Buzzwords for SXSWi 2010: Geolocation, Check In

Posted on March 11, 2010 by Chris

I wont be at SXSW this year, but I’ll be able to find my tweeple there. Two companies, Foursquare and Gowalla, plan to push geolocation at this year’s SXSW Interactive Festival.

Eighteen months ago, neither Gowalla nor Foursquare existed. But their similar “geolocation” mobile apps, which let users “check in” from their smartphones, share their location with their friends, and compete to earn virtual goods (in Gowalla) and “badges” (in Foursquare), are two of the hottest start-ups in the tech world. They’re in aggressive competition to be SXSWi’s big standout, making the digital-culture bonanza’s Texas-sized showmanship even bigger than usual. Source: SXSWi: Let the geolocation games begin | CNET News.

Geolocating apps were present at last year’s SXSW, but they were more beta tests than full scale applications. As big as I may make it, these two startups are the only players in the game. Some of the heavy weights are looking seriously at geolocation for targeting ads and other applications.

Geolocation is unlike anything the Web has ever seen, but it’s likely that the rush to dominate the space will pan out in a way similar to any other big development in social media. We’ve seen (and in some cases continue to see) the personal Web page wars, the blog platform wars, the social-network wars, the real-time-streaming wars, and the social-gaming wars. Like its predecessors, the geolocation wars will see major, complicated privacy concerns. There will be more hand-wringing from start-ups who don’t believe it when a company like Facebook (presumably) says they don’t want to snuff out third-party services. There will be poorly spent venture capital and ad dollars. And eventually, there will be winners.

But for now, Foursquare and Gowalla can enjoy their week of attention at SXSWi, giving out free T-shirts, turning on the taps at open bars, and wooing potential marketing partners. Their executives can get a little drunk, and it probably won’t matter; in the long run, a week in Austin won’t mean much. Source: In geolocation wars, SXSWi is mere skirmish | CNET News.

So, I’ll search for the hastags #sxswi and #geoloco, and I’ll follow @gowalla and @foursquare, but I have a feeling something else will rawk the SXSWi world. Check in and stay tuned.

Why do you tweet?

Posted on March 9, 2010 by Chris

I saw a tweet from @Robin2go which had a hashtag, #psutlt. I looked up the hashtag, trying to find what she was talking about, and I found another tweet by @jeffswain talking about “Why do you tweet?” with the same hashtag. Jeff also has a blog, five-4-six,where he posted the same video. Here is my response.

Why do you tweet?

This is such a simple question but everyone finds it impossible to simply answer. It’s like asking why do you talk to people or why do you listen to people.

I tweet to and talk with and listen to people – like you Jeff – that I’ve never met but with whom I have something in common. I think of tweeting like a constant conversation taking place on the internet and twitter users can choose to join or listen. I think there is a little more transparency with twitter than with instant messages. So, I, like a lot of people, have more personal conversations on twitter.

I started my twitter account in October 2008. I didn’t really commit to tweeting until March 2009 at SXSW. It seemed like everyone there had an iPhone and was on twitter. I was actually blogging my notes from the conference and I found a nice API that would tweet my blog posts. So that why I started tweeting.

In October 2009, I went to HighEdWeb, and again everyone had an iPhone or a laptop, and it seemed like everyone was tweeting – constantly. I started reading the hashtags in tweets from the conference and putting a face with the presenters I was hearing. I realized then that they are people like me and twitter is another tool – like instant messengers – that we can use to have conversations. I also realized the difference from AIM is that twitter is a many-to-many conversation. The only limitation on how many people you can talk to is how many people follow you. Since HighEdWeb I’ve followed lots of people from the conference and we have shared several ideas about higher education.

2009 A year in the life of Twitter

Posted on December 28, 2009 by Chris

I think 2009 will go down as the year Twitter became a household name. I know I’ve used Twitter a lot this year, and I’ve written several blog posts about Twitter and the influence of social media. It will be connected with significant events and insignificant Internet chatter. People will say, “I remember reading a tweet about that,” or “I tweeted about that.” When asked about significant events of 2009 – Iran election, Michael Jackson’s death, “balloon boy” – I’ll bet Twitter will be mentioned in the conversation.

Many people have assumed that Twitter is just another social network, some kind of micro-blogging service, or both. It can be these things but primarily Twitter serves as a real-time information network powered by people around the world discovering what’s happening and sharing the news. The Iranian election was the most discussed issue on Twitter in the final year of a decade defined by advancements in information access.

In the new year, Twitter will begin supporting a billion search queries a day. We will be delivering several billion tweets per hour to users around the world. These are figures we did not anticipate when we founded the company in 2007. Source: Why we can never rest: a year in the life of Twitter | Times Online

In much the same way that instant messaging became a household term 12 years ago when AOL Instant Messenger arrived, Twitter, and a true social media network, will spread news (and propaganda) at the speed of light around the globe; perhaps even to the ISS.

One thing I’ve come to realize is that Twitter holds immense power. Just think about it for a minute. If your product was used by more than 1 billion people everyday to talk about anything from “I’m now online” to “I survived the plane crash into the Hudson.” The potential to spread news is endless. But, I still say that a “town crier” ranting on Twitter without corroborating information is dangerous. They can influence millions of people to take action especially if the rest of the world was ignorant of the truth and the ruse continues long enough for it to grow legs and become sustained. I look forward to the time when conspiracy theorists use Twitter to actually persuade us that something happened or didn’t happen.

You can “@ me” on Twitter in 2010.