This post was prompted by Steve Gillmor’s article ‘Rest in Peace, RSS‘ posted on TechCrunchIT on May 5, 2009. In the article Steve Gillmor argues that RSS service has no place in this world and instead internet users should switch solely to Twitter to get their daily dose of news and information. Although I disagree with Mr. Gillmor, he is not completely wrong; he does note that Twitter serves as a better system of disseminating new content earlier. However, there are two issues that Steve Gillmor doesn’t consider in his argument. First is the questionable process of content delivery via Twitter. And second is that this process is human powered.
Twitter is great for disseminating early content before it is even published on blogs, newspapers, heard on the radio or shown on TV. However, to get the whole sense of what is going on, the users need to follow breadcrumbs in the discussion between Tweeple. A great example would be reporting an earthquake or a fire. Although the mainstream media won’t be able to report it as quickly, twitter users (aka Tweeple) are able to spread the message of first-hand accounts across their Twitter network. The problem with distributing this type of content via Twitter is that it is human powered.
In order to spread the content, Tweeple need to be active on Twitter. If no one is logged in, no content gets spread. If users don’t have followers, or enough of them, again, the content doesn’t get spread. To really take advantage of early warning content delivery from Twitter, users (or influential ones at least) need to be hooked up 24/7 to get the content out to the masses. Although possible, but somewhat unrealistic for someone to sit and monitor thousands of discussions on Tweedeck live and wait for new content to arrive. People have jobs to go to and lives to attend to. A couple of other issues arise from human powered content delivery. The reliability and credibility. It is at users’ discretion to spread the content, and to spread accurate content. Sometimes people are not fast enough or are able to deliver most accurate information.
RSS is not dead. It is alive and well. I learned about Steve Gillmor’s article via my subscription to TechCrunch RSS feed on my Google Reader, not through Twitter. For the reasons below, RSS will continue to flourish and stay alive:
- Subscribe to any type of content you want to see. Eliminate noise.
- Content arrives as soon as it is published.
- See it all in one spot. No need to visit multiple sites or follow breadcrumbs.
- See it whenever you want.
- Get more than 140 characters of info.
- Faster delivery for published content.
Both Twitter and RSS feeds are killer tools. The best practice is to use them in harmony to maximize the speed, credibility and reliability of content delivery.
This post was inspired by Oprah Winfrey’s (@oprah) lack of tweets on Twitter in the last few days. Oprah joined Twitter during the big race to million followers between Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) and CNN’s Breaking News (@cnnbrk). Oprah tweeted for few days and suddenly stopped. Perhaps she doesn’t need Twitter to stay in touch with millions of fans or is too busy to post updates. Those are just speculations. However, to expand on this thought I decided to compile a list of reasons why people leave a social network soon after joining.
Poor User Experience. When new members have unsatisfactory user experience upon joining a social network this reason alone can make anyone leave. Making it difficult to navigate the site, poor layout, sub-standard graphic design, tedious sign up process are some of the factors that contribute to poor experience.
Not Contacts. One of the main reasons why anyone joins a social network is to connect with people they know or want to get to know. But if there are not enough contacts that new members would like to connect with, they will leave.
No Value. Users expect to receive value from their social network. It will depend from user to user on what they value in a social network. It could be anything from connecting with childhood friends to using the network to find a job or generate business leads.
Existing Memberships. When new users are already members of other social networks they now have to divide their time. New social network would have to fight for new members’ share of activity and attention. If a new network cannot keep new users engaged and active, these members will revert to their existing memberships or devote less time to the new network.
Bait-and-Switch. One of the biggest turn offs is when a new network appears promising all kinds of things from a pipe dream; but when it attracts a big enough membership base it completely switches gears. The social network site operator may alter the terms of agreement, spam the users, push sales of unrelated items or services or sell your data, just to name a few.
Lack of Transparency. When a social network fails to disclose what it intends to do with user data and keeps everything else a mystery raises flags among users. Consequently, users acquisition and retention drops.
Lack of Privacy Controls. Lack of these controls also raises suspicions as much as lack of transperancy. Users want the ability to control who gets to see their profiles. Social networks that do not implement these are doomed to fail.
