Twitter is going to change….
Will be interesting to see if it makes a difference to how I use Twitter. Unlike many others when off my iPhone or iPad I do use the web interface. Though using the iPad more and more now means Osfoora is probably my main method of accessing Twitter.
ALT-C this year once more brought the use of Twitter at conferences to the fore again and discussions on the value of the back channel.
Last year in November danah boyd delivered a speech at the Web 2.0 Expo and according to her own words:
From my perspective, I did a dreadful job at delivering my message.
If you read the rest of her blog entry you realise that she was having a bad day.
So that happens to us all. However what marked out danah’s bad day was how the Twitter back channel pushed the front channel out of the way, as danah says in her blog:
The Twitter stream had become the center of attention, not the speaker. Not me.
The internal audience started to use Twitter to not just comment on the speech, but also to attack the way in which danah was presenting, these attacks then became personal. Where this process was exacerbated was there was a live Twitter stream on a screen in the room.
You can see for yourself how she did in this video.
Having heard danah speak before I didn’t think it was that bad and certainly not as bad as the back channel decided it was.
So you can imagine my hesitation when a few weeks later I was delivering a keynote at ASCILITE 09 in Auckland. I had planned to use a Twitterwall and use KeynoteTweet, an Applescript which in conjunction with Keynote will automatically send tweets as slides appear.
In the auditorium there were two projectors, one would have my slides upon them, whilst the other would have Twitterfall showing all the #ascilite09 tweets. Twitterfall worked well, with a fair few people in the UK and elsewhere following the tweets from my keynote.
Of course having read about danah’s experiences I was concerned about having a live Twitter feed in your presentation, especially when it is behind you. However looking over the stream of Tweets it would appear everything went fine. This year I have given more presentations and where there is room I do try and have a live Twitter stream available.
Lets fast forward to the first week in September, when I walked into the main auditorium at ALT-C 2010 I was pleasantly surprised to see Twitterfall live on a side screen to the main screen. So when Donald Clark walked onto the stage I was looking forward to the keynote and the back channel discussion on Twitter. So I was equally surprised when as the keynote started, the Twitterfall screen “disappeared”. I noted my disappointment in a tweet.
In hindsight some may think it was probably wise of ALT not to have the live Twitterwall behind Donald considering what the back channel was saying about his keynote. Though we must remember that though the back channel is not on display, doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. During the final plenary session at ALT-C we did have the Twitterwall on display and as we listened to the panels of speakers we could see what the audience thought floating down behind them.
During this session, @AJCann asked
OK, who in the room finds the Twitterfall distracting and would like it turned off? Vote now.
It was pointed out that this tweet would only reach the Twitter audience… so a vote was asked for in the hall.
Great to see overwhelming vote for Twitterfall ON from the hall
In the end it was felt by the delegates in the room that the Twitterfall added value to the session.
Now not everyone thinks that is the case all the time:
Seb Schmoller in a blog post says:
My experience at this year’s ALT conference has been that the value of the back-channel has varied widely: sometimes it seems to work like a bad feedback loop on a sound system; sometimes it seems to add focus and clarity to a discussion, and to induce productive involvement.
He also said
I’ve got mixed views about the way that Twitter works in these situations. I’m incapable of following a line of argument whilst i) trying to write pithy observations on it, and ii) keeping an eye on what other people using Twitter are writing.
Seb also links to some research and asks whether
…this kind of research evidence show that those who think they can multi-task are, like phone-using drivers, deluding themselves?
I do wonder though if twittering during a keynote or presentation is in fact mult-tasking as eluded in this research.
I would agree if I was watching an episode of the West Wing during an ALT-C keynote then no I would not be able to give my full attention to either. I know I am not paying attention to what is happening during a presentation if I am checking my e-mail or Facebook. However I see twittering during a keynote presentation as a single activity and not multi-tasking. It is in my opinion akin to note taking during a lecture or checking on something said by the presenter in a text book (or online). I will agree it is going to have some kind of impact, but would like to see if the positive outweighs the negative.
You are engaged with the process and engaging with others. The nice thing of course during a keynote is you have the choice if you want to engage, no one is going to mind.
Overall from my experience, Twitter has really added value to conferences I have attended and made them more joined up and much more a social affair. It has helped to build a real community, especially at ALT-C.
