DISQUS

Agree with metadata off tweets.

If Twitter would offer a tagging feature (where I can append a tag outside of the tweet versus the clutter and limits of hashtags), Twitter's search would be enhanced. It may seem to 'break' the 140 limit, but tagging would bring an important layer of human interpretation to Twitter. Of course, it all depends on the calibre of the brain behind the tweet.

If Twitter were to offer a tagging feature, then I think we'd be on a smoother experience: if you're following a conference or specific conversation, it can be tagged.

This accomplishes the task of hashtags (to specifically mark a tweet, versus just as a searchable term).

Until Twitter provides a tagging feature, hashtags will still have their value. It's in Twitter's interest to have metadata on tweets. And ours.

Sincerity.

It's hard to say how scalable intimacy - which is what the neighborhood engenders - can ever be. But just because intimacy may not scale well, it doesn't mean that large enterprises can't be sincere in their efforts.

Is sincerity scalable? I think it can be - at least more so than intimacy. This may be counter-intuitive, but since the essence of sincerity is truth (and truth is scalable), those organizations which are committed to sincerity, but challenged by the scalability of intimacy, may be in a better position to engender a more neighborly feel.

As long as I feel that an enterprise is sincere in its commitment to its community, then it has a chance for me to feel appreciated in my hour of need. In my interaction with businesses, that's neighborly enough for me.

Businesses don't need to embrace social media.

They just need to know where they are, where they need to go and how to get there. If blogs or Twitter are part of the journey, well then they should learn how to do them well. If not, there's a great chance for unnecessary trips.

Once nice thing about a global economic depression is this: so called experts who don't know anything about their potential clients will be left on the sidelines. Which means that the remarkable ones will flourish.

Arik,

Health care definitely could benefit from the proper use of communication and collaboration technologies and communities.

Since health care represents a wide range of services and needs, the pliancy of various social media lends itself to enhancing the quality of patient-provider relationships, collaboration among healthcare professionals and enabling the availability of authoritative, validated and meaningful online content.

We need to flush out all of the opportunities and dangers of social media in provision of safe and effective health care. Our helathcare system is fast appoaching a catastophic collapse. We need more doctors and nurses and administrators and others involved in getting up to speed with an understanding of how the Web works, and how it doesn't.

Quality of care not only involves direct patient-provider contact: it involves remarkable communication among all parties involved. Services like Twitter (or more secure analogues) could certainly provide better follow-up care for patients who have established relationships with providers and could radicalize the way professionals accomplish their goals.

HIPAA will need to be reformed. We will need to re-visit the issue of privacy in a world where technologies are making it harder every day to maintain privacy.

We have a long way to go before social media can be used in the ways that it aught to be used, but my I think as awareness grows of the technologies and communities that are sprouting, healthcare will take a needed look at social media.

Above all, efforts to incorporate social media into health care must focus on the safe and effective uses of the various technologies, without being fearful of change.

Glad to see interesting in health care communication and collaboration technologies waxing. It's time.

TweetDeck (for now).

But: if Twhirl adds Groups, it could win me back (there's something about those dings/chimes for replies/directs in Twhirl).

"Attention is the new distribution." <== Wowsa!

I was following down your post, coasting along. Then I read "Attention is the new distribution." Suddenly, I was in a completely different place and now can't wait to see you expound on that premise.

So: if it's true that attention is now distribution, how do we (we're all marketers, right?) market in a world that is increasingly suffering from Attention Obesity? Ah, there's a question.

What a nice little riff, Danny.

These principles have always been true (social media doesn't change that at all). But you're right: it does make it easier to see through bad intent.

Other-promotion is probably one of the most important tenants of mass-connection. It may take a while for people to recognize that, but when they do I think the planet will be a brighter shade of blue. (I hope.)

It's a non-linear world and Moore's Law is bending the curves even sharper than ever before. It's probably a good thing, then, that we have a chance to connect with other brains: it's getting harder every day to stand your own ground when little pale blue dots start spinning faster than they used to.

Phil Baumann's Recent post...null

3. Fire

2. Aim

1. Ready

Edit to big ass comment 71:

#103 above: Trust Agents is the title, not Trust Economies. Although, we could use a trust economy right now. Sorry for typing at 2am ;)

For your first list:

13 Let's stop writing blog posts about what others should be doing. (sure!)

14 Stop making fun of peeps who "don't get it" - we were all there (I'm guilty of this too)

15 Stop using inane words/phrases like "passion", "embrace", "engage", "listen".

16 Consume less sugar. That crap will kill you.


For your second list:

7 Let's get more healthcare professionals on board with the right kind of social media.
8 Raise awareness of Twitter among the population who should be the leaders:
Epidemiologists
Disaster response teams
Organ transplant services
Accountants and other agents of fiduciary trust
9 Promote a health-conscious attention to the consumption of technology.
10 Learn how the Federal System works (and how it doesn't).
11 Discover wonders of nature that you never knew existed.
12 File your Articles of Incorporation with the Secretary of the State of Delaware.
13 Discuss how the next holocausts will be waged via social media and what we can do now to respond.
14 Walk into a hospital and thank the staff for what they do. Bring them boxes of donuts and buckets of gratitude.
15 Read Galway Kinnell (Daybreak).
16 A Ritual To Reach To Each Other by William Stafford is a social media *MUST*
17 Read Alan Watts (Become What You Are).
18 Read Philip K. Dick if only for the psychedelic Gnosis (VALIS).
19 Learn how to meditate
20 Start using action verbs like "hunger", "welcome", "captivate", "mind" (see #15 in the first list).
21 Learn how to conduct a Japanese Tea Ceremony. (Invite me to it & teach me.)
22 Practice loving-kindess, especially at your most anger-inftrated moments.
23 Study resurrection. You'll need that skill more than ever.
24 Grieve for all those moments of your life that are gone forever.
25 Listen to the sound of rain falling on leaf-mush.
26 Teach our youth how to forgive wrongs, especially ours.
27 Acquire the fearlessness to love the people who will inevitably betray you.
28 Make yourself Bananas Foster. AND: Make some for the homeless in your town. (They're not dogs and not worthy of dog food.)
29 Learn something you never heard of every weekend (if you have those).
30 Know that what you make is proof of what you think.
31 Ask these two questions of yourself: when someone says listen hard, why do you squint? Could that be a metaphor for what's wrong with how we interact with each other and the world?
32 Know the difference between being nice and being good: nice people seek comfort and often disappoint; good people seek results and often disturb.
33 Decide which is more useful in the dangerous wild: hope or presence of mind.
34 Learn the distinction between spirituality and religion, between faith and belief.
35 Think like a scientist; act like an artist.
36 Think about how Search.Twitter could be a game-changer. (This isn't as obvious as you might think.)
37 Live with less.
38 Let's help each other to pull the beams out of our eyes.
39 Learn how to survive in the wild. Literally.
40 Eat less red meat.
41 Learn the difference between accrual basis accounting and cash basis accounting.
42 Know that Venture Capitalists come in all shapes, sizes, backgrounds. (That is, don't piss people off - at least until you know what they gotts.)
43 Listen to music you've never heard. The music from the Great Depression was pretty remarkable.
44 Think about your mortality and ask yourself what you're doing wrong and right.
45 Keep fighting racism.
46 Keep fighting for gay rights.
47 Keep fighting Crypto Fascism.
48 Find out what you can do to improve our healthcare system (other than screaming "Free Markets" or "Universal Healthcare").
49 Learn about the Eight-fold path and see if it makes sense. If it does, follow it.
50 Read the Book of Job and Daniel Dennett's Darwin's Dangerous Idea.
51 Practice foregiveness (especially when you're in a good mood).
52 Plan your work; work your plan.
53 Learn how to deal with terrorists and the people who don't.
54 Strike up a conversation with the Thunder-Gods of Failure and thank them.
55 Know the difference between bitching and kvetching.
56 Be mindful of banality. Banality is the poker-face of evil.
59 Set small, simple goals for more exercise.
60 Wage relentless war on superstition.
61 Disregard 99.9% of what you read on blogs (especially those by social media 'experts').
62 Follow @scottmonty if you're not already.
63 Make better use of the 100,000,000,000,000 to 500,000,000,000,000 inter-neuronal connections in your brain.
64 Send hand-written letters to long-lost friends and tell them how important they were in your life.
65 Tell her you can't stop thinking about her (unless your Stalker Dude)
66 Don't apologize unless you plan to set things aright.
67 Know that you cast a shadow and what it might be covering up.
68 Write down your story.
69 Acknowledge, embrace and say goodbye to your inner Douchebag.
70 You're no longer invisible. Deal with it.
71 Buy a rose, tie your business card to it and offer it to that prospect who will never buy from you.
72 Read Adam Smith.
73 Read the Federalist Papers and Wendell Berry.
74 Memorize the Bill of Rights.
75 Know the Declaration of Independence by heart and by mind.
76 Know: you are part of a universe that grows marvelous things: quarks, electrons, stars, galaxies, you.
77 Know: every time you breathe and think and dream, you grow the universe that grows you.
78 Knowing the last two facts, ask yourself: "How could I ever stop falling in love?"
79 Read Nassim Taleb
80 Be reasonable or shut up.
81 Think about how you want to represented in The Cloud. Does the truth work for you?
82 Read Hymn to Intellectual Beauty by Shelley, The Second Coming by Yeats and Walking Around by Neruda.
83 Seek treatment for clinical depression. Screw stigma.
84 Learn more about Domestic Violence and donate resources to women's shelters.
85 Hitting a child is NEVER acceptable. Child abuse affects you more than you know. Help to bring an end to violence against children.
86 Understand why someone with an opposing view holds such a view and how you might be wrong or right.
87 Be more of a fun-loving Jackass on Twitter once in a while. It's not 1837 anymore, Victoria.
88 Run a charity campaign on Twitter or wherever you have a presence on the web. Or just devote hours to a local need in your backyard.
89 Read Propaganda by Edward Bernays and learn about the origins of Public Relations.
90 Keep on reading Godin. Maybe in 2009 you'll finally understand what he's been saying about Twitter. Or maybe he'll go berserk and follow the s**t out of everybody.
91 Realize that most of the choices in your life were probably wrong. You're still here. Go figure.
92 Put spice in your chocolate.
93 Lie down once in a while and whisper to yourself "The world won't stop. I'm safe and in love with this moment."
94 Quit your job before it quits you.
95 Befriend your mind.
96 Invest where nobody else invests.
97 Plant a tree in memory of a lost soul-mate.
98 Question authority: especially on Twitter.
99 Make peace a verb
100 Mind your mind.
101 Lead on Twitter more than you follow.
102 Trust that if you follow your bliss then the Force will get your back, always. Be a bliss leader.
103 Pre-order Trust Economies when it's available. For fuk's sake: how much did you earn from Chris' sharing, kindness, insomnia and commitment to getting social media right?

