Nur Ahmad Furlong

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  • Twitter Power User Series – Part 1

    By now most people have at least heard of twitter.com, though don’t assume that everyone knows what twitter is or how it can be used. Research has shown that most twitter users rarely tweet and usually have very few followers. Mention the word twitter in a public space and you might still get a few odd stares. Many people still seem to have a somewhat skeptical approach to the web app/revolution which has sidelined even major players like Facebook, to become one of the most talked about & exciting communications platforms the web currently has to offer.

    A quick intro to twitter.com for Newbies

    twitter-videoTwitter is what some term, a micro-blogging platform. It’s also a multi-user micro-blogging platform. Micro-blogging? It’s like the sms of the blogging world, where you only have 140 characters to convey a message to the other twitter users who have decided to follow your feed. Have a look at this excellent video explanation called Twitter in Plain English developed by commoncraft.com. This video explains the entry level understanding of twitter though, so if you’re a twitter power user you’ll be digging much deeper than sharing your breakfast with your followers.

    Ways twitter can Benefit you

    So what’s the real craze about twitter then? Surely there’s nothing special about being able to update your status with 140 characters?

    Take a quick step back and hear me out. Twitter is anything but simple status updates, even though at a glance it may seem that way. The thing which makes twitter 100 times more beneficial than facebook is relevance. On twitter you follow those who are sharing information you find valuable, people who share interesting links, who pose challenging questions and who answer many of your braintwisters as well. Twitter can be much more of a Collaborative Networking tool than a social networking tool, which is where the real value add lies. A few benefits of using twitter to stay in touch with your industry or niche:

    • Network with those you aspire towards
    • Learn from those in the know
    • Conduct Twitter Polls
    • Distribute links to your posts and projects
    • Find Business Partners & Clients
    • Be notified about the latest industry trends
    • Get the news while it’s still fresh

    Of course twitter could end up being a purely social thing for you if that’s what you’re interested in, but those who benefit from twitter the most, and who are probably the most active are using it for a completely different purpose than sending cute cuddly messages to their college friends.

    Who to follow

    This is truly the crux of the matter. Having a good follow strategy is where it all starts. It’s the difference between reading about people’s breakfast and the latest industry specific trends. Unlike facebook, you can follow just about anybody on twitter, including some really well known personalities within your niche. People who you may never get to accept a facebook friend invitation from. This doesn’t mean you can become a cyber-stalker as you may be blocked very quickly. The beauty of following the professionals or gurus is that you get an insight into what some of the top people in your niche are thinking, reading, learning, asking etc etc.

    Some tips on choosing who to follow

    • Shared topics of interest
    • Post frequency matching your preference
    • Full profile so you know they’re legit
    • High percentage of valuable tweets
    • Uniqueness in tweets
    • High percentage of value adding tweets
    • No Spam or hard selling(unless you’re buying)

    I’ve found I’ve benefited hugely by following & conversing with some of the top names in the Web Design & WordPress spaces, something I may not have been able to achieve on pretty much any other “social” network.

    Check them out before you follow

    A Great tool to help with your following strategy is Foller.me which I wrote about a short while ago when it was launch by @kovshenin, a Russian tweeter I’ve become twitter friends with recently. It helps you see what your potential followee is tweeting about through keywords of their most tweeted topics as well as being able to see their geographical breakdown of their own followers. All this at a glance.

    You’d want to make sure that the person you’re planning on following is tweeting down your alley way so to speak. Checking out their recent tweets on their actual twitter page or by using one of the many twitter follow management tools like www.tweepular.com, to get a quick glance at what the potential tweep is tweeting about.

    Who not to follow

    Don’t be tempted to follow every tom dick or twarry who follows you. You’ll soon find out that there are a few twitter spammers out there, as well as people who are only interested in telling everyone else how great they are. Be selective but don’t be a snob either. You’ll be surprised what people have to offer if you give them a chance on twitter.

    Don’t be tempted into the many scaly, “get loads of followers” applications & programs which are popping up all over the place. With twitter it’s less about quantity and more about quality. You can benefit tons from only 10 people and waste your time on the rest. Of course more quality wouldn’t hurt anyone.

    Sometimes checking out the twitter profile will show up a fake or spammy tweeter immediately. I don’t follow tweeps without avatars as a standard, it means they couldn’t really be bothered yet, so they’re probably still wet behind their twitter ears. I’m also suspicious of tweeters who have little or no profile info on their twitter page.