Hype is Over. Like Oprah, some users join a network due to hype on impulse. Then they disengage from the social network as soon as the hype is over. Social network needs to find a way to live up to the hype and find ways to retain members and their level of engagement.
Technical Difficulties. A nightmare for any social network operator, are the technical difficulties. When a social network is plagued with downtime and errors user will move onto something else. In a real world, if a product doesn’t work a customer will return it for a refund. In an online world, if a social network service doesn’t work, users will leave.
Lack of Engagement. A social network must provide the tools necessary to facilitate engagement among users. Building a site where users just list their bios and favorite movies for example can’t be called a social network. Give them tools to interact with one another such ability to share pictures, post notes, create groups, and so on.
With an upcoming release of the 4th installment of Terminator movie franchise, Terminator Salvation is stepping up its online viral campaign. Terminator Salvation infiltrates a number of online properties and deploys various web marketing tactics to spread the word, promote and generate buzz about the upcoming movie which lands in theatres starting May 22, 2009.
Official Warner Bros. Terminator Salvation Website has information about the film, latest trailers, desktop wallpapers, photo galleries and more. Tribute.ca has also created its own version of Warner Bros. site. Official Sony Pictures Terminator Salvation Website contains similar content and links as Warner Bros. site, except Sony site looks and feel much different. Terminator fans can also play Terminator Salvation Game online against other human fans. Choose a side (Resistence or Skynet) and eliminate your opponents.
Skynet Research is a viral marketing website. The ‘official’ website of fictional company that originally developed robotics technology to improve the lives of humans but in the future it becomes self-aware and wages war on humans with its army of Terminators. The goal of this site is to engage Terminator fans by way of user generated content. Fans can submit their robot designs and videos. Skynet Research also has a Facebook Fan page. Another component of the viral campaign is anti-skynet movement located at resistorbeterminated.com Fans can join the resistence here, engage in community forums and learn tactics.
Terminateyourself.com is another viral marketing website. On this site users can submit pictures (mug shots) of themselves; then images can be altered to look like damaged Terminators. Users can share the results with friends or use the picture as a profile image on social networks.
Terminator Salvation is also present on popular social networks. On Flickr, Skynet Research account showcases user generated robot designs submitted to Skynet. Youtube also showcases user generated videos submitted to Skynet Research. Show your love for the movie by becoming an official fan on Facebook Terminator Salvation page. And finally, fans can follow Terminator Salvation on Twitter.
Oscar night tonight. Do you care? My answer last year would have been ‘NO, I’ll find out the winners in the morning.’ This year I actually care a little more, and most likely will stay up just to catch the end of the program. Yesterday I attended Best Picture Showcase at AMC theatre in downtown Toronto. This is the ultimate event for any film buff. You get to watch all the movies that are nominated for the best picture back-to-back. I thought I’d be sore and bored, especially during the movies I’ve already seen. However, it was fun and I did enjoy the experience. What made it great was the community built around the event. Conversations not only happened in the theatre (between breaks of course), but also online; before, after and during the event. AMC engaged the blogging community and social media tools to facilitate the conversations about the films and the event. Anything related to the event can be tracked on Twitter via #amcbps hashtag. After watching all five films back-to-back and engaging in offline and online conversations I am now curious and care enough to watch the Oscars to see who will take the top prize.
Not so long ago I made a couple of posts about Twitter and its lack relevance to me. I initially thought that only slackers and internet addicts would use it to tweet randomly about what they’re doing that exact minute. However, I am beginning to warm up to the service. I actually like it. The member base has grown significantly in the last few months and there are enough people who actually tweet relevant content that I can use instantly or explore it at a later time. Being a marketer and having high interest in digital space and emerging media, AND a trendwatching junkie I am starting to see a real value in Twitter. I am slowly but steadily building my own community and following people who share similar interests with me, are active, and have something to contribute.
