Twitter lists gathered on a wiki blog or forum August 2, 2008
Posted by Andy Roberts in : blogs and community, web2.0, tools, Wiki , 3commentsAs the use of twitter continues to spread despite the restricted service and downtime, a commonplace event for communities is to start compiling lists of links to each other’s twitter accounts. These are handy for anybody who hasn’t already built up their network because you can quickly add a bunch of people who are all involved in the same interest or practice. Acting as a kind of jump start into twitter for groups, it feels like a community indicator of some sort.
If the community is based mainly on a web forum or email list then it can start with a message from one member who is a twitter enthusiast, that turns into a long thread with the same message re-quoted and a new line added at the bottom. That’s not ideal, but it works for a while and builds up a volume of attention to the activity.
Over on one bloggers’ forum we tried compiling the list of member’s twitter links and putting it into a new service called “dropio” where anybody could upload new files and links, but that service proved problematic.
When the same process broke out at E-mint, a community for online facilitators, ‘community managers’ and moderators it wasn’t long before somebody - Ed Mitchell - said “Definitely a wiki job, this one” and so here we have the ….
E-mint twitter list on DARwiki
The advantage of having the twitter list on a wiki is that you can link to what will be always the latest version and that members can easily add themselves or make corrections.
If it’s a person-centric or blog-centric community such as Darren Rowse’s pro-blogger readers, the twitter list is gathered from the comments left on an invitation post and then published on the blog.
If the community is forming in a friendfeed room then there’s probably no need to compile a twitter list at all because the aggregator sort of does that automatically in that each member’s tweets are in their own streams and twitter links in their services page - which stands in as a profile page on friendfeed.
What other formats and processes have you seen out there for gathering twitter lists?
More Friendfeed tips - video 3 May 30, 2008
Posted by Andy Roberts in : friendfeed, social objects, web2.0, tools , 3commentsFour more tips for getting to grips with FriendFeed
In this third video of the series I show four simple techniques for delving further into the productive use of Friendfeed as a social media tool.
So this being a Friday, you’re now all set for an exciting weekend experimenting and exploring the fast growing conversations in Friendfeed Rooms. Seeya there.
Note: due to a misunderstanding of Blip TV episodes you might have failed to view video 2 in this series which is here: Friendfeed and Social Objects
And if you can’t access video at all for some reason, there are some transcript notes included below and over on edocr.com at Friendfeed video transcript. Thanks to Allison Reynolds 100 eggs post for that idea.
Friendfeed for microblogging - a screencast video May 26, 2008
Posted by Andy Roberts in : friendfeed, social objects, web2.0, tools , 6commentsFriendfeed is more than just a clever lifestream aggregator for all your other applications, it’s also a micro blogging platform in its own right. Here’s a screencast video I made to show how.
In the next screencast video of this series, I’ll show how Friendfeed microblog entries can be social objects, and the use of “rooms”.
Meanwhile, I’d be interested to hear how you think the future will unfold in this area. Twitter has the best community at present but can it hold on to it? Friendfeed has some of the elements of Facebook but without the apps. Have you tried migrating to Jaiku or Pownce? Can’t understand what’s the point of microblogging is anyway?
TeachMeet08 at BETT January 12, 2008
Posted by Andy Roberts in : edublog, web2.0, Wiki , 2commentsI never went to the BETT education exhibition at Olympia when I worked in institutionalised education but I went yesterday. The main reason was to attend TeachMeet08 where lots of interesting people would be gathering and presenting, including some old colleagues, people only known online through various networks, and Linda’s twitter friends from the scottish edubloggers. I was asked to video Drew’s presentation including the use of a Mobius strip so here it is.
There’s also a recording of the Flashmeeting which can be replayed
BETT itself was pretty dire, with all the usual vendors trying to flog their old technology, unlikely promises and crap content to the people who get to spend money in the education sector.
Blogrush phase 2 is active October 31, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : internet, blogs and community, web2.0 , add a commentAfter testing my patience for a little too long, Blogrush phase 2 is now active. This means that the silly “under construction” notice has gone from the dashboard and been replaced by some nice graphs and stuff. To me, the statistical charts seem pretty self explanatory but blogrush members are urged to watch a rather long screencast video which explains it all, feature by feature, and promises some more future developments.
So rather than take the blogrush widget off from this blog, as I was getting close to doing this week, I decided to keep it for a further extended trial period, in fact I’m almost impressed with some of the extra thougt which has now gone into this service. If you have a blog which is focussed on a particular niche topic, then you may have some considerable success in attracting new readers through this widget, so if you haven’t already, you can sign up to blogrush here and become part of my extended referral network.
Backtracking: I first wrote about blogrush on September 16th in mybloglog romlet or blogrush and Linda also wrote blogrush or blogroll
UK at the hub of VC investment for Web 2.0 startups September 17, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : London, UK, web2.0 , add a commentVenture Capital investment is flowing into London for web2.0 startups. You only have to be around some of the geek/coffee/launch events to sense that the first half of 2007 has seen a tipping point for the community of developers, entrepreneurs, bloggers, social media pundits, angel investors and VCs. As well as the homegrown scene, many European and American individuals with skills and initiative are moving to London to set up their new web2.0 startup companies because of the buzz on the London scene, and because the regulation and tax frameworks make it so much easier to set up and expand new businesses in the UK capital.
Now there are some figures to show the world:
TechCrunch UK » Blog Archive » UK, Ireland grow as Web 2.0 goes global
Within Europe, the United Kingdom posted the most activity in the first half with a record seven deals accounting for US$22 million invested.