Osfoora HD, for Twitter – iPad App of the Week
This is a regular feature of the blog looking at the various iPhone and iPad Apps available. Some of the apps will be useful for those involved in learning technologies, others will be useful in improving the way in which you work, whilst a few will be just plain fun! Some will be free, others will cost a little and one or two will be what some will think is quite expensive. Though called iPhone App of the Week, most of these apps will work on the iPod touch or the iPad, some will be iPad only apps.
This week’s App is Osfoora HD, for Twitter.
Osfoora HD for Twitter is a blazing fast and clean twitter client for your iPad. Provides elegant and easy access to all of Twitter’s functionalities. Osfoora HD has all the features of Osfoora for iPhone and more.
With a gorgeous user interface, multiple account support, optional full landscape mode (customizable), text expander, boxcar support, twitter lists, nearby tweets, and the ability to tweet songs… using twitter becomes a joy!
£2.39
There are many Twitter Apps out there for the iPad some are free and some like Osfoora HD cost money. With the wonderful screen size of the iPad is that you don’t even need an App you can just use the web interface, the Safari browser works just fine. So why would you spend £2.39 on an App like Osfoora HD?
That’s a good question.
If you use Twitter only occasionally then you probably wouldn’t want to spend hard earned cash on a Twitter App, to be honest I am guessing if you are reading this review you probably are a regular Twitter user and as a result are looking for a tool that enables your use of Twitter to be easier and more effective.
The main reason I switched to Osfoora HD over the free Tweetdeck and the web interface was conversations. When I dip in and out of Twitter I often come across a conversation I don’t just want to know the end of the conversation I also want to know where it started. There may be a way of doing that on Tweetdeck, but I couldn’t work it out. On Osfoora HD all I need to do is click the blue conversation icon!
As with most Twitter Apps you can easily add images, via TwitPic or other Twitter image services, video. Unlike some Apps you can add multiple photographs to single posting if you want.
Yes I know that the iPad doesn’t have a camera, but if you have an iPad camera connection kit you can very easily transfer images from your camera to the iPad. When you add URLs you can “shorten” them making it very easy to add multiple long URLs to any Twitter posting. You can also add your location if you want to.
It’s also very easy on the App to either use the Twitter version of Retweet or to use RT if you prefer that method.
If you use Twitter a lot you may have more than one Twitter account, Osfoora HD allows you to add multiple accounts. This is something that is often missing from many free Twitter Apps.
It’s quick and easy to access searches or lists, though I do think Tweetdeck does this much better.
At the end of the day there is no real reason to buy a Twitter App for the iPad, however I find that using Osfoora HD makes using Twitter easier and more effective. I liked the App so much that I wanted it for my iPhone, this is one downside, unlike a lot of other Apps that you buy once and works on both iPad and iPhone, with Osfoora you need to buy one App for the iPad and one for the iPhone!
Using tools like Google Reader or Twitter it can become pretty compulsive to read everything. If you use iTunes and subscribe to lots of podcasts you can feel you need to listen to them all.
The more RSS feeds you subscribe to, or the more people you follow on Twitter, the larger the number of those unread messages becomes… Likewise with a lot of podcast subscriptions you can find the number of podcasts you have not listened to growing…
Then after a while you feel you are not coping or those unread feeds and Tweets are always there…
Waiting…
The number also gets larger… and larger…
You start to set yourself targets, you will read all your feeds by Sunday night! You will catch up with Twitter over dinner!
You go away to a conference or on holiday and when you get back the list is even bigger!
Eventually it will reach the point that you have to give up. Then you mark all as read and start again down this downward spiral.
Is this a wise course of action?
Of course no it isn’t.
The key in my opinion dealing with tools like Twitter and Google Reader is to rethink them as streams of information rather than as an email inbox.
In the same way that you don’t watch every TV channel or even watch ALL of your favourite TV channel.
Or reading the weekend paper, you don’t attempt to read every article in every section. Likewise if you didn’t read the paper yesterday, do you read it before you read today’s paper?
Or continually listening to Radio 4 all day long… well I know some people who do that, but you know what I mean!
It doesn’t matter that you don’t read every Tweet posted. It won’t be the end of the world if you don’t manage to catch every article in your newsfeed. So what if you miss a podcast?
What is the worse that could happen?
