Month: November 2008

Mumbai was a big step towards mainstream for Twitter

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The terrorist attacks in Mumbai was not only a tragic event, it was also the real breakthrough for social media as official news resource. Especially for Twitter.

When the news began to spread on Twitter yesterday, it was the only source of information that was fast enough. After a while, someone started to upload pictures to Flickr and the Wikipedia article was probably the most trusted collection of news from Mumbai. But Twitter and Twitter Search was still the most important news source and the two most used Twitter Searches where highly relevant and updated the same minute something happened.

Actually it was so important that the Indian government tried to shut the Twitter Search-page down because they thought the terrorists followed it. A lot of tweets where updated with the exhortation that please don’t update with more information in order to protect the rescue operations.

#mumbai This is to anyone in India, please do not update on here of the operations of your police or military. That only jeopardizes them.

The blog Dangerroom published two of the more significant tweets as examples:

“Hospital update. Shots still being fired. Also Metro cinema next door,” tweets mumbaiattack. “Blood needed at JJ hospital,” adds aeropolowoman, supplying the numbers for the blood bank.

This shows how important the Twitter posts was, often sent by people directly involved in the event, using Twitter as the fastest and easiest way to communicate. And the suspicions of the Indian government, that the terrorists monitored Twitter as well, shows another dimensions of the impact micro blogging can have on live reporting of important events.

This was a real breakthrough for Twitter to become mainstream, and it happened over one night. Probably has the breakthrough meant that more people have gotten more accurate information.

Discussion: Twingly, Techcrunch, Mathewingram and Rainbow of Chaos.
Update: CNN: “Tweeting the terror: How social media reacted to Mumbai”

Danish newspapers against deep linking to their content

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There’s something stupid going on in Denmark right now. Danish newspapers are trying to ban deep linking to their content, mainly because of Google News. Global Voices have a great summary.

Specifically, the Danish Newspaper Publishers Association are frustrated that Google News in Denmark wants to list and link to articles of Danish newspapers without paying them royalties.

Bloggers don’t like this, of course. And we support them! Internet is about linkability, sharing and discussion – and that’s also what our product is all about. Twingly Blogstream doesn’t work if bloggers aren’t allowed to link directly to articles on our partners sites.

The blog editor at our Danish customer Politiken.dk, Kim Elmose, understands the importance of deep-links from blogs and is one of those who are against this silly proposal.

Kim Elmose published his response in his personal blog Mediehack, calling the resistance to deep linking counter productive, and pointed to the irony that most Danish journalists use Google News as a tool themselves.

From us at Twingly: please rethink. This is just silly.

The Microblogging Phenomenon Retweet

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We’ve seen it more and more lately: the “retweet”-phenomenon at Twitter. It’s used when someone wants to highlight an interesting tweet to others. We blogged about a Youtube-meme last week and retweet is in many cases nothing less than a powerful way to spread memes virally. Or, like Kristofer Mencák explains it:

It is a phenomenon that spreads a meme faster to new networks through weak ties. Basically, novel information reaches further and faster through these weak ties within the network as a whole.

For a marketer, this adds another dimension to the talking in the microblogosphere. Like Kristofer also pointed out in his blog post, a retweet actually shows what people are willing to spread to each other:

I think the monitoring of microblogs in general is important, but monitoring retweets adds an extra dimension, as it is basically monitoring memes that have proved themselves as having viral potential. These can spread – good or bad!

There are more interesting phenomenas at Twitter, like for example hashtags. Hashtags have been helped by 3rd-part services like Summize (now Twitter Search), and in the same way, the “retweet”-phenomenon gets a lot of help by services like Friendfeed and Facebook. For instance, when Robert Scoble retweets something, not only his Twitter-followers but also his Friendfeed-followers and his Facebook-friends get notified. This way, the message gets further spreading, which makes the phenomenon even stronger.

And like Jeremiah Owyang wrote in a comment on his great blog post on the same topic, retweets could be a better way to monitoring influence in the microblogosphere than links (which it is in blogs, generally).

In blogs, we’d used to say that ‘links’ were the most valuable aspect.

Now it’s retweets.

Kanal5.se is joining the Twingly forces!

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Today Kanal5.se joined the Twingly forces! They’re one of the largest television channels in Sweden and also have two really popular bloggers on their site, Style by Kling and Linda Rosing.

It’s nice, for sure, to see our list of partners growing faster than ever. And we can already tell you that there are more partners launching soon! Maybe something for our friends in the ad world, beginning with the letter “R”. Keep your eyes on the blog and you’ll see…

“Why is the rum gone?”-meme

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We found a funny meme today at Youtube based on edited movies that is really cool. So, why is the rum gone?

It started with this Youtube-clip from Pirates of the Caribbean but then the meme had its own life and the same “Why is the rum gone?”-quote was given movie clips from The Lion King, Harry Potter and many more a funny twist that we think is incredible creative!

Then we realized that the real original meme of this concept actually is another meme with the same concept – “They’re taking the hobbits to Isengard“. The copy-paste-generation is doing a lot of good stuff – and we think it’s the future!

See also Larry Lessigs very relevant TED talk on how he thinks creativity is being strangled by the copyright laws. The “Why is the rum gone?”-meme shows that creativity is still alive after all.

Congrats to all our customers on the Internetworld top 100-list!

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Today we’re really happy for those of our customers who’ve made it to the “Internetworld Top 100 best websites in Sweden“-list. We’re delighted and a little bit proud that seven websites of the top 20-list are using Twingly Blogstream!

Lindex, our first e-commerce customer for Twingly Blogstream, got a special prize from Internetworld for being most “Blog-friendly” (Google Translate). Using our service is not the only effort Lindex has made to optimize the “blogability” of lindex.com. For example they have also made pictures of their fashion easily available for bloggers to download and publish. Lindex has been a great case for us to work with, and we’re inspired to continue cooperating with customers from the e-commerce field.

And last but not least, we just have to mention the fact that our most recent e-commerce customer Onoff.se got their Twingly launch highlighted on stage when the Top 100-list was announced yesterday. Magnus Höij from Internetworld said that “The fact that Onoff launched Twingly today, shows that they know what really matters for customers nowadays.”

Twingly-launch today: Blog links part of customer service offer

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One could argue there’s a sort of unanimity going on, when it comes to electronic devises and communication strategies. It really doesn’t matter what the reseller is called: all they talk about is low prices. At least that’s the case here in Sweden. And it’s strange, because what you really need when you’re trying to choose between hundreds of TV:s and cellular phones, is some help, guidance and service.

The ONOFF chain here in Sweden has chosen another key message in their latest ad campaign – they talk about service, and nothing about being cheap. Now ONOFF launches Twingly Blogstream as part of their customer service offer and a way of taking the concept of tech market service to the next level. Blogger’s opinions simply help guiding their customers in making better purchases.

So now all you experts with good advices and wonderful blogs can get your word out, directly through the onoff.se. And a lot of confused customers will get needed help, not only from the staff at ONOFF, but also through the blogosphere. All linked together at the same place.

That’s how it should be.

Related link: IT24- Onoff bloggifierar sin webbutik (Google Translate)

Clearing things up about our products

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Sometimes people have difficulties in understanding what we are doing at Twingly. Mostly the problem is that people are either not so familiar with blogs or they do not know the real difference between our enterprise products and our spam-free blog search at Twingly.com.

And to be honest, it could be made much clearer. This is why we are working on improvements of both the design of our products as well as our communication. Today we released the first step regarding a clearer communication – there is a new part of Twingly.com about our Enterprise Solutions. So if you’re interested in our products, a hot tip is to check them out here!