Managing the ebb and Follow on Twitter
Twitter started as people just sharing. Twitter users love the simplicity of the app (which is why there wasn’t a mass exodus to the feature-rich Jaiku), but often want for more in terms of features (grouping people, following memes, tags). At the same time, and as with anything web and popular, people specializing in The Sell have realized that there’s massive amounts of useful data to farm for money. Slowly over time, people have been taking advantage of the Twitter API (Application Program Interface) to build external things that do what they want Twitter to do, the way they want Twitter to do it.
I found this post from an online marketing blog by way of a new mutual follower on Twitter, and gave it a quick read. The interesting angle of the post is getting information you need to help your business, and how you may be able to outsmart your competition by using the tools intelligently. It strikes me as treading that fine line of using Twitter for evil… but marketing isn’t always bad, and libraries could use some help with that. Plus, these tools have non-library, non-marketing applications.
Of the five tools outlined, I’m really interested in:
- Summize:  May be the Twitter search people have been looking for. I do love Twemes (I included it in the interesting experiment with hashtags for the PLA Blog during the national conference), Summize doesn’t require any tagging, it just searches tweets. The advanced search is Google-esque, including options to find tweets with links, positive/negative tones, questions, and more. Something exciting to play with. Heck, I might start searching proactively for questions and answering them.
- Twitt(url)y: All about tracking URL-based memes without needing to follow “the right people” on Twitter. The most tweeted sites are at the top, each listing includes the popular link and recent tweets. See what the Twitterati are reading and talking about, catch memes faster, learn about new things sooner, especially if your following group tends to be a bit… insular.
- Twistori: Reminds you of the humanity of most of Twitter (you know, the part that isn’t trying to sell you something as of late). Totally anonymous — unless you’re like Chris Brogan (nice new brand, btw, totally you) and follow so many people that you might recognize some of this stuff ;D — Twistori grabs data from Summize and lists out tweets that include “I love/hate/think/feel/believe/wish” statements and scrolls the new posts one by one on the screen.
Other things of note I’ve found in my travels:
- Twitter Answers: Um, why didn’t librarians build this? Are we so obsessed with how broken our catalogs are that we’re missing the easy stuff like this? If you’re a librarian playing around on Twitter Answers, do let me know. It’s a sort of Twitter MetaFilter, built by Mosio, a service that allows people to text message a question and get answers from “real people” (where were librarians for this, too?). Granted, when I work the Information Desk at my library, I tweet that I’m taking questions, and the answers I send out count towards my stats, and I know a few other librarians, like self-proclaimed guerilla librarian Connie Crosby, who do also. But this is a whole application answering questions where people are. I don’t have an account yet (I haven’t had time), but I’ll get on that soon, likely. Librarians should consider this a form of outreach to let people know that librarians can answer questions like this.
- My Tweeple: Another mutual follower, Shannon Whitley, is working on one of a few new whitelist/blacklist apps for Twitter, and I kinda like this one. When you’re receiving 10-50 new follower notifications a day, it can get quite unruly trying to figure out who everyone is. Since most Twitter spammers pick up names from other large Following lists, it’s helpful to block spammers, but knowing who the spammers are is the trick. My Tweeple helps with that.
It’s a struggle, keeping Twitter simple, and yet adding the features everyone craves. Just take a look at the Twitter Fan Wiki, and you’ll see all the informational ruckus such an elegantly simple yet wonky system has created. And this isn’t even touching the Twitter Packs concept (the online marketing post mentions sites that do the same “figure out who to follow” stuff mechanically), it’s a whole other ball of wax!
pretty cool post. thanks for these sites - i haven’t heard of any of them oddly enough. makes me wonder if i’m a little out of the twitter world loop.
@matt: I must say, most of my info about Twitter comes from people on Twitter. I check out new followers before I decide to add them back, looking over a page or two of tweets, checking out the URL in their profile, etc., and I tend to find interesting stuff even if I don’t make the follow mutual.
There was quite a bit of discussion and buzz about turning the Twitter librarian hivemind into a service back in March, but that was a good seven months or so after Twitter Answers came into being. We talked about it on Unvocab #32 (http://is.gd/fZZ) and no one even knew to mention Twitter Answers in that conversation. So yeah, we missed that boat big time.
@Greg: Luckily, all is not lost, since librarians can still create accounts and get involved. Honestly, I don’t know what the likelihood is, though… how many more librarians are really editing Wikipedia? Or answering questions on WikiAnswers? Or other sites like it?
Does librarianship just need more builders? I think we should all have some level of tech build ability, great or small, but that’s just me. Are our priorities way to skewed to the devil we know — broken catalogs or promoting “databases” that people don’t know about — that we refuse to give a go at the devil we don’t know? Is beta really just that scary, or do people just not know? I have ideas for solutions, but so many of them go back to changing librarian culture that I’m not sure they’re feasible or practical.
I think you’re going to find the commentary planned for LISTen #23 interesting. Such will be released on Monday…I hope…
@Stephen Michael Kellat: Hmm. I’ve pondered my response to your snippet at the end of LISten #23, and all I can say is this: the idea of OCLC taking on Twitter seems so terribly… poor. While I think I understand where you’re going with it — experience managing databases and whathaveyou — Twitter is not just some database, it’s an application with a user culture. Building things for Twitter that, granted, may not fit into what Twitter was originally meant to do, isn’t *bad*, it’s super. It’s a call for growth, an opportunity for user to further participate in the community by contributing, and it’s an avenue for innovation. Whether or not Twitter comes out of this maelstrom a winner doesn’t really matter. The fact that Twitter culture existed at all has changed social media, brought up many questions about social software, and provided inspiration for other sites/tools/cultures to grow around.
Honestly, library tech in general is so steeped in the library world, that handing Twitter over to OCLC would kill it for everyone except librarians.
I’ve been trying to get Twitter reference up and going at our library.
Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be 24-7.
I see tons of potential for text reference, etc. and thankfully, so does my director.
Man, I love my job.
@Amy Harmon: The thing about “Twitter reference” is that regular Twitter users do it all the time, with anyone who happens to be on Twitter. Twitter users don’t wait for a librarian to be free, they ask their stream (which kinda speaks to my “Age of the Human Filter” presentation that I gave at NAHSL a few years back). It’s handy if a librarian, or just anyone, is around to help, emphasizing it by retweeting, “I’m here to answer questions,” over and over again. But Twitter peeps aren’t waiting for us to give an answer. So, it doesn’t really need to be 24/7, I don’t think. Being present when you can be seems most helpful, and communicating regularly as a person with your stream, instead of always wearing the librarian hat.
And, text reference as it’s own thing would be super. Again, I must say, most people will just text someone they know who knows the kinda stuff their looking for. How can librarians get themselves in the “someone they know who knows stuff” loop? Other than, say, talking to the community, and making the role a full-time gig even if your off the clock and being the “librarian friend”?