Well yes something bad could happen, but not very likely! But every day because you didn’t read all the Tweets in your Twitter stream, something bad would happen, no I don’t think so.
To be honest nothing bad is going to happen.
So what if you miss an exciting blog post on a subject you care about?
Does it really matter that you missed out on an interesting conversation on Twitter about PLEs?
The thing is you miss stuff all the time outside RSS and Twitter. More often than not, the good stuff resurfaces again and again (well it certainly does on services like Digg).
You need to treat Google Reader, Twitter and iTunes all in the same way. When you have time dip into the Twitter stream. Allocate time during the day To peruse your aggregated feeds in your newsreader. Listen to the most recent podcast, not the one from three weeks ago.
This is a much easier way to manage the huge amount of information that comes into our lives. Yes you will miss stuff, but the stuff you don’t will not be rushed, it will be perused with care and attention not just glanced over because you need to ensure that all your articles in the RSS feed are read.
It’s never about all the stuff it’s about the right stuff.
Now should we talk about e-mail?
A year ago I wrote a blog post, Ten reasons why Twitter will eventually wither and die… in which I covered that I saw at the time as ten valid reasons why one day Twitter would “wither and die”.
It is a fact known to all that use Web 2.0 tools and services that one day they will no longer be flavour of the month, or will be swamped by spam, cons and hustlers. One day we will no longer be using Twitter and when that is, no one really knows, but if it continues along it’s current roadmap it will be sooner than we think.
So do I still think, a year later, Twitter more popular than ever, that Twitter will no longer be the popular site it is now?
So what of the ten reasons I discussed back then.
1. Spam
Spam is still an issue on Twitter.Last year I said “though it doesn’t generally affect the majority of Twitter users” however this year I would suggest that it does impact on many users. We still have hashtag and searching spam, click on any Trending Topic and you will see spam postings amongst all the other tweets in the trending stream. Twitter’s own @spam account is certainly helping in reducing spam and warning people about possible spamming. There is also the report spam button which also helps to reduce spam.
What I am seeing more of is people RTing adverts and promotions, the RT to win an iPad for example.
For some reason people think they might actually win an iPad doing this! Duh! Well there may be some valid Twitter competitions and there are some which are not so valid… Of course the real issue is that if your Twitter stream is consistently full of people just RTing competitions is this not spam?
Another form of spamming is continually posting links to your blog.
But James you do this I hear you say…
Now I know I post links and I do worry about doing so. Spam by definition is unwanted communication, and spam is also quite personal. What I consider to be useful blog links, you may consider to be unwanted spam. However in terms of Twitter I think the issue is much more about the quantity of tweets about blog posts as a proportion of total tweets. This is where I do get concerned, if I post lots of tweets about my blog posts and in addition most of my other tweets are @ replies then unless you follow everyone I do, all you will see from me are tweets linking to my blog posts. As a result you may consider me more of a spammer, as though I am using Twitter to converse and chat, you are not seeing that, as you don’t follow the people I do. As a result I generally only post a link to my blog posting once. I know this means that some people will miss it, if I post in the morning, then people in the evening may miss it… However if it is a good blog post (as considered by others) than what can happen is that other people will post the link or RT my link.
2. Terrible Jokes
Last year I mentioned humour as an issue.
We all like to have a laugh and one of the attractions of Twitter can be the humour that you find there. However some people takes jokes a little too far and this can annoy people, especially conference organisers who don’t want their Twitter stream “corrupted” by inappropriate humour.
I think this is now less important, though a similar issue is inappropriate language. The main issue with this is if you are like me and show other people how Twitter works, to have a stream full of people using inappropriate language can reinforce people’s perceptions of what “social networking” is all about.
3. Fake RTs
Last year I said
Hasn’t happened to me, but did happen to @billt (the real Bill Thompson). To RT or to re-tweet means to completely copy and post what someone else has posted before. Generally a way of getting information around Twitter quite fast and for highlighting important information or sites. So how does the Fake RT work, basically someone posts a tweet like this RT @jamesclay Found this really interesting site http://youknowit.is/spam others who respect @jamesclay then follow the link or even worse retweet (RT) the spam tweet.
This does now happen to me on a regular basis. People copy what I am tweeting and posting it on, sometimes with links that I don’t endorse!
