Thoughts about TwitterGate

By Mark Evans in Social Media 3 Comments Tags: , , ,

Over the past few days, everything you probably ever wanted to know about Twitter has been available on TechCrunch, which has published a flurry of internal confidential documents provided by French hacker Hacker Croll, who broke into Twitter’s internal systems.

While TechCrunch has attracted a lot of attention for putting on display Twitter’s internal thoughts, discussions, plans and strategic vision, it has also garnered growing criticism for publishing the documents, which were stolen from Twitter.

Personally, I think TechCrunch did what any news organization would do if given something that would make for a terrific story. The documents sent by Hacker Croll to TechCrunch were the equivalent of the unmarked brown envelope sent to newspaper reporters that often provide great material for front paper stories.

This kind of material is a dream come true for news organizations, so TechCrunch’s decision to go to town with several posts was a no-brainer. Twitter is the world’s hottest high-tech company, attracting huge amounts of scrutiny and dissection.

In a competitive world, TechCrunch had an editorial decision to make:

- publish, and face of wrath of people who believe that stolen documents shouldn’t see the light of day; or

- not publish, and risk that one of its major competitors (GigaOm, Mashable, ReadWriteWeb) would be all this story if they had been given the documents.

The news business is not always fair and some stories can be embarassing but that’s the nature of the beast. TechCrunch did what it had to do.

More: If Twitter decides to sue TechCrunch, I think it would be a mistake by pouring fuel on the fire

Addendum: Here’s TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington on how a hacker was able to hack into Twitter’s computer systems.

The Scrutinization of All Things Twitter

By Mark Evans in Social Media No Comments Tags: , , ,

There are plenty of reasons to be fascinated by Twitter – the growth, the emergence of a new way to communicate and share information, the growing number of valuable and interesting third-party services, and, of course, the entrepreneurs (Biz Stone, Ev Williams and Jack Dorsey) involved.

But the question that needs to asked in the wake of TechCrunch going to town by publishing a tsunami of secret internal documents is whether there has been a company that has attracted this kind of scrutiny, attention and obsession?

Sure, many companies have been thrust into the spotlight – some because of their market dominance (Google, Microsoft), some for their incompetence (Nortel), and some for being evil (WorldCom, Enron).

But Twitter strikes me as a different kind of beast – a start-up with no business plan that has captured the imagination of not only millions of users but a large ecosystem of people with a laser-like focus on the company and the business.

This group includes myself given I’m keenly interested in how Twitter evolves from a phenomenon to a business. And then there’s my Twitter blog, which bounces between talking interesting Twitter services and Twitter itself.

I wonder why Twitter has attracted this kind of following. Is it user growth, the venture capital involved, the utility and potential of the service?

In some respects, Twitter has brought upon itself much of the attention. Stone and Williams have talked a lot about Twitter even though they’ve been able or unwilling to provide any insight into a business model.

In recent months, Stone and Williams have been particularly available, which has made me wonder about ulterior motives. Why would they travel around the world talking about the company when there’s so much going on from an operational and strategic basis?

Are they working on partnerships and acquisitions? Are they grabbing the spotlight while they can? Are they simply building the company’s profile to make it a more attractive takeover target?

Whatever the reason, they have played a key role in fueling Twitter-mania, which clearly spiked this week.

Spam Getting More Sophisticated

By Mark Evans in Blogs 3 Comments Tags: , ,

Say what you want about spammers but they definitely creative.

Take, for example, what they’re doing with comments on blogs. At first blush, the comments look legit. But if you look at the e-mail and Web site address, you realize it’s a spammer looking to get a link on your blog.

Here’s a comment left by a spammer, who was hoping to get some attention for his hottub spa site, about a blog post on how I use Twitter:

I already try to use twitter but only active when I’m online via my laptop. But until now I’m still do not get any clue what makes twitter can be loved by so much people mean while I do not see any interesting for using twitter.

Maybe others can give an idea what this is all about since I only try to follow others(not people that I know) and usually around half of them will follow me back.

It looks like a comment and smells like a comment but, baby, it’s spam.

How I Use Twitter

By Mark Evans in Social Media 3 Comments Tags: , ,

While the world focuses on how internal Twitter documents were accessed, I thought it might be interesting to offer up how I use Twitter.

For me, Twitter’s biggest strength is having access to an enthusiastic team of content curators. Throughout the day, I’m looking for interesting stories and news services from the 250 or so people that I follow.

