social media
Google Buzz: a serious new fixture in the social web?
Feb 12th
Not everyone is all that impressed by Google Buzz so far, but I am. Yes, questions are being raised about privacy – but such questions are a given in any modern discussions about social technology. And some have been quick to point out limitations in terms of interface (“I quickly found the Buzz user interface… visually uninviting“) and features (“Google Buzz: The Missing Features“) – but imperfection is inevitable when a service is only two days old.
For what it’s worth, there are things about Buzz I’d like to change. Conversations shouldn’t be treated so much like emails, for example, with “read” and “unread” states – this brings “inbox anxiety” into the equation, something Twitter was wise to discard. And users could benefit from more fine-grained control over privacy settings.
Inbox anxiety with Google Buzz – I'm not looking forward to having hundreds of unread "Buzzes"
But I’m happy to put these thoughts to one side: at the moment I’m more interested in the response it’s provoked among my own contacts, many of whom are tech-savvy but not really social web junkies. So far, it’s making me think that Buzz has an appeal for people who are active online but always disliked Twitter and had never heard of Friendfeed.
Buzz has definitely been a conversation-starter in a way that Wave wasn’t. In the first few hours, many posts were as you’d expect – “what is this for?”, “can anyone see this post?”, that sort of thing. Today is day two for Buzz, however, and the conversations have started to move away from these meta topics. In fact they’re slowly starting to resemble the sorts of conversations these people have in real life.
This is very different from Wave, which prompted a few discussions of the “what’s this all about?” variety before being largely abandoned even by early adopter types like myself. Obviously this might happen with Buzz as well – as I said above, today is only day two – but the acceptance trajectory so far seems very different. For example, the risk of being flooded with too much Buzz data seems much greater than that of Buzz falling into disuse.
In many ways I’m tempted to think that Wave has been a kind of public beta for Buzz. MG Seigler at TechCrunch is thinking along similar lines in this post, If Google Wave Is The Future, Google Buzz Is The Present. Buzz certainly explains why Wave had no Gmail integration, something I wondered about at the time.
Once again, it’s early days with Buzz. But my own anecdotal experiences so far make me suspect that – despite the contrary opinions of various mavens and competitors – it’s going to be a fixture in the social media landscape for some time to come.
Using Google Spreadsheets to extract Twitter data
Nov 20th
Last weekend I was looking for ways to extract Twitter search data in a structured, easily manageable format. The two APIs I was using (Twitter Search and Backtweets) were giving good results – but as a non-developer I couldn’t do much with the raw data they returned. Instead, I needed to get the data into a format like CSV or XLS.
Some extensive googling led me to this extremely useful post on Labnol, where I learnt about how to use the ImportXML function in Google Spreadsheets. Before too long I’d cracked my problem. In this post I’m going to explain how you can do it too.
Data you can extract from Twitter
This walkthrough will teach you how to extract two types of Twitter data using Google Spreadsheets – tweets and links.
Tweets are extracted using the Twitter Search API in conjunction with ImportFeed. This allows Twitter search results to be extracted into a spreadsheet format.
Links are extracted using the Backtweets API in conjunction with ImportXML. The Backtweets API allows you to find any links posted on Twitter even if they’ve been shortened using services like bit.ly or tinyurl.
I’m in a hurry, can I just do this right now?
If you just want to do it – instead of learn how to do it – just open this Google spreadsheet I’ve created. You’ll need to make your own local copy so you can edit it. Instructions can be found in the spreadsheet itself.
How to extract tweets containing links
The instructions below will help you create a Google Spreadsheet that pulls in and displays the time, username and text of all tweets containing links to a specified page. Because it uses Backtweets, these tweets will be retrieved even if they used shortened URLs from services like bit.ly or tinyurl.
- Create a new spreadsheet in Google Documents.
- Enter column labels in this order: “Search criteria”, “Timestamp”, “Username” and “Tweet text” in cells A1 to D1.