4. The Hustle
Last year I said:
However there is a problem with shortened URLs and that is you don’t know where you are going as the URL gives no indication. This unknown factor will allowunscrupulous Twitter users to send other users to spam sites, or more worryingly phishing sites or sites with a virus or trojan download.
Still happens, and people still get caught out and hand over their Twitter credentials. This then leads into…
5. Identity Theft
Still happens way too often, sometimes accidently as people fall foul to phishing scams, but sometimes as people authorise third party apps to post tweets using their account.
6. Cons and Scams
We still get cons and scams. With the recent Haiti earthquake there were a few cons going around Twitter about making donations, which didn’t get to Haiti but went into the pockets of con artists.
7. Trojans and Worms
I said back then
As Twitter becomes more and more popular, it won’t be long before it gets swamped by worms and trojans. Once we’ve been infected we probably won’t go back and one day it might be too much for us all and we’re all go and leave and move onto the next thing.
It’s still an issue and if people keep clicking on unknown links then it will keep happening.
8. Fashion
Only time will tell if Twitter will remain fashionable. However the tech sites are already looking for the next thing after Twitter. Yesterday the Guardian published an article Will Foursquare be the new Twitter? in which Tim Adams says:
An application that allows friends to track one another’s movements when they’re out and about could be the next big thing in social networking.
Mashable last July in Foursquare: Why It May Be the Next Twitter said:
While no service is likely to achieve the same scale as Twitter in the coming months, Foursquare has all the right ingredients to be one of this year’s big hits.
I am seeing more and more of my Twitter community using Foursquare. Once that service starts to add Twitter’esque functionality, will people move on from Twitter? Don’t know for sure, but it does mean that if other things in this list annoy you, you now have somewhere to go…
9. Feature Creep
There are already lots of third party tools that add additional features to Twitter. Last year I said:
Once too many people start using these tools, you may find that your Twitter stream becomes just a stream of announcements from people using these tools, and as a result you may well stop using Twitter as it will have outlived its usefulness.
I still think that added features can enhance a service, but in addition can spoil what makes Twitter unique, relevant and useful.
10. Spam Followers
I still get them, I bet you do too.
Conclusions
There are now other reasons why Twitter will fall by the wayside and I will discuss these in a future blog post. So will Twitter fail and disappear completely as I predicted last year? Eventually, yes Twitter will go the same way as other services have in the past, some diehard users will continue to use the service.
Here are my top ten web tools of 2009. This is a list of web tools which I have used extensively over the last twelve months. Last year I posted my top ten web tools of 2008, here is my new list from 2009.
There were quite a few tools that I have been using and could have been in my top ten.
I really like Screenr, simply put, it is a free web based screencasting application. It captures what you do on your screen and then converts it a web video format and posts a notification to Twitter. You can then download the video as an MP4 movie file. I like it but haven’t made a huge use of it, so that’s why it’s not in my top ten.
A similar concept is Jing, though this requires you to download an application.
iPadio is a phone based podcasting service which has now been supplemented by an iPhone app. Some of the MoLeNET Mentors have made good use of iPadio, I have really used Audioboo.
I use to have strong reservations about Wikipedia, until I realised I used it on almost daily basis. No it’s not my only source, nor is it really an authoritative source, however it is a useful, quick and easy source of information.
I do like Prezi and have seen some excellent presentations using Prezi, however despite liking it, I have never used it in anger! Therefore it does not make my top ten.
I initially couldn’t see the point of Cloudworks, however ALT-C 2o09 and Ascilite 2009 demonstrated the value of Cloudworks as a repository of information, links and comments on conferences and keynotes. I will see how I use it in 2010 to see if it makes the top ten then.
Probably in at number eleven was Slideshare. I used it much more in 2009 than in 2008. However for me the main issue was that my presentations don’t really work on Slideshare as they are mainly pictures and single words, and that’s probably why it’s not in my top ten.
This is an e-learning blog and I should really mention Moodle, I use Moodle everyday as part of my day job, however I see this more as an institutional service rather than a web tool.
There were others which are very popular and didn’t even come close, the one you probably have heard of is Facebook. I have hardly used Facebook this year and am considering as others are in closing my account down.