    Do’s & Don’ts

    Try not to

    • Rant too much
    • argue
    • insult
    • be obsessive about topics in an irritating way
    • sell products without adding value
    • just take and not give
    • Twitter is not for long conversations!
    • I tend to unfollow people who use profanity.

    Try to always

    • Be nice
    • Share and generally be of benefit
    • ask questions
    • answer questions
    • give advice
    • introduce people
    • post great links

    There is such a thing as Twitter Karma. I’ve found solutions to major problems have come many times from tweeps who I’ve just helped on twitter.

    Twitter Apps Galore

    There are more twitter apps than the amount of tweets I’ve ever posted, and I’m quite a frequent tweeter if I must say so myself. Check out this monster list of apps and tools on the Twitter Fan Wiki. They’ve now organised these based on platform and type and the list is constantly growing. Twitter apps range from plain and simple tweeting tools, to follower management apps, even twitter games as well as a few really cool alternative uses for twitter. I’ve just received a test version of something called #tweem which is being developed by @netizensmedia which is a WordPress theme built just to create a custom twitter home. I hope to integrate it into my own theme once it’s ready for public release.

    Twitter apps On your Desktop

    Picture 3TweetDeck – My first choice for managing my main twitter account/s (open source). It now also has facebook status updates, an iPhone version, twitter searching, twitter trends and loads of other twitter power user features.

    Twitterific –  Low cost elegant solution for desktop, iPhone & iPod touch

    Twhirl – A little lighter but feature rich, built by Seesmic and connects to loads of different online services

    Seesmic Desktop – for Multiple Twitter accounts as well as Facebook in one place, very similar to Tweetdeck but just not quite there yet.

    I’ll be posting more about non-desktop twitter apps, plugins & services in part 2 of this series on twitter.

    Integrating Twitter with your other online spaces

    Integration is the way the web is moving currently. To get the most out of the many tools and services you use and subscribe to in the digital age, they need to interact with each other in ways that bring out the best in all of them. You also don’t want to be spreading yourself too thin by blogging on one space and tweeting in another, while adding content and connections in yet another. By having separate, disconnected social/collaborative spaces, you fragment your focus and your time considerably. Integrating these entities helps keep a consistent flow going, no matter which online space you’re occupying.

    On your site

    If you have your own website or blog a great idea would be to insert a widget or plugin to pull some of your latest twitter posts in. This could be as simple as the single most latest tweet. Accompanied by a follow me link it’s a good way of building your following. Some twitter savvy peeps have taken twitter integration to the next level with like Jaan Orvet of Noded with his site www.sharpenr.net which is split half way between his tweets 7 his blog posts.Jaan Orvet's Sharpener.net

    There’s also your twitter favorites, which lists your tweets you’ve labeled as favorites and can be fed into your site through a widget as well. This is a great way to share what you deem to be only the most valuable twitter content with your website’s visitors. I haven’t done this on my own site yet as I’m due for a complete overhaul of my site but it’s very much in the pipeline.

    To give your followers a punt you could also embed a list of your followers which displays their avatars or their twitter usernames. Go on, give something back!

    Get your twitter name out there

    Lastly make sure wherever you are online or off that you’re always sharing your twitter username. Besides placing links on your site, make sure your little birdie is also found on your:

    • other social network profiles
    • Your IM profiles
    • comments you make on blogs & forums
    • email signature
    • T-shirts
    • hey why not even your business card.

    I know of some entrepreneurs looking into developing twitter stickers for laptops and even cars, so get your twitter name out there tweeple.

    More than just characters – Sharing Pictures & Videos on Twitter

    Links

    Sharing Links on twitter can sometimes be a bit of a probem when you’re linking to dynamically created links which are really long. This is where the link shortening services step in. Many of the desktop applications have built in link shorteners. Tiny URL is one of the better known url shortening services currently available.

    Pictures

    Of course there are times you’d want to post more than just 140 characters, or even more than just characters for that matter. The most well known of the picture posting twitter services is Twitpic which allows quick posting up of pics for your followers to check out. This could be used in a collaborative manner to brainstorm ideas and discuss designs or other project imagery as well.

    Videos

    Twit Vid is a video posting service which allows you to either upload a video, email one or record one directly from your webcam. It’s serves to cut down the time it takes to upload to another video service making posting of video content via twitter way quicker. Voicemail anyone? Another such service is 12 Seconds which also integrates with Facebook.

    And for documents, there’s twitdoc.

