Thursday, August 14th, 2008
My Twitter usage has been down to practically zero since I started using Plurk. It’s a good thing because the way Plurk actually works is like a community, so I’m getting much more referrals via Plurk than I ever did via Twitter. I have to admit, though, that it’s a bad thing as well because it means I’m not working as much on the network I have on Twitter, which is about three times the size of the one I have on Plurk.
That aside, today I got an email that essentially says Twitter will not be allowing users to receive Twitter updates any further unless they’re in the US, Canada or India. You can read the full details on their blog.
I draw attention to one paragraph in their email:
It pains us to take this measure. However, we need to avoid
placing undue burden on our company and our service. Even with a
limit of 250 messages received per week, it could cost Twitter
about $1,000 per user, per year to send SMS outside of Canada,
India, or the US. It makes more sense for us to establish fair
billing arrangements with mobile operators than it does to pass
these high fees on to our users.
It may be easy for me to say this as an outsider, but shouldn’t they have thought about this as a business issue from the beginning? Shouldn’t projections have been run and costs estimated? Why wait for two years before settling this?
At the end of the day it comes down to expectation management. Users have been used to receiving smses to keep up with their friends locally and internationally while they’re not at their computer. If you remove that, it takes a lot out of the service for these people. I could point you in the direction of numerous Plurk conversations today in dismay at the lack of this service.
I think there’s still value on Twitter. The past months have been dismal for them, but there’s no reason why their recent VC injection can’t breathe some new life into the service. But if they keep going down this road, the Twitter “fail whale” might need to be changed to an even bigger animal.
Tags: fail whale, Plurk, receiving smses from twitter, twitter, twitter fail, twitter stops sms support
Posted in Poor Practices, twitter | 1 Comment »
Saturday, July 5th, 2008
I must really apologise for not blogging much this week. I think it has been the least I’ve blogged since I’ve started the blog, but work has really been tough (though incredibly enjoyable).
The 2nd Ping.sg blog awards (blog aggregator in Singapore with about 3,500 blogs) have their nominees and I’m nominated in three categories:
(for “Are Bloggers Really Influencers?”)
(for “Why Plurk Over Twitter #3: Organic Conversations“)
Thank you to those who nominated me. If I’ve ever talked to you (in person) about why I blog, you know it’s not for the “fame” or money (I don’t even have ads!), but it’s really just me trying to share my love for this fascinating new digital space with you, and hopefully help spread the word about social media and how it can help you in your personal life, academic life or professional life.
I didn’t nominate myself for anything primarily because I thought it’s be a good gauge to see what the community finds valuable. I think the fact that the community has chosen two posts in particular that are aimed at convincing businesses that bloggers are indeed influencers and fostering conversation and community tells me that locally, the people who’re reading are listening and finding some value in it, and that is very, very encouraging.
So do check out the awards nominees page and vote for who you like. I’m not going to ask that you vote for me because looking at the nominees across the board, I think the community has already won.
Tags: are bloggers really influencers, best review post singapore, blog awards, community, conversation, dialogue, most insightful blog singapore, most insightful post singapore, organic conversations, ping.sg, ping.sg blog awards, Plurk, spread the word about social media, twitter, why plurk over twitter
Posted in Announcements, Blogs, Plurk, Singapore, Social Networks, community, social media, twitter | 5 Comments »
Wednesday, June 25th, 2008
More on the IDC Web2.0 Conference yesterday (attendees aside), there were some great insights that I’d love to talk about.
Prof. Michael brought up a point that I personally identify with. He says sometimes he has a guest in the class room and the guest is talking to the class, but the class is talking to each other via IM (or maybe Twitter), in other words, we’re having multiple levels of conversation.
I hope this is not new to marketers by now. Listen to Sarah from ReadWriteWeb or Ian from MTV. Generation Y is doing this. All the time.
Sarah will tell you they won’t even read this far down a blog post. Ian will tell you we have the computer on talking to 7 friends with MTV in the background and alternate-tabbing between games while stopping once in awhile to sms someone.