In last year’s list, but not in this year’s are Qik, Remember the Milk and Crowdvine. I did use Qik, but nowhere as near as much as I did in 2008. The main reason was that thw quality was good enough for people to go “wow” but that was about it. The “live” bit was okay, but not good enough to use on a regular basis. It was just as easy to record video on the iPhone and then upload to TwitVid or YouTube. I have though just downloaded the version for the iPhone 3GS and that may make a difference to how much I use it now. I still use Remember the Milk, but not as effectively as I would like, so more work needed there from me and them. I also did use Crowdvine at ALT-C 2009 and the scheduling was useful as was the communicating, but there was nothing new there compared to 2008 and therefore it dropped out of the top ten. If the social networking intergration was better I am pretty sure it would have probably creeped in. However it was too slow in picking up Twitter posts, Flickr photos and blog posts; this is very important for a conference networking tool.
Anyway onto the top ten for 2009.
10. Evernote
Now why would you use Evernote when you can use Google Docs? Well What I find Evernote is good for is note taking whereas I use Google Docs for writing documents. With Evernote though, you can use it through apps offline, through a web interface in a browser (useful on shared computers), in an iPhone app (iTunes Store Link). I like how you can add screenclips, screenshots, photographs and audio to your notes too. This blog entry was started on Evernote for example. It has great uses for learning too, learners can use it to store notes and with the ability to have different notebooks and tagging, will make it very easy to find notes when it comes to writing assignments or revision.
9. Etherpad
This is also one of those services which you may think, why not just use Google Docs? Well Google thought it was different enough they bought the company! Etherpad is a simple concept which works really well. Create a pad, share the URL and then everyone can help create a shared document; where it is special is that you can do this simultaneously. So as you type, I can type, you will be able to see what you’re typing and what I am typing too. This is brilliant in meetings and at conferences where you can share links, ideas, notes, comments together. In the past a group in a meeting may have had separate notebooks (real or virtual) now with Etherpad you can share a single electronic notepad. The MoLeNET Mentors have used it with great effect as a shared notebook. Imagine a study group of learners using Etherpad to share lecture notes, links, resources, comments, drafts.
8. Shozu
Shozu was my number five web tool last year, it has dropped a few places, but I still use it on a regular basis. What Shozu does for me is when I ever take a photograph using my Nokia N95 I can immediately upload the image to Flickr. With a little preparation I can add relevant tags (or edit tags on the fly) and it will also add the geo-data using the GPS on the N95. What this means is that when I am at an event I can take lots of photographs and people who want to see what is going on can easily see from my photographs. It also allows me to capture my day in a kind of lifestream giving me a record of what I have done, who I have met and where I have been. I also use Shozu to upload photographs and video to Twitter services such as TwitPic and TwitVid. I have also used it to upload content to my blog.
7. Audioboo
This has been one fun app to use on the iPhone. So what is Audioboo? Well it’s a service I first saw demonstrated at the All Together Now event at Channel 4. To put it simply it is an App (iTunes Store Link) on your iPhone that allows you to record an audio recording, add your location, a picture and upload the lot to a website. This has some real potential for learning activities. As you have an account on the website (not essential but recommended) your recordings are kept together and also have an RSS feed as well, which people can subscribe to via iTunes or other podcasting applications. I have mainly used Audioboo to show people what Audioboo can do. I hope to in 2010 use Audioboo to do a regular short podcast.
6. Ustream
So you want to create video, live video? You want to share that live video with lots of people? Well yes you can stream from your computer, however if you have limited bandwidth then this can be a problem. Services such as Ustream allow you to easily stream live video across the web to many different users, even if you have limited bandwidth such as over a 3G connection. I used Ustream a few times over 2009 to stream keynotes from the Plymouth e-Learning Conference, the VLE is Dead session live from ALT-C 2009 and also various MoLeNET Live “online conferences”. There is now an iPhone app so you can stream live from your iPhone 3GS. Simple to use, easy for people to interact with, live video streaming from UStream is a great technology with lots of learning potential. Learners in the workplace could stream from their work or access live streams from lecturers in college or in the field (or literally in a field).
