Archive - 2010
July 9th
#FF @klout
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 07/09/2010 - 11:30@jcnork @jwierin @andreayap @cvelardi @ckieff @jeffpulver @geogeller @JeffCulter @stevegarfield @woodruff @geoffliving @bensawyer @bpm140 @iankennedy @timoreilly @scottmonty @edwebb @jimgroom @sleslie @brlamb
I have now written a little program that uses the klout api to pull data about who influences whom on twitter to build much more interesting influence graphs. My most recent graph, shown below, illustrates not only who klout believes influences me on twitter, but also who influences them, back a few generations.
Some of the influence is bidirectional. I influence @jcnork and he influences me. @jwierin influences @jcnork and @jcnork influences @jwierin. @andreayap influences both @jcnork and @jwierin. @jcnork is also influenced by @WTNH and @WTNH is influenced @cvelardi who works at @WTNH, as well as by @cnnbrk and @nytimes for secondary sources and @SenChrisDodd and @whitehouse for primary sources.
In the social media side of things, @ckieff is a key influencer of me, and @ckieff is influenced by @jeffpulver who is influenced by @geogeller. @ckieff is also influenced by @JeffCulter who is influenced by @stevegarfield and by @woodruff who is influenced by @geoffliving
Another interesting influence stream is @bensawyer who influences me is influenced by @bpm140 who cofounded MyBlogLog. @bpm140 is influenced by @iankennedy whom if I recall properly used to work at Yahoo running the MyBlogLog effort after Yahoo bought it. @iankennedy is now ‘Product Guy at Nokia’. Meanwhile, I’ve been doing less with MyBlogLog and more with my Nokia N900.
@bensawyer is also influenced by @timoreilly and @timoreilly is influenced by @scottmonty over at Ford.
Perhaps the most interesting collection of influencers is around @edwebb. @edwebb is an influencer of me. @jimgroom influences @edwebb directly and also influences @sleslie who influences @edwebb. @brlamb ends up influencing but @sleslie and @jimgroom.
July 8th
Tools to Stay Social during #swct
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 07/08/2010 - 21:18In a matter of weeks, Social Web Week has gone from a crazy idea bounced around by a few social media enthusiasts gathering at various locations in New Haven to a major weeklong event in Connecticut. How did this happen? Well, core to the success has been using social media as part of the organizing. Now the questions becomes, how successful will the various events be. The answer probably depends on how much participants use social media throughout the week.
Central to this will be the use of hashtags on Twitter. Twitter provides easy ways to send short messages for others to read. Some people send their twitter messages from Twitter’s website. Others use cellphones or other websites to send out their messages.
To make it easier to find messages on twitter, often people tag messages with a special word or acronym. Typically, they put a hashmark (#), sometimes called a pound sign, at the beginning of the tag to make it standout; hence the word hashtag.
Currently, people are using the hashtag #swct to tag their messages about Social Web Week. If you look at the Social Web Week website, you’ll see the most recent messages tagged with #swct showing up in the right hand column.
There are lots of other tools and sites that people use to organize the tweets they are looking at, especially in terms of hashtags. Some people like Tweetdeck or Peoplebrowsr. I like to use TweetChat. It provides a nice way to see recent tweets with a specific hashtag, as well as send messages to Twitter with the hashtag already built in. Another tool that I like to use is CoverItLive. This allows you to add a live discussion on your blog. In the options, you can configure CoverItLive to include messages from Twitter with specific hashtags.
There is also What the Hashtag? which provides a description of the hashtag, as well as various statistics and related hashtags. Hashtags.org provides a similar history of twitter messages with hashtags and statistics about these messages.
Foursquare is another tool that Social Web Week participants are likely to use. You can use Foursquare to ‘check-in’ at various venues that are participating in Social Web Week. When you check in, you have the opportunity to send a message to Twitter about checking in. If you use Foursquare during Social Web Week, please consider putting the #swct hashtag in your message to Twitter. You can also find out who else has checked in at the same venue.
Some people will send messages to Facebook during Social Web week and others will send pictures and videos to Flickr, YouTube and other sites. You can also use tags on these sites. However, tags can be used by anyone for any purpose, and the SWCT tag on Flickr has been used for some other purposes.
tagal.us is a interesting site that combines messages with Twitter Hashtags, with photographs on Flickr and YouTube videos that are similarly tagged. It provides another interesting way to glimpse what is going on.
Another way for people to use social media during Social Web Week is to use QIK. QIK is an easy way to stream videos from your cellphone. Other people like to stream using Ustream or Livestream. Personally, I’ve had the best luck with QIK. You can also have QIK send messages to Twitter including the #swct hashtag.