And that’s the truth.
Marketers are not going to get our full attention. And they certainly can’t demand it. They’re going to have to fight for it, not by interruption, but with darn compelling content. Does this mean we absorb less if we’re doing five things at the same time? Without empirical proof I’m going to say maybe. But I feel it also makes us aware of more. I can’t walk out of a movie these days without picking up at least one or two brands featured in the show, and more often than not the conversation becomes a “hey did you see that BMW insert?” after the movie.
Speaking as a Gen Y consumer myself, I love it when brands make the effort to connect, and seem like they’re genuine. (not some scammy thing). I’ll talk to you about Sony, about EA Games, about Bluehost and about HP because I know that they’re at least recognising the new presence of the new consumers and trying. They may not be fantastic at it, but it’s better than pretending we don’t exist or are a “fad”. (full disclosure: my office does PR work for HP)
Speaking of listening, I wanted to talk about this yesterday and am further prompted by this comment. Dear Yahoo!, I love that you sponsor stuff like the Web2.0 conference, but Jonathan is right. Does it make sense to sponsor it when people don’t get what you’re about? I love the “social” ymail and I love how it was presented in a non-intrusive way together with the goodie bags. But wouldn’t it be cooler to connect with say, 60 people who are in the space, in the know and can really appreciate what your product is about? Or give them a chance to try it and be bought over?
If you’re willing to listen to a proposition (not for me, but for the local Singaporean blogosphere), let’s start a conversation!
Tags: bluehost, ea games, Gen Y, generation y, hp, ianstewartmtv, IDC web2.0 conference, im, mtv, multi-tasking, multiple levels of conversation, readwriteweb, sarahintampa, social media insights, sony, sponsorship, twitter, yahoo, ymail
Posted in Blogs, Marketing, collaboration, community, social media | 4 Comments »
Tuesday, June 24th, 2008
Just got back from the IDC Web2.0 Conference today (thanks to Debbie and Joyes for granting me access!) and have some immediate thoughts before I go into detail about the various topics discussed.
Main thought: People need to do more research before coming for these conferences.
I estimate about 200 people in the room, and when the room was asked who used feeds (RSS), less than 30 people raised their hand.
Now I’m not judging, but I think if companies are going to spend $240 to send people for a three hour conference, they need to be able to absorb what is going on and follow the discussions. If only 30 people understand feeds, how many would understand the rest of the topics today? Wikis? Co-creation of content? Social networking? User-generated content? I have my doubts. I think companies owe it to themselves to do a little bit of research before going, so that they can truly engage in the discussion.
The thing is there was some good content at the conference. One speaker mentioned it’s not necessary to be front and centre of the content-creation, just a curator. And I wonder how many people got the reference.
Edit: Maybe next time after a conference I should walk up to people randomly and ask “So what do you think the takeaways are for your business?” and see what answers I get.
Finally, a question was asked towards the end of the day: “Is there research to show that using IM and Facebook increases productivity? And are some professions more suited than others to using social media in education. For example, would it be applicable to medicine?”. A muted groan rippled through the room.
Firstly, obviously there is no research to show that. The people who question the benefits of IM, Twitter and Facebook are those who are not on it or don’t understand it or are suspicious and un-trusting of their employees to be on these applications. Do you think people aren’t using the office phone for non-productive uses? Or the office email? Or the office printer?
The reason why this question comes up, to me, is because companies want to see this instant gratification. Are you using Facebook to generate a sales lead or close a sale? No? Waste of time. But it doesn’t work that way. Facebook, Twitter and IM take time to produce results. I spend a lot of time in the office on Facebook. I joke that it’s “research”, but finding out how people use Facebook and interact is very important. If you don’t know how your consumer is using their tools, how can you ever hope to be relevant?
Will there be employees who abuse this trust and throw sheep or superpoke friends at work? Sure. But I don’t feel that’s a reason to shut down access, because to me, the benefits outweigh the cons. Let’s keep this all in perspective. It’s the people that abuse the tool. Not that there’s anything inherently “wrong” about the tool.
