Posts tagged as:

Twitterstream

Are You Filtering Information In or Out?

by Daria Steigman on November 2, 2009

Filter Failure

Call it Web squared or just a data explosion, but the universe isn’t the only thing that’s expanding. So is the volume of information out there in bytes and megabytes.

Take Twitter, for example. When I first signed up, I wasn’t following enough people to need any group functionality. That quickly changed. So I created a “Faves” group in TweetDeck to make sure I didn’t miss tweets from the 50 or so people I interact with most or whose Twittersteams provide other value. But then that Twittersteam started to grow, so I created a second group–this time of local folks.

That’s when it hit me: by default, I’m filtering in more and more information. Whether on Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Reader, or another site, I’m increasingly looking for tools to help me receive and process–rather than avoid–the growing data stream.

What about you? How are you filtering information, and has this changed over time?

Photo by catspyjamasnz (Flickr).

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Decoding the Twitterstream

by Daria Steigman on April 20, 2009

Why is everyone’s first instinct to think that Twitter is silly and self-indulgent? Admit it, you probably felt that way once–or still do.

I’ve been pondering the Twitter start-up barrier the last few days as I pull thoughts together for a conversation I’m having on Thursday with University of Maryland PR students. And, since I’m on Twitter, I’ve been chatting with a few people on the topic.

I got a lot of clarity from this brief back-and-forth with Mary Deming Barber:

@dariasteigman Thanks for the rec. I am really enjoying the conversation on Twitter since I started connecting w good folks. #followfriday
from Nambu in reply to dariasteigman

@mdbarber I think that’s why it’s hard for newbies to get started. You have to figure out who to interact with, build up your community.
from TweetDeck in reply to mdbarber

@dariasteigman I agree. People look at the public timeline which makes no sense. Our job now is to show them how to build the community.

Eureka! We all start by looking at someone else’s timeline, filled with strangers having conversations that are disengaged from us. Obviously, we can’t build a “demo” community every time we need to explain Twitter to someone — but we need to be aware of the disconnect and take steps to demonstrate why our timelines work for us.

That’s my challenge for Thursday, and for every time I talk to a student, client, prospect, or friend who gives me a blank look or rolls their eyes at the mention of a tweet.

Any ideas? What steps do you take to decode the Twitterstream?

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Have You Mapped Your Twitter Stream?

by Daria Steigman on January 7, 2009

Twitter StreamI read a very interesting post earlier today in which Matt McDonald threw out some ideas about how Twitter might monetize. One idea he suggested was to create tweet clouds that could help advertisers create targeted tweet blasts.

So here’s mine, drawn from my tweets over the last 24 hours or so.

You can also find my Twitter Stream on Wordle. (Ignore the Anonymous tag; I just clicked before I was ready. It’s really mine.)

This is just one day. Imagine if we aggregated all of a Twitter user’s data. What would your Twitter cloud say about you?

Word cloud courtesy of Wordle.

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