Who And Why I Follow Back on Twitter

Catching up on some work this morning and going through new people that started following me over the past two weeks.  I've got my account setup so I get email notification when someone follows me and I look at each one, determining whether I want to follow back. Out of the 302 new followers I picked up in the past couple of weeks, I followed back only 27 this morning. That's only 8.95% and it is pretty typical.

Here's how I personally sort this stuff out:

When someone follows my feed I've got Twitter setup to send me an email notification.
I've got my email client (Thunderbird) setup to automatically move those Twitter email notifications to a separate Twitter folder. When I have some time (like this morning) I go through the notifications, determining whether I want to follow back. Here's my follow-back determination procedure:

1. I've got Thunderbird setup to preview email. The first thing I look for is a name (a person) attached to the account. If I don't know your organization and there is no name listed, I'm probably not going to follow back. Some details:

• I try and only follow back those with similar interests, these interests can be both work and hobby related. If you are a business, organization, academic institution or individual involved in Science, Technology Engineering or Math (STEM) I'm definitely following you back. I'll also follow you back if you are focused on one of my hobbies - for example - saltwater flyfishing. 
• Sorry but religion and politics are always a do not follow back red flag for me. I know many use Twitter and other social media for this kind of stuff and I don't have a problem with that. It's just not what I personally use it for.

2. If I like what I see in the email preview I'll click the link to your feed and take a look at the last 5 or so posts. If it is junk - spam, any hint of profanity, etc. Done - I'm not following you. The best chance for a follow back is if you have something posted I'm interested in. Maybe it is a short description with a link to an interesting post on the web. If it is something I really like and retweet it, you are definitely getting a follow back.

3. There are some exceptions and I typically follow back the following:

• Local businesses (not based on religion or politics). This includes my favorite Pizza shop in Western Massachusetts. 
• Known organizations, like the National Science Foundation (of course!)
• Some celebrities - how could you not follow back someone like Weird Al Yankovic? 
• Old friends and sometimes friends of friends if I can sort the connections out. 

4. Once I start following you - if I do see any spam, profanity, religion, politics I'm un-following you. I also occasionally go in and cull the list of people I follow and this is the kind of stuff I'm looking for.

 So..... back to my experience today - only 27 follow backs out of 302 new followers..... 8.95%. Yes - there is a lot of junk out there but..... mixed in with the junk there is a lot of good stuff.

You can follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/gsnyder

Maximizing Your Twitter Experience - 10 Quick Tips Podcast

Last Thursday (12/2/10) evening , Mike Q and I recorded a podcast titlted Maximizing Your Twitter Experience - 10 Quick Tips. We also discuss some recent technology updates including:

• The FCC and net neutrality
• The iPad and Macbook Air
• The Rockmelt Browser that integrates social media into your browser.
• Tim Wu's book The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires
• The London School of Business and Finance Global M.B.A. - they are offering an MBA through a Facebook application

You can listen to the 36.5 minute podcast in your browser by clicking the play button below:

If you have iTunes installed you can listen to and subscribe to our podcasts by clicking here.

Impressions: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and the Iranian Revolution

Saturday, June 20, 2009, was a fairly typical day for me. The only thing different than most Saturdays was we woke up early and dropped my daughter off at the airport for a graduation gift trip with her friends. On the way home my wife, younger daughter and I decided to stop at the mall and have the Apple store take a look at my daughter's busted power button on her iPod touch. We made a reservation at the Apple Genius Bar and ended up with about an hour and a half to kill walking around the mall. My wife and daughter ended up doing most of the shopping and I ended up peeking at my Twitter feed on my iPhone. I noticed a lot of tweets tagged #iranelection and decided to start following those tags.

Like tens of thousands of others for the rest of the day I watched a revolution tweet by tweet - described in 140 characters or less on Twitter. The Iranian government had pretty much shut down traditional media (television feeds, reporters, etc) but that did not matter - they could not shut down the web. As Secretary of Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, the Iranian government "could not draw the net tight enough to stop everything" It was evident when I got home and turned on the TV - guess where the major networks (CNN, Fox, etc) were getting their updates on Saturday - Twitter, Facebook, YouTube......