Secondly, what a crazy question! Can the medical profession use social media? Of course! I honestly and truly question why this person was at this conference at all. The whole morning people were talking about interaction and content sharing and co-creation and wikis and transferring ideas and collaboration via Google Docs.
You mean you don’t see how medical knowledge can be pooled together, developed and refined via these tools? Or did you seriously mean doing away with practical surgery sessions and teach it via social media? Which is absolutely ridiculous too.
It is people like that, that are holding social media (and your company) back from advancing. The new consumers are not going to be convinced by an advertisement in the newspaper. If it’s not timely and relevant, forget it. If your business is not showing and interest in discovering how the new consumers think and behave, you might not be around in 10 years when they graduate and choose to spend their disposable income with a company who does.
Tags: close sales, co-creation of content, curator of content, facebook, facebook and productivity, facebook at work, feedburner, feeds, generate sales lead, generation y, google reader, grand copthorne waterfront, IDC web2.0 conference, new consumer, rss, Singapore, social media conference, social media singapore, social networking, twitter, user generated content, wikis
Posted in Singapore, Wikipedia, social media | 10 Comments »
Tuesday, June 24th, 2008
I’m writing this with Singapore in mind, but I think it could work anywhere.
Rubin and I had a discussion tonight about bands in Singapore, whether they’re talented or not, whether they could make money or not, etc etc. Towards the end of the night I needed to blog and turned to him for inspiration and he said “write about the local music scene”. Brilliant.
So here’s social media for the local music scene.
1) Get repeat plays.
One of the podcasts I listen to mentioned recently that in the music industry, frequency is your currency. So you get people to play it as many times as you can. Give it away free to everyone on MySpace, give it free to the polytechnic radio stations, give it free to the university Campus Radio stations. It doesn’t matter if you’re making money out of it at this stage, just give it free.
I can’t say how many times I haven’t liked a song on first listen, but it grows on me after three or more listens. I’m sure it’s the same for many other people.
2) Pimp yourself.
In a lot of ways, the local music scene is like the local blogosphere. There’s a lot of crap in there, but there are gems too. So how do you get people to notice you? Make yourself searchable. That means pimping up your website, going on MySpace, maybe creating a fan page on Facebook, whatever works. When someone hears your band name and goes home to search for you, you’d better turn up on page one of Google.
Case in point: Origami. I think that’s how it’s spelled because I was only walking past, but I liked their rendition of Kelly Clarkson’s Miss Independent, so much so I wanted to get in contact with them and offer to try to get their track on Campus Radio. So I come home, Google Origami and zilch. How do I help you get your music out there when I can’t find you? Do yourself a favour. If your band name is called Hystericks Stickz, change your name to something Google-able. That advice is free.
3) Get help.
No, don’t get someone to buy you a $30k ad on national radio. There are free (or at least cheap) ways to go about doing it. There are many, many polytechnic or university students out there who would probably be willing to help put your name out there or build you a blog, or pass your cd on to three friends. What could you offer them in return? Well that’s up to you. But remember: your most loyal customers are also your best.
Finally, a disclaimer: All this only works if your music doesn’t suck. As with everything else, content is king. If the content you’re producing sounds like screeching and/or cawing, no amount of publicity is going to help you.
So, now that you know all that. You want a social media/digital strategist to help your band out? Start a conversation with me. Here, Plurk, Twitter, Facebook, whatever works for you.
Tags: blogosphere, campus radio singapore, facebook, Google, myspace, origami, pimp yourself, Plurk, self-publicity, singapore local music, singapore's local music scent, smu campus radio, twitter
Posted in Google, Search, Singapore, Social Networks, collaboration, community, mainstream media, social media, twitter | 5 Comments »
Monday, June 9th, 2008
I got directed by Katherine Druckman (who I found out only recently is the wife of fellow Plurker and Twitterer Gary Druckman) to this great video of Gary Vaynerchuck on the topic of community.