Cutting costs these days? Stop paying thousands a month to someone for sending you an email with links to articles and blogs that discuss your brand, competition and industry related news. That’s something you can do yourself, save thousands and get instant updates. There’s an abundance of free tools available for you to monitor media sources, the web, and social networks. Although you may not get the full analytical breakdown of how many times the word ‘layoff’ appeared in Twitter between 2pm and 3pm (like Radian6 offers), but these few tools are a great start.
Google Alerts. Get email alerts for relevant Google search results.
Monitter. Monitor Twitter and what tweeple are saying about a set of three keywords… in realtime.
Twitscoop. Quickly and easily see hot topics on twitter via tag cloud.
Yahoo Pipes. Interactive RSS feeds manipulator. Provides graphical interface for you to manage and take greater control of your RSS feeds.
The following technique applies to all sources below.
First and foremost get yourself a Google Reader (or another RSS feed aggregator) account. If you already have a Gmail account then you’re all setup. You’ll need this in order to efficiently and effectively follow what various media outlets online entities are reporting via RSS feeds. The sources below allow you to generate your own RSS feeds that you can subscribe to.
- Visit the site listed.
- Enter the term you want to monitor (it could be anything from your brand name to mundane objects such as margarine) into the search.
- When the search results appear find the RSS feed link and subscribe to it.
- Use your RSS aggregator to monitor the feeds.
Google News
Technorati
Digg
Delicious
Although there are hundreds if not thousands of sites that do the same thing, but these are the leaders in their respective space.
The first part of the series Leveraging Twitter, I acknowledged that I lacked experience with Twitter. However, I am quite familiar with the service since I’ve been following the developments of it for some time. After writing part one, I immediately signed up for the service for more research to see if there’s something there that I already didn’t know about. To my disappointment, I didn’t find anything all that fun and exciting. I still don’t see myself Twitting anytime soon.
As mentioned in part one, Twitter would benefit most to those who are looking to build a fan base or a following. Musicians and bands can greatly benefit from this micro-blogging service. It allows the acts to build a sense of an exclusive community and develop close and almost personal relationships with their fans. Being a music fan, I constantly visit my favorite bands web sites for updates on tour dates, album releasing, special appearances, etc. Taking it a step further, bands can use Twitter to instantly send updates to their followers/fans about:
- Recent site updates
- Tour dates
- Band related news
- New releases
- Recording progress
- Special appearances
- Announce secret shows
… and to make it more personal bands should keep their fans updated with the life on the road, the books they’re reading, current sources of inspiration and so on.
These days every entertainment outlet is competing for our limited attention spans and our limited disposable incomes. Thus, musicians and bands need to synergistically utilize every tool available to them to gain an edge in developing and maintaining solid fan bases to keep their own careers alive.
I was inspired to write an opinion piece on Twitter by a friend, who asked what I thought of Twitter. I’d be the first to admit that I have not used Twitter. However, I am keen to point out that I am very familiar with the service. I’ve been following Twitter’s development, launch and mass adoption since its inception. Twitter came to my attention in early of 2007, (the source of Twitter discovery escapes my memory) but I never gave much thought to it. In the recent months it’s been gaining a great deal of momentum. Almost on daily basis there is an article about Twitter; covering every topic from how twitter can be monetized to server and services issues.
I was more interested in reading about Twitter than using it. There are reasons why I have not used it, or saw the need to. Using Twitter is like being in a band… you need to build a fan base before Twitter has any value to you.
To build a fan-base, or in Twitter terms, the followers, you need to:
- Twit frequently
- Have something meaningful to say
- Get your friends to start following you before the masses do
The reason why I don’t use Twitter is for the same reasons above and more:
- I would not have enough time and lack dedication to Twit frequently enough
- The things I do would probably not be interesting enough for other people to know about, which leads me to the next point
- My followers would probably get annoyed if I post about the color of my socks today
- I do enjoy a certain sense of privacy
Although I am not about to start using Twitter, but I think Twitter would benefit public figures most. Bands, artists, celebrities, politicians, brands, and so on. Twitter can be monetized (an often discussed topic on blogs) by leveraging public figures, who rely on fan base and audiences to be successful.
In Part 2 I will discuss how public figures can leverage Twitter.