MyBloglog, Romlet or BlogRush? September 16, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : internet, wordpress, blogs and community, web2.0 , 6comments
In this post I am going to review three similar on-blog widgetised linking services. All three are currently in my sidebar here, displaying links of one sort or another and tracking visits. I also use the excellent Facebook application “Blog Friends” but that works a bit differently, and was covered earlier.
Blogrush is the newest, being released only yesterday, and at the time of writing it’s temporarily broken.
I’m sure they’ll fix it soon.
MyBlogLog
MyBlogLog is the oldest and best established. I like it for the simple idea of displaying visitors faces, which can creep up as a loose sense of community eventually, and also for the three column layout of the stats page. It flows naturally from left to right, showing where visitors came from, what they viewed, and where they left for.
For a quick glance analysis, this is so much more intuitive than for example Google Analytics. Disadvantages are that it can often take three clicks to make a reciprocal visit, navigating the pages at MyBlogLog itself. With practice you can get this down to two clicks, by paying careful attention to the links as illustrated below:
ROMlet
I was invited to Romlet beta via MyBlogLog with whom they are really a direct competitor.
ROMlet is a brand new blog widget that incorporates the best aspects of a brag badge, stats counter, bookmarking tool and popularity booster. JOIN THE COMMUNITY now and then sign up take part in the beta release!
As a beta product, it’s not at all clear where ROMlet is headed for now. The service is so simple that it hardly seems to do anything. The so-called “brag badge” is a collection of icons which give out a certain amount of referral stats data, which is not really something that I consider adds value for my visitors, nor particularly for myself. I did have a little trickle of traffic when one of my articles was popular enough to appear on their front page for a while, but if the service becomes at all well used then I would expect this to be an increasingly rare occurrance, thus undermining its own success. So all a bit baffling really, and I’ll probably take it off in due curse.
BlogRush
Blogrush is the newest, currently getting a lot of attention from marketing bloggers, which betrays the origin of the service. There’s a multi-level referral scheme which is supposed to favour early adopters so if you are interested in these type of things then it’s best to get set up with BlogRush sooner rather than later. The only danger I perceive is that with all the multi level marketers jumping on board from the off, the service could well prove Hugh’s Law to be correct right from the start.
Conclusion
Hmm, do I need to write a conclusion? It’s fairly clear that MyBlogLog is providing a lasting service which slowly helps to build some level of blogging community and relationships, as well as the handy stats. Linda pointed out that in some ways it’s a shame that these automated and uncontrolled systems have taken over from the manual blogroll to some extent, and I can see that personal choice may be diminished. With Blog Friends, you can choose to filter your reading of friends of friends blogs ( I’d rather read my friends‘ blogs unfiltered ) and with BlogRush you can choose which category to associate with, and you can also choose to take it off altogether - something which is very easy and non-destructive with widgets for Wordpress 2.2
At last google reader has a search box September 6, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : internet, web2.0, tools , add a commentPossibly the most annoying inadequacy of Google’s news feed reader has at last been remedied. Hoo ray. It was alway confounding that the company which made a name for itself out of search couldn’t find a way to provide search on their own idiosynchratic implemention of a newsreader. I also wondered frequently why I stick with it instead of reverting to bloglines or the freestanding NetNewsWire. But I do, and it has a search box now, so there are only a few more annoying inadequacies left.
Apparently we have to thank Ben Chris and Jemma for finding the search box.
Community launch from an event September 3, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : distributed research, theory, Community, online facilitation, COP, edublog, web2.0 , 5commentsThinking about a community birth process which I’ve just witnessed during August, it seems appropriate to try and generalise and seek further applications. A month long training course, open and free to attend, generates a momentum of interest, good will, and community indicators.
“what are we going to do when it’s all over?”
“I’m really going to miss the daily podcasts”
“I’m a few days behind, will the content still be available?”
“this forum is the best I’ve ever been in”
So then one of the convenors makes the announcement that the thirty day challenge goes on forever, and an ongoing community of practice is born. Of course the momentum built up during an occasional time-delimited event cannot be sustained at the same level, which is just as well, but the chances of enough residual activity continuing to get a self-sustaining community off the ground are probably a lot greater through this method, whether pre-planned or not, compared with the precarious method of trying to build up a critical mass through recruiting ones and twos, adding member by member, month after lonely month.
And yet, often the last days of a temporary online gathering are used to acheive closure, to sum up, and say ‘thanks a lot, and goodbye’. I began to wonder what would happen if…..
What if the conference on Web2.0 in January 2006 had been encouraged to continue onwards in situ?
What if a hotseat event, where people gather to ask questions to an invited guest, were to be left open and made public to generate further discussion amongst the participants and others. Maybe each and every hotseat or conference has a potential to spawn a practice community, to provide a growing public space. Many will dwindle and peter out after a while but maybe some will flourish instead of being shut down and put away.
I’m sure there are a few other examples where an online learning event has spawned a persisitent community, but nowhere near as many as have been conveniently wrapped up and dispersed. It’s not as if anybody would be forced to hang around against their will, or that any measurable resources would be consumed to allow event based learning communities to live on.
Or to put it the other way around, if you are hoping to launch a distributed community of practice then consider starting off by organising a month long conference at a specific time and space, build up a sense of occasion and then take it from there.
Web Services Will Be Free August 5, 2007
Posted by Andy Roberts in : Pajamanation, web2.0 , add a commentMediajunk, an internet consulting service explains why the subscripions model is no longer viable. These days you have to make your web services free. Why? Because if you don’t, someone else will - eventually.
Web Services Will Be Free - mediajunk
A bold prediction: many (if not all) of the web services that we currently pay for will soon be offered free.
Two warnings: 1. Your website will need significant numbers of visitors before an advertising-based model becomes workable
2. You have to build a brand, and fast.
is an online professional who initiated DARnet 