- In cell B2, underneath Timestamp, insert the following formula:
=ImportXML(“http://backtweets.com/search.xml?itemsperpage=100&since_id=1255588696&key=key&q=”&A2,”//tweet_created_at”)
- In cell C2, underneath Username, insert the following formula:
=ImportXML(“http://backtweets.com/search.xml?itemsperpage=100&since_id=1255588696&key=key&q=”&A2,”//tweet_from_user”)
- In cell D2, underneath Tweet Text, insert the following formula:
=ImportXML(“http://backtweets.com/search.xml?itemsperpage=100&since_id=1255588696&key=key&q=”&A2,”//tweet_text”)
- Now paste a search query into cell A2 – say, http://www.google.com. After a few seconds, you should see columns B, C and D fill up with tweets, looking something like the image below:
- The formulas pasted into cells B2, C2 and D2 all reference the URL in cell A2. This means that whenever you paste anything new into A2, the search results should refresh.
- Also, you can paste parts of URLs into A2 – not just entire ones. This is useful for seeing all links to a specific directory on your site, for example.
Finally, this tool can only extract 100 results at a time – but it is possible to set it up to retrieve more than that. Look at my sample Google Spreadsheet if you want to do this.
Extracting tweets from Twitter search results
The method for doing this is identical to the above, but uses the ImportFeed function instead of ImportXML.
- Create a new spreadsheet in Google Documents.
- Enter column labels in this order: “Search criteria”, “Timestamp”, “Username” and “Tweet text”. For the rest of this walkthrough, I’m going to assume that these labels are in cells A1 to D1, but in reality you can put them wherever you like
- In cell B2, underneath Timestamp, insert the following formula:
=ImportFeed(“http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?rpp=20&page=1&q=”&A2, “items created”)
- In cell C2, underneath Username, insert the following formula:
=ImportFeed(“http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?rpp=20&page=1&q=”&A2, “items author”)
- In cell D2, underneath Tweet Text, insert the following formula:
=ImportFeed(“http://search.twitter.com/search.atom?rpp=20&page=1&q=”&A2, “items title”)
- Type a search query into cell A2 – say, “Hoth.” Hit enter and the results will load. It should look something like this:
Things will go wrong if you insert characters like # or @ into the search query. To get around this, type %23 instead of # and %40 instead of @. This will allow you to search for hash tags and usernames.
I haven’t been successful in generating more than 20 search results per request, but you can get around this using the page number parameter in the ImportFeed query string. See my own Google spreadsheet to find out how to do this.
I hope these instructions are useful – if you have any comments, questions or feedback, please let me know in the comments.
Charging companies for Twitter – what could it involve?
Feb 17th
You’re probably aware that Biz Stone, one of Twitter’s co-founders, told Marketing magazine on February 10th that:
“We are noticing more companies using Twitter and individuals following them. We can identify ways to make this experience even more valuable and charge for commercial accounts”
How to decode this quote? It’s fairly vague, but I can think of a few possible charging models that Twitter might adopt. I’ve listed three of them here:
1) “Twitter tax”
Twitter will try to identify accounts that are run by companies rather than individuals. It will then attempt to extract money from the owners of these accounts. Failure to pay will result in closure of the account.
I don’t think this is very likely, however:
- Distinguishing companies from individuals would be extremely difficult. A lot of anger come from those who felt they’d been unfairly classified (e.g. if you’re a consultant and you discuss professional topics on Twitter, are you a “company”?)
- No value would be added for those who pay
- A lot of genuinely handy and non-revenue-generating information services would vanish from Twitter, diminishing the value of Twitter as an information utility
- This diminishing of Twitter’s usefulness would lead many people to desert the service.
2) “Singling out the marketers”
Like the first option, Twitter will identify accounts that are run by companies. However, it will draw a line between companies that use it for information services and those who use it as a sales channel. Companies who use it as a sales channel will be penalised while those who use it for information services will not.
This is a bit more viable than option 1:
- Distinguishing sales from servicing would be easier than distinguishing companies from individuals. Rules could be defined, e.g. if you are seen to link to product pages or talk about offers or sales then you’ll be penalised
- It would allow services that people find useful to continue – e.g. getting news updates from the BBC
- It would encourage companies to use the service in an “ethical” way while heavily penalising spammers
- As a result, there would be a lower risk of people leaving the service.