I can’t embed the video, but here’s the link.
If you know me personally you know I don’t spend time on watching videos or browsing YouTube at all. When people send me links I watch them for 30secs and switch them off, but this video kept me watching from start to end. Trust me when I say: You. Must. Watch. This.
I watched the video and think I totally identify with what Gary is saying. I have the benefit of having a relatively small community right now and it’s important that I reply to all comments (yes, I know sometimes some fall through the cracks and I’m sorry!) and I engage as many people as I can through Twitter and Plurk, heck when someone I don’t know comments on my blog, I send an email to him/her if they left a valid one just so I know who they are and what why they chose to spend their very precious attention on my blog.
I don’t care who these people are. They could be some hotshot banker or someone going through a hairstyling apprenticeship (yes, that’s Tasj from Australia who loves the “little guy” coffee chains as opposed to the big Starbucks franchises), I value them all the same. And I choose to believe these relationships matter and if nurtured, will grow in to bonds of value that you just could not put a value to.
If you’re blogging or you’re involved in an online community in any way, do not take them for granted. Don’t think you’ll start caring when you’re a B-list or A-list blogger, you gotta form those bonds and show some appreciation now. Drop an email to a commenter, @reply them on Twitter or message them on Plurk saying thanks. Even better, head to their blogs and leave a comment in return. They’ll payoff sooner rather than later.
Tags: blogging, community, gary druckman, gary vaynerchuck, katherine druckman, twitter
Posted in Blogs, Plurk, community, social media, twitter | No Comments »
Saturday, June 7th, 2008
I don’t know about you, but usually when I wake up in the morning, I don’t check for the tweets I missed while I was asleep on Twitter. I did in the beginning, but after awhile it became too much. Also, after I tweet, I rarely get responses to that specific after 24 hours. The reason being people only get to see my tweet before they respond. In other words, Twitter tends to be time-sensitive.
On Plurk, I’m beginning to find out that the interactions there are much more timeless than on Twitter. For instance, yesterday I has an “unofficial Introduction Friday“, that now has 72 replies, and they’re still coming in.
The reason why it’s so active, is that everyone doesn’t only see my plurk like on Twitter, but of everyone else that replies. So maybe someone didn’t log on to Plurk for 30 hours (the travesty!) and comments on Introduction Friday, the thread suddenly goes live again and maybe someone else replies to that comment, and the conversation continues.
In fact waynesutton asked the community what feature they’d most want to see on Plurk a good five days ago, and I woke up this morning to see new replies still coming in. When was the last time that happened for you on Twitter?
If you’re on Plurk, do connect with me: http://plurk.com/user/uniquefrequency
Tags: introduction friday, Plurk, time-sensitive, timeless conversations, twitter, uniquefrequency on plurk
Posted in Plurk | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, June 4th, 2008
#1 and #2 reasons why Plurk over Twitter are cliques and threaded conversations respectively. Cliques allow you to send plurks to specified subsets of your followers. I have a local clique, and that’s where all the chatter that is unique to Singapore goes to, instead of spamming it to everyone. Threaded conversations allow you to follow one conversation, unlike Twitter where replies are rather fragmented.
Let’s go on to #3: Organic Conversations.
Yesterday I posted about EA Games getting customer service. I posted about it on Plurk as well:
Within seconds of posting, NovelistKat talked about how they may get customer service, but not how to treat their employees. This went back and forth awhile until litford hopped in to talk about jPod and how it’s a spoof of EA and its programmers. (full conversation here)
Isn’t this how true conversations happen? Imagine talking about a shoe brand (no names) over dinner. “Man those new shoes I bought are comfortable“. Somehow the conversation meanders to “I hope that comfort is deserving of the child labour that it took to make it” and then after a little more it goes to “Did you see the new ad for the shoes on tv last night?”
