

  • Potentially dodgy behavior (nothing but links, consistently repeating the same URL)
  • Other dodgy behavior, now absent (exhibited the behavior above but hasn’t posted anything for a while)
  • No activity in over a month
  • Not much interaction (fewer than 10 tweets, bots that pump out RSS feeds, hardly follow anyone,)
  • All talk, all the time (average over 24 tweets/day in addition to @replies)
  • Little original content (most of what they tweet is RTs of others)
  • Not so interesting (they talk about themselves more than half of the time, or a very low percentage of the accounts they follow follow them back)

You decide, on an account by account basis, whether to unfollow any of the accounts it suggests as candidates. For example: News feeds and celebrity accounts tend to follow few accounts back; it doesn’t mean you should stop following if you’re interested in what they have to say.

On the other hand, you’ll probably find at least a few accounts to unfollow, for one reason or another. You can also ask TwitCleaner to tell you how your account looks to others who use their service. The results may surprise you!

2. I get a daily report of accounts that have unfollowed me from SocialGrapple. (A link to the report comes via email, which is super handy, although I could generate the same information by visiting the website.) If I was only following any of those accounts as a courtesy, or for a specific time-limited reason like a trip or an online promotion that is over, I’ll likely unfollow back. SocialGrapple will also help you decide whether to check out any of your newest followers more carefully by letting you know if they’re new, have no avatar, a bad ratio of followers to following, etc.

It also shows if you if you’re now “stalking” an account that’s unfollowed you (meaning you’re still following that account). Note: If I remain interested in what that person or feed has to say, I continue to follow even though they’ve unfollowed me. I believe in asynchronous following. I don’t follow people just because they follow me; I follow them because I’m interested in what they’re saying. If someone doesn’t feel the same way about what I’m saying, for whatever reason, c’est la vie.

SocialGrapple isn’t free, but has options ranging from $14 to $125 per month. Each permits up to a certain number s of accounts and keywords to be followed. It’s a really useful service if you’re managing more than one account or if your own account is fairly active. It offers timeline analytics and you can analyze current and potential feeds you’re following by keyword.

3. For an alternate look at accounts to consider unfollowing, I use commun.it. Currently in beta, this service is about building and managing online relationships. With its suggestions for accounts to unfollow, it looks at accounts that have low engagement with you and prioritizes them in terms of relevance and their own influence. That makes sense; a highly influential account is likely to have many followers, which could explains their lower engagement level with any given follower (i.e you).

 

One final note:  Online reputation measurers (e.g. Klout, PeerIndex) base their estimate of your influence on factors including how engaged your followers are with you (meaning the percentage of your followers who mention, reply and retweet you). If you’re following a bunch of bots or inactive accounts, your scores may suffer because of it. If increasing your Klout score is important to you, that’s another reason to make sure you’re only following accounts that matter to you.

What tools or services do you use to manage your Twitter feed? Please have at it in the comments.

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The Bottle of Wine

By on May 15, 2011 in Life Online, Uncategorized

My friend David passed this along. It made me chuckle:

THE BOTTLE OF WINE  

Sally was driving home from one of her business trips in Northern Arizona when she saw an elderly Navajo woman walking on the side of the road.  
 
As the trip was a long and quiet one, she stopped the car and asked the Navajo woman if she would like a ride.  
 
With a silent nod of thanks, the woman got into the car.  
 
Resuming the journey, Sally tried in vain to make a bit of small talk with the Navajo woman. The old woman just sat silently, looking intently at everything she saw, studying every little detail, until she noticed a brown bag on the seat next to Sally.  

“What in bag?” asked the old woman.  

Sally looked down at the brown bag and said, “It’s a bottle of wine. I got it for my husband.”  
 
The Navajo woman was silent for another moment or two.  Then speaking with the quiet wisdom of an elder, she said:  
 
“Good trade…..”  

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Why Doesn’t Facebook Have Bookmarks?

By on May 6, 2011 in Life Online

Whenever I scan my Facebook news feed, I see items I’d like to read, watch or comment upon, but don’t always have time to do so at that moment. If Facebook wants to expand its domination of C2C and B2C online communications, it should offer users a bookmark/favorite option.

If in addition to “Liking” a given post, we could actually save it to read or watch later, it would only accrue to the benefit of all.

  • We wouldn’t miss stories, photos or articles that interest us.
  • Page admins would have an additional metric to measure (how many people favorited their item).
  • Destination media (videos, blog posts, etc.) would benefit from otherwise missed traffic.
  • People could see (if the underlying privacy settings allow) which items their friends felt were interesting enough to bookmark, allowing “influencers” to have even more influence.

Does anyone know if FB has something like this in the works? Would you use it if they offered it?

What else do you think FB is missing (snark aside!) that would make it more useful?

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