twitter | JeffXJeffX

Crowd Sourcing Applications Social Networking on a Granular Level

I’ve been into Wikipedia lately, it may not be the most perfectly politically correct source for definitive information, but it works. Crowd sourced information is far denser than an algorithm when it comes to encyclopedia worthy content.

Twitter turns out to be a great source of crowd sourced information too, it’s the main reason I ‘put up’ with the enterprise class texting application. I follow a group of smart people and ‘ask Twitter’ when I have a question that I feel members of my little society are likely to know.

For example:

I was in the market for a new portable camera and so Twitter’d as much. @ResPres , The Dude when it comes photography utensils, clued me in to the Lumix TZ5 and posted pictures on Flickr using the camera. Sold, bought one 2 days later and love it. @respres and I never exchanged an email or phone call, all done via Twitter.

@tyr needed a new passport fast. I told him about a service I successfully used in the recent past, and believe he engaged them too, solving his dilemma.

@Morganb was looking for suggestions on a new site template, I recommended @tcar (serial blog-site creator with mortgage experience) and a few other @’s quickly joined in with their suggestions.

@Alex_Stenbeck twits daily mortgage rate pricing and related trends, very useful and cool. Many mortgage brokers pay Barry Habib a good buck for similar info.

@bnix had a question about configuring Twitter with Google Talk, he got his answers from the community.

The side effect to what’s becoming a pretty useful little tool is the ‘noise’ of consistent text messages that goes with following 60+ people like I do. Trust me following 60 people is peanuts, some follow 600. Twitter offers designations for ‘twiting’ a certain number of times. One can achieve ‘E-Twit’ status by sending 1000 ‘Twits’, and many aspire to be. This causes the mix of emotions many have toward Twitter; many curse it but more use it. I find most of the noise to be a tolerable level of comedy, many twits make me laugh thruought the day.

Many talk about ‘Web 3.0′ or a semantic, smarter web…Twitter is pretty close to that on a primitive, granular level but its evolving quick. 3rd party applications like twhirl integrate Twitter to ones desktop. Sites like Friend Feed aggregate content from multiple user feeds in classic Mash-Up fashion and Alert Thingy (great name) is to Friend Feed as twhirl is to Twitter.

So if you can tolerate a little conversation, Twitter is a pretty dang useful tool if you’ve got a question neither Google nor Wikipedia may answer particularly well. I’m far more likely to buy a camera that a trusted professional in my social community recommends than Google…

This was a completely random post, it was supposed to be about Innovation vs Imitation and being ‘just a little bit better’…maybe next time

Twitter: MicroBlogging Tool or Anti-Productivity Vice?

Twitter is fast and simple way to IM your thoughts and communicate with your own little micro-community of followers, often times called microblogging. I’ve got a little over 100 followers, which may seem like a lot until you look at Andy Kaufman (who got me started) and his 1320 *gasp* followers.

I own a BlackBerry, or as most of my friends call it, a CrackBerry. They will play this funny game with me and hide my BlackBerry until I get pissed off. It usually takes less than 5 mins before I start physically threatening people until they return it to me.

There is something about the little endorphin drip one gets from real time access to emails, text messaging, communication et al…Twitter takes it one step further by juicing up traditional text messaging to speak to a community of interested people, which creates conversations on the fly. I’ve got Twitter feeding to my CrackBerry, double trouble…

TweetStats will tell you how much time you ~~waste~~ spend ‘Twittering’, see the most popular @xxx replies (@housechick and @laniAR rule twitter convos in my world), as well as aggregate daily and hourly tweets (in other words what times of the day you are least productive/bored). You can also check out anyone elses TweetStats simply by punching in their username.

There are alot of people addicted to the Twitter drip. So, if you’re feeling guilty about how much time you spend twittering, you can make yourself feel better by checking out who’s really got a problem at TweetStats…

MicroBlogging

I’m one to write diatribes. I have this internal claw that directs me to carefully articulate my topics by preemptively covering all angles (and potential rebuttals) as a reader takes the time to digest my left (or right) of center opinions.

This can get, mmmm, tedious at times. I don’t like tedious but I’ve been of the mindset that if someone is going to take the time to read my stuff, I should put out my best…thus the resulting diatribe-itus.

Two ‘things’…one is a service, the other is a person…have led me to see and blog otherwise.

Twitter is a service in and of itself that consists of a user entering 4-5 line max ‘thoughts’ or ‘What I’m doing’ blurbs that may not seem significant in singular, but when read across a time period, can really give you insight into how and/or who a person is. Initially, I thought Twitter was lame, now I find myself ‘Twittering’ on a few platforms.

The person is Dustin Luther and his site 4Realz.net. Dustin needs no introduction to those familiar with the re.net (a term coined by Greg Swann, another influencer in this) space, but in case you haven’t heard of or read about him (welcome out from under the rock) he is a pioneer in and for the social networking aspects of real estate. I thoroughly enjoy 4Realz (and Dustin) because it (he) practices what I call Microblogging, a few lines or paragraphs tipping hat to whats interesting to him, which I find interesting. I read 4Realz.net every day because I know it will take me <30 seconds and lead me somewhere interesting, either in my own head or else ware in the Web.

Both ‘things’ have influenced me to the point of practicing MicroBlogging…its a refreshing alternative to the diatribe I encourage other bloggers to practice Microblogging as well because it allows your audience to get to know you quicker. Real estate and mortgage transactions will always have a personal relationship factor to them, regardless of technology and resulting levels of disintermediation. Although I’ve only met Dustin 3 maybe 4 times, and we’ve only exchanged cursory level handshakes and well-wishy conversations, I feel like I know Dustin far better than our personal interactions would typically dictate.

All real estate and mortgage professionals could benefit from the simple dynamic Microblogging creates…a quick interesting conversation about relevant topics.