Twitters of nervous laughter

A couple days ago a colleague introduced me to Twitter.

While I have not signed up, I feel I can nonetheless claim that it is pretty much completely useless.

Twitter is similar to Instant Messaging functionality, except public. You can post quick notes about what you are doing and where you are at this exact moment.

The world is dying to know these micro-details of your life after all!

In reality, I don't think even your friends want to know. Even I don't care about such mundane details of my own life!

Steve Bryant in his Today in Stupid blog sums up Twitter's inanity and annoyance "Of all the masturbatory ego-fluffers on the Web, nothing chafes me worse than Twitter".

I have seen one good use of it though. The colleague who introduced me to Twitter has a blog, Bargainista, devoted to Toronto shopping. Twitter has a widget that she has posted on her blog that allows her to post her up-to-the minute specials, sales and shopping discoveries. It does facilitate quick and easy micropublishing that works for this subject.

But upon looking at overall Twitter community's postings, I see: "refgrunt: can i borrow your cordless phone?", "tina is ready for the weekend", and "Eatin some rice cakes bigger than my freakin head".

Twitters of contemptuous laughter...

Addendum (posted March 29)
Another person shares my annoyance at Twitter. David Ewalt writes in Digital Download
A Note To All Twitter Users:

I'm not interested in what you had for breakfast. I don't need to know when you leave for work. Got stuck in bad traffic? Keep it to yourself.

Your work habits aren't even important to your coworkers. Your lunch choices matter to no one. Now you're reading your favorite blogs? Color me uninterested.

When you leave work, I don't want to hear it. If you go out for drinks, keep it between you and the bartender. And when you get home, don't share your TV viewing habits. They're about as interesting as watching paint dry.

Let's hope Twitter is one of those embarrassing web fads that quickly dies, like Schnappi Das Kleine Krokodil (okay that had way more lasting power and interest than Twitter does)

e-Ventful Websites

A Casecamp participant, in promoting the event, alerted me today to the free website Upcoming.org.

Upcoming.org
It's an excellent Web 2.0 example (I hate that term, but it's a useful concept) but I think its functionality far exceeds the confines of just its own website.

Upcoming.org started in 2003 (again I'm discovering these things late - I feel like I've been in a como for the past 2-3 years). Many sites have done event listings and enabled organizing and promoting personal events (evite, for instance). The problem with these is that most websites just didn't have enough event listings or they only did a certain type of event (to use Toronto as an example, Toronto.com, Now and Backbone seemed to miss a lot of significant events and never broadened listings beyond their respective focus). evite et al were great to help host and promote events but didn't offer listings.

Event listings are no easy feet to do either. There are thousands of events going on in Toronto, probably in just one month. I hate to think about a city like New York. How did websites publish this before? I take it they'd have some sort of streamlined process, but ultimately every event must have had to some sort of manual review and some level of manual coding or inputing. A ton of work and explains why so many sites did events so poorly (badly organized, missing events, outdated, etc.).

What's cool about Upcoming.org, now owned by Yahoo, is that it greatly expands the potential and amount of listings.

Upcoming puts the listing creation into the hands of users to create private events or promote public events. Events are organized by city and type (eg. music, arts, festival, commercial, arts - they actually need more types to encompass trade events as for now they all go under "other")

Judging by the number and breadth of events listed, the site has critical mass, they just need to expand beyond their comparative ghetto. That's why I think their service would be way more useful if repackaged in Toronto.com. People already go to this site for this type of information and their editorial and community can add value beyond just a listing.

Upcoming.org does encourage community by having you flagging events that you are attending or considering. You can then see which of your friends are going or share events with friends easily.

Meetup.com
Another, cool event website is Meetup.com.

Meetup seemed to take the idea and basic functionality of Yahoo Groups (which I have loved and used ever since I found others, a group even, of people as devoted and talkative about Xena, Warrior Princess as I was).

The problem with Yahoo Groups is that it is a lonely world and while it's great to post and email other Xenaphiles, it's nice to actually meet people in person some time. Meetup.com is devoted to groups that actually meet in person. Many types of groups and in your city! Even web-geeks needs some human contact every now and then - or just a beer/coffee.

While I registered with Meetup four months ago (I even joined the Toronto Web Centric Meetup Group) I haven't been able to actually been to a meeting yet.

Here's the rub... the Internet has enabled not only great social networking but also bringing unique, and yes often bizarre, groups together. It enables organizing public & private events and promoting them. But it still hasn't found a babysitter for me! Can't leave my two-year-old with Net Nanny.

e-Business Buzz Words 101

Every year has it hot buzzwords and business bon mots du jour.

Globe & Mail columnist, Sean Wise outlines the key terms of last year with an e-Business bent and how they actually can mean something for a business.

I've heard several of these terms bandied about, so I found it useful to have a brief overview to clarify and demonstrate.

Here are the terms:

1. The Long Tail
2. The Wisdom of Crowds
3. The Tipping Point
4. Community is King
5. The World is Flat

Read the full article, Wise Words

Postcrossing.com

I love the Internet and I love postcards. Recently, I found a way to marry those two loves: Postcrossing.com.

A friend, Stacy, passed this free website and service on to me last month and I’m hooked. Having collected postcards since I was a kid, in the last couple years I have become a fervent, ardent collector. (Thanks to a trip to Ikea and spotting their cobalt Emu bins - with the storage in place the collection could now flourish.)

But I don’t buy cards for my collection and my friends and family don’t travel much (except Stacy), so my collection has languished.

Then Postcrossing came along!

Here’s how it works in a nutshell:

1. Sign up and create a profile, indicated the types of postcards you’d ideally like to receive
2. Request to send a card – the system will then draw from its database pool and give you a person and their profile
3. Mail the postcard
4. When the recipient receives it, they log it into the system
5. Your name now goes into the pool to receive one

I’ve already sent and received four postcards. I love them all but two of them are really terrific! There does seem to be some idiosyncrasies as I received two on the same day that mine were received. But otherwise, it’s been great.

Check it out and you’ll love it – the Finns sure do, as you’ll soon discover.

I love how the Internet has enabled this (and the site founder too). Prior to the Net, things like this just would not have been possible!

My Emus will soon be bursting…