The ability to read, watch and experience through the eyes of others what was happening in real time was something I had never experienced before. The closest think I can compare it to was was it felt like like watching a live battle - not through the eyes and interpretation of a reporter or camera person - but through the tweets of the individual soldiers.

For the past few days there are reports the Iran government has been confiscating laptops, cell phones, etc and analyzing historical information on the devices. It is very simple to pull historical information off cell phone SIM cards (for example) and they will be able to track down some of the posters this way. It has also been reported the government is taking a close look at those videos on YouTube and will be identifying some of the protesters this way too. There are also reports of looking at things like Twitter names and tracing IP addresses to ID people. There also may have been a counter attack using social media, hacking Moussavi's Facebook page and posting incorrect information to confuse and upset his supporters.

What can be done? Not much without shutting the entire country down from the rest of the world. I'm guessing tsomeone is taking a serious look at cell phone signal jammers that could shut down cellular communications when things start to get out of control. Sure things can be shut down temporarily but a jammer is not going to stop a user from tweeting or recording video and then posting the content when they do get a connection. It will be very difficult to shut this stuff down for extended periods of time.

So many really smart people have told me they just don't get social media apps like Twitter and I struggle sometimes describing why and how I use them. I'm hoping a lot of people are getting it a little more after the past weekend. Saturday will stick with me and I'll remember it in a way that I remember the first time I saw a color television, used a modem, sent an email and searched the web.

Twitter Revisited: Shark Jumping, Apps and Metrics Podcast

On Sunday, Mike Qaissaunee and I recorded a 36 minute and 40 second podcast onTwitter applications, shark jumping and metrics.

Listen to it directly in your web browser by clicking here.

If you have iTunes installed you can subscribe to our podcasts by clicking here.

Here's the intro and list of questions asked during the podcast:

Intro: Twitter has become a household word for many of us - just like Google , YouTube , MySpace and Facebook (among others) have in the past. Chris Brogan (in this video) even calls Twitter his "central nervous system". We first podcast on Twitter almost two years ago. In this podcast we take an updated look at Twitter.

Two years is a long time ago it seems. Probably one of the biggest things in my arsenal is my iPhone today. Two years ago the iPhone did not exist. What's changed in two years with Twitter?

What are some of your favorite apps?

What's up with all this Twitter following - how should we be handling?

I've been hearing the term "jump the shark" recently when some discuss Twitter. What does that mean?

I notice a lot of business people using Twitter, maybe it has jumped the shark. What are they doing? How are business people using it?

So, lots of people seem to be giving Twitter a try but how do we know who has actually drank the kool-aid and has become a daily Twitter user?

Before we talk about numbers, The Influential Marketing Blog has put together something called the 5 stages of Twitter Acceptance.

We talk a lot about impact when it comes to grants - can you explain what that means?

So, what's the interest in things like Twitter?

What are some Twitter measurement tools?

We've come across a couple of tools that attempt to measureTwitter - a web-based application called Twitter Grader and another called Twinfluence .

Twitter Grader is interesting but there is not a lot of detail. Can you discuss Twinfluence?

Didn't Twinfluence at one time try to measure efficiency?

So, Twinfluence attempts to measure more things. How does it compare to Twitter Grader?

What about spam?

So, what did this guy do?

How do metrics applications handle these spammers?

What can be done to prevent Twitter manipulation?

Are there any other Twitter based applications we should be looking at?

We should see applications like these improve?

So, has Twitter jumped the shark yet?

Here's how you can get the answers:

To read show notes and listen to Mike Q and my 36 minute and 40 second podcast titled Twitter Revisited: Shark Jumping, Apps and Metrics, click here .

How Do Twitter, Google And Facebook Compare?

This video from Rocketboom provides an interesting perspective.

Twitter-Metrics

Twitter has become a household word for many of us - just like Google , YouTube , MySpace and Facebook (among others) have in the past. Lately I've noticed lots of people following my Twitter feed and I've been careful to follow back unless the feed looks like it's been robot-generated, is pornographic, etc. The result is - I follow lots of people and they follow me back..... keep it real and keep it clean and I will follow. Post something inappropriate and no more follow for you!

