Social Media NZ

I am passionate about social media. I love people. I love meeting new people. I love stories. I love conversation. I have had the wonderful fortune recently to meet some incredible people, and I want to share that with you through a series of video interviews so you have the benefit of “meeting” these people too.

I recently landed in Las Vegas from Hong Kong and was eager to check into Foursquare to allow the adventure to begin. Upon arrival two exciting figures popped up on the grid: @CHRISVOSS and @matthewray. I knew both of them via Twitter, but had no idea that I would expect to see them in Vegas.

Mathew and I had a special connection because we both worked on Twestival together. He ran the Rochester event while I ran the Hong Kong event on the other side of the world. Bonded through Twitter, and social media for social good, we randomly happen to be in Vegas at the same time, Foursquare alerting us of the fact, Twitter putting us in touch. I cannot think of a better (or cooler) example of social media magic in action at its finest. When Matt and I met he told me he was going to the 140 Character Conference in New York on April 20-21. I had to go. I rerouted my ticket to Asia via New York and voila! See you all in NYC! My video with Matt will be aired on the NY leg of the trip – so stay tuned.

I am deeply honored that my good friend, (and yes, you can make good friends online) @ImadNaffa flew in from California to have dinner with me. If you don’t know this man, reach out and say hello. He is one of the most authentic, engaging, intellectually curious individuals I have met on Twitter. Besides being a man with a huge heart and a kind soul, he is also a pioneer in the social media space in the Engineering industry. You may remember his touching blog post about The Peanut Man in Jordan who passed away that was graciously retweeted by @QueenRania. If not, it is a blog to remember, check it out. I unfortunately did not video our tweetup. Next time!

Finally, and last but not least, I had the pleasure of meeting with Chris Voss. Chris and I have chatted on Twitter, however not as extensively as Imad and I have. I was really impressed with how approachable Chris was and how open he was to getting together. Chris blogs on a lot of different topics and has extensive opinions on social media so I was looking forward to the opportunity to asking him some questions.

Some highlights this video covers:

• Question regarding a blog post where he discusses Twitter turning down gaming partnerships & are gaming platforms the future of social media
• Thoughts on Twitter’s acquisition of Tweetie
• The end of the Video also includes an interview with @NickTako who I met via Chris when I did the interview.

Social Media NZ

Perri Gorman @bethebutterfly and BeTheButterfly.Wordpress.Com

Twitter has just announced some major new integration improvements for its Facebook and LinkedIn applications, including a new feature which will allow users to automatically follow their friend's Twitter accounts.

On its offical blog, Twitter has revealed that the new improvements will allow users to find and follow friends on Facebook, and their connections on LinkedIn - who are also using Twitter. Users will be able to do this directly from the Facebook Twitter application, or the LinkedIn Tweets application.

Other features include the ability to syndicate tweets directly onto user profiles and pages, profile-photo swapping between accounts, and a new feature to add friends and connections to a Twitter list.

According to Twitter co-founder, Biz Stone, these changes are a direct result of user feedback, stating that one of the most frequent requests from users is how they can find and follow the people they are already connected to on other social networks.

This new level of integration will likely help further the spread of Twitter. The syndicated tweets will make the Twitter service more visible, and the revamped applications will make it easier for potential users to transition from one network to another.

Things don't look quite as bright for Facebook, who have long refused to acknowledge Twitter as a competitive threat to its share of the social networking market. The social networking giant has just been revealed to be lying about the amount of people using the Facebook Twitter application. Initially, they reported just 400,000 unique users, but the site Inside Facebook claims the actual number is closer to 7 million. Twitter's Facebook application page now correctly reflects this number.

Note: These new services are currently unavailbale, which according to Twitter is due to an error on Facebook's side.

Social Media NZ

Saquib Ahmed @Simantics

My Website: Saquib.me

Email: Saquib@socialmedianz.com

For most of us, everything is basically electronic - if you were asked to name something you used on a daily basis that wasn't electronic, it would be pretty hard, even money has to be processed electronically, all your information is stored electronically and for most people digitally too.

It is hard to think of how many things I have which isn't stored digitally now: my music, my emails, my photos, my life online - everything! Almost.

