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J Angelo Racoma

What is your Twitter network profile?

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In any social network setup, an individual’s contacts would most likely fall under these categories:

  1. An existing (real-world) friend or business contact
  2. A new friend or business contact found through the social network
  3. A celebrity

Granted, that with #3, a lot of celebrities on Twitter get their millions of followers not just because of the interactivity, but mostly because a lot of us starstruck fans are just so interested in what goes on with the lives of the A-listers.

And so this brings me to ask. What’s the proportion of these people on your followed list?

Starting out, you most probably follow only people you know. Someone from class, work, or a friend might have invited you through email to join and to add his profile. And so it begins–your network gains in number. But then you read @replies or @mentions citing other people, and you add them. Or you get notifications that @someone has started following you and you follow back. And then you find out that @bigcelebrity is twittering, and so you follow his tweets.

How many of these people actually comprise your “followed” pie? By my estimates, my own friend list probably has the following:

  1. 60% people I knew in the first place, whether online or offline
  2. 30% people I’ve met through Twitter
  3. 10% celebrities

Of course, this is just a rough guesstimate, but I like to think of my Twittering activities in these proportions. A bulk for personal interaction with people I know (friend, family, colleague, pet), almost the same level for interacting with potential clients, business contacts, and generally people who might not really know me, but whom I find interesting (I’m a reclusive introvert after all). And the small starstruck part in my tries to check out what celebs (Internet, film, TV) are up to.

What does your friend “pie” look like?

Can Twitter be a good data mining tool?

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Twitter has evolved much from its humble beginnings as what was simply a microblogging service. As people’s needs grow, we often also find innovative applications for existing tools and services, and Twitter is no exception. For instance, when I saw my Twitter friends exchanging messages as if they were on a public chatroom, I was at first taken aback. But now it’s the norm. And the system even supports exchanges of messages outright, whether private or for public consumption.

There are still a lot of potentially big uses of Twitter. For instance, people have been attributing the trending topics (which are popular mentions of keywords and #hashtags) to discussions that are currently popular. And now there’s the proposal to use a different syntax to insert other metadata into your Tweets. Zembly founders Todd Fast and Jiri Kopsa have proposed this on TwitterData.org:

Twitter Data is a simple, open, semi-structured data representation format for embedding machine-readable, yet human-friendly, data in Twitter messages. This data can then be transmitted, received, and interpreted in real time to enable powerful new kinds of applications to be built on the Twitter platform.

Here is an example Twitter Data message:

I love the #twitterdata proposal! $vote +1

The variable $vote which is under the subject #twitterdata then gets an incremental addition of 1 point. The idea is to use Twitter as a vehicle for data, which can be mined using other applications (via Search or API).

By proposing an embedded data format, our goal is not to turn Twitter into a mere transport layer for machine-readable data, but instead to allow semi-structured data to be mixed fluidly with normal message content. To these ends, we have chosen a syntax that conceptually resembles the use of Twitter hashtags, albeit with different syntax and semantics, and which allows humans to interact with data in a reasonably normal way.

To see an example of this at work, twitterdata.org is displaying a widget that shows the “votes” cast for the idea, both affirmative and negative.

I think there is merit to the idea. Twitter itself doesn’t necessarily have to have this functionality built-in. But with the popularity of such a syntax, third party apps will more easily be able to mine raw data from tweets.

Do you think this is a good idea? Or is there already an existing mechanism for doing exactly this without the need for introducing a new syntax or format?

New Batch of Upgraded Performancing Themes Released

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Treasure Theme has recently been released, but did you know that we also released several batches of upgrades for previously-released themes?

Check out the list of updated themes, which includes the following:

  • Blue Laptop
  • College Theme
  • Gangway
  • Modern Paper
  • News Theme
  • Nightlife
  • Nitrous
  • One in a Million

The latest batch includes:

  • Photopress
  • Redbook
  • Simplicity
  • ‘Tis the Season
  • TDAge
  • Rubidious
  • Dark Laptop
  • Story Theme
  • Estranged

While the previous versions of the Perf Themes should work properly with WordPress 2.7 up, you won’t be able to use the advanced features like threaded comments, post classes, built-in image classes and gravatar support (where applicable). So download the latest editions now!

Where have all the @replies gone?

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I’ve been fond of using Twitter not only as a means to shout out the latest happenings in my life, and not only to converse with online friends, but also to watch for trends and information that people may be discussing. I know I still have a lot to learn in efficiently using it to mine information, with all the different tools out there. But one basic feature that I know a lot of people appreciate is being able to listen in to conversations among friends.

For instance, one friend can send a @reply to another friend, and I get it on my update. Perhaps I can reply with my own two cents, too. But Twitter has just (suddenly?) changed the system, such that you can only listen in to @replies if both sender and intended recipient are in your follow list.

Twitter’s blog says:

We’ve updated the Notices section of Settings to better reflect how folks are using Twitter regarding replies. Based on usage patterns and feedback, we’ve learned most people want to see when someone they follow replies to another person they follow—it’s a good way to stay in the loop. However, receiving one-sided fragments via replies sent to folks you don’t follow in your timeline is undesirable. Today’s update removes this undesirable and confusing option.

I personally use a very effective filtering system to weed out messages I deem not so useful. This filtering system I use is my own brain! So I tend to agree with TechCrunch here that users should be given the choice to follow all @replies by friends, including those that are one-sided. The issue here is that Twitter has removed the option altogether, and has reverted everyone back to only being able to see @replies where both sender and intended recipient are on your followed list.