3) “The enhanced service”
Twitter will not try to distinguish companies from individuals. However, it will create an “enhanced” account which will provide additional features at a cost. Companies will be free to keep using the “basic” service if they want to.
This is the most likely option, I’d say:
- The challenge would be to come up with features that would make a paid account compelling
- These could include things like offering brand protection (the account is marked as ‘official’), ecommerce features (people being able to pay over Twitter), advanced analytics (see reports on your followers and their behaviour etc), tracking abilities (find out how many people clicked the link in the last message you sent, etc)…
- This would add value for people who chose to pay
- There would be no need on Twitter’s part to pay people to detect and penalise companies
- Things like news feeds and so on would continue to operate, meaning that the usefulness of Twitter wouldn’t be too diminished.
Most of the commentary I’ve read so far seems to assume that something akin to the first option, the “Twitter tax”, would be introduced. But Twitter surely realise that it would be costly to implement and would seriously impact their growth rate. An enhanced service for which companies or individuals could pay is far more likely.
In particular, keep an eye out for commerce features. Pay-by-Twitter might seem far-fetched at the moment but as the service becomes ever more pervasive a compelling user need for that service will begin to emerge.
Another Twitter visualisation
Feb 3rd
I promise I’ll stop posting links to these one day. Anyway, this is from a series of Superbowl-related interactive visualisations produced by the New York Times:
Unlike the visualisation of #inauguration posts I linked to recently, this isn’t based on hash tags but instead uses moving tag clouds to illustrate the volume of Twitter posts on various subjects during the Super Bowl.
Examples include “Cardinals vs Steelers” (I know the Steelers are from Pittsburgh but from this animation I’d guess the Cardinals are from… Las Vegas? San Diego?), “talking about ads” (it’s vaguely depressing to see how much conversation the ads inspire) and player names (a guy called Fitzgerald obviously does something notable in the fourth quarter).
This is maybe the most effective use of Twitter data I’ve seen so far, as it is centred around a single event but tracks various subjects of conversation related to that event. A far simpler and less interesting animation would have simply flagged every post with the hash tag #superbowl.
Presidential inauguration – Twitter visualisation
Jan 23rd
This animated map from FlowingData shows the global location of each Twitter post tagged as #inauguration between Monday and Wednesday this week.
Although the world map isn’t shown, over time the US and the UK become almost perfectly defined by the density of Twitter post markers. You can also see outlines of south America and western Europe.
http://projects.flowingdata.com/inauguration/
The big flurry happens when the US wakes up on Tuesday morning…
The end of Web 2.0?
Oct 13th
Even though I’ve been known to use the phrase “Web 2.0″ from time to time, I’ve never really liked the idea very much. It’s useful shorthand for when you’re talking to anyone whose knowledge about the internet is defined largely by current trends and ‘hypes’, but really, what’s ever been new about the idea of the web being a platform for user-generated content and social networking? Me and a lot of people I know have been using it for that purpose for nearly fifteen years already.
That said, there’s a case to be made for the validity of the phrase. There’s a combination of interactivity, interoperability and a certain visual aesthetic that can arguably be described quite aptly as “Web 2.0″. But in the last year or so the Web 2.0 brand has been becoming more and more “bubble-esque” as ‘coolness’ has started to outstrip utility within that world.
And as you will no doubt have noticed, we are no longer operating in an economy where coolness carries more weight than utility. The contraction of liquidity will lead to less and less investors being content to capitalise Silicon Valley firms with vapid business models. Products that don’t deliver clear operational value will find it much tougher to get funding.
All in all, it’s like 2000-2001 again, but writ large. The FT’s Lex column (login needed) reported this morning that if the equities markets recover twice as quickly as they did after the 1929 crash, hardly anyone currently over 65 will live to see them reach their heights of summer 2007. The economic climate of the coming years isn’t going to support the kind of culture that “Web 2.0″ has become.
But is that really a bad thing? No, I don’t think so. The hardships that this industry experienced between 2000 and 2002 gave it a sorely-need maturity. And the next few years may do the same.
