Posts Tagged ‘twitter’
Facebook for friends, Twitter for football fans?
February 9th, 2011
There is some interesting news on Mail Online if you’re into football and Twitter:
According to a report by Barclays, an explosion of Twitter activity saw close to a million tweets about the Premier League and its clubs in January, as fans took advantage of being able to ‘follow’ their favourite players, clubs and journalists and debate top stories as they happen.
The club most tweeted about in January with 301,169 tweets was, you guessed it; Liverpool FC - due to their heavy transfer activity, including selling Fernando Torres to Chelsea for £50m and purchasing two other players for almost the same amount money.
Some of the clubs with the least Twitter mentions include: Coventry: 499, Stoke: 450, Blackburn: 393 and Wigan: 25.
Kenneth Cole - Social Media fail or social fail?
February 4th, 2011
No doubt you’ve heard all about the Kenneth Cole Twitter issue that broke yesterday (February 3rd) by now. If you haven’t, here’s a brief review:
Kenneth Cole, and I mean the man himself (apparently), tweets the following: “Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online at (adds link) KC.”
The ‘KC’ closing is a key part as it signifies Kenneth Cole tweeted this himself, and he has basically just tried to market his Spring collection around serious unrest in Egypt, which is turning the country upside down, causing wider instability in the region and taking lives of those on the ground fighting for what they believe to be right.
Wow! Without wishing to over simplify this, surely that’s amazingly insensitive and completely inappropriate to say the least.
On seeing the Tweet relatively early on, I watched the inevitable happen, as Kenneth and his business felt the full force of those with a social conscious, and access to various social networks (unlike those in Egypt). Some of my favourite examples are included below.
I did consider blogging on the issue at the time, but assumed it was fairly cut and dry; the stupidity of the Tweet will result in a hefty backlash. Kenneth Cole eventually sees the error of his ways as his wares are boycotted, and he becomes another social media case study, while we debate whether his actions were down to a lack of social media experience, or a lack of knowledge on the gravity of the unrest in Cairo.
However, it appears Kenneth has some supporters. I don’t want to get all moral on this blog, but i was amazed at the amount (although small overall) of people suggesting his tweet was a ‘funny’ or ‘innovative’ stunt.
One such example popped up, somewhat suspiciously on Chris Norton’s post on the subject, which i also commented on and put down to lack of understanding at best, or a ploy from somebody employed to lessen the backlash at worst, hence the suspicion.
However, the fact remains, even if you don’t agree that using such a sensitive issue as an excuse to sell your products is wrong, surely you must understand that many people do. And, some of those people not only buy the products in question, but also influence many others.
In other words; agree with it or not, this is a massive business mistake as well as a reflection of the brand, and as a result it will affect the business negatively.
Here’s a great example of a tactic (spoof account) one Tweeter used to express his/her emotions about the issue, and since then Kenneth has made this apology on Facebook, although the time this took and the earlier response; “Re Egypt tweet: we weren’t intending to make light of a serious situation. We understand the sensitivity of this historic moment -KC”‘, suggests the social issue may be bigger than the social media issue in this case. The 403 responses (at time of writing) may also offer additional insight for anyone unsure of the problem.
January 26th, 2011
I’m not sure how I missed this, but in the middle of last year a really interesting platform was launched. It is called Pay with a Tweet and is 100% free. The idea is simple, instead of a financial transaction you pay with a tweet, in effect telling your community about the product.
If you fancy giving it a go, all you have to do is create a simple download button and add it to your site, preferably near the item that will be downloaded!
TechCrunch have it listed at No. 6 of the top 10 Business ideas that rocked 2010.
Below is an example of how it is being used by The French electro-pop band “The Teenagers” , they are selling their new single exclusively for a Tweet:
January 19th, 2011
Here is a real life incident that happened today, which could have, and nearly did, spark pandemonium. It all began here, from this single innocent tweet sent by a fashion assistant for the online store ASOS.
The tweet was totally misunderstood, and quickly snowballed into a crisis. To see exactly the sort of reaction it provoked, check out these tweets.
As a consequence, Oxford Street quickly became a trending topic.
To read more about how today’s events unfolded, click here.
How Arsenal shape up on Twitter
January 18th, 2011
Even before the Ryan Babel incident on Twitter, many sports personalities have been in hot water for comments made on Twitter. My colleagues won’t thank me for this, due to their differing football allegiances, but I came across a post on a blog called ‘Arsenal Insider‘ titled - How Cesc & Co. shape up on Twitter. The post overviews how the various players from the Arsenal football team use Twitter, with an interesting overview of the sort of things they discuss.
The post goes on to confirm: “So I decided to track down the Arsenal players. Could there be any worth or insight on the team? Who’s best mates with who? Any information on Arsene (manager)? With no Arsenal players reaching tabloid headlines with inappropriate tweets, (not even the outspoken Bendtner) I could only assume that the team were well versed in Twitter PR, more so than some leading politicians, but that’s another matter altogether…”
Arsène Wenger (Arsenal Manager) has publicly stated that he will talk to his team about the use of Twitter, which basically says to me that the whole team has been versed in the pros and cons of Twitter and its consequences, as indicated by Arsenal Insider. Wenger goes on to say “Personally I’m against banning the players from expressing their views in general. But it has to be in the interests of the Club and not detrimental”
The Ryan Babel incident won’t be the last controversial tweet from a footballer in the coming months. Frustration and ‘heat of the moment’ tweets sent by sports personalities are set to be a rich source of gossip for the media for some time to come.
A “big explosion” gets you trending on Twitter
December 9th, 2010
There has been a bit of a back lash in the last few day, as to why Twitter supposedly blocked WikiLeaks as a trending topic.
First of all it’s worth looking at this infographic by BuzzFeed to get a feel for the amount of conversation on Twitter about Wikileaks.
