Notes from a wireframe world

Twitterbrite TR1 (Temporary release 1) is out now, however please read the notes as this is very much a beta version.

You may have noticed a nice little box below my posts (it only appears on each posts page, as opposed to the front page). this is provided by a new start-up called Smoopr, and provided you with a real-time streem (mostly from twitter I think) of what others are saying about what I write.

Due to its very early stage of development Smoopr users still need to manually copy and paste the code snippet into their blog or potentially any other online outlet. Herein lies a potential deal breaker for Smoopr. Add-ons and services where there is a need to install some widget within another web application should be as simple to implement as possible in order to reach a larger audience. It would therefore be smart to enable Smoopr to be used via various cross-browser add-ons and extensions as Zemanta already does.

Firstly Happy new year!

Sorry it’s been a while, however I’ve been busy writing code for a new project called TwitterBrite. It’s a twitter client for windows, that similar to applications like hootsuite allows users to post RSS feeds to twitter and search it for useful people to follow, however it solves one of the major drawbacks I see with hootsuite, that of security.

Hootsuite is a purely web based application, if something goes wrong with it (for example it starts re-posting old RSS entries, or spamming your followers with direct messages) their is nothing you can do about it, sure you can login and terminate your account, but as happened to a couple of services last year, what if you can’t login?

Control is I believe one of the biggest stumbling blocks for company wishing to access the power of social media, the what if something goes wrong argument.

Anyway as part of this project, I’ve been working on a .net based DLL that provides an interface for the Bit.ly URL shorten (which TwitterBrite will use) you can download it and a, hopefully useful, read me file from us here.

P.S. The DLL isn’t open source, however if you want the code, drop me a line. If you’re a business and want to keep it close source, I’m willing to sell it, providing I get a free life time upgrade/resell permissions for my products, if you’re interested in making it open source, that fine as well, just as long as you can show your going to move the interface forward.

I recently post on facebook that I think TV is shit and that the Internet is much better. And that I would pay a monthly subscription for access to streaming, on-demand video of my favorite shows.

A number of my friends where shocked by this, unable to believe that I thought that. Not that they think the Internet is devoid of content, just that they don’t see how it’s better than television.

So here is my analysis and an explanation as to why I feel the “New” media of the Internet is better than the “Old” media of TV.

Let me throw a couple of definition at you.

GS = Good stuff, a general term for good content either interesting web sites, or a good film or show, I’m only referring to good stuff for the user, and I’m not making any judgment as to what is good and what isn’t.

BS = Bad stuff, the opposite of Good stuff, stuff that is not of interest to the user.

For a typical user I’m making the assumption that for both Television and for the Internet GS/BS is the same (ie. There is the same percentage of good content on Television as on the Internet).

So if tv[GS/BS] = net[GS/BS] then their appears to be nothing in it, it makes no difference as to if you get your content from the internet or from television.

However this misses an important point about the difference between tv and the net, television is can only be accessed sequentially (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequential_access) and the internet is direct access (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_access) this means that for tv you are forced to watch shows when the suppler wants you to watch them, and (unless you risk copyright law, since recording a television program is in effect copyright theft (the Sony Vs. TV companys rulling hasn’t changed that fact)) can’t re-watch them unless your suppler allows you to (and again it’s at their direction as too when that is).

Also since TV is Sequential if you decide you wish to consume the media, you are forced to watch the BS until you get to the GS you want.

Yes I you can turn the television off, however I choose to consume the media at the time I have time to do so, and fundamentally that why the Internet is better than Television, because I can select what I want to watch in the limited time I allow my self to consume such media.

“You need to be in the TwitterFaceSpace to make a success of your business!”

“Social Media will make your business grow!”

“A facebook fan page is a magic bulleted!”

All rubbish! Yes that’s right, rubbish, at least according to a August 2009  study from Citibank.

More than three quarters of the small business surveyed said they didn’t find that social networks generated leads or expanded their business.

That’s a shocking figure, especially as we reported in back in September that you can? So what’s the scoop? Did I lie in September? Has CitiBank made a mess of the numbers? The real answer, as I alluded to back in September, is neither. Social media, just as with anything in business needs to be done correctly and not under the illusion that it’s some type of magic bullet. You need to know your market, are you’re the type that use social media or are they going to be more at home with a print advert? What do you want out of it? How are you going to get that?

Fundamentally social media is a tool, and just as with any tool if you use it incorrectly (or use the wrong tool in the first place) going to have a hard job getting it to do what you want it to do.

And this situation is made worse by two groups of people, one understandably the other unforgivably. The first group is throes small business, and it’s understandable that they make mistakes. The whole social media thing looks so simple stick up a facebook fan page or get a twitter account, and suddenly the whole world and his dog will be knocking at your door. Sadly it takes effort, time and planning before that will happen, effort because you have to publicise your facebook fan page or twitter stream to the right people, which means figuring out who they are and how to do that, and effort because you have to update content all the time, and respond to your fan’s.

Time because unsurprisingly that takes time, time to do and time to reap the rewards of. I advise clients to plug away with their social networking plans for at least six months before they look at if they are working. Because that’s how long it takes for people to trust your twitter stream or facebook page, and start acting on the things you want them to do.

And lastly it takes planning, you wouldn’t rush head long into a product redesign just because this year everyone’s talking about how cool red is (have you ever seen red fries?) yet I’ve seen organisations rush head long into social media projects without even asking themselves what they want out of it. Needless to say throes projects fail (well they success in a way, since they have no goals they meet throes goals…. ). And there are another group of people who must share at least part of the blame. People like me. Consultants, consultants who should know better but who push half baked projects onto organisation in order to make a quick buck, but in doing so they not only damage the image of social media but the companies they work for and their own reputations.

Posted via email from scottherbert’s posterous