    Follow Management Apps & Services

    Keeping control of your followers and who you’re following can become a really tedious task, and the standard twitter homepage doesn’t make this any easier. Thankfully some really clever twitter nerd have created a range of tools to help us wade through the crowds to find the best tweeps to follow. Foller.me is one of these gems which I mentioned a little earlier on in this post.

    Tweepular is another services which pulls some interesting info about who’s following you and who you’re following so you can keep your twitter neighbourhood in check.

    You may also be interested to know who unfollows you, so you can keep yourself in check and stay relavent to your followers. Sign up with Use Qwitter be notified when someone unfollows you.

    Topify is a service which enhances your twitter follow notifications so you get a little more detail about the person who has just followed you and can make a quick decision whether to return the favour.

    So that’s it for part 1 of my twitter power user series, this was a bit of an introduction so hopefull the next few parts will focus a little more on specific areas individually and with more detail. I’m interested to know:

    • what you think of twitter?
    • do you use twitter?
    • how do you use it?
    • what’s your favourite twitter application or service?

    Picture 4If you’re interested in diving deep into the world of twitter, Mashable has a mega list of twitter tips, guides, tutorials and other helpful bits to get you going.

    I’d love to tweet you some time so follow me @nomadone.

  • Getting the most out of What We Do

    Last night I had a highly insightful chat on gtalk with @naeem who runs a number of successful online businesses and interest sites out of Johannesburg, South Africa. Naeem is someone I admire for being able to see a business opportunity around almost every corner, you can tell he’s been doing what he does for quite a while.

    He passed on a really great online business idea

    It was Something really simple and with potential to make some good dosh online, which got me thinking about the way I have been approaching my career. I’m not about to share his idea with the world to run off and make it irrelevant to me, but after coming across the following post written by Bud Caddell on whatconsumesme.com, I also re-thought whether just any good business idea would do for me.

    venn

    This Venn diagram gave me some serious food for thought in terms of how to go about sticking to what I do well, what I love doing and still making a decent living out of it. The post is entitled “How to be Happy in Business“. Apart from being a really well designed piece of informaton design, the concepts really hit me hard and also made me think back to my business ideas convo with @naeem. Would it do to get into just any type of business just to make money?

    Budd lists the 3 problems highlighted by the diagram:

    • We can’t determine how to make enough money from the things we want to do, and do really well.
    • We’ve found things we want to do, and can be paid for, but we’re not the best game in town.
    • We’ve come across things people want us to do, that we do well (or at least better than the competition) that we really don’t want to do.

    I’m the type of person that generally comes up with business ideas connected to a direct need I have, and also most times relating to something which I’m really interested in, which helps me get my head fully inside the whole development process. Ok so I haven’t really succeeded with any of my crazy business ideas yet, LOL, nor have I even progressed to prototyping phase with some of the more serious ones, but this means that something disconnected to what I love doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance of even featuring. Then comes the problem of monetizing what I’m really truely passionate about.

    Me gots lots to think about regarding this diagram!

    On the same little stroll around the interwebs, I also found a really great way of identifying my own special business model, and applying my efforts in that direction. Gina Trapini, “software and self improvement junkie” wrote a piece on Freelance Switch where she says,

    “While I do plan to make money as a freelancer, my ultimate goal is to generate satisfaction.”

    (While money is a part of that, so is learning, service, and creativity, so we’ll just use the umbrella term “satisfaction.”)

    She shares her personal “business model” in plain & simple terms, What’s important to her is more than just paying the bills while doing what she specializes in.

    Personal Business Model of Gina Trapani

    This particular concept highlights the importance of consantly tracking your activities based on what’s most important to you. Of course knowing what’s most important is step 1, having a plan to engage more in those areas comes next. I found in the last 2 months, tracking my activities in detail has given me huge insight in where the problem areas are. I’ve started taking a few steps in a new direction and these 2 posts/diagrams has helped wrap my head around the way forward.

  • Foller.me – The Sherlock Holmes of the twittersphere

    As most of us know twitter has very much entered the mainstream with just about every kind of web user setting up their own account. New twitter apps seem to be arriving on the scene on a daily basis and the platform has seen it’s fair share of extension and adaptation of late.

    To Follow or not to follow, that’s a good question

    One really frustrating part of keeping your account updated with relevant tweeps(twitter peeps) is having to scratch through their tweets and see whether it meets with your criteria.