Even if its underlying concepts were never that new, “Web 2.0″ has introduced the mainstream to a way of connecting over the net that was previously the domain mainly of people like me – geeks, to be blunt. There is now an opportunity for it to go through the same process of maturation that “Web 1.0″ did all those years ago.
Edit, January 2010: Interestingly the technology sector seems to have held up quite well despite the sustained global recession, which only now seems to be drawing to an end. Twitter might even have moved into profitability in 2009. There are still too many people marketing themselves as “social media gurus” but in general the big companies associated with “Web 2.0″ have made well-informed and sensible decisions rather than turn into bloated dot-bomb throwbacks.
Brands that suck on Twitter
Aug 13th
Here in the UK, Twitter has yet to seriously catch on although many organisations are attempting to make use of it. But the marketing and communications departments of large US companies are becoming increasingly aware of the need to establish a brand presence in Twitter.
The case of Janet, who masqueraded as an ExxonMobil spokesperson on Twitter before being unmasked as a fraud, demonsrates how even doing nothing can be damaging. Your brand can get hijacked and dragged through the mud while you’re busy formulating your micro-blogging communications strategy.
Here’s a list of brands that suck on, or simply don’t get, Twitter. It’s an evolving list – Starbucks, for example, got removed after responding to the blog post, showing that their Twitter account wasn’t merely “parked”.
Better commentary than my own can be found at Jeremiah Owyang’s web strategy blog.
My picks from “On the Bus”
Aug 11th
I posted recently about Tweets on the bus, a little site that aggregates all Twitter posts containing the phrase “on the bus”.
Since that post, I’ve been following the “on the bus” posts using Google Reader. Every now and again there’s one that makes me laugh. Here’s a digest of my favourite “on the bus” tweets from the last few weeks:
- “Some guy who’s been eye-balling me since i let him get on the bus ahead of me just got out at federal station: Figures.”
- “Playing Final Fantasy IV on Nintendo DS & unbelievably, a cute nerd girl struck up a convo on the bus about it. I bet she likes wizard dick.”
- “Aaaaaand officially there is a man masturbating next to me on the bus.”
- “Dude on the bus just cracked open a Fosters and poured it into a Starbucks cold cup with a lid and straw.”
- “There’s a lot of sorrow on the bus. You should ride it sometime just to feel a little closer to humanity.”
- “On the bus there’s a guy reading “Fight Club” who looks just like the BitchTits Bob character. Wonder – should I go punch him in the face?”
- “Q: ‘Can I sit here?’ A: ‘As long as you don’t chop my head off.’ I wonder how many times this was said today on the bus. What, too soon?”
- “Sometimes people’s conversations on the bus make me want to slap them in the fucking head.”
- “Overheard on the bus tonight: ‘What do you do for a living?’ ‘Kill trees.’ ‘How do you do that?’ ‘Drive copper nails into the trunk.’”
- “The girl next to me on the bus is on her phone. Making sex noises. Umm…”
Tweeting on the bus
Jul 26th
Earlier this afternoon, as I was passing Angel station on a bus, I posted to Twitter. I’ve subsequently discovered my ‘tweet’ turning up at this site – Tweets on the bus.
The concept is simple – it collects Twitter posts containing the term “on the bus”, and presents them all on one web page. It’s got an RSS feed, and provides automatic links to possibly related tweets.
OK, so it’s not going to change the world. But if you’re as keen an observer of the banal as I am, it’s as good an answer as any to the important question of what’s currently on the minds of random strangers on the bus.
Missing the point of social media
Feb 5th
Posted by brelson in social media
No comments
I’ve just been reading an article on Netimperative (What’s the future of search?) which features the following quote:
This statement suggests that if a company’s customers are unhappy with its products or services the best thing to do is to spend money on social media PR. But doesn’t this miss the point somewhat?
I’d suggest an alternative method for companies whose customers dislike their products and services: “improve your products and services”. If you do that, the conversations your customers have about you online will take a turn for the better.
That’s not to say that companies shouldn’t take part in these conversations. I just think that approaching social media as another PR channel is missing the point of that medium.