In a response to the claims, Twitter released this blog post explaining how trending topics on Twitter are determined.
The twitter post explains: “Sometimes a topic doesn’t break into the Trends list because its popularity isn’t as widespread as people believe. And, sometimes, popular terms don’t make the Trends list because the velocity of conversation isn’t increasing quickly enough, relative to the baseline level of conversation happening on an average day; this is what happened with #wikileaks this week”
Venturebeat provides a good summary, “It doesn’t go into a huge amount of detail, but there seems to be one big takeaway for companies hoping to make a splash (and who aren’t going to pay for a Promoted Trend): Go for a big explosion of tweets rather than a constant flow of interest over time”
Get your stolen car back on Twitter
December 2nd, 2010
My daily Twitter journey usually throws up some gems, and today’s was no different. The hook that turned my head today was: Seattle Police launch Twitter service for people to post stolen car descriptions, which led to a Mail online post. The post confirms that in a last ditch attempt to catch car thieves in Seattle the police have turned to Twitter. Upon calling the police about your stolen car, your details will be taken and tweeted via the www.twitter.com/getyourcarback account.
People who see one of the stolen cars are being advised to call The Police, but not approach those inside.
So far only three stolen cars have been added to the page.
It seems that the Police worldwide are only now taking Facebook/Twitter and related platforms seriously. Last month the Mail Online reported how the UK Police to be trained how to catch killers through Facebook and Twitter
Twitter Joke trial - #IAmSpartacus
November 12th, 2010
There has been plenty of discussion around the now infamous #TwitterJoketrial case this week, if you’re not familiar here’s the low down on the story from the Guardian.
Putting issues of bomb threats to one side for the moment, and our country’s obsession with coming down hard on anything remotely related to the subject, especially in relation to aircraft and airports, even if it is clearly a joke, I wanted to pick up on a great article by Milo Yiannopoulos at The Telegraph today who beautifully overviews the issue between our judicial system, which is dramatically out of touch with the social web, or even the pre-social web for that matter.
I have a small insight into the clash between how we lead our online lives, and how our legal system interprets that, as my wife is a solicitor. From my own personal experience, I am constantly amazed by the antiquated systems and processes she has to follow in accordance with our legal system, and she works for a relatively progressive and modern firm. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg, and in general our solicitors have a good grasp of what is taking place online, but the system they work under does not.
The system and its understanding is one problem, our obsession as a country with security and the removal of our natural sense of humour in relation to such matters is another, but in my opinion it’s the double standards that annoy even more.
Let’s take the case of our Twitter joker. Yes, it was probably not the best thing to do in light of recent cases where even obvious jokes have resulted in dramatic action, but let’s be honest, this was never a threat, and should we all need to be that careful? Some might argue that the hard stance is to attempt to cut out such instances of joking about serious matters, but that’s really not going to happen. If you look at our social history we have faced most of the major threats to this country with humour, is that going to change now?
The reality is, if you look at the content available on the web, there are many more real examples of threats and dangerous content. So, why take action against the citizens who may have joked about something that is undoubtedly serious, but pose no real threat, and not these other examples?
The reality for Paul Chambers, the 26-year-old accountant who has lost two jobs as a result of his Twitter joke, is he has lost his appeal and will have to pay a £1,000 fine, around £2,000 in costs and he will have a criminal record for threatening, in jest, to blow up an airport.
If I look at my Twitter feed now, I can see a range of what could be construed as threats if we are working on the Paul Chambers example. Should these people be arrested and charged? Should I stop following them as a result? Or should we all get some perspective here and put our legal energies into dealing with the real threats and not those that are clearly written in jest.
Furthermore, if you search for the #IAmSpartacus hashtag in Twitter now, you’ll see the number of people who feel this joke has gone too far by re-issuing the so called threat that Paul Chambers tweeted, in support of him.
The scary thing is, as the number of people who utilise social media in its various guises expands, the likelihood of similar cases also expands. So, while I don’t expect anything to change quickly in our legal system, we’re likely to see more unfortunate examples such as this. Furthermore, if you don’t understand the social web, #IAmSpartacus is about to become its latest case study.
TwtRoulette - view each other’s Twitter timeline
October 6th, 2010
As a hoarder of online tools and applications TwtRoulette caught my eye recently. The basic idea of TwtRoulette is that you can see Twitter timelines from another user’s point of view.
As the site explains “Shervin (angel investor) was viewing one of his friend’s timelines, and he discovered a lot of interesting tweets/people that he’d never seen in his own Twitter stream. So he thought; why shouldn’t we allow people to view each other’s timelines?”
Interestingly enough, according to Techcrunch; “Twitter actually used to have this feature (called “With Friends”) but took it away because relatively few people accessed it.
The one issue is that you can’t see anyone’s Timeline. You can only follow Timelines of those that have signed up to the TwtRoulette database.
Here are some of the more interesting timelines to follow.
http://twtroulette.com/view/aplusk Ashton Kutcher
http://twtroulette.com/view/Scobleizer Robert Scoble
http://twtroulette.com/view/arrington Michael Arrington
Internet/web history in 140 characters
September 7th, 2010
At Liberate Media towers we have decided to have a little bit of fun today, and we’d love you to join in.
If you would like to take part, all you need to do is describe the last 10 years of Internet/web evolution in 140 characters. You can add events like the dotcom collapse in 2000 or the launch of various influential sites (such as Digg in 2004), or anything that you think has shaped the Internet’s development in the last 10 years.
Use this hashtag to play #0010inthist.
Here is mine as an example: in order from 2000-2010
Napster | Wikipedia | myspace | Facebook | YouTube | Twitter | iPhone | Obama #0010inthist
Here are some sources to help you research your internet history.