So when you look through your digital world, what do you see? Well if you can make it into a 3-4 minute telling others what you think it looks like - you could win $10,000. It might seem a little suspicious but it is actually legit. Its a competition being run by Looksy, an organisation aiming to get the biggest open source film - created by those who are natives of the digital world (a.k.a. as Generation C, C for "Control")

Looksy was created by Lewis Bostock begin_of_the_skype_highlighting     end_of_the_skype_highlighting - avid YouTuber, Film Producer and director of Bostock Media, and Jake Pearce - strategist and keynote speaker on Generation C. It was launched during the New Zealand YouTube Gathering which took place in July of 2009. There were a few entries last year following the release of the Looksy Project, but now they wish to up the ante, increase the stakes and make it more interesting.

Looksy is is currently both formally and informally supported by Vodafone, Tower, Giapo Gelato,  Telecom and Malcove. Looksy main aim is to open the media world to group of videographers who would eventually be able to work commercially for corporates who would like the ask certain questions best answered in a form of a video in return for money which would then go towards future film competitions.

For those interested in potentially entering the competition for the grand prize $10,000 they must be warned that there must be at least 50 entries by end of July or the prize will drop to just $1000. Money raised from the project will be split three-ways between Looksy volunteers, filmers and a Kauri Restoration Project.

If you're interested in becoming a member of Looksy, you can visit the site here. And even view some of the existing entries.

[UPDATE] Lewis Bostock was interviewed by GeorgeFM's Clarke Gayford on 11th June regarding Looksy. You can watch it below

Social Media NZ

Courtney @CourtneySit

Any Questions ? Email me at: courtneysit@socialmedianz.com

Twitter made head-waves back in April when they announced one of their profits-making model, "Promoted Tweets". The platform is aimed at increasing brand interactions with fans and ultimately Twitter's bank account.

Today Twitter revealed their second part to "Promoted Tweets" with Promoted Trends. First company to promote via Trending Topics is Disney/Pixar with their up and coming feature Toy Story 3

This feature was spotted this morning on Twitter.com at the bottom which is where the Trending Topic is. Right next to "Toy Story 3" is a yellow box that says "Promoted", Like Promoted Tweets when you click on a topic it takes you to the search results page with the company's promoted tweet listed first on top. As Mashable.com reported, the new Promoted Trends is rumored to be selling for tens of thousands of dollars.

Promoted Trends is available for all to see right now, I think this feature will be much more effective if Twitter allowed advertisers or companies to narrow it down to cities or regions, then it will be way more relevant and targeted, because I can say with confident, Toy Story 3 will not be in theaters in New Zealand on June the 18th....1st of July thank you very much.

A benefit I can see Promoted Trends from Promoted Tweets is, it's more user friendly, and we will know if a trending topic is being promoted, from a user perspective it will be a much less-in-your-face promotion, and it encourages people to click on it, on their own terms.

Promoted Trends is very similar to Google Adwords, so instead of out of date ads, promoted trends will provide real-time ads that are relevant and targeted, which is a mouth-watering prospect for advertisers and large companies.

Although this is an awesome idea on Twitter's part, I still think this will not give an equal opportunity to non big corporate's and advertisers with smaller budgets to utilize this tool.

What's your opinion on Twitter's Promoted Trends ?

Social Media NZ

John Lai @Whoisjohnlai  

 

Yesterday we reported about the networking issues which had left Twitter inaccessible to thousands of its users. Today Twitter has announced that there will be further down times over the next two weeks, as it's engineers conduct scheduled maintenance on their networks.

 

These repairs and improvements are designed to allow Twitter to capacitate the massive traffic increase brought on by the Fifa World Cup.

 

This could not have come at a worse time for soccer fans, many of whom are using Twitter to voice their support for their teams in South Africa.

 

Through the official Twitter blog, Twitter's communications manager Sean Garret said:

Record traffic and unprecedented spikes in activity are never simple to manage. However, we were well aware of the likely impact of the World Cup. What we didn't anticipate was some of the complexities that have been inherent in fixing and optimizing our systems before and during the event.

 

However, Garret has promised that these down times have been scheduled in such a way as not to interrupt supporters while a game is being played.

We will not perform this work during World Cup games, and we will provide advance notification.

 

A small consideration which Twitter's many soccer mad users will no doubt appreciate, but one that does not ease the worries of business owners who have come to rely on Twitter.

 

We asked our Twitter followers if they would be affected if Twitter were to disappear tomorrow, and the vast majority of respondents felt that they would. Fiona Lees, a business woman and respondent under the handle @Fiona_Lees, said : "Absolutely [it would affect us] - it's a huge part of our business".