I do hope twitter does follow through on its promise to introduce “better ways to discover and follow interesting accounts as [they] release more features.”

What Lies Beneath Social Media?

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As a Performancing reader, you probably blog. You probably have social networking profiles, too, with several friends and groups. Most likely, you are on Twitter, and you exchange short messages with friends and contacts. What are these web apps anyway? They’re social media, right? But what’s underneath social media?

I’d say we have social networks as the foundation of social media. By a social “network” I don’t mean Facebook, LinkedIn or MySpace. Those are actually just the mediums that facilitate social networking. Social networks are actual people who know each other, and who talk to each other. In the olden days, people networked by writing letters, posting on bulletin boards, and calling on the telephone. People even met face to face (imagine that!). Later on, we had online services, email, IRC, forums, and the like. Of course, email is a staple, and has become a de facto standard in communicating online.

This is a realization I just had quite recently. Maybe as someone whose job involves social media, I get engrossed in using these online applications everyday that I don’t realize the foundations that are more important. I only see skin-deep. I usually become so focused on using the application rather than connecting with the other people who use the app. I’m no longer socially networking. But I’m just using the social networking app.

This is important, as I’ve also looked into social media apps I’ve used before, but have changed and evolved through the years. Take for instance ICQ. It was the first ever IM client and network I used, back in the ’90s. Now it’s evolved into some sort of social networking, blogging and online dating site. This makes me wonder what of Twitter? What of WordPress? What Facebook and MySpace? Five years down the road, we would probably see a different social media landscape.

But still the social networks would remain the same. People you know would still be people you know. Friends should still be friends (unless, of course, they are only friends by convenience, meaning you are friends because of shared social media apps). By then, perhaps the most basic social mediums would be those that survive the test of time. Like the good old telephone call. Or postcards. Or email.

And maybe one day, we would all get to meet face to face. How’s that for social media?

Will Twitter names and accounts become commodities?

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It used to be that good domains sold for a premium. Now, with celebrities getting on the Twitter bandwagon, they’re getting much attention from us lesser mortals. @aplusk, for instance (which is Ashton Kutcher) has broken the 1 Million follower mark. Other celebrities, have significant followings, too, such as @oprah with 500 thousand plus, and even @mrskutcher, with 700 thousand plus.

Arguably, the number of followers is not as significant as the quality. But then again, this only goes to show that on Twitter, branding would come in important at one time or another. And this means that like domains, Twitter usernames or accounts are probably going to be the next big commodity for domainers to buy, hoard, and potentially sell later on.

Good .COM domains sell for top dollar. Sure, regular ones sell for a little over six bucks, but premium ones can go for millions, like business.com, sex.com, casino.com, and other short, identifiable domains. Big blogs have been known to be sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

How about Twitter names? Will twitter name squatting be an issue? Twitter’s terms of service does stipulate that they reserve the right to reclaim usernames on behalf of businesses or individuals that hold legal claim or trademark on those usernames.

How about Twitter accounts? Can you build up a good Twitter stream and then sell it after a few months or years? Or will microblogging lose its magic now that it’s no longer a niche thing, but something mainstream?

How To Breathe Life Into an Inactive Forum?

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In my opinion, a forum is one of the best ways to build and manage communities online. Truth be told, I’ve actually found myself to have been addicted to forums at certain points in my life. I’ve actually made real life friends and business contacts from the various forums I’ve been a member of. These days, though, while I don’t feel compelled to checking for new posts every half hour, I still visit my favorite forums at least once a day to check on new conversations and reply to ones I feel I can contribute to.

I find that niche-based forums bring together people of like interest. But sometimes, this extends past interests. Long after i’ve given up on some hobbies, for instance, I still visit the forums I’ve been part of just for the conversations. Even if the technologies and software being discussed in certain forums had been long obsolete, some might still be active because of the virtual friendships formed.

Sadly, however, not all forums can survive the test of time. For one, members might move on to other interests. Or in the case of forums that mostly involve professionals and enthusiasts in certain fields, people can become busy with their own concerns.

I wonder what could help breathe back life into forums that have slowed down. Should the forum give incentives for new members (such as freebies like ebooks and other downloads)? Or maybe great content can be dug up and re-posted as fresh. Should the moderators get in touch with each individual member to check how they are? Or in the case of exclusive, closed forums, will being open to the general public help in revitalizing discussions?

I think netizens these days have grown to have very short attention spans, especially with character limitations like those imposed by certain microblogging services. Will forums survive in the long run?

How Do You Use Social Media to Help a Good Cause?

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On Mashable today is a list of five social media campaigns that focused on helping out the needy. Gradon Tripp and Matthew Knell give the skinny on several (mostly Twitter) events that mobilized communities and asked people to do their part in contributing to good causes.

Campaigns like these would mostly leverage on the popularity and authority of social media movers and catalysts. I’d call it one’s social media pull. After all, if you have thousands of Twitter followers, it’s easy enough to get hundreds of those to heed the call to give or contribute something. But would charity campaigns work for social media users who may not be so popular?

I would think that no matter how small your effort may be, it would still count. Be it small or big, the fact that social media is being seen as bringing about change in how fundraisers are conducted is a good enough indicator of the potentials. I remember one time when people pitched in to help a blogging colleague pay legal bills (for a blogging-related lawsuit). We started small, but those little trickles resulted in something significant enough, and was well appreciated. And that was before the time of microblogging. Imagine how even more viral a call for help like that would be in this day and age.

Have you done your part in helping others through social media? If you have plans to, or if you have a running campaign, tell us about it, and we’ll help spread the word.