    Enter onto the scene http://foller.me

    A really cool Russian guy I’ve recently been following on twitter is @kovshenin, has released an extremely useful little twitter app which allows you to quickly have a look see what your prospective followee has been tweeting about so you know whether to add them to your list. I always hate having to follow and then unfollow soon after when I realize @so&so just isn’t tweeting down my alleyway.

    Here’s how Foller.me works

    Foller.me is a Twitter service that can provide you with the most detailed information about a specific Twitter user in the least amount of time! Here’s how it works.

    picture-11

    You input a Twitter name into the searchbox and hit enter. Foller.me gets access to the profile of that user via the Twitter API, scans all the public info and the latest 200 tweets!

    You can decide within a few seconds whether to follow back, making it super easy to build a realy solid twitter network without all the hassle of being a private investigator. I’ll call it “The Sherlock Holmes of the twittersphere”. Give it a whirl, I’ve tried it a few times and you’ll be surprized what you find out about certainer tweeps! I’ve even ran it on myself just to see what I’m interested in – LOL.

    Here’s what I look like in twitterspeak –

    @nomadone's twitter portrait May 2009

  • Custom Word Cloud images, using Wordle

    I’m very much a fan of tag-clouds and have noticed a trend in typographic design to make more interesting use of them in experimental typographic designs. Wordle.net is a free online tool you can use to generate a custom coloured Word Cloud using either word’s of your choice, your site’s RSS feed to pull your site’s tags or your delicious feed. I’ve played with it and generated the following images, and with a few flexible tools you can create even more interesting versions of your selected list of keywords.

    picture-3

  • Web Trends Map 2009 – An Information Design Masterpiece

    Following a re-tweet about a post discussing web typography, sorry I forget who initially tweeted this one, I was confronted with a piece of information design work which had me absolutely speechless. I’ve seen previous versions of the Web Trends Map, but this latest installment is a real work of art.

    Information Design to make your mouth Water

    This is a masterpiece of information design
    This is a masterpiece of information design

    The Web Trend Map is a yearly publication by Information Architects Inc. (iA). It maps the 333 leading Web domains and the 111 most influential Internet people onto the Tokyo Metro map.

    I can’t wait for this to be finalized so I can get hold of a printed copy for my office.

    What the Map really means.

    According to the creator’s of this map of juicy web goodness, countless hours of research was undertaken to assess to most effective, profitable and traffic generating websites and web gurus to put together a resource which is filled with the web’s most influential spaces and faces.

    These web trends have been intelligently super-imposed over a map of the Tokyo Metro System, aligning those web venues which have similar characteristics to the actually Tokyo Metro spaces they virtually occupy. For example:

    Google is placed in the busiest, most highly trafficked train station in the world: Shinjuku.

    The width of an entities station represents it’s stability in the web space.

    Trend Lines/Genres

    Metro lines were established to group similar web entities. Upon investigation you’ll quickly realise what a mammoth task of information architecture this must have been. Further more, characteristics like the height of specific stations on the Virtual Map, represent the web entities success in terms of both traffic & revenue, which explains of course why Google towers above the rest. The use of various coloured lines and the position of certain stations at intersections of 1, 2 or 3 lines expresses which trend lines specific web entities actually cross or overlap.

    Just a quick glance across the Trend Map reveals a wealth of information and insight into the current shape of the web sphere. I can see this map being presented in thousands of boardrooms and strategic sessions world-wide. It’s got that buzz appeal which the Orielly Web 2.0 Tag Cloud held at the beginning of the entrance of Web 2.0 into the mainstream. The many so called “social media gurus” out there are gonna eat this one up for breakfast lunch & supper.

    This is very much still a work of art and feedback is being taken currently to make it as accurate, error free and apt as it can possibly be.

    I’ve spent only a few minutes glancing at this web wonder and have already foreseen endless hours of my future dissappear in the journey this one is about to open for me. I’ll stop myself from using the cliche’s of beautiful, stunning, elegant to describe this one, even though these and more over used adjectives definitely apply in this case.

  • Earth Mosaic celebrates Earth Day in Photos

    April the 22 is not only election day in South Africa but also one of the days set aside to celebrate the Planet, Earth Day. An inspiring project called Earth Mosaic aims to celebrate a day in the life of Planet Earth with an International Earth photography project.

    Calling all photographers and Earth-lovers … Help us record a day in the life of our planet, in pictures.

    earthmosaiclogo
    If you’re into all things environmentally friendly or just want to celebrate the beauty of this wonderful planet we call home, take a few snaps of your little corner of Earth and submit itto the Earth Mosaic Project!