When to and when not to tweet…

Twitter has become an integral part of our society, it seems that there are a huge number of users who have signed up – quite a few people I know are ‘watchers’ rather than active tweeters. Certainly at work we have an active account and I know many of my colleagues regularly use it to publicise deals or events. In the correct hands it can be quite effective.

However, as with anything that has such a massive readership you need to keep an eye on what you tweet – and in responding you need to be accurate and understand the original tweet…..

So I couldn’t help smiling when I saw the news about David Lammy, the MP for Tottenham who was outraged by the BBC’s ‘racist headline’ about the smoke from the Vatican’s chimney being black or white. He was in the House of commons and misread the original headline…….

His tweet was swift and decisive.

I did think his subsequent tweet when he realised his mistake was spot on as well however.

This highlights two things – firstly you should think before you tweet and secondly MP’s shouldn’t tweet in the commons!

 

Twitter or 999?

This is an interesting question – should the fire services take emergency calls (currently 999) via social media sites like Twitter? Last week the London Fire Brigade said it was considering such a move, allowing people to tweet emergencies instead of dialling 999.

Previously it has advised against using social media to make the service aware of fires as it is not monitored 24 hours a day. But it has acknowledged that the increasing proliferation of smart phones means they might actually get a swifter response.

First introduced in the London area on 30 June 1937, the UK’s 999 number is the world’s oldest emergency call service. The system was introduced following a fire on 10 November 1935 in a house on Wimpole Street in which five women were killed. A neighbour had tried to telephone the fire brigade and was so outraged at being held in a queue by the Welbeck telephone exchange that he wrote a letter to the editor of The Times, which prompted a government inquiry (even in those days).

In recent large fires in London the fire service have actually asked via twitter and other social media sites for local reports, photos and videos of fires to help them judge their initial response, and apparently it has enabled them to deal with incidents more effectively. So perhaps this is the way forward?

After all, when 999 calls were first introduced to summon assistance everyone apparently said it would never work!

 

The social games

Well they are 50% over, the UK’s most widely anticipated sporting event ever. They were going to be the first games of the social media revolution – so how have they been, and has social media played as big a part as expected?

Well from my point of view I will admit to having been a bit of a sceptic originally, but I believe the games have been an amazing success and I have really enjoyed following them – even while away on holiday in Italy! I thinks as a country we have done a great job and even the most ‘anti’ UK resident is now a fan.

The upcoming Paralympics promise to be the best ever with almost 100% ticket sales as well!

And what of the social media side? Certainly this has made it easier for me to follow events while abroad and at work – the news side of Twitter has enabled almost instant news of medal wins, which has then allowed me to use other mobile apps to follow events live.

The Tom Daley trolling episode showed the bad side of social media – but the rest of Twitters followers soon put paid to his comments.

So all in all I think Twitter and Facebook and the like have added to the experience, but have not perhaps had the impact that was expected – although that was probably a good thing as it was the negative aspects that were being commented upon pre-games more than the positives.

The real star of the Olympics for me (apart from Team GB) – was the BBC – their coverage has been brilliant, something that you appreciate even more when in a foreign country and having to watch their coverage! I really hope that Channel 4 can match their coverage during the Paralympics.

 

It’s good to talk….

You may recall the BT advert from a few years ago that tried to get us all to use our telephones to talk to each other – it was apparently ‘good to talk’. Time moves on and it now seems that it isn’t and we are more likely to text each other than speak!

According to Ofcom while 58% of people communicated via texts on a daily basis in 2011, only 47% made a daily mobile call, the shift away from traditional ways of keeping in touch being led by young people aged 16-24 (no surprise if you have your own teenager).

The report confirms that on average UK consumer now send 50 texts per week while fewer calls are being made on both fixed and mobile phones (certainly our home phone is more of a decoration now).

However for the first time, there was a fall in the volume of mobile calls – by just over 1% – in 2011, while landline calls were down by 10% and overall time spent on the phone fell by 5% in 2011.

This change in behaviour is believed to be down to greater ownership of internet-connected devices – smartphones like the iPhone;

• 39% of adults now own a smart phone, a 12% increase on 2010.
• 42% of these now say their smart phone is the most important device for accessing the internet, with a similar percentage regularly using social networking sites and 51% using e-mail.
• The average consumer spends 90 minutes a week accessing social networking sites and email.
• Tablet ownership is also on the rise, with 11% owning such a device, up from 2% last year.
• According to Ofcom, tablets are most often used in the home as a “snacking version” of the home PC.

So probably no surprises here, but a confirmation that the smart phone is beginning to play a very important part in all our lives – and is perhaps going to kill off the basic telephone before too long. It is also sad that people now prefer not to talk to each other. Is this the start of something more insidious in our behaviour?

 

Amazing maps of Twitter and Flickr activity

Once in a while you come across something that helps highlight a part of life that is perhaps more extensive than we think. This map shows how extensive mobile uploading is nowadays.

The map created by Eric Fischer combines data from the photo-sharing website Flickr and the micro-blogging network Twitter. The orange dots represent pictures uploaded to Flickr, while the blue dots are tweets, and the white dots represent locations that have been both tweeted and uploaded to Flickr.