5. Google Docs
Last year Google Docs scraped into my top ten at number ten. This year I have put it in at number five. The main way I use Google Docs is to write a document that I know I will be working from on multiple computers. Now I know I could use a USB stick, but it assumes I have the same application on all machines, which is not always the case. For example my work machines have Office 2003, fine, but my Mac has Office 2008 (the newer version), my home Mac only has Pages, my Samsung Q1 only has Open Office as does the Asus EeePC. Sometimes the PC is runing Office 2007. Using Google Docs allows me to have a single copy of a document, share that document and export or print in variety of formats. For example I can download my document as a PDF. I have used Google Docs many times throughout 2009 to work on documents with other people from across the world and that has proved how useful this service is to me. Learners will find that using Google Docs as the service to use in writing their assignments (especially group assignments) will avoid the headaches of different versions of Word, losing USB sticks, inability to access network drives from outside college, etc, etc…
4. Ning
So you want to create your own social networking service? Why not use Ning? Create your own creepy treehouse!!! I used Ning a fair few times in 2009 in the main in supporting events I was running or attending. I used it initially for the ILT Champions Informal Conference and the Fringe for the Plymouth e-Learning Conference. It allowed delegates at both events to communicate, share pictures, video, write blog posts and have discussions. I was surprised by how well they worked. I am currently using Ning to work with various communities, and in 2010 it will be the service used by the Becta Technology Exemplar Network to share and collaborate. I don’t actually see Ning as a “social networking” service as such, more as a web site that I don’t need to build! For learning, it has many uses especially when you want students from multiple institutions to collaborate and work together.
3. Flickr
Last year Flickr was number six, this year it has climbed three places to number three. have nearly 2700 photographs on Flickr up from nearly 1500 last year, that means I have uploaded nearly a hundred photographs a month, or three a day! They cover a range of topics and events. From an events perspective I think Flickr adds so much more to an event. It can capture the event in ways that can’t be caught in any other way. Flickr is not only a great way of storing photographs, also a great place to find photographs, and many images on this blog are from photos from Flickr which are creative commons licensed to allow me to use them on the blog. Flickr is a great way to store photographs and to find images.
2. WordPress
Though it’s all about quality I did publish 232 e-Learning Stuff Blog posts last year… I use WordPress.com and have been very pleased with it. One of the key reasons that I like WordPress is that it has made it very easy to post video to the web. Now YouTube is great and all that and I do use it, however with the ten minute limit, this can be quite constraining. WordPress with the (paid for) Videopress upgrade does a very good job of converting my films into Flash Video. The quality is certainly much better than YouTube, and I can embed the video on other sites as well. It handles the bandwith too, with the VLE is Dead video the blog was delivering 40Gb of video that first week! I use a WordPress.com blog for many reasons, the main is convenience. As it is web based all I need is a browser to write a blog entry, though there are other tools such as Shozu and the WordPress app on the iPod touch which also allow me to write. The stats are useful in finding out how people are finding the blog, likewise comments allow feedback. Blogs can be public like mine, or private, restricted to say a group, or a tutor and a learner.
1. Twitter
Last year Twitter was my number two web tool, beaten there by Jaiku, which took first place. As you can see Jaiku doesn’t even make the list this year. For me 2009 was the year that Twitter became even more useful as a tool to converse, collaborate, share and communicate. The reason that Twitter is my web tool of the year is down to a variety of reasons.
Conversations: This is what Twitter is all about, the conversation, the community, the Water Cooler moment, the coffee break.
Backchannel: At conferences, the Twitter backchannel can be fantastic, but can also be a nightmare! I really find that the Twitter backchannel can enhance and enrich the social and networking side of a conference, improve communication and add to sessions taking place. It allows for the converation to continue after a presentation or keynote and can also widen that conversation to outside the conference.
Links: In many ways for me and others Twitter has almost replaced RSS, I find out much more information and useful links from Twitter now then I do any other source.
Mobile: The mobile element has made Twitter a much more effective and efficient tool. The fact that I can now easily access and contribute to Twitter from my iPhone has increased how much I use, engage and interact with Twitter. It’s so easy, I access it on the train, waiting in line for stuff, at events, when I am away. When I was in New Zealand, the lack of connectivity (and the 13 hour time zone difference) made me aware of how useful and important Twitter was to the way I worked.
Twitter also matured this year with the addition of really useful tools such as TwitPic, TwitVid and TweetMic. TwitPic is a simple tool that allows you to post pictures to Twitter. TwitPic really made the news when an airliner was set down on the Hudson River in New York. TwitVid took TwitPic one stage further and allowed you to post video to Twitter. And if you are camera shy then TweetMic allows you to post audio instead.