 

The common theme which emerged from the responses is that current users find Twitter to be an indespensible tool for cultivating a social media presence, and marketing their businesses. However, until Twitter resolves their recurring network issues, it will find it difficult to transition from being an alternative marketing method to becoming a business staple.

Check out John Lai's post on what are your other options, when the team at Twitter is hard at work in getting the service to run smoothly again.

Social Media NZ

Saquib Ahmed @Simantics

My Website: Saquib.me

Email: Saquib@socialmedianz.com

If you have found yourself facing the Twitter fail whale for most of the day, you are not alone. Thousands of users are reporting missing tweet streams, incorrect twitter counts, duplicated messages, and in some cases - a complete loss of all their tweets.

These technical difficulties are still occurring 24 hours after the initial failures of service began. 

CNet is reporting that the issues come from an internal networking error, and is not the cause of a malicious attack, like the Iranian Cyber Army attacks which shut Twitter down for hours at a time during last year's Iranian presidential elections.

Twitter's latest status report on its blog says:

"We’re currently experiencing site availability issues resulting from a failed enhancement of the site. Our infrastructure and operations engineers are currently working to resolve this. We’ll continue to update the status blog."

It goes on to say services would resume as normal at 4pm Pacific Time or 10pm New Zealand time.

The failed enhancement they are speaking of is likely to be linked to the unveiling of their new geo-location feature, where users can tag their tweets with specific locations and allow them to be tied into already popular location based services, such as FourSquare and GoWalla.

Businesses which use Twitter as a main marketing strategy were especially affected by Twitter's downtime. Popular Auckland gelato bar, Giapo, celebrated a new BP Oil Spill flavoured gelato with a tweetup. Ironically, the event itself could not be tweeted about at the time due to the service failures. The owner of Giapo tweeted on his account: "Instead of looking to go geotagging they should fix the real twitter! Bcoz it does not work!"

As the services return, Twitter users are revealing their distraught to the downing of Twitter for all those hours through the use of the hashtag #whiletwitterwasdown. This only goes to show further how embedded Twitter has become in the lives of its users.

Check out John Lai's post on what to do next time your Twitter is down.

Social Media NZ

Saquib Ahmed @Simantics

My Website: Saquib.me

Email: Saquib@socialmedianz.com

Twitter Places officially went live today, this feature was announced back in April at the Twitter Developer Conference: Chirp. 

[Image: Twitter.com]

Quick rundown of Twitter Places:

Twitter Places allows you to tag your tweets to the specific location you are broadcasting from. It's available on Twitter.com and Mobile.Twitter.com (U.S users only for now). Twitter users will be able to click on a location and see all the tweets in that area. Foursquare and Gowalla will now be integrated into Twitter Places too, with information from these platforms displaying underneath tweets (picture below). In short, it will show all other check-ins from that location on Twitter.com

Twitter is also releasing API functionality which will allow developers to integrate Twitter Places into their third-party application.

Over the next week, the new Twitter Places feature will be rolling out to 65 countries around the world, made possible by partnerships formed with TomTom and Localeze.

Twitter also addresses that they are are not competing with Foursquare and Gowalla seeing it as a win-win combination for all parties involved.

Twitter made a smart, smart move here. Allowing the integration of this geo-locational functionality into their third party applications (like Hootesuite or Seesmic) means people will stay using one application. It basically gives Twitter an edge over Gowalla or Foursquare's on-phone apps. 

Credit goes to Foursquare and Gowalla as well, because its a great step towards further monetizing their service. And as they say, if you can't beat them, join them. 

We will keep an eye out when this features becomes available in New Zealand.

Leave a comment below to share your thoughts on Twitter Places, is it useful ? or will this be another Twitter "bomb" feature

Social Media NZ

John Lai @Whoisjohnlai  

@NZAnon is a Twitter account (which has V from "V for Vendetta" as it's avatar) where you can text what you want to say and it will appear anonymously on the main timeline, created here in New Zealand by @Aerofade (or better known as Mark to some) it is in a way a Twitter flavoured PostSecret. If you don't know what PostSecret you can check it online, but for a quick overview it is basically where people send in homemade postcards with their 'secrets' on it - it is scanned and placed online. But unlike PostSecret, with @NZAnon you don't have to send your secrets anywhere through the mail, just send the text and it will appear almost instanteously (the way regular text tweets appear online).

