Will Knott

Am I a podcaster? It should be a simple question to answer, but for me, things have gotten complicated.

You see I filled out the podcast listener and producer survey being conducted by Adele McAlear and Donna Papacosta. Actually if you listen to podcasts, go and do the survey yourself. But in the process of filling out the survey, I realised that I might be making podcasts myself.

I should know what a podcast is, goodness knows I love them. Technically, a podcast is a series of digital media files, audio or video, that are downloaded and made available through a syndicated feed, such as RSS.

For the stuffy amongst you, to have your podcast available for iTunes you need to supply iTunes with your RSS feed. The “pod” bit came about thanks to the iPod/ iTunes/ iPhone/iPad phenomena. If you can listen to it online, but can’t download it, then its a stream.

The unsure part of me is thanks to Audioboo. Audioboo is a website, and its an application for my phone. I start the app, record my thought in to the phone, hit a button and it sends the file off to the Audioboo servers. There the audio file is available for download (check one), or streaming and its part of an RSS feed (check two).

The thing is, it does not feel like podcasting. There is no microphone, there is no production (let alone production values). There is a minimum of action, but there is interaction. I follow people on Audioboo.

Its a audio twitter, where business and passion interact. And replies pass through members.

There is also an ambient category. Take out the phone and record where you are. Thanks to GPS info, it could be an audio Foursquare. What am I hearing now?

Its also useful for correspondents. Only temporary files are on the phone. In an “interesting” area you can record your piece and (with iOS4 and Android) upload the audio in the background. If you are stopped and searched, the evidence has already been uploaded to a server outside the jurisdiction. Expect to see it feature in a remake of “The Conversation“.

It is podcasting made easy. So yes, I am a podcaster! My studio lives in my pocket. And right now, I have no idea what to say.

Any ideas?

Today is Yesterday was (this post got stuck in draft) the day that the Leaving Certificate English paper 2 didn’t happen. The cause, this is really for my non-Irish reader (waves at Aunt Mary); a steward running the exam on Wednesday opened and put out paper 2 instead of paper 1 by accident in a school in County Louth.

This error has effected 51,800 students, and cost the steward his job. Admittedly, no one died. Only study plans are disrupted.

The funny thing is that this isn’t the first time such an error has happened. But this year the consequences are that the second paper is being sat on Saturday with a back-up English exam.

What occurred is a perfect storm of events…

Firstly, the timetable of exams changed. Until recently English papers 1 and 2 were sat on the same day (morning and afternoon). Since both exams are, well, tough and require a lot of writing it was felt that spreading the exam over two days would be easier on the students hands, if not on the students themselves.

If the error had occurred in the past, only the 15 students who received the wrong paper would have been effected.  True they could have informed fellow students that the paper featured “macbeth, deception, bishop, keats, walcot, larkin …” to quote the tweet, but most (lets face it, there is going to be a little comfort cramming between exams at least) of the study would have been completed long before the exam. Having a full day between exams meant that the important information could get out there and get spread widely.

Secondly there is the nature of the exam itself. Paper two of the Leaving Certificate is regarded as one of the toughest tests in the pre-university examination system. In out system exam marks mean points, and points mean University places. The English syllabus means that the students have to study eight poets and guess as to which two or three would be on the paper.

Had this been the Mathematics exam, then the information would be harder to spread. After all knowing the type of maths question does not limit the study as much as dropping 6 out of 8 poets. Equally has this not been one of the “big three” exams of English, Irish and Maths, the reason to spread the information would have decreased.

So you have a high pressure exam, which most if not all the leaving certificate students will be sitting, where the important details of which can be summed up in three or four words; the names of the poets. Words which quiet easily fit in the space of a single SMS message. Or a tweet. So a small amount of information can cause a huge amount of damage.

The third part of this is the fact that social media played a part. And yes I’m counting the leaving certificate discussion section of Boards.ie as social media. In fact it appears that the public dissemination began on Boards.