Though I know that one day Twitter will die, for me 2009 was the year of Twitter and was my number one web tool of the year.
These are the top ten posts from this blog (according to the stats) in terms of views. In reverse order…
10. Sony eBook Reader – First Impressions
Back in March I got my hands on a Sony eBook Reader and posted my first impressions. Since then I have found the eBook Reader to be a very useful device. So much so that in October I wrote e-Book Readers, are they the future? and in November I wrote So do you like books, or do you like reading? I also gave the Keynote at the JISC Collections AGM in which I discussed the future of e-Books.
Twitter has been the service of 2009 and this was the blog posting of my presentation on Twitter that I delivered at the Handheld Learning Conference 2009 in October.
Of course really Twitter is all about the coffee. It’s the coffee you drink with colleagues during a break, where you discuss work, but also your commute, TV, films, the weather. It’s the coffee you drink whilst browsing the web and posting links of interesting web site to your blog or in an e-mail. It’s the coffee you drink in a coffee shop, reading the paper or a book. It’s the coffee you drink with fellow delegates during a break or at lunch at a conference. Where you discuss the keynotes, the presentations, the workshops, where you are going next, your hotel, the food, the coffee, what you do, where you’re going, what gadgets you have in your bag.
This post from April was a repost of a blog entry that first appeared on the Shiny Project Blog. The Sanyo CA9 Video Camera was one of the devices we had purchased as part of our MoLeNET project and these were my initial thoughts about this small handheld video camera. The camera proved to be a huge success in the college causing major cultural shifts in the way that practitioners and learners used video. Nice thing about the camera was that it was waterproof.
This was the PR post for the VLE is Dead Symposium at ALT-C 2009. Just a trailer…
6. No Flash player on the Google G1
There is no Flash player for the iPhone and at its release there was no Flash player for the Google G1 either.
This was posted before the ALT-C VLE is Dead debate. This was my response to various posts made by others on the death of VLEs.
This posting is this high due to a high Google search ranking I expect… Not a huge amount of content, just some thoughts and a link on the then new G2 Google phone.
3. Ten things people say about using Twitter, but really they shouldn’t
One of two Twitter “ten things” posts I made in 2009. One of the things that does annoy me about Twitter is the way in which people like to dictate to you how it should be used and how you should use it. This is the top ten things you should never say about using Twitter.
2. The VLE is Dead – The Movie
We filmed the VLE is Dead debate at ALT-C 2009 and this was uploaded within 12 hours… I served something like 40GB of video in the first week of this post going live.
1. Ten reasons why Twitter will eventually wither and die…
Though Twitter has been the service of 2009, one day it will die… These were my ten reasons why it will die… one day….
It is a fact known to all that use Web 2.0 tools and services that one day they will no longer be flavour of the month, or will be swamped by spam, cons and hustlers. We have just seen the death of Geocities and services such as Friendster and Friends Reunited are not once what they were. The same will, one day happen to Twitter!
So there are my top ten blog posts of 2009 according to the number of visitors.
So it was day three of Ascilite 2009 and this was a big day for me as I was delivering the final Keynote.
I checked that everything worked. Though I have given keynotes before, this was the first time I was going to tweet as I delivered my keynote. Using KeynoteTweet, an Applescript which in conjunction with Keynote will automatically send tweets as slides appear.
In the auditorium there were two projectors, one would have my slides upon them, whilst the other would have Twitterfall showing all the #ascilite09 tweets.
My slides were “new” but like other presentations I have delivered have either usually a single word or an image on them.
Twitterfall worked well, with a fair few people in the UK and elsewhere following the tweets from my keynote. Of course it can be “dangerous” having a live Twitter feed in your presentation, especially when it is behind you. However looking over the stream of Tweets it would appear everything went fine.
Gráinne Conole was very kind to live blog my keynote on Cloudworks and you can see the results here.
I enjoyed delivering the keynote and all the stuff worked from a technical perspective, bar one. So what didn’t work? I was hoping to use the Remote App on the iPhone, however I have found that this is unreliable when a lot of people are using the wireless network. In future I think I may create my own wireless network specifically for the presentation (I have a spare Airport Express I can use).
