Posts Tagged ‘online communities’
Is Twitter just a weekday tool?
December 17th, 2008
After a hard week there is nothing better than a relaxing weekend. Unfortunately, last weekend was not as relaxing as I had anticipated, as I was still very much at my desk, head down and working hard. While checking my Twitter feeds I was surprised by the lack of tweets from the usual suspects, and this got me thinking, is Twitter just a week day tool?
I did a little reseach into some brands and high profile Twitter users, and came up with the following:
Owyang
So, as you can see from this very, very brief snapshot of brands and high profile users, it looks very much like Twitter is a great communications channel, but only during the week.
I guess it’s pretty obvious really, the people behind the brands are probably paid to Tweet while at work Mon-Fri and the rest of us, give or take a few, Tweet while working at our desks or via mobile devices in our various working environments. To be fair, personally, I too am a Monday to Friday man.
Just one more thing before i go, look again at the examples given, usage seems to peak midweek and then slightly fall off towards Friday. It seems that the Friday feel means less tweeting as well.
Five on Friday - five fabulous Web 2.0 tools and sites of the week (12-12-08)
December 12th, 2008
Ok, here we go with this week’s Web 2.0 tools and sites of the week.
1. I like this a lot, but it’s a shame it’s only availavble in the US. It’s called near.ly, and sends you via Twitter links to news and blog posts happening within 1000 feet of your address.
2. This next one is a mobile version of one of my personal faviourite sites of all time - Delicious. Delicious Mobile enables you to sign into your account and browse your bookmarks, tags, inbox, and other data. You can also browse popular and recent bookmarks and tags from the Delicious community.
3. ChizMax is next up. Search music by artist or song and not only do you get the video for the song but the lyrics too. Karaoke on your laptop!
4. The Shorty Awards are next. Honor the world’s top Twitterers over dozens of categories. Voting closes on December 31st.
5. Here is your bonus Christmas tool/site. The holiday toy list gives you toy ideas in age and then price categories.
See you next Friday for a pre Christmas Web 2.0 tools and sites of the week.
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How to lose a community off the games radar
August 26th, 2008
Rumblings over at the popular GamesRadar site where a move by the US parent company to close down the UK forum underlined for me how fragile is the relationship between community managers and the people they are communing with.
Without, it seems, any significant discussion, the US managers decided to streamline the forums on GamesRadar, making the UK forum read-only from September 4 and offering UK users a single sign on to the wider RadarNation site community with every user having their own profile page on the site with their own avatar or picture. Users can now also post comments on GamesRadar content directly under the article itself. GamesRadar is planning further upgrades this year.
These are usually the type of improvements that users welcome with open arms but it seems that GamesRadar overlooked the simple sense of ownership that the UK forum contingent feels. Some of these guys have been on the forum for seven or more years, growing up in the place. Now they’ve been told that it’s closing – you might understand the very powerful reaction to that decision. The UK forum community has sent its very clear message to GamesRadar managers – with nearly all refusing to sign up to the new forum process and within 72 hours setting up their own community site – GRcade.
Reading the heartfelt comments made me think how quickly a trusted and loved brand can suffer serious – and long-term – damage. It took Future Publishing years to build the GamesRadar reputation, and minutes to tarnish it.
Weirdly, the GamesRadar response to the UK move has been effectively zero. I would have thought at least a brief comment to users would have been good practice. Thanks to son Nath (now a confirmed GRcade member), for helping me with this post!