Conversations have a life of their own. Seeing them grow organically has a lot of value. How many brands could listen in or participate in the EA conversation and learn from it? EA certainly. Douglas Coupland perhaps. The jPod network could’ve pointed us to a website to stream the first episode for free and get us hooked. The possibilities are endless.
I write this post partially in reply to @jonathank of Fabrikade who isn’t sure of the personal/business possibilities of Plurk yet, hope this is one step towards convincing you, Jonathan!
Tags: customer service, ea games, following the conversation, joining the conversation, organic conversation, Plurk, Singapore, twitter
Posted in Blogs, Plurk, Singapore, social media, twitter | 3 Comments »
Sunday, May 25th, 2008
Yesterday was SMB:Singapore 2, which was great because we had the unveiling of the first version of the logo (which was printed out on all the name tags), just under 60 people appearing, pretty good food and what I thought was a nice cozy venue at Cafe Domus.
For me, it was really good meeting people like Siok Siok and Krisandro, Rony Thomas in person, and finally getting to meet Preetam, as well as interesting conversations with Su Min, Jayden, Hun Boon and many more. I also had a kick ass time being interviewed for Geek Goddess TV together with Sheylara and Derrick. (Mic, please make me look good in post!)
As always, great meeting the (by now) usual crew of Nadia, Tech 65 guys, Yuhui, Ridz, Hisham, Supriya, Brian, Daphne, Nicole, Coleman, Claudia, Peter, Miccheng, Bernard and Shannon. I’m sure I’ve missed out people and I apologise! This crazy linking is hard work, but I like generating linklove.
If you came for SMB and we didn’t manage to connect, do drop me a comment or look for me on Twitter (@uniquefrequency) or on Facebook, and we can start a whole new conversation there! Just drop me a note so I know you’re not some random person looking to add me.
You might notice this post says “The Success Part”, more on “The Failure” part later today. Also, I’ll be putting up a post consolidating all the media coverage of SMB2, so if you have a blog post, pictures, video, audio, anything, drop me a comment so I can link you!.
And now, on to the pictures (mouseover for captions):
Tags: cafe domus, geek goddess, podfire network, sherms, singapore social media scene, singpore bloggers, smb singapore, social media breakfast logo, social media breakfast singapore, tv, twitter, uniquefrequency
Posted in Blogs, Fun, Singapore, collaboration, social media, social media breakfast | 15 Comments »
Thursday, May 22nd, 2008
Got a link in the mail today pointing to Rainier PR and their hiring of staff via Twitter.
That’s pretty amazing, but before you jump in and get yourself a Twitter account, it’s not really about that one tool. It’s about building an online presence, getting people familiar with you, and building your personal brand. More from the article:
PR students listen-up. If you want a fast track career in digital PR use your holiday time to get work placements and like Matt immerse yourself in the tools of your trade such as Blogger, Facebook, Flickr, Google Tools, Twitter and Wordpress. Chances are that if you do you’ll have a head start on many of those that have been in the industry for several years.
I’m always gobsmacked by candidates, both graduates and those that have been in the industry for some time, that come for an interview (almost always via recruiters) at Rainier PR that don’t make an effort to look at the agency web site or our blog. They typically don’t use an RSS Reader and haven’t had “time to look at Twitter”. Bollocks. Don’t waste your time – or ours.
How true is that? I think it extends to any communications effort and I don’t think you even need to be in PR. Let’s not even talk about the real world. If I had to form a team to do a communications/marketing plan for a student club in school, I wouldn’t want someone who doesn’t know how to use Google Alerts or Wordpress (at the very least).
Congrats to Matt Watson (who I am now following on Twitter @mpwatson) and I think this is only the start of things to come, and we’ll definitely be hearing more of such instances in the future.
You can find me on Twitter (@uniquefrequency). Feel free to follow!
Tags: @mpwatson, building online presence, building presonal brand, communications effort, communications plan, google alerts, hiring through twitter, hiring via twitter, matt watson, rainier pr, recruitment, social media hiring, twitter, uniquefrequency, wordpress
Posted in social media, twitter | 1 Comment »