When I have better (upload) bandwidth I will upload the presentation to Slideshare and a recording of the keynote itself.
So what did others think? Well I have had some very positive feedback from people at the conference.
I recently spoke at the European 140 Characters Conference (#140conf) in London at the O2 Arena on November 17th 2009.
I was on the educational panel at 4pm alongside Sue Black, Shirley Williams , Dave White and Drew Buddie. It was a fun event and a last minute decision we decided to stir things up a bit.
By the way in case you are wondering, I don’t appear in the video…
So what do I mean by “retweeting”. Well if you don’t use Twitter or don’t like Twitter, time to move on to the next blog post or the next thing in your newsfeed.
Twitter for me is becoming more and more a useful tool to support me in my day to day job. It is my community of practice. From Twitter I gain useful links, advice, ideas, events; I build relationships which allow for collaboration, projects, conferences and more.
Twitter is slowly replacing a lot of my e-mail communication as it is faster and more useful.
One of the strengths of Twitter has been the RT or re-tweet, the way in which you “forward” tweets from someone in your network to others who follow you. Not everyone who follows you follows all whom you follow. Make sense? Well look at it this way, at the time of writing David Sugden @dsugden follows me. He follows 74 people. I follow 421 people.
So I see something that I think is worth sharing from one of the 421 people I follow, so I retweet it, this way David sees it as there is a good chance he won’t have seen it. Likewise the 1309 people (minus spammers) who follow me will also see it.
So why do people do it? What content do they want to share?
Well I do it and I do it for a variety of reasons.
Here’s one…
RT @josiefraser The VLE: Dead Again? Come to the debate 16 Dec with @grahamattwell @timbuckteeth @jamesclay @nicksharratt http://u.nu/8smt3
I RT’d this Tweet as I thought my followers would be interested in knowing that there was to be another dead VLE debate. Not everyone who follows me follows Josie Fraser.
I also RT stuff I have posted, as a way of re-broadcasting a Tweet, because though people follow me, I know (as I do) don’t read every Tweet I post all the time.
One of the attractions of Twitter for me has been the simplicity of the interface and concept. Despite numerous tools available for Twitter, on my desktop I have stuck with the web interface.
One of the (many) reasons I don’t like (and as a result don’t use) Facebook is the complicated interface and features – well that and all those annoying bits like poking, zombies and farming…
Twitter though has started to add extra functionality and features to the service.
Some of these have come from the community, for example using @ to reply to someone was something the community brought to Twitter and was added to the system, as was the # hashtag to allow users to easily search for tweets about events, places, conferences, coffee, etc…
Now something new has arrived from Twitter, they have integrated retweeting into the web interface.
Unlike the simple RT @name and then quote they have used a very different system. What happens is if I retweet somebody’s tweet, that tweet in it’s entirety appears in my followers Twitter stream with a little note that says that I retweeted it.
Now I know some may get confused with this, thinking I don’t follow that person why has their tweet appeared in my stream… Twitter have come up with a pop up box that may allay that confusion.
Likewise the system doesn’t allow you to edit or add a comment. However though Twitter have added this functionality, you don’t need to use it, you can as I am sure I will continue to add RT and edit the retweeted post.
This though has some issues, especially in the way in which some people edit the post or add extra content.
Back on the 22nd October I posted the following tweet about the Windows 7 Burger.
OMG! http://bit.ly/2o317H oh dear….
I got retweeted by Stephen Hodge.
RT @jamesclay OMG! http://bit.ly/2o317H oh dear…. I really really want a BurgerKing now!
Now it would appear that I said I really really want a BurgerKing but I didn’t, I don’t even go to Burger King!
I did think about correcting Stephen, but didn’t really think it would change anything, so just left it. But I am guessing some people may have thought I wanted a burger!
The new way of RTing from Twitter will stop that happening, but also means that things like this won’t happen!
People use Twitter in many different ways and that’s always going to be a part of the issue of whether to RT or not to RT. You may want to have a look at my previous blog post on Ten things people say about using Twitter, but really they shouldn’t that looks at the way in which many people tell you how to use Twitter.
The problem with RTs is that yes you may see the same thing a few times, but remember the one time you see something once and then you will value the RT. Don’t ask people not to RT, if you don’t like what they’re doing, don’t follow them, others may value their RTs.