Part of our NSF Center work is to determine impact - if we create something, produce something or post/share something we look for answers to questions like:

- How many people looked at it?
- How many people used it?
- If they used it how did they use it?
etc....

For example, let's say Mike Q posts a series of classroom ready presentations on wireless security on the web. We'll look for answers to questions like how the curriculum materials are being used, modified, and adapted to individual classrooms, and how the teaching and learning methods are impacting faculty and students. This level of measurement usually comes from observations, interviews, and focus groups all looking at the changes in the actions and activities of instructors, students, and ultimately workforce and industry. The term we commonly use when referring to these kinds of measurements is metrics .

I'm particularly interested in Twitter because it has the potential to have tremendous impact without some of the tedious one-on-one type of measurement a lot of us are doing now. I've come across a couple of tools that attempt to do some Twitter measuring - a web-based application called Twitter Grader and another called Twinfluence . Let's take a look at both.

Twitter Grader
Twitter Grader ranks Twitters on a percentage scale - looking at the screen shot below (Click it to enlarge) you can see I'm currently ranked at 99.7%.


This ranking, according to Simon Salt, is based on the number of followers you have, the power of this network of followers, the pace of your updates, the completeness of your profile and “a few other factors.”

Twinfluence
Twinfluence goes a little deeper than Twitter Grader , and according to their website, attempts to measure the following:

First and Second Order Networks: From the perspective of graph theory, a Twitterer's followers would be considered their first-order network, and their "followers count" the same as their "degree". "Degree" is a simple form of centrality measurement that equates to "prestige" or "popularitiy"; different types of centrality can measure connectivity, authority, and control in a network.

Reach: Reach is the number of followers a Twitterer has (first-order followers), plus all of their followers (second-order followers). This is by necessity a crude maximum estimate, since there will definitely be duplicates and overlaps that could only be eliminated by up to thousands of API calls. Reach is a measurement of potential audience and listeners, a best estimate of the number of people that a given Twitterer could quickly get a message to.

Velocity: Velocity merely averages the number of first- and second-order followers attracted per day since the Twitterer first established their account. The larger the number is, the faster that Twitterer has accumulated their influence. Of course, this number could jump significantly with the addition of a few high-profile followers. Velocity is scored from "very slow" to "very fast" relative to other twitterers at your network size.

Social Capital: Indicates the average first-order network of a Twitterer's followers. It's essentially a measure of how influential are a twitterer's followers. A high value indicates that most of that Twitterer's followers have a lot of followers themselves. Social Capital is scored from "very low" to "very high" relative to other twitterers at your network size.

Centralization: This is a measure of how much a Twitterer's influence (reach) is invested in a small number of followers. Centralization scores range from 0% (completely decentralized) to a theoretical 100% (completely dependent on one Twitterer). In social network analysis, a high centralization indicates dependency of the network on just a few nodes to maintain the connectivity of the entire network. Twitterers with low centrality networks would not have their reach greatly reduced if a few high-profile people stopped following them. Centralization is scored from "very fragile" to "very resilient" relative to other twitterers at your network size, implying that a network with only a few high-profile followers is very sensitive to collapsing if those followers leave. Conversely, a network with low centralization is not very dependent upon any few followers for its collective reach.

At one time Twinfluence was attempting to measure efficiency. After discussions with some other social media experts, they decided that the idea of twitter efficiency is an interesting one, but there really isn't any way to effectively measure behavior in the context of how a twitterer actually keeps on top of their tweetstream.

So.... using Twinfluence , what kind of impact do my tweets have using their metrics? Here's another clickable screen shot (note - Twininfluence appears to lag in updates so it is not seeing the same number of follows as Twitter Grader):

Twinfluence ranks me around 98% (similar to Twitter Grader ) with 2,315 followers and 6,556,780 second order followers. I'm not sure how significant the numbers are but...... if I can post something and have it potentially reach even one-tenth of a percent (6,500) of those 6.5 million second order users I'm really liking that possible/potential impact!