The timing is interesting here. Boards only started seeing this information close to 4pm. This implies that the information only started leaking around then. What is likely is that those 15 students started passing the information as soon as the afternoon exam (home economics as it happens) was over. Given that the steward reported the loss of confidentially around 4pm, when parents of the children informed him, this sound about right. Even if the steward had reported the breach immediately (and maybe kept his job over it) the spreading of the information would have followed the exact same time line.

Or to put it another way, the Department of Education found out the same time that everyone else did. Posibbly a short while earlier.

At least one, mostly likely two or three of the children waited until they got home, and got internet access to talk to each other. This spread the word. Needless to say, it spread very quickly amongst a number of interested students. Then wider.

Now a lot of students cut back on social computer use (e.g games) during the exams. After all its only two to three very important weeks for which they have worked two years for. Discussion was rife.

And the department of education picked it up very quickly.

There is a backup exam in case of leaks. Normally what would happen is that effected schools would get the backup paper. For a single school a delay is tolerable as the second exam of the day could be delayed by the same amount. In this case, because of social media and the internet, every school in the country (and beyond, the leaving certificate is not only limited to Irish schools, but I can’t think of any places that use it) was effected. The issue changed from containing the problem to distributing the exams to all the test centres.

So the exam was rescheduled. Not everyone was in the loop. I’ve heard stories of students studying for the English paper after it had been rescheduled. Which probably means that they had shut down all connections for study reasons.

What does this mean for the Department of Education.

1) All leaks are now national leaks. Unless the leak is a mistiming (exam starts and ends early) then assume all the information is out there. Students can only be quarantined in special circumstances, for example the Jewish students who cannot sit the exam on the Saturday for religious reasons.

2) Different colour coding for papers. All the morning exams have a different colour cover from all the evening exams. When both papers were on the same day, there wasn’t an issue, the colours were different. When the exam because consecutive mornings, then it became an issue again. Using more colours, maybe 4 colours with alternating colours for different mornings and evenings. A quicker, cheaper fix might be have the second paper being on the following afternoon. Or the following week. One would make mistakes unlikely, the other would give more recovery time.

3) Sign-off. The steward needed to get two students to sign-off the opening of the paper. Firstly these students are not disinterested parties, assuming malice, they would want this information. Secondly, these student have no training on the proper procedure. If the head of your exam asks you to sign something so the paper can be passed out, you’ll sign it. I know I signed off an exam (only 2 of us sat the paper) so I didn’t realise that I was signing a procedural document at the time.

In short, the current “the procedures have been followed” process have absolutely no purpose. Insisting that a teacher or someone equally fire-able by the Department sign off would at least make the checks viable.

So is this going to happen again?

Yes. You see, human error is likely. The consequences differ widely every time, in this case a lot of inconvenience for all the students this year. Next year, it could be something small.

Annoying, yes, but stuff happens all the time. Next ear we will all year about the steps taken to avoid this from happening again. Or at least, the steps to make if less likely.

And the odd on winning the lotto are?

take care,
Will Knott

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• Exam leak sparks chaos for Irish pupils (guardian.co.uk)

The words “Counselling services available” (closely followed by counseling services swamped, contact telephone numbers below) barely cover the horror of the “endemic” abuse suffered by children in Irish Catholic institutions over 60 years. The report details 800 abusers (both men and women) who were given approval by Irish society in their abuse. This is not the complete figure. A separate report about abuse in the Dublin region only is also due.

The full report, all five volumes of it, took nine years nine years to compile and while covering a period of six decades and finding thousands of boys and girls that were terrorized by priests and nuns, it dosen’t show the full picture. Public opinion at the time refused to believe the victims. The victims were vilified while the abusers took their lauded place in society. The victims left, be it through suicide, or through emigration.

The 800 figure is also wrong. Many others knew, and turned a blind eye. Refused to believe that those given the task to watch their morality could be the depraved ones.

To cap off the offense, the victims and the families were not allowed in to the press conference, which gave very little detail in the prepared speech, and permitted no questions.