Love the title. Should be a sign-post on Twitter's home page.

It's OK to bitch. Especially about stupid uses of something that's (mostly) stupid.

I'm sure a lot of us feel the same way.

(I also like "unfollow you on principle")

Question for you, Robert (and readers):

Would the realization of a true, context-driven Twitter search change Twitter for the better?

What I have in mind is: a remarkably powerful search algorithm which returns the results of a search based not on keyword (or # followers, please!) but on context?

A robust Search.Twitter would provide a built-in incentive for Twitterers to produce relevant streams of tweets (and that's what Twitter is: streams of data, not static web pages).

Yes Twitter is about conversation (sort of) and networking. (I'm with Chris Brogan here, but up to a point). An intelligent search portal would seem to take Twitter to a new level.

Google search is about *servers*. Twitter search is about *brains*, no? Why are we underestimating the potency of that?

What would you pay if you had the power to search millions of brains? Granted, many of them aren't working full-force: still, the power of that has got to mean something.

Have we gotten so used to the "computer" web that we've forgotten that, as of now, the most powerful supercomputers reside in our skulls?

This is why I think Twitter (enhanced by a "winning" Twitter Search) can be such a game-changer: especially if it collates mobile data--now that's one hell of a web, no?

Am I off? Is my question worth answering? Please, somebody help me out here, because I'm thinking we have something very important going on here that I don't know is discussed often enough.

Chris,

A sweet video. Thank you for sharing.

You know, I started my social media sloshing in 2008, started blogging a bit more seriously in the Spring and got hooked on Twitter.

I could have quit it all very easily. I was unemployed and pretty dejected but something happened which spurred me on.

I don't remember how but I found your blog and I felt that somebody else was out there who kinda had the same sense about what we could do with social media.

I have to tell you: you took an interest in one post of mine, the cascading consequences of which pushed me on to become a better blogger, a better person of sharing. I think that without your recognition, I may not have found the community that I now enjoy.

I have big plans for 2009, few of which I would have had were it not for your intelligence, your kindness and your commitment to getting social media right. It's taken many years to get Healthcamp to come to Philly. I don't think it's just a footnote to say that you were an important inspiring part in getting that started.

So, blessings be on you and your lovely family. 2009 will be a dark time for most of us. But that's OK. Our lives were meant to lend each other helping hands and reasoning minds. Where the darkness grows, so does the saving grace. Perhaps social is the medium through which we all can connect to make a better world.

You will need help in 2009. You can count on our help in making your goals matter to the rest of the world.

Thank you, Chis.

Always,
Phil

I love TweetDeck too. Liked it when it first came out but still preferred Twhirl (simple interface & different cowbell for tweets/replies/directs).

The November update brought enough features (like sound notification) to make it my primary crack pipe.

Today's release sweetens the deal even more.

One Twitter interface to keep an eye, though, is . It's alpha and only web-based but it's worth a test-drive. It may be overwhelming (and seizure-inducing). Remains to be seen where it goes. TweetDeck still has it beat as far as usability.

TweetDeck seems to be the standard to beat for us TwitterCrackheads (although Twhirl was my first girl, so there's still some love left over there).