I'm hoping applications like Twitter Grader and Twinfluence continue to improve and provide additional and more detailed metrics. This is good stuff.

10 Random Thoughts On 3-11-09

I haven't written one of these in a while - here's my list for this week:

1. I've become a big fan of the iPhone Kindle App. If you've got a Kindle and an iPhone you need to to start using this free app!
2. I've been dealing with a back problem and it slowed me down for the past couple of months. Physical therapy is working and I'm feeling much better now!
3. We moved our office after 11 years in the same space. Cannot believe how many Windows 98 install floppy disks we tossed!
4. We'll see how far broadband reaches into rural areas with the stimulus package. The FCC is seeking comment until March 25 so we may not hear much until then.
5. It's been a long winter here in New England but things are warming up a little bit..... finally. Really looking forward to spring and some trout fishing (not through the ice!).
6. I've become an even bigger Twitter user over the last couple of months and find myself going to it often for both posting and finding content. Follow me here and I'll follow you back!
7. To organize Twitter content on your desktop I highly recommend Tweetdeck.
8. For tweeting using my iPhone I'm a big fan of Hahlo . Even if you don't have an iPhone you can check it out here.
9. Wanted to congratulate my daughter Gabby again on her National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) award! Go Gabby!!
10. Finally - my favorite quote from this past week:

"The relative decline of American education is untenable for our economy, unsustainable for our democracy and unacceptable for our children."

- President Obama at the 19th annual legislative conference of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

Microblogging Study Released

You're reading this so you may have noticed my Twitter feed over in the left column. Wikipedia defines Twitter as a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users' updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length.

One of my favorite "tweeters" is Laura Filton, Principal and Founder of Pistachio Consulting. According to her website, Laura Fitton is one of the first prominent “microbloggers,” with roughly 8,400 readers on Twitter. She specializes in connecting people to new ideas and innovations using all the tools of (what Laura calls) microsharing. Here's more from her site:

Brands and businesses are flocking to Twitter. Internal “enterprise 2.0″ microsharing can make your company run better. But most companies have little or no clear idea of how these tools really work, what they could accomplish or how to do so. At best, many efforts are shots in the dark. At worst, they’re squandering time, resources, opportunity and brand equity.

Laura recently released a report titled Enterprise Microsharing Tools Comparison - Nineteen Applications to Revolutionize Employee Effectiveness. In the report, she takes a look at 19 different microblogging applications and how they are being used for things like HR, Marketing and Sales, R&D, Innovation, Customer relations, etc. You can get online and PDF versions and more information on the report here: http://pistachioconsulting.com/services/research/.

You can find and follow Laura (@pistachio) on Twitter here: http://twitter.com/pistachio.

I don't tweet anywhere near as much as Laura but you can also find and follow me (@gsnyder) on Twitter here: http://twitter.com/gsnyder

Mini-Blogging with Tumblr

On Friday and Saturday last week I photo-blogged the National Center for Telecommunications Technologies (NCTT) Winter Conference held at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, CA. I used Tumblr, a free service that allows (among other things) the posting of photos, audio mp3 files and text from cell phones. I did my photo-blog posting using my iPhone - I was snapping pictures and then emailing them to a Tumblr email address. Picture captions are added by typing text into the email subject line.

Tumblr also allows text posting via instant messenger clients, the setting up of a custom domain and the posting of text, photos, videos, quotes, and links from any web page. Demogirl.com has a nice video describing how to setup and use Tumblr:



In addition to using Tumblr I also use Twitter to post short (up to 140 characters) text updates. I find myself posting to Twitter two or three times a day and commonly use it to post links to interesting web articles that relate to my work.

The combination of Blogger for full-blown blogs, Tumblr for mini-blogging and Twitter for micro-blogging along with the ability to incorporate them all into a single page, while still keeping them separate, is nice. Each serves a unique purpose and they complement each other well. And....... they are all free!