Mark says the main inspiration behind @NZAnon came from attending an event a few days beforehand, the discussion of how there were somethings you have wanted to tweet, but knew you couldn't (for whatever reason) and how it would be great if there was a place you could anonymously post your tweets, Mark who is a programmer by trade, says this project was a good way of putting what he already knew into action, as he had started it based on his struggles with Twitter updates via text message to his cellphone. Mark says the entire program is implemented in the Ruby programming language, which is used for rapid prototyping. In true "Kiwi-No.8-Fencing-Wire" style, he recycled the code  from another project he had previously complete which meant it only took Mark an afternoon to create @NZAnon.

Hardware wise, it works like so - an old Vodem was used, it is linked to a sim card (which holds the number you text your tweet to), Mark who has a service for polling new messages through his Vodem said, once a message is received it is delivered to a middleware which then works out that is a message it is then stored into a Twitter library which Mark also created. If you're concerned about privacy, you don't have to worry. Privacy is maintained by a system of hashing, Mark says the process only takes the message portion of the text, the messages are recorded but the number which it is sent from is hidden, thus making them unidentifiable.

Mark says the best part about @NZAnon is that it was mission accomplished, it works well and people seem to enjoy using it. The worst part was when he first launched it there were  a few people who were trying to promote their websites, so Mark opted to change it and decided to block all website links, it also means we don't have to be worried about what it linking us too. Mark says having @NZAnon has been interesting so far, there have been some really weird and whacky things that people want to say (understandably anonymously) and for the audience it has been slightly entertaining, which Mark reckons that people are enjoying.

How long will it last for? Well Mark reckons it will be dependent on how many people use it - currently its being fueled by word of mouth, and Twitter is definitely the right medium to launch it.

If you're wondering how to tweet anonymously, you can send what you want to say to +64211261526. Text charges may apply (depending on which carrier or plan you are using). If you would like to know what other people are saying, you can follow @NZAnon on Twitter. You can also visit the website here.

Social Media NZ

Courtney @CourtneySit

Any Questions ? Email me at: courtneysit@socialmedianz.com

[Image: clientopedia]

Here is a fun and interesting Infographic, showing statistic of tweets coming from the most popular phone clients by languages.

Here are the top Twitter Phone clients, Uber Twitter, Tweetdeck, Echofon, Twitter for Android, Twitter for iPhone. Most of the Uber-Twitter users come from Indonesia, they alone occupied 30% of users.

Another interesting observation from this is, Blackberry seems like the preferable choice amongst Indonesian.

What is one feature that you like about Uber-Twitter ? Would love to see your answers

Social Media NZ

John Lai @Whoisjohnlai  

Regardless of which link shortener you use on Twitter, if you tweet everyday, shortened links are almost an neccessity especially when you're bound by those 140 characters, without link shortening normal sized links use at least half if not most of the 140 character limit. The only downside of clicking on one of those links is that we don't know where they lead to - sure it might be your friend who is tweeting, but there have been a few cases where people have been hacked and sent DM's to their friends which included a shortened link and if you clicked it, it would spread and continue to wreak havoc.

Well Twitter may have found the answer to this issue by releasing their own official link shortener which will be known as t.co. Twitter says the main aim of the official link shortener is to remove the unknown factor of the shortened links, it will be like a way of getting the official stamp of approval from the Twitter so that you know as a consumer to the service that you are safe. t.co will replace the current twt.tl format is used, but t.co will not always be seen unless it is needed. Wherever possible the full link will be shown or parts of the link will be shown so that people know they are not malicious in anyway.

Additionally, this may change how the link will be counted against the 140 character limit - it has been confirmed that each t.co link will only be 20 characters long, once a link is shortened or link wrapped it will be added after the final count which means that some tweets can and probably will be longer than 140 characters long. The t.co link will help for several things especially in the case of updates sent via text - due to the 160 character limit (as it is in New Zealand). The new t.co will have another purpose when it will be routed through the promoted tweets algorithm and this data will also be used in analysis to give to companies who are apart of the commerical accounts service.

Currently Twitter is in the process of testing the service out with various accounts, and plan to roll it out to internal staff and test it based on its success.

So keep a look out and let us know if you happen to see it!

Social Media NZ

Courtney @CourtneySit

Any Questions ? Email me at: courtneysit@socialmedianz.com