I tried to keep my followers to a manageable number. I know there are people who believe in following lots of people (including people such as Guy Kawasaki and Robert Scoble, who follow thousands of people) but 200 to 300 seems like a reasonable number without feeling like things are overwhelming.

For most part, Twitter has replaced Google Reader as the way I read blogs, and Google News for getting news. If work is busy or I’m looking at Twitter on the iPhone, I’ll “favorite” a lot of items so they can be read later.

While it’s good to receive, it’s also good to give. This means I’m looking to share news, interesting facts and services – probably four or five updates/day. A good sign of success is the number of ReTweets.

In terms of how many updates, it depends on the day. If I’m working from home, it can range from five to 10/day. If I’m out of the office, there can be days with no updates. Fortunately, I don’t suffer from Twitter withdrawal.

I also tend to do updates in the morning – something that may be fueled by caffeine consumption. As the days progresses, I check in on Twitter from time to time to see if anything interesting in happening.

So, how/when do you use Twitter?

The Tizzy over Twitter and Teenagers

By Mark Evans in Social Media 6 Comments Tags: , , , ,

Judging from the reaction from the media and blogosphere yesterday, you would think that a Morgan Stanley report how teenagers use technology had provided insight that had never seen the light of day before.

Sure, it was written by a 15-year-old intern, Matthew Robson with good writing skills but the report was far from earth-shattering. Most people realized teenagers don’t buy CDs, watch a lot of television, listen to radio or read newspapers.

But the blogosphere was most agog about Robson’s contention teenagers don’t use Twitter because they would rather spend their dollars on sending their text messages to friend rather than posting updates on Twitter.

The reaction from bloggers a combination of shock, disbelief and disappointment. Twitter is the world’s hottest, fastest-growing social networking tool, and teenagers aren’t using it?

What’s next cats chasing dogs?

Before anyone gets too carried way, here’s a few things to consider.

1. As Mashable’s Ben Parr made clear, Robson’s report was entirely anecdotal evidence as opposed to something based on statistics and facts. Sure, Robson made be on the mark when it comes to Twitter and teenagers but it’s just his opinion.

If you’re looking for stats on Twitter and demographics, check out Sysomos’ Inside Twitter report, which indexed 11.4 million Twitter profiles. (Disclosure: Sysomos is a client.)

2. Who really cares whether teenagers are using Twitter? I mean, different services appeal to different kinds of users. For now, teenagers love SMS to communicate with friends and family. It’s unobtrusive and a private way to communicate.

Then again, who’s to say teenagers won’t eventually come around to Twitter. After all, older folks have gravitated to Facebook after dismissing it as something for the young-uns.

3. Based on anecdotal evidence I’ve collected from people who have teenagers, teenagers are using Twitter so maybe it’s just Robson’s buddies who aren’t Twitter users.

The reality is teenagers are a fascinating demographic when it comes to how they use technology because they are the next generation that everyone wants to figure out so they can sell products and services to them.

Robson got everyone excited because he provided some in-the-trenches insight. But keep in mind, it’s just one person’s view of the world so all the excitement is unwarranted.

Dancing Outside the Digital Domain

By Mark Evans in Media, Web 2.0 No Comments Tags: , , ,

With e-commerce continuing to see strong growth and cloud-computing becoming accepted, it’s sometimes easy to forget that the sales of products and services is still very much alive and well in the “real world” – people are still buying things off-line when they could easily do so online.

It’s a pretty obvious and straightforward notion but once in a while you get reminded about how “analog” behavior is still thriving in an increasingly digital world.

This was illustrated in yesterday’s New York Times, which had a “Digital Domain” story about Redbox, which operates 15,600 kiosks in the U.S. that rents videos for $1/day. Redbox rents more than 7.5 million movies a week, compared with the 10 million/week rented by Netflix.

The story includes a great quote from consultant Tom Adams about why Redbox is thriving.

“We’re only 10,000 years out of caves,” he said. “Humans like to go out and get stuff and bring it home – we’re just wired that way.”

Redbox’s success says about human nature and how we’re psychologically designed to be social and to seek the company of other humans – even if we’re talking about a business transaction involved a kiosk.

It’s the same kind of behaviour that explains the popularity of events such as DemoCamp that attracts lots people who spend a lot of time on social networks.

While you can interact and build relationships digitally, there is a need and appetite to also connect physically.

In fact, I would argue that you could have a really strong relationship with someone digitally but it goes to a completely higher and different level when you meet someone in real-life – even if only happens once.

Whether it’s video kiosks or networking opportunities, there’s a growing place for digital but it’s not going displace the real-world any time soon.

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