It took a long time for the stories to emerge, and while the church is still respected by some, others find its protection if the abusers unforgivable (including those to “admire the bravery of the abusers“). I suspect that its the truth coming out behind these tales which have helped the numbers of regular church goers to dwindle.

Its also a national, and international news story now.

RTÉ News – Sexual abuse was ‘endemic’ in institutions

Irish Times – Audio analysis and summary of abuse report

Irish Times – Children exposed to ‘daily terror’ in institutions – Includes audio of Patsy McGarry outlining the report’s main findings

Irish Times – Anger over exclusion from briefing

Irish Times – Systematic abuse in State institutions laid bare

Channel 4 – UK – As a damning report is published into “endemic” abuse suffered by children in Irish Catholic institutions over 60 years, Carl Dinnen accompanies a former resident as he returns to a” reformatory school”. (Includes video embedded above)

Channel 4 – UK – Jon Snow talks to Colm O’Gorman, the Executive Director of Amnesty International in Ireland, who was a victim of sexual abuse perpetrated by a Catholic priest as a teenager. Includes video embedded here. Some RSS readers may need to click through to see the video.

Twenty Major – So what happens now?

Twenty Major – Institutional Abuse report

Granddad – Suffer little children

A growing list of other takes on the subject from Irish Blogs

BBC News – UK – Irish abused ‘cheated of justice – Victims of child abuse at Catholic institutions in the Irish Republic have expressed anger that a damning report will not bring about prosecutions.
Includes video of Victims spokesman John Kelly giving his reaction to the report

BBC News – UK – In quotes: Irish media have been giving their first reactions to the damning inquiry into child abuse at Catholic institutions in Ireland.

The full Comission Report

Volume three includes the witness statements, and chapter 14, about lay teacher abusing and being defended by the Department of Education,  got extensive reviews on today’s Morning Ireland.

Shocked but sadly not surprised,
Will

The HSE offers a free National Counselling Service for anyone who has suffered childhood abuse on 1800 235 234.

The related Connect service, for out of hours contact, is on1800 235 235 from the Republic of Ireland (freephone)  00800 235 235 55 from Britain and Northern Ireland (free from landlines).
www.connectcounselling.ie

Dublin Rape Crisis Centre operates a 24-hour helpline on 1800 77 88 88.

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• Critical report due on child abuse in Irish Catholic schools (guardian.co.uk)
• Thousands abused in Catholic schools in Ireland (guardian.co.uk)
• Ireland’s Church Abuse Scandal (madhavgopalkrish.wordpress.com)
• The Church and child-rape (timesonline.typepad.com)
• Wall of silence about 60 years of child abuse still not entirely broken down (sluggerotoole.com)
• Child abuse: the full story at last? (sluggerotoole.com)
• Some wounds never heal (osocio.org)

Update: 1pm May 21 2009
Irish Times Opinion piece  – Mr Justice Ryan’s report does not suggest that this abuse was as bad as most of us suspected. It shows that it was worse. It may indeed have been even worse than the report actually finds – there are indications that “the level of sexual abuse in boys’ institutions was much higher than was revealed by the records or could be discovered by this investigation”.

The Catholic League reaction – The Irish report suffers from conflating minor instances of abuse with serious ones, thus demeaning the latter. When most people hear of the term abuse, they do not think about being slapped, being chilly, being ignored or, for that matter, having someone stare at you in the shower.

Timing is interesting. Markham Nolan blogged about, well, bloggers being used and abused by marketing types and quoted the example of The Big Switch outreach done by Bord Gáis electricity. Go read it and come back. This post is my comment as he “plucked out” a comment I left and given that I’ve been named, I’m not intending to be shamed.

(I have shame, don’t use it much)

The rest of this post is the comment I left…

I think I need to defend myself after you “plucked me out”.

I’ll go with this one example of the Bord Gáis meetup. This wasn’t a scheme dreamt up by a PR firm, this was Bord Gáis doing it themselves. All the bloggers that attended did so out of curiosity. None of us knew what it was going in.

If we did, I suspect a different group of bloggers would have shown up.