City and tourist locations show up most – particularly with Flickr uploads

You can see from the map that the UK appears to be a ‘hot spot’ for Twitter and Flickr use, you can also see Paris clearly picked out in northern France. So simple but amazing!

 

This is a brilliant explanation of social media…

This is just brilliant, often the best explanations are the simplest and this hits the nail firmly on the head – and I particularly like the reference to Google+!

 

Is Facebook really the way to get youngsters to vote?

The state of British politics does not appeal to the average 18 year old it seems (or to most of us), the percentage turn out at recent general elections has been getting progressively worse so the question has to be how to get the kids involved as they are our future.

And recent research suggests almost twice as many 18 year olds use Facebook than are actually registered to vote!

The Electoral Commission used Facebook last year to encourage teenagers to get involved, with 15,000 going on to claim their right to vote. But analysis of electoral roll data from hundreds of council areas by Experian found the total number is actually falling.

There are an estimated 1.05 million 18 year olds in the UK with Facebook accounts, but only 520,000 who registered to vote, and that was 3% fewer than in 2010.

.Official figures show that only 56% of 19-24 year olds and 55% of 17 and 18 year olds are on the electoral register.

The Electoral Commissions campaign using social media to attract young voters is clever, but is not the answer. As long as our political system remains in its current ‘tit for tat’ state I can’t see youngsters feeling that they have any part to play in the political system – sad but true. And very unhealthy for the future of our country.

Surely we need to make this part of the education system – otherwise our politicians will always be as they are now – how depressing!

 

Another Google ‘duffer’?

As I have commented before I really like my social media and things – I keep up with the news via a combination of Twitter, RSS feeds and various news apps. But, in the main its the RSS feeds and Twitter that I find most effective, they provide a short headline that I can either ‘ignore’ or dig deeper on. All part of the ‘sound bite’ generation I suppose.

just not 'nice'

So as I blogged about earlier this week I was keen to give Flipboard a go when it came available for the iPhone and it did not disappoint. I am very impressed with it and find it as an iPhone app should be – very intuitive to use and smooth and ‘nice’ to use and look at.

I have been keen to look at Google’s effort in this sector of the market, it’s called Currents and was released a week or so ago – but only in the USA. I have no idea why Google always seem to do this. They are a global brand so you would think it would be possible to release things world-wide at the same time – but apparently not!

Anyway, I remembered that I have a US login for iTunes that I have used previously to access things like this via the US iTunes store. So after a quick reactivation today I downloaded Currents to have a play.

My initial reaction was that it is quite a good attempt at bringing a magazine style experience to this type of feed – and if Flipboard had not been there it might have been quite impressive! But it just does have the same feel as Flipboard. It is not as easy to use or as pleasing to the eye. More importantly it doesn’t work as smoothly and consequently isn’t as ‘special’ an experience.

Particular annoyances?

• You have to swipe sideways to read more in an article rather than the iPhone ‘norm’ of scrolling down.
• It doesn’t show feeds with new stories differently from ones without
• It is like Google+ – not obvious to use

So will I keep trying it out? Possibly for a week or so, but unless I have an ‘epiphany’ I don’t expect it to remain on my iPhone long-term. Is it me or do Google lack a certain something when it comes to design these days?

 

Zeitgeist 2011: Year In Review

I am not a huge fan of Google – any company that has such a significant hold over us all can’t be healthy. However as a company with so much data and access to it they are able to put together a fairly impressive review of the year.

This is a typically ‘flashy’ multimedia tour of the year and is well worth a view.

The review can be seen here – enjoy.

 

Flipboard – the way forward?

one of the 'home' pages

I am a self-confessed ‘geek’ – I love the ability to access things on the road and particularly love social media and the available news and articles via RSS feeds and the like. As such I am always on the look out for some form of aggregator to pull together a number of my ‘feeds’ into one place.

To date this has proved difficult and I have had to use separate apps for things like Twitter (Tweetbot which is great), Facebook (their own app) and news feeds (Byline – another great app), they all work fine but I have now found Flipboard which brings them all together in a very clever and ‘pretty’ manner. This youtube clip explains it really well.

an example of a tweet

I have not switched totally yet, but it all looks pretty promising so far. It is well worth a look, as the way you flip pages is just amazing. The presentation is also rather cool – it is more like a magazine style with pictures. That makes it sound a bit ‘simple’ but as you can see from the attached pictures it makes for a much richer and interesting experience. I for one am sold on it and hope that it develops as time goes by to include even more services – like LinkedIn for example.

news story - tap to read

I am aware that Google have just launched their take on this in the USA (why only there?) and it’s called Google Currents and it would I am sure pull down my Google Reader feeds really well (i currently use Byline). I also assume it would show them in more of a ‘magazine’ view (like Flipboard). However, my big reservation here is that it will be made to link to Google+ and not Facebook – and I really dislike Google+ so this will probably stop me trialing it when (or if) it finally becomes available in Europe.

Flipboard is well worth a look (and its free) – if nothing else it shows how user-friendly and visually exciting apps can be! This has to be the future!