Tag Archives: plurk

You can’t “do” blogs half fast!

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I was reading Paul Chaney’s blog post on Social Media Today this morning in which he thinks that there is a serious reduction on the number of comments flowing into blogs and he’s right. the quality is going down as well as the quantity. Part of the reason is that we now have more ways to access the writers of blog posts. Namely through Twitter, Plurk, Pownce et al.  I basically told Paul “thats great that we can do that, but now our conversations are somewhat muted and shorter”.

Does that mean that blogging is dead or dying? That we need a lesson in blogger ethics? No.

But as I thought about this more and looked at some of my posts and my comments on other blogs. I make a concerted effort to engage others. I’m not sure what the requisite amount of replies or back and forths are required between writer and reader, but I personally think that there is an expected return on the comment expected. Maybe. A requisite expectation if you will. But what I’m starting to see is smuggness and a “I started it, contributed some, and thats sufficient, attitude” starting to permeate some really good blogs. I’m also seeing really nice blogs, with some decent content, and some history, tailing off with posts, and an otherwise obvious downtick in effort.

What this tells me is that, perhaps that blog strategy or the author, have gone in another direction. What this tells me is that you can’t finish what you started. It tells me you are not practicing what you preach. It tells me that if you are a PR or a marketing person, no way in hell am i going to work with you. You started the race and you can’t finish it. You built the frame but you can’t put up the walls, the roof and anything else. You’ve done a half fast job and it shows.

Or maybe just maybe, Twitter is now cutting into our desire to comment?

Or… You’ve written a good blog post but you can’t comment or respond to the people who have made the effort and done the same to your post. I know you can comment via email, or Twitter, and maybe you have, but if we’re to extend the conversations beyond a micro-blogging platform and bring them back to blogs, we need to see that you have a vested interest in your blog post and you’re not posting just for attention or link juice, or extending the conversation privately.

The bottom line is you started it, now finish it with transparency and efficacy. We’re still watching we’re still reading.

4 reasons to be excited about the next 5 years

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According to the Gartner Hype Cycle, they have identified 27 emerging technologies to keep an eye on. They have also predicted that 8 of them will have a major transformational business impact. For that reason,  those 8 should be strongly considered for adoption by technology planners in the next 10 years. Of these 8, there are 4 that have caught my eye and thus have a particular interest to me.

The first of the 4 is Web 2.0. Although if you look at the below diagram, Web 2.0 is currently in Gartners “Trough of Disillusionment”. Though it almost sounds like some type of business purgatory, it will emerge within two years to have a transformational impact, as companies steadily gain more experience and success with both the technologies and the cultural implications-according to Gartner. If you cannot get excited about how Web 2.0 is transforming the web and the way we utilize it, then you just might not be geeky enough. That’s ok though, there are enough of us out there that truly are “giddy” about the direction we’re heading.

The next area that Gartner feels is about to explode is Social computing platforms — you’d have to be living in a cave on the island of Fiji to not suspect that consumer-oriented social networking sites, such as MySpace and Facebook, are causing companies of all sizes to evaluate the role that these sites, or various components of these sites, including their enterprise sized brethren, might do to transform and elevate the way that they currently communicate and do business. What’s more, the individual components and their ilk are forcing people to re-think what it means to be social, to re-evaluate what communities are all about, and how all of this can change the way we might interact with each other in the future.

If it hasn’t been obvious to this point what would be on Gartner list, its Microblogging— Thanks to Twitter specifically, and Plurk and Friendfeed to a lesser degree, microblogging is the new kid on the block in the world of social networking. But if microblogging is the new kid, it’s the new kid who can hit the ball out of the ballpark the first time he picks up a bat. The potential has already been leveraged by some pockets of the online community such as social media marketers and PR people, but it is also slowly being adopted by some forward thinking leading-edge companies who are using it to communicate with its customers, and employees. It’s becoming and will become another viable tool in a companies quest to engage it’s customer, communicate with the customer and brand their products more effectively.

Lastly, I’m going to lump 2 together. Corporate Blogging and Social Network Analysis I think that corporations, because of the advent of Web 2.0 technologies and the emergence of social networks and their niches, are starting to realize the importance of communicating like they never have before. We throw around the word transparency and I think it has never been more self evident what the upside can be to these organizations. As soon as Corporations can get a handle on the how’s and the why’s of blogging, they will be well served to incorporate it into their marketing mix. My suggestion would be to start with the book Naked Conversations.

Social Network Analysis is a natural extension of Web 2.0,  social computing platforms and microblogging. Because we are in the realtive infancy of these aformentioned technologies, the measurement of these is still as well, in it’s early stages. Analyzing the impact, the ROI, the level of engagement, the depth, the reach, the frequency, the conversations, the numbers- of social networks is something we talk about every day. An example of a company that does monitors social media would be Radian 6. As social networks continue to mature, look for this aspect as well to become robust and very vertical and very in demand.

So take a look at the diagram below, which ones get you excited to be in this space?