Follow my Twitter "Tweets" here: http://twitter.com/gsnyder and my Tumblr photo-blog here: http://gsnyder.tumblr.com

5 Days with the iPhone

I've been relatively quiet here about the iPhone I purchased last Saturday evening. I did mention it in a podcast with Mike Q last weekend and I did tweet I got one on my Twitter micro-blog earlier this week. Overall I have to say I am very impressed so far. Here's a quick rundown of my initial impressions:

WiFi: Performance/range is good and comparable to my MacBook.

AT&T EDGE Network: Used when out of WiFi range, I find it performs well. I don't find myself getting impatient with the slower bandwidth (EDGE runs at a maximum of around 180Kbps).

Safari Web Browser: The browsing experience on the smaller screen works well and comes very close to a larger screen experience. I'm looking forward to a Firefox version next year!

EMail: I'm using my GMail address as my primary account and have enabled IMAP. Over the course of an average day I find myself accessing email via a web browser on various machines, via Entourage on my MacBook and via Mail on my iPhone. IMAP has allowed me to better keep track of what I've done using different access devices and applications. For example, if I read and delete a message on my iPhone the message does not appear if I go to another device (like it will with POP access) and access the account.

Attachments: I can view email attachments (pdf, doc, docx, etc) with the iPhone but cannot edit them. I do have iZoho - iPhone Office, an office app that runs on the iPhone, linked on my Mockdock (explained below) but have not used it yet.

Calendar: I'm accessing my Google calendar using Safari on the iPhone. The Google mobile calendar interface takes some getting used to and it is time consuming to add calendar entries. I also cannot delete Google mobile calendar entries.

Some of my favorite applications:

Mockdock.com is a website designed for the iPhone that allows you to add application buttons - the screen mimics the iPhone dock. If you don't have an iPhone you can still access Mockdock from any PC browser.

Twitter: I can tweet from my iPhone. I've got Twitter on my Mockdock.

Google Reader: Another application that runs in Safari and is also on my Mockdock.

YouTube: All I can say is WOW!

Things I don't like/need to be improved:

The Battery Indicator: I have a hard time determining how much charge I have left. Give me a button I can push quick that is big enough to see!

Cutting/copying and Pasting: Can't do it on the iPhone... yet.

Google Calendar: I already mentioned I find adding entries time consuming and items cannot be deleted. This goes for any mobile device running Google Mobile Calendar so it is a Google issue and not an Apple one. I'm sure this is a feature/function Google is working on. I have not used the Apple calendar application that comes on the phone.

Things that have surprised me:

The Virtual Keyboard: I'm getting used to it and am getting pretty fast. It is a major improvement over mechanicl keyboards forund on other devices (in my opinion).

SMS: I've never been much of a "text'er" but the interface is really slick. I've been using it.

Battery Life: I have not killed it yet and have used it extensively for voice, iPod playing and data. I like the fact that I can plug it into the USB port on my computer and charge it that way.

If I had to estimate I'd say I can do 80-90 percent of my PC-type work effectively and efficiently with the iPhone. It also has replaced the Cell phone, digital camera and iPod (along with the different chargers) I've been lugging around for the past couple of years. Overall I am really impressed.

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Read Show Notes and listen to Mike Q and my latest Podcast titled Apple, Microsoft and Google Updates linked here.
Listen directly in your web browser by clicking here.
Podcasts also free on iTunes.
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Micro-Blogging with Twitter

You may have noticed my Twitter Micro-Blog over to the left hand side of the page. Mike Q wrote a blog titled Twitter, Pownce and Jaiku: The Birth of Micro-blogging a couple of months ago that sparked my interest. Mike had an interesting quote in his blog:

"I'm not sure I understand the attraction of these sites - maybe it's generational, but they're very popular and seem to be addictive."

I remember reading it and nodding my head thinking he's right - who's going to do that? Well..... I've started and have found it to be "addictive".

Wikipedia defines micro-blogging as:

"a form of blogging that allows users to write brief text updates (usually less than 200 characters) and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user. These messages can be submitted by a variety of means, including text messaging, instant messaging, email, MP3 or the web."

I have only been micro-blogging links I find interesting so far. I have not started texting to Twitter (yet?) from my cell phone but I just might.