tweetless

I've read a love letter for twitter but Twitter has been a cruel mistress for me.

At first, I thought I'd try it out, and we quickly fell in love. However its interface was a problem for me. I'm not alone in this, which might be why there are so many alternative interfaces for it online. I discovered that the SMS interface was perfect for me. I like to spend time off line, but in contact. True, for a while my phone felt like a tamagochi, but I made friends. Actually met people in Tweet ups and experienced its back channel possibilities. I tried out Jaiku and loved it too. True that “tweeting” via SMS cost a bit, due to the price of an international text, but it was worth it.

On the SMS front, all broadcast posts are also sent to your phone as a text (if you express the choice). On Jaiku all the people you add as contacts have their first or initial post arrive on your phone. Only replies to your posts are SMSed to you. It's actually hard to reply to a post via SMS on Jaiku, you have to start the text with the name of the intended recipient, this means that it might appear as a separate post, but the right person will look at it. You can receive an unlimited number of texts from Jaiku, but given the reply structure, the numbers are low.

On Twitter you can choose who arrives to your phone via SMS. However you receive every post they make to Twitter, since threaded replies are not possible on their system. They also limit the number of posts you can receive to 250 a week. The first day they started this was during the IT@Cork conference (in Cork naturally). The limit was hit by every attendant before the end of the day.

The limit means that I miss out on most of the friends I've made there. I have an old phone. I can't install the mobile client for Twitter on it. Simply put, I can't afford a new phone. I also like not having to remain online to see the conversation. Maybe it's me. Maybe I shouldn't have such high expectation for mobile communications but I LIKE to be spoilt.

The limit means that I've lost a lot from Twitter. If there is an offline client, let me know! (google reader gets filled really quickly with tweets)

Should I dedicate an RSS reader just to my friends?

Any ideas?

Take care
Will Knott

tags :
disruptiveconversations, Twitter, Jaiku, SMS

Speed dial

What was the favourite invention from your childhood? asks Mr Mulley... and I'm going to be a little strict and look at things released during my life time...

Why lifetime and not childhood... well... I haven't grown up yet. I've grown out, and gotten older but as anyone who has seen me in Smyths will attest, I've not grown up. So I suppose my first favourite is a 1984 invention : "Transformers"
yup these


(an image blatantly stolen from Ben's World of Transformers)

What can I say, its my not so secret shame. The fact that I'm still collecting the toys shows that it' having an ongoing impact on my life.

Why? Well it's not the two toys in one. Partly I think it's the most extreme form of anthropomorphism you can get. Not only are you putting human emotions on to an inanimate object, you're making it take on humanoid characteristics too. It's also less damaging than dressing up your pet.

It also is the aspect that things aren't always as they seem. It changes the way you view the world. Twist it a little bit and... It could be a government conspiracy or (flip body around, open doors, lower head from backside, push along brass neck, unfold arms, unclench grubby little fists, detach brown envelope) incompetence on a grand scale.

However if I was going to pick a proper technoligical invention... it's this



O.K. Its actually another image stolen off Ben from this review but I'm talking about Mobile Phones

I know what you're thinking (other than "Will you're an idiot") which is everyone and their mother has one (even if it did take me three weeks to teach her to text so she could vote for that "nice boy" on "Strictly Come Dancing"), but the mobile phone has changed how people act with each other.

But what other device has caused such a social change?

Once people made exact appointments. Meet you under Eason's clock at 3pm on Friday. And at 4pm, still waiting, you felt very stood up. Now people make rough appointments, aproxi-meetings, and put in a call to the other's mobile to rearrange the meeting at the cinema directly due to traffic.

Once people used phone booths and pay phones.

I remember the "push button A" pay telephones (always press button B on a free phone to see if any change comes out. It's the old version of checking the base of the automatic cash registers in Tesco's). I remember those weird plastic bubbles next to the phones so that the caller could have privacy.
But that privacy is a long abandoned thing. I now know the intimate details of the recent gynaecological exam thanks to a mobile phone call on the bus.

And once we needed to wait for the results of a meeting or conference to be published. (Or passed notes in class) Now text updates can be shipped online while the meeting is still on (and notes are texted between schools).

It can also save your life. No hunting for a phone after an accident... now you hunt for a signal. And in large scale disaster, there have been cell broadcast SMS and tweets to help save lives.

That little handy computer in your pocket has changed the social interaction of not just a nation, but a huge chunk of the world. (It also looks a little like a Wii controller, hint, hint)

take care,
(and set it to vibrate during a solemn occasion, like a tribunal)
Will

Now, who is going to be first to suggest "mash-ups"?

And I'll get around to updating the above photos with my own transformer shots... sorry Ben. I DO know better.

tags : science week ireland, blogging competition, invention, childhood, Mulley, Transformers, bwtf, Ben's World of Transformers, anthropomorphism, humanoid, mobile phone, social change, twitter, jaiku, pay telephone, privacy, text

Breaking up

Dear Will,

Forgive me, but I'm taking it slow. You see, when I first met T, it was wonderful. All the attention I got, all the stories we shared. Even friends of friends became my friends as the conversation flowed like cheap wine at a party.

But things changes. For no reason all contact would be lost. It would last all day, calls going unheeded, connections being refused. It was almost as if all the focus was on a different time zone.

Then, old messages started to go. Friends didn't want anything to do with T any more and moved elsewhere. I realised that I simply couldn't rely on T.
And that's when I met Jaik. Not as easy as T. Things were more complicated (on occasion sleep keeps being interrupted, but I'll forgive that). I still see T sometimes. But my friends don't call around as often. They seem to prefer Jaik.

I'm not sure I should rush headlong in to this! Am I being unfaithful by seeing two systems at the same time? Should I take things slow?

Yours,
Burnt.


Dear Burnt,

Social media is all about relationships. If a system abuses you, should you keep using it? What do you get out of it. Sometimes it's OK to be selfish.

As for using multiple systems at the same time. No problem. Do what feels right for you. If taking things slow make sense to you, then take things slow. Build or prune your "friend" list as yo see fit. No one will take it badly (but if you're following over 150 people, you may want to make sure you actually care about all 400 of them).

Despite what some people say social media isn't a fad or a phase. More importantly its not about business value either. It's about links to other real people.

True, some are for geeks, and some really appeal to the cool kids or the business set. However each group will welcome you in it's own way. Or not. You should at least take a look at each group before you decide it's not for you. And if the site treats you badly, you don't have to continue.

If you feel you need to leave; leave. You have nothing to loose but your chains of friends... and if they are leaving too, you really have nothing to loose.

break free,
Will


tags : twitter, friends, jaiku, facebook, linkedin, bebo, myspace, social media

SMesS

"Twitterhoea" -- Lexia

It describes it so well, but Ewwww. And for the record, I've finally succumbed.

tags :
overheard, twitter