So, as you head out to Social Web Week in Connecticut, please, consider sending messages to Twitter with the #swct hashtag, as well as sending pictures and videos, and perhaps even live streaming portions. Hopefully, I will get a chance to gather and digest some of the messages into a broader narrative about Social Web Week.
July 7th
Wordless Wednesday - #swct
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 07/07/2010 - 06:57
Okay. I'm cheating on Wordless Wednesday again, and providing a few words. The Quinnipiac Riviera? What's that? Check out this photoset for more pictures, or even better, check out the Fairhaven Walking Tour for more details.
July 6th
Technologists and Entrepreneurs Meetup at #swct
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 07/06/2010 - 10:30“How do we use the social web to help developers and entrepreneurs help each other?” That is the question that frames the Technologists and Entrepreneurs Meetup which will be taking place during Social Web Week here in Connecticut.
The meetup will borrow from barcamps in format. We will start off with introductions and suggestions for topics to cover. One thing we’ll do a little differently from other barcamps is the introductions. When developers introduce themselves they will give a very brief overview of their favorite development platform if no one has already spoken about that platform. Currently, we’re looking at people talking about Drupal, Joomla, dotnet, Wordpress, Django, Ruby on Rails, Cold Fusion and Java. If you want to talk briefly about these, or other platforms, please contact me directly. These descriptions should be five minutes or less each.
As entrepreneurs introduce themselves, they will be asked to speak about topics that they hope we can explore during the meetup. Different ideas for topics might be “How do I find good developers in Connecticut?” “Should I use open source or a proprietary platform?” “Which platform should I use?” “How do I use technology to develop community?” “How should I organize my development effort?” Friends are reaching out to various entrepreneur’s networking groups and hopefully additional ideas will be brought in.
Once all the introductions are completed, we will break into different groups to network, find out more about different technology platforms and address various topics that came up during the introductions. To find out more about the meetup, including time and location please check the Technologists and Entrepreneurs Meetup Page on the Social Web Week website. I hope to see lots of people there.
July 5th
What If It’s Not All Just Slogans?
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 07/05/2010 - 09:41Those of us who grew up in the Pepsi Generation, who were encouraged to reach out and touch someone and who wanted to teach the world to sing, may find it all too easy to be cynical. We may too quickly dismiss words as mere slogans, but what if it’s not all just slogans?
Sunday morning, I sat in Christ Church in Tarrytown, NY. The priest was a friend from my early days in New York City. Many of us were getting together to remember when we all went to Grace Church in Manhattan. As we waited for the service to begin, Kim asked another long time friend of mine what was Grace Church really all about? Why did so many young people flock to it in the 1980s?
Kirk spoke about a Priest there who struggled hard with transforming an aging blue book relic into a community that really believed in its name, Grace.
What if God really does love us that much? What if it isn’t just words that we mouth on Sunday morning, but something that we believed to the very core of our being? What if we really are forgiven for all those things that we did and shouldn’t have done, and for all those things that we should have done that we just never did get around to doing? What if we really could find a way to love our enemies?
After September 11th, it seems to have gotten much harder to love our enemies. As oil continues to spread across the Gulf of Mexico and the heat soars, it seems harder to believe that there is a God that can clean up our messes and still show us love. As talking heads spew their venom on cable news shows, it becomes nearly impossible to imagine that someone could love President Obama, Sen. Reid, Speaker Pelosi, Rush Limbaugh, and Glenn Beck at the same time.
Yet in those wonderful days of Grace, we did believe that God actually did love us, not as some greeting card slogan but in a life changing manner. Friends became priest and missionaries. They took God’s love with them to their daily lives. They talked about Grace Church at the water coolers and people flooded in.
The decades have passed. We have celebrated each other’s weddings and the births of children. We have comforted each other as marriages ended in divorce and as loved ones have lost battles with horrible diseases. We have had successes and failures. Yet through all of this, the questions remains, what if it’s not all just slogans? What if God really does love us that much?
So, we gathered in Tarrytown and saw old friends. We caught up with one another. We talked about needing to stay more in touch with one another. Kate set up a Facebook group for us.
I’ve wondered what happens to Churches on Main Street as youth gather online instead on Main Street. I checked in at Christ Church Tarrytown on Foursquare, but few others have. I’ve wondered what happens when the discussions around the water cooler moves to discussions on Facebook. How do stories of radical grace get told today?
A key interest for me is telling our stories online. I’ve been interested in the history of revivalism in America. The Great Awakenings have led not only to great religious revivals, but also to major political and social changes. Will the twenty first century bring us a Great Digital Awakening? What might that look like? As people start looking for greater authenticity in their online interactions, especially their interaction with commercial brands, and as people start looking for greater transparency, especially from their governments, will this also affect their religious interactions online? And will these interactions further affect people’s interactions with brands and governments online?
Can our words of faith along with other words online be more than just slogans?
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