Plurk surges in June

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To all of the Twitterati out there, these numbers should not surprise you. According to Compete, Plurk had over 1.6 million visits in June. The percent change from May was 4561% You can go ahead and refer to the below graphic as to the reason for this surge. Things have actually been good lately, not to mention Twitter’s recent aquisition of Summize. Can’t wait to see Plurk’s July numbers. What’s your take on Plurk? Are you diggin the UI?

16 random negative Twitter-pinions

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Ok so Twitter has been up as of late, so maybe the above cartoon is not as applicable. But something that is, are people’s opinions or their  general “take” on Twitter. Want to see some of the more creative answers to the question, do you Twitter? Interesting insight to say the least.

-“Personally, I don’t see the need to follow anyone that closely nor for anyone to follow me that closely. Nor do I want it either way”

-“Marc, call me a troglodyte, but I see no allure to this.”

-“, I don’t give a twitter if someone is looking at olives on isle four third shelf up. 😉 ”

-“Big Brother, anyone?? ”

-“No, I am not interested in what you had for lunch, nor do I share such information with those following me.”

-“I’ve tried it. It could become a black hole that you never get out of. It can suck up your time.”

-“Maybe it will become the new texting once devices catch up with the tech.”

– It’s a question of establishing followers that I find the least attractive aspect of Twitter — if you don’t have followers, you can become sort of psychotic, always talking to yourself in a tiny room with no one to listen to your persistent updates. ”

-” It seems pointless and just another time waster and login you have to try and remember”

-“The internets biggest waste of time ever!”

-“If Twitter is as I understand it, I’m not clear on how it is that any user types anything other than “I’m typing on Twitter”.

-“Either I need enlightenment or Twitter users need lives. Maybe second lives?”

-“Seems voyeuristic or reminiscent of horror and stalker flicks!”

-“It’s a time suck”

-“God bless. to each his/her own, and other sundry platitudes to that effect. But for me, nope. ”

-“I don’t know if it will ever become mainstream. But it does remind me of the way my teenagers use text messaging now. ”

To each his own I guess. I find it interesting that there is such a strong negative opinion, but even more interesting is that some of them may have not ever used it, either. What is your opinion of Twitter? Obviously, even if you have not used it before, you seem to have one. Mad shout out to geek and poke btw.

 

 

Can Twitter and Plurk co-exist?

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Anybody remember the Hatfields and McCoys? Check out this picture and read what you can of the sign:

Civil war conflicts, romantic entanglements, family oriented discord, property disputes, mixed with mountain pride…. Yeeeeehaaaaa. Mabel, git my gun!

Ok..so the guy on the left is Twitter and the the feller on the right is Plurk.. The guy on the left looks like he’s tolerating the guy on the right, doesn’t it? It’s sorta the way I’m seeing whats happening right now between the 2 currently. The golden child versus the upstart. Ali versus Frazier, Firefox versus IE, Kirk versus Khan? Leno versus Letterman.

I know I’m stretching the relationship a bit, if you want to call it a relationship but….really, it’s a situation where eventually you are going to end up in one of two camps but not both…  At the least, they are labor intensive, don’t you think? As I have alluded to in a previous post, social networking is hard work, and that includes the likes of micro blogging using  the aformentioned Twitter and Plurk.

This topic stems from a LinkedIn question I have currently active in which I asked Do you Twitter? If so why? and if not, how come? For now I’d like to pull from some of the tremendous answers I received from some really really smart people that speak to the duel that is heating up thanks to the Twitter outages of the past few weeks.

 Here’s a quick thought maybe Twitter and Plurk could hang together like..

.

 Ben and Jerry?

Those scarry 70’s mugshots notwithstanding, we might as meld the two micro-blog sites together and create another entity called Twurk? Plitter? Plutter? Let me digress, before I lose you and share with you some thoughts and links about what others have to say about Twitter and Plurk.

First off, Daniel Schutzsmith provided a great link to a post he wrote called 20 things I learned using Twitter, it’s informative, has a ton of links and makes sense.(nice glasses btw, Daniel)

Next, although this person did not specifically chime in on her love or hate for Twitter, I still liked her post, Melissa Chang, tells me why she likes Twitter, bumps and all…

Beth Harte of OnPath technologies supplied not only some great observations but also 3 great links to 3  great articles that speak to exactly what is good, bad and ugly about Twitter and Plurk. the first is by Mack Collier titled, Getting individuals excited while trying to create a community, I like Mack, and he brings up some great points about Plurk.

Beth’s next suggestion was to read a post by Jason Falls, titled 5 reasons Plurk is better than Twitter and vice versa, who by no coincidence, was recommended to me by Todd Defrens in response to my top 30 social media experts, and 17 thought leaders posts. Jason has some thoughts as well about Plurk you might find interesting.

Lastly, she mentioned a post by Frank Martin  called The question of Plurk, which lays It all out pretty succinctly, screen shots and all. I highly recommend it. He seems to be a champion for the Plurk cause, but it’s cool, it’s all good. Ultimately, I think Twitter and Plurk can co-exist just like:

Why not? What sayeth you?