Twitter is automating (part of) its timeline via an algorithm. Cue the panic! Signal the backlash. Twitter’s new timeline is making investor buy and sell, inciting a media storm and ironically thousands of Tweets questioning the future of social media’s loveable yet difficult-to-categorize social/broadcast network. This has culminated into a ominous theme #RIPTwitter with many citing that the “end is near.” What Twitter is Introducing Twitter introduced an upgrade to its beloved (and oft misunderstood) timeline that is rolling out to all users…
Apple’s Odd, Yet Effective, Social Media Strategy
CIO’s Matt Kapko recently explored why Apple’s social media strategy seems to play the game differently, according to its rules, and not the best practices of everyone else. We talked at length about it now and over the years. This time, I focused specifically on the question about why/why not have an @Apple account. Part of my thoughts made it into the final article, the rest is below for you to see. Excerpt: Apple does social media differently than its…
Ellen Pao Loses Against Kleiner Perkins and Twitter Partners with Foursquare – ContextMatters #7
Ellen Pao Loses Suit; Wins Awareness for Gender Discrimination The news is everywhere; Ellen Pao lost her discrimination lawsuit against Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. At the same time, she’s being credited for disrupting how Silicon Valley does business. USAToday’s Ellen Weise joined the conversation to share her experience in the courtroom and her thoughts on the case. Twitter Partners with Foursquare Did you know that Foursquare is still alive and kicking? Did you also know that Foursquare is also…
SXSW Jumps the Shark (Again?), The Meerkat Craze and Twitter’s Questionable Developer Relations – ContextMatters #6
Jumping the Shark Has Jumped the Shark SXSW is a special event. It is what you make it and what you allow it to be. And, that’s what makes it both personal and serendipitous. That doesn’t stop people from asking every year whether or not SXSW has jumped the shark. Did you know that jumping the shark was a Happy Days reference? Chris and I talk about why SXSW is important and we speak to attendees about why they travel…
Meerkat and the Ephemeral State of Livestreaming
By now you must have heard about Meerkat, the latest tech media darling that lets people tweet (stream) live experiences with friends and followers on Twitter. It’s basically an easy to use app that combines ephemeral livecasting/livestreaming on top of the Twitter platform but through a dedicated screen where participants can see video, who’s watching as well as the Tweets between them. I call it Meerkasting and yes, it’s already a verb. I realize that most of the words I…
Medium vs. Twitter and The Tech War in San Francisco – ContextMatters Episode 4
Medium vs. Twitter Have you used Medium the >140 version of Twitter? During the early days of social media, platforms such as WordPress and Blogger offered technology and networks to anyone with something to say. Over the years, blogging would give rise to a new generation of authoritative, engaging and entertaining voices that might not otherwise found their stage. At the same time, new social channels would emerge that would introduce a subtler more rapid form of publishing that focused…
Community is Much More Than Belonging to Something; It’s About Doing Something Together That Makes Belonging Matter
Viginia Coutinho is a dear friend who just released a new book (in Portuguese) that helps strategists think differently about social media. She is also the organizer of Upload Lisboa, a fantastic event in Portugal that focuses on innovation and disruptive technologies. Earlier in the year, she surprised me by asking if I would consider writing the foreword. Even though I don’t write much about social media these days, I couldn’t let her down. Now that her book is available,…
Introducing N3TWORK, A Mobile Television Network Powered by Interests and Context
Early on, I was one of the first analysts to explore the dynamics of the interest graph versus the social graph in social networks. Think Twitter vs. Facebook. I learned right away that interest graphs tend to share connections based on topics rather than relationships. I also found that every person possesses a series of 6-10 interest graphs that together form a social graph. Google refers to these groupings as “Circles.” The notion of manually organizing people by interests though…
Broadcast Yourself(ie): If You Think Gen Y is Different, Wait Until You Meet Generation Z
How teens use social media and why it matters to you. Generation Z = (Today’s Teens, Preteens and Children) If you want a glimpse of the future of technology and its impact on society, study how younger generations interact with one another today. While everyone is talking about Millennials these days, there’s another, potential more disruptive generation behind them…Generation Z. With the sting of a face palm, you’ll experience a sheer rush of humility as you realize that everything you…
Twitter Files for IPO – What it means for users, investors, and social media
By now you’ve heard that Twitter IPO will fly soon. On the heels of its release of the controversial Conversations feature, Twitter announced, via a Tweet of course, a confidential S-1 filing for a planned IPO. In fact, just last week, I shared with ABC News that we needed to prepare for the inevitable. While many experts are jumping on their platforms to shout that it’s about time, many investors are smirking with clasped hands, understanding of course that in…