Ken,


Honestly, I'm sort of amazed that people have never used a desktop client like TweetDeck or Twhirl 'get' Twitter: the apps make it so much easier to get a handle on the stream.



TweeDeck definitely is the Twitter app to beat imho. The groups and search features are alone worth the candle, not to mention the aesthetics of the interface.



Well-laid out case for TweetDeck and its uses, Ken.



Phil

No point rambling her with another echo chamber comment.

If you're reading Chris' post, only comment if you have a specific idea. If you already have one, leave now and lead the way.

My idea (Please steal it if you can do better):

Authoritative, down-to-earth and remarkable online assistance through our botched Healthcare system.

Twitter Search Optimization (TSO) :)
(On Google, there's 8 results as of today).

Would you say that traditional search and social media search dovetail each other? That is, in order for enterprises to fully optimize their web presence, should they understand the difference between them and how to best couple them?

Traditional search provides different results from social media search. I think that as social media becomes more mainstream, people will learn to use both methods to find their answers.

If I ask Where Can I Get a Purple Meatball Sundae in Philadelphia?, the results on Google would be vastly different than the results from, say, Search.Twitter. With Twitter or other social search, I get more immediate access to human brains. With Google, I get access to servers and alogorithms.

Time-sensitivity, relevancy and context/quality are different between the two kinds of search. Plus, Twitter searches potentially could link us to other people much faster to help spur further direct quering than you could get from a blog.

I'm not SEO expert. But I would think that social media search seems to extend how people find what they're looking for.

Optimizing on each is different also. With Google, we have pages of text to optimize serps. With Twitter, you've got 140 characters. But you could be tactical in your tweeting. Of course the problem with that kind of approach is that if it's not done right, it could disrupt your ability to hold quality conversations.

How much of a game-changer is social media search? How will the search aspect, and efforts to optimize, affect how social media is used?

@sukhji re: peoplebrowsr, congrats!

Dr. Drapeu

What Twitter does best, I think, is strip down the walls that we often build online.

Perhaps because of its simplicity and brevity, it's much easier to tweet snippets of what's going on in friends' heads: an interesting comment on some part of life, a link to what's fascinating or to just engage in stimulating or entertaining conversation. That's not easy with the "macro-blogging" or other traditional web platforms.

The ambient intimacy which Twitter provides is what makes it such a pliant agent for an almost infinite array of human connection: from marketing, to entertainment, to personal connection and on and on.

This is why Twitter is a game-changer: it gets us away from the static web to a stream of human connection. As the nongeeks figure this out (they will because they're WAY smarter and more interesting than we early adopters), Twitter will sing its best notes.

Anybody else feel this way? Am I overzealous with Twitter's potential? Is Twitter the game-changer for the web?

Thanks Mark for your perspective. I've always though that the healthcare community, not the techies, had within it the power to show the world what social media is really all about. Makes me proud. :)

Phil
Twitter Deflowered

Hmmm. what the hell, what's to lose? i'll give it a spin. thanks for the head up.

We are trying to fit two different models of the marketing universe into each other. Different feet, different shoes.

One model, the Fully Automatic Model, is all about large mass: mass production, mass consumption, mass assembly, mass distribution, mass scale, mass automation, mass communication. The kind of conversation within that model is mostly unilateral and not very flexible. Invest big dollars and you can (mostly) let the process takes care of itself.

The other model, the Fully Organic Model, is all about grassroots, connection, word-of-mouth, micro-niche, human element, long-tail, collaboration, instant communication, social context. The kind of conversation within that model is Cafe-Shaped and it's mostly bilateral and flexible. Invest small dollars but you need to tend more fully to the garden.

Even though we are probably moving away from the Fully Automatic to the Fully Organic, I don't think one is necessarily more appropriate than the other. Smart people know what tools work for which tasks.

For large-scale markets, the cost of abandoning the Fully Automatic model can be too great.

For small scale markets, the cost of embracing the Fully Automatic model can be to great.

Those businesses which understand the utility and relevance of each model are going to be the ones that thrive. Large enterprises that are smart will know how to incorporate the Organic model into their strategy. For those organizations, Twitter won't be a primary sounding platform: but it will provide an opportunity to drop by the Cafe when it's appropriate: Social strategies could help large enterprises be more osmotic and less entrenched in their walled-in gardens.

Likewise, small enterprises still can take advantage of the Automatic model: there's advantage, for example, in using the right kind of mass-advertising to help boost an already established WOM campaign.

The bridge between these two models is human connection. If each can ensure safe, effective and meaningful human connection, then enterprises will do well in either medium if used appropriately.

Seesmic video reply from Disqus re: NewTeeVee.