BrandsAmongMany

From David McCandless

Blogger Samuel Degremont has put together an impressive post (read the Google translation to English here) outlining the proliferation of information on Twitter, and how this new medium has changed the game. His analysis is based on this post by Jeff Jarvis which used the spread of the news of Michael Jackson’s death to explore the idea. Degremont has taken the idea a step further, applying the same notion to the news surround the Iran elections.

More interesting in my mind, though, are his infographics of the before and after (Twitter) view of information proliferation (perhaps this is the beginning of BT and AT?):

Before Twitter

After Twitter

There’s no question that Twitter has changed the info stream. I get most of my world news from Twitter now before it ever hits the major news networks. Degremont does, however, raise an interesting question around how trustworthy this crowdsourced information is, and the manner in which information gains context when it comes from a variety of (often disconnected from one another) sources. Thoughts?

Have you heard of Fitbit? It’s one of the up-and-comers in the fitness-meets-physical-computing world. If you want to learn more, give a quick look at my ThingsAmongMany post on Fitbit and their competitor, GoWear Fit. This post isn’t about the devices themselves, but rather the social media experience/mistake that they’re demonstrative of.

Fitbit has been “in production” and available for pre-order for months now - they originally stated a target launch date of Dec. ‘08 (I ordered mine in mid-January). They’re now predicting a launch in “late spring or early summer”, much to the chagrin of those who have pre-ordered. They’ve done a decent job of keeping buyers looped into the production process on their blog which has featured in-depth progress posts at a rate of around one per month.

So what’s my complaint? Simple: we want more. A monthly update with the information offered in their blog posts is fantastic. But how about a quick sentence more often about the state of the state? Twitter is the perfect outlet for this kind of communication, and it seems that this fact hasn’t gone entirely unnoticed by Fitbit. They’ve already created an account @Fitbit_Inc that has 350+ followers - not bad for a company that hasn’t even launched its product. BUT they’ve only updated the account twice, the first of which appeared in November and stated

We’ll be making more frequent updates on the Fitbit here

Well…where are said updates? The only follow-up came six weeks later and then silence. The silence speaks volumes, and it’s begun to create some backlash (something a new brand can hardly afford). And, worse-yet, it’s given me (and other Fitbit_Inc followers) the opportunity to stumble onto two viable competitors who’s products are already available for purchase: GoWear Fit originally came to my attention because they followed me on Twitter (though it appears they’ve either given up or there’s something wrong with their account since it’s now empty). Bodybugg is another version that uses the same hardware, but runs a proprietary software.

In my research for this post, I also came across James Park’s Twitter account. James is apparently the CEO of Fitbit and has recently offered some responses to Fitbit-related tweets. BUT he hasn’t told anyone about those updates! There are 350 people follwing @Fitbit_Inc who are anxiously waiting for news (myself included), and here James is offering it only to people who he happens to find talking about the product. Get out there and connect the two accounts James! Give the people what they very clearly want, and in return they’ll be that much more interested in spreading the word about your product.

The point? This is pretty basic as far as social media involvement goes. Smaller brands have much to benefit by getting involved directly with their fans/consumers - conversely, frustration mounts quickly when those brands ignore their customers. A six month delay after I’ve already payed for a product is almost inexcusable…almost. With something truly unique like the Fitbit (there are some distinct differences that separate it from the GoWear Fit and Bodybugg), people are willing to go out on a limb and put up with more. But there is a limit to that willingness. It seems like Fitbit is on the brink of stepping over that limit.

After compiling The Ultimate List of Twitter Tools, it struck me that the list is a little overwhelming. So here are my choices - generally speaking, one from each category - of the Twitter tools that are the best of the bunch.

If you’re into it, please feel free to tweet/retweet the list and gimme a follow/shout @AmongMany. I’ve also cross-posted on ThingsAmongMany.

Ad Networks

I have personally used any of the ad networks, but from going through each one, I was most drawn to Be A Magpie:

Be A Magpie - Our customers sign up and create campaigns which consist of magpie-tweets (i.e. ads). Twitterers allow us to post magpie tweets among their tweets and for them to get paid for it.

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Not too long ago, I started bookmarking Twitter-related stuffs as I came across them. Then the “big Twitter wave” hit, and I’ve been adding 3-4 listings per day over the last couple of weeks. I figured it was about time to share everything I’ve come up with so far. I’ll continue adding to it as I find more. If you know of something I’ve missed, PLEASE call it out in comments so I can get it added to the list!

If you’re into it, please feel free to tweet/retweet the list and gimme a follow/shout @AmongMany. I’ve also cross-posted on ThingsAmongMany. And, since this list is about 285 items, it’s a little tough to crawl through. So I’ve culled it down to the 15 apps (by category) that I think you should look at in a separate post.

Looking for the list? It’s after the jump…

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Well, first, what’s “competitive commenting”? It’s the name we’ve coined here at POKE for the trend of “discussion as game/competition” that we’ve seen growing across the web. What started in the comment sections of blogs and other sites like YouTube has grown to include new experiences specifically dedicated to creating competitions out of digital interaction.

We introduced the idea of competitive commenting when we launched Embrace Your Grace, a blog-like fan site for TNT’s Saving Grace that offers up a point-counterpoint discussion about some of the hard-hitting topics presented in the show, and allows readers to vote for either side and submit thoughts of their own.

Tengaged is another prime example. Essentially a digital version of the popular show Big Brother, Tengaged groups ten players into a room where their conversations and interactions within the group become their basis for staying in the game. Those who don’t add value get “voted off”.

Edopter, which we’ve discussed over at ThingsAmongMany, is yet another example. While not a direct competition where someone gets voted out, Edopter has created a “game” in which users are valued based on their predictions of upcoming trends. The more people who agree with a prediction, the more influence the user gains within the system.

Of course, those are both specific sites that require a user to maintain involvment with yet-another social network - a practice that many of us are reaching critical overload with. But what if this notion of competitive commenting could be expanded to include something that we’re already using? What if, say, your tweets - the comments that you’re making already anyway (you ARE on Twitter, right?) - became the mechanism by which the competition were measured? Well, now they can.

Hubspot recently launched Twitter Grader, a new service that pits you against everyone else on Twitter to determine your score (out of 100) compared to the rest of the field. Yup, these guys have successfully created a scoring system to turn Twitter into a game. *AmongMany is currently chugging along with a 63, but hopefully that will increase in the near future as we continue to post content and gain followers.

So how do they measure your worth? According to Hubspot’s VP of Marketing, Mike Volpe, the system takes into consideration:

1. Number of followers
2. Number of followers that your followers have (the power of your network)
3. Quantity and pace of updates
4. Additional proprietary analysis (this is the super secret algorithmic stuff generator part)

Of course, Hubspot isn’t the first to consider grading Twitter users. The now-defunct TweeterBoard offered similar functionality. And this app called TwitterGrade offers a more tongue-in-cheek response to your query, though it does embrace the question of ego theat should be considered by anyone willing to look up their own grade on Twitter. Definitely worth a chuckle.