DISQUS

I was just about to write a post on Twitter Methodology, mainly for consultants and companies, when I stumbled upon this, via Twitter.

You have a good study here, and it's must reading for all Twitter addicts.

I am the A List now, and all you Web 2.0 wankers and Social Media slackers must become my slaves and promoters. I command you now to help Loren Feldman find a girlfriend and get a real job, so I don't have to listen to sock puppets anymore. And help me find a way to get Jesse Jackson to say he wants to cut something off of me.

Is there a way to Hide all Friends of Friends stuff, universally, and not go to each Friend and hide their Friends stuff?

I predict that Twitter will use the Pownce model, inserting ad messages between tweets, like every 10 or 20 tweets, there's an ad.

I would be okay with that.

I meant "in spite of its occasional glitches and downtimes".

I have complained about Twitter in the past, but I have relaxed lately, since so many other socnets, live video streams, and other tools are experiencing some real problems lately.

"We have nothing to fear but success (ie, scaling) itself."

I agree with all that Ev says. I think some small text advertisements in the right sidebar of Twitter would not be intrusive or distracting. They could go under Stats or People. Even a discrete linked logo might be okay.

While I like experimenting with other services like Plurk, Pownce, and Jaiku, I must admit that, for its occasional glitches and downtimes, Twitter reigns supreme.

The simplicity is superb.

Thanks Evan and Biz for this universal communication tool, as revolutionary as Blogger was, which remains the best blog software in the world.

Location-based social networks are dangerous, especially for women and children. Why on earth would you want just anybody to know where you are all the time?

The advantage to users is nearly non-existent and the advantage to predators, stalkers, enemies is huge.

Location-based social networks are dangerous, especially for women and children. Why on earth would you want just anybody to know where you are all the time?

The advantage to users is nearly non-existent and the advantage to predators, stalkers, enemies is huge.

All this talk of "amateurs" (bloggers, unpaid writers) and "pros" (MSM journalists) is so much crap.

I guess Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were amateur writers, since no one paid them to write the greatest journalism ever: the 4 Gospels.

How much money did Lincoln make for writing the Gettysburg address?

The blogosphere is self-policing and has it's own intrinsic set of credentials, measured in many ways.

I've heard this lame "too crowded" nonsense used before as an excuse to try to control the "message" the capitalist owners wish to propagandize.

We don't want no stinking incentivized blog posts or compensated comments.

PayPerPost is blog whoring: praising or flaming a target product, company, or site, for payment of some type.

Sponsored blog posts and comment spamming pollute the purity of peer-to-peer recommendations that the blogosphere and online forums are based upon.

I side with my pal Jason Calacanis on this issue. It's an issue that divides the bloggers, with hot feelings on either side.

It's like if your wife was saying lots of romantic, flattering things to you, then you eventually discover that she was complying with some ethnomethodological university experiment in social engineering, and was paid $10 every time she said nice things to you.

This is what blog whoring is like.

We want to hear uncoached, unincentivized, unrehearsed, spontaneous, genuine reports from actual users of products or websites.

PayPerPost is just a way to game the blogosphere in a destructive, credibility-destroying manner, thus lowering the overall value of the venue.

I'm amazed at how the Webby Awards own website is a pile of crap, bad usability, lousy design, difficult navigation. Yet this is supposed to "honor" the "best" websites in a wide variety of industries. It will never win any design awards.

So make sure your BIMA site incorporates your best thinking on all aspects of web design, accessibility, usability, content value. Consider linking to other relevant sites.

I applaud this effort of yours. It's so important to respect and publicize good work in the digital media, and it's fun to see little freelancers beat the big guys.

http://twitter.com/vaspers

Hooray for Radiohead! Destroy the RIAA and corporate rock! Free music for a free people! Infinite Creativity don't need no stinking DRM!

http://twitter.com/vaspers

I am always impressed when a blogger sends me an email thanking me for my comment and telling me they value my contributions.

What people don't sufficiently appreciate is that when a person posts a comment on your blog, it's generally an enrichment of free user generated content.

Again: comments are free user generated content, that expands, enriches, and improves your blog. In fact, I'm so extreme on the conversational aspects of blogging, I often say that the comments are far more important than the posts I write.

Ideas need reaction, tweaking, debate, opposing views, criticism, complaints, corrections. Negative comments are typically far more valuable than flattery and praise.

You know the heart of blogging, and it shows.

http://twitter.com/vaspers

I use one category in my blog sidebar: "Most Popular Posts", a list based on Google Analytics. It contains roughly 20 post title links.

