Thanks to a tweet by Jeremiah Owyang (aka @JowYang) I found out about this new “network” that may be pointing out to a new kind of “social”.
The kind that’s closed and limited to the one person of your choice. In this case only two. The name is simply “Pair“, self-described as: “An interactive way for you and your partner to share everything“. With concepts such as “thumbkissing” and “sketch together”, the iPhone app has some interesting features.
SloMo is not to be confused with the currently very hot SoLoMo acronym.
So this past week during a social event in Marrakech, I met the charming @Michelle_Adams_ and a — by his own account — photographer, British, living in New York, that drinks tea fellow by the name of Patrick Cline, aka @PatrickCline_.
Within the time constraints of the event – a photo shoot at @PeacockPavilion for @LonnyMag – and during the rare breaks, we exchanged business cards and the traditional social platitudes.
Although it is still some people’s reality today — and this post is really for them,
A few highlights on this infographic illustrating one of the most fundamental shifts happening in education today. Just as remote commuting is exploding, the wave has moved upstream into the younger strata of society with e-learning.
On that latter point, one might wonder about the headache recruiters are bound to have. Going from a model where: Continue Reading…
First question is it really? Answer yes and twitter provides that unequivocal answer via 5+ million tweets across 46 countries in 23 languages.
Why? Simply because it’s an event that moves billions of dollars in advertising and most brands are today operating on a global basis.
Not convinced?
Check the infographic below for the heavy hitters who rode this year’s football super-bonanza: Continue Reading…
Honestly, a list of top anything can be created out of thin air and include people or things deemed worthy based on multiple 
factors. Notwithstanding, I’m flattered to know that the dedication and time I put in, generating content through various online channels, proved valuable to others.
“Pride is the illusion of separation. Humility is the realization of unity.”
I couldn’t help but think of this proverb when I got the news about making the Who Are The Top 50 Social Media Power Influencers? list by Forbes. I mean this achievement is also in large part thanks to all that have listened and amplified my voice; and I feel so humbled for it. All the more, that there are so many great names on the list that I respect and enjoy.
In the end, this underlines for me that creating great value and engaging people on it can be a game changer on both the professional and personal levels.
This Foursquare feature could be very tricky.
On my way to Fayetteville, Arkansas (Yes, Arkansas), I check-in on foursquare at the San Diego Airport. A rather busy airport from a social media junkies standpoint: 41 people were already checked in when I did. Continue Reading…
Since a picture is worth a 1,000 words and even 1,000,000 Words according to Twitter, the screenshot below should give ample response to this question.
When I learned that foursquare had launched “business pages” where brands could sign up as check-in users, I initially had a chuckle about it myself and wondered why? Continue Reading…
After making a strong push to its subscribers for casting images through its own net and dubbing it: “1,000,000 Words in 140 Characters“, Twitter now allows direct posting of images through its website.
Twitter Now Allows Direct Image Upload — FasTake
Twitter nevertheless keeps a tight fits on analytics and when you do share an image through Twitter you can say goodbye to the number of times your picture has been seen. Continue Reading…
New move from Twitter today! With its most current valuation closing in on $8 billion, Twitter is currently looking for $400 million in additional funding. With good chances to close the new funding round, an estimated $200 million in revenue and no apparent hurry to go public, it still needs to continue ramping up its revenue stream.
Through its blog (see post below), Twitter announced today that it would be moving tweets from select companies and promoted tweets (currently only appearing in the list of trends) higher up in our timelines. Twitter did make sure to remind its blog readers that either type of these “plugged” tweets — it calls them “Timely Tweets” — could easily be dismissed, since:
“We put our users first and strive to create products that enrich the Twitter experience for every Twitter user. We’re excited about this next step and look forward to your feedback.”
I personally always appreciated Twitter’s efforts to imagine a new business model out of the age old eyeballs advertising model. This move of prioritizing corporate tweets does make sense given the very short lifecycle of a tweet, short of serious engagement and retweeting from followers and the twittosphere. Companies should see more clicks and retweets as a result… or will they?
A few questions come to mind:
With 200 million users “only” Twitter is still far behind Facebook’s 750 million, but with an average 350 billion tweets currently being delivered each day, Twitter is going strong (see infographic below)… and something must water whomever’s mouth is forking up an additional $400 million in funding.
What do you think the benefits or risks of the “Timely Tweets” move are for Twitter?
Twitter Blog: Timely Tweets: Now easier to seeShare and discover what’s happening right now, anywhere in the world.
Today, Twitter unveiled its long awaited photo and video sharing, not only leaving the likes of Twitpic, Yfrog and Twitvid in the dust… with a twist: pushing hashtags. Watch Twitter’s new “Top pictures” and “Top Videos” soon becoming the latest buzz word in both social and mainstream media.
In watching the official unveiling video below, Twitter is smartly appealing to users’ love-hate relationship with the ubiquitous 140 characters limit: too limiting to ramble but fantastic to consume and digest.
Twitter does this by upgrading the old age adage: “A picture is worth 1,000 words” by adding to it that “A hashtag is worth a 1,000 pictures”. Something a simple as a # and a word more meaningful than 1,000 pictures? Tall order you think? Maybe not so for those among us who dabbled with the use of hashtags on Twitter.
If you put the #perfectmoment hashtag side by side along with an actual picture of what someone decided it was the representation of a perfect moment; which do you think will be more powerfully meaningful? Your imagination or the visual representation of someone else’s judgment?
From a strict platform business relevance, it seems obvious that Twitter is also taking advantage of the new sharing feature to encourage the use of hashtags.This in effects amounts to hire users in helping it crowdsource and make more searchable, the 50 million tweets it garners every day. This, as illustrated by hashtag linked photos and videos Twitter displays in its video. The more relevant its search results will be the more attractive the platform will become.
Furthermore, and from a strict user experience, this move also helps it pragmatically explain to users, and especially potential new users, what hashtags are. In my experience, the Twitter hashtag concept is always a sticky point for new users to grasp and it is at same time, often a deterrent for would be users, as it makes Twitter look to them rather gibberish to comfortably approach.
Smart move, don’t you think?
By Twitter’s definition, a hashtag, represented by the symbol #, “is used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet. It was created organically by Twitter users as a way to categorize messages“. But overtime it has become much more than a categorization tool.
Given the 140 characters limit of a tweet — limit which in many ways turned out a blessing — , many Twitter and social networks users in general, use it to express an emotion, give context or clarification to a tweet. Imagine what this tweet would mean without the #scarcasm hashtag? And how many characters would it take to explain its true meaning?
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In the second tweet below and without ‘#sarcasm’, quickly grasping the intent of @Carcharius, may prove difficult, given other conversations @mrtuckbox and @helenzille may be in, without searching for the replied to tweet (shown in smaller font in the screenshot below). For added reference, the tweet author may also have also added: #SeaPoint or #Tickets or #Police.
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Many will also tell you that hashtags may soon become the new official URL to display… all the way to ornamenting business cards.
Do you use hashtags on Twitter? How about other places? What’s been your experience with it?
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