But I agree with you. I should make some additional categories on Blogocombat, Music Marketing, Con Artists, Web Content, Web Usability, Web Credibility, Social Media.

Thanks for the inspiring blog you've got here.

http://twitter.com/vaspers

Joe with No Website or Blog: what do you know about anything?

Scoble just said it's not about "influencing" the masses, but influencing smart people who actually change the world, not lemmings who follow any charismatic warmonger or leader.

Love this post, Robert. People who care about blog traffic are idiots pandering to 13 year old Harry Potter worshipers.

Digg? Just a bunch of Nazis over there, and lemmings.

You can feed your Twitter tweets through Jaiku. Jaiku has good threaded conversation via comments for specific messages.

Folks, that is an immense improvement and benefit making Jaiku far superior to Twitter.

Twitter is hit or miss conversationing. Jaiku is precision conversationing.

Twitter deserves to die. It's dysfunctional, down a lot, and their error messages are lies. No improvements. No bug fixes. Their "upgrades" are vaporware.

Twitter has crappy "in reply to" that links to the most recent tweet, rather than a specific tweet of a Twitterer.

Twitter is a frustrating tool that just gets worse all the time, not better.

Jaiku will and should kill Twitter. Good riddance.

@Michael Bailey aka Mobasoft - Love your definition of Socnet Friends:

We should probably just call it the list of “People who I target my message at”.

And remember Twitterphiles: Jaiku has solved the threaded conversation problem by enabling comments to be added to any Jaiku message.

Twitter's "in reply to" goes to the most recent message, not a specific tweet. That's ridiculous.

@Gordon R. Vaughan - No worries. Simply configure your Jaiku page to receive feeds from Twitter. Then all your Twitter messages will automatically become Jaiku messages, too. That should help SEO a lot.

Twitter deserves to be "killed". They don't listen to user feedback, no improvements, lying error messages, downtime, etc.

Jaiku gets great Google juice already. If you "marketing pundits" are not using Twitter, Jaiku, and Pownce to participate in conversations related to client business, sharing expertise, promoting links to client blogs/sites, and links to other relevant sites, you are antiques.

Post a link on Twitter, Jaiku, or Pownce, then after indexing catches it, Google the name of company linked to and watch how high it appears in SERPs. Like #1 or #3 in many cases.

Micro blogging is the new marketing power and marketable skill. Old Slow Motion Blogs can't compete with the rapid idea and link dissemination, plus pure SEO power of these status updating tools.

I tried Facebook, but ran into dysfunctionalities, and I wrote it off as a college boy version of MySpace. Contrary to the FB frenzy, I have been very coldly uninterested in the platform.

But I followed you, Robert, to Twitter, then you mentioned Pownce and Jaiku, so I got on them too. I think it's the speed of interactivity, the rapid replies you can get to a message, that's so addictive.

To step into the rushing river of brevities, cool links, and what we had for lunch today, is a challenge for old conventional SloMo bloggers.

Too bad Twitter is dysfunctional and down so often. If they don't fix their scaling problems fast, and provide better "in reply to" functionality, with Pownce-like file sharing, they're going to fade away.

Socnet members love the community they're participating in, but will migrate to another platform in a heartbeat if the functionalities are better and if the geek pundits give the Marching Orders to do so.

Good for Google. They really will take over the universe, what's left of it.

twitter.com/vaspers

Robert, you and I and David Meerman Scott know that it doesn't matter if some old geezers "don't care about Twitter or Facebook".

What matters is these tool communities are becoming mainstream at an alarming and astonishing rate: the critical mass you predicted in Naked Conversations has arrived.

It's irrelevant if many business are still stupid about blogs, podcasts, live event streaming, VoIP, Twitter, YouTube.

What matters is customers are enjoying these, and they're largely supplanting the MSM and corporate PR "messaging".

Ballmer is dismissive, to explain away the fact that Microsoft has not responded adequately to the social media trend that began in 1992 and is gaining that critical mass that is making it totally mainstream.

Microsoft hates missing a mainstream technology. Ballmer is sour grapesing it, and poo-pooing specific services.

Popularity of services waxes and wanes, but is that a reason to not jump in with a version like almost everyone else is?

Microsoft is backing Yippykaya. Does Ballmer consider that socnet a silly "fad"? What happened to Microsoft Spaces blogging thingamajig?

Microsoft is caught with it’s pants down, asleep at the switch. That’s all. And Ballmer is putting a positive spin on it.