If you want bloggers, ask bloggers who blog about your area. For the event the ideal group would be business bloggers, consumer affairs bloggers, green affairs bloggers. Oddly enough marketing and advertising bloggers would have been interested too.

Or to put it another way, would you invite a music journalist to the launch of a new cheese? (No jokes please)

I know that not everyone who attended blogged about it (yet at any rate). I know that it ended up being one of my longer posts.
From what I can tell, it was the first attempt at blogger outreach (not just their first attempt, but THE first attempt following the Collision Course).

Lots of information was freely given. It was interesting to see a “grown up” product that few would describe as “sexy” being used for outreach. Things are changing in the marketplace, bloggers may be invited to more, but that is no guarantee of a write up, let along a favourable one.

The early inviter will get the “well they invited us” posts, but if it becomes more commonplace, the “I was there” won’t be blogged. The “I’m interested in this topic, give me the info” will take over. After all, most (if not all) Irish bloggers are amateurs.  They have work, school or other duties in the mornings. They can’t attend a day-time press conference (or film screening). They don’t all live in Dublin (interesting to see how many of these things will take place in Cork, Galway, Kilkenny or Limerick). And bloggers are under no real obligation. A day without posting isn’t going to cause much harm. Not the same can be said about mainstream media.

Or to use your analogy, the swarm of locusts may find the field is empty when they get there.

Of course, locust only swarm then their serotonin levels increase. That’s the happy chemical of the brain.

Who says that bloggers make a happy meal?

take care,

Will Knott

Before you go to a Twestival, how should you keep an eye out for your friends off Twitter? Well, why not wear your Twitter friends? (yes that does sound like a very bad superhero team).

Wear their faces on your chest. (eewww) OK, pictures of their faces. Better? Or have their mug on your mug.

Walter Higgins at Sxoop (pronounced Skoop, or Scoop) is a image manipulation software developer for a a while now. The headlined Pixenate, an online photo editor, is integrated on many sites worldwide. He also has a history of making image manipulation tools for Twitter. He’s responsible for all the Santa hats this Christmas, and he’s brought out something new, the Twitter Mosaic.

You tell it your Twitter user name (no need for a password) and it generates a mosaic of all your twitter friends or followers. A big image. This can be turned into Mugs, T-Shirts and Bags.

All of this is made possible because of Web2.0 and the philosophy of open APIs (both Twitter’s and Zazzle’s). What has been done recently at http://sxoop.com/twitter/ simply wouldn’t have been possible a few short years ago. Needless to say, these APIs are being battered at the moment. Walter has more details on how to get things running quickly too and the end products seem to be reviewed very well.

So you can create a physical social (media) object and drink to the health of your fellow Tweeters from a Twitter Mosaic mug  (hopefully full of  clean water thanks to Charity:Water) and wear your friends in public.

The Twitter Mosaic is indeed the beneficiary of a Tuesday Push, so soon after demoing it at the Cork Open Coffee Club. And yes I got to know Walter through the Open Coffee movement. However its a cool idea, a great set of products and it since to see someone in Ireland making money in there times. And making money while Twitter is still trying out how.

take care,

Will Knott

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Get your twitter mosaic here.

On Thursday February 12, there is going to be a party, a tweet-up, a Twestival.

The difference between a normal tweet-up and a twestival is that the date is global (there are currently over 100 happening in cites worldwide). And its going to cost you money. All the “entry fees” collected are going to go towards a charity, charity:water.

It hasn’t been in the pipeline for long; in just one month, from volunteer effort alone Twestival has created events in 175+ cities, predicted to raise $1 million for the 1.1billion people in the world who can’t access clean drinking water. Growing beyond all expectations since launching in January 2009, Twestival takes place for 24 hours on February 12th, everywhere including London, Paris, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Austin, San Francisco, Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, Dublin, Munich, Amsterdam, Bangalore, Melbourne, Lima, as up to 20,000 come together inspired by community and charity.  Read the full press release for the global effort, but nearer to home…

(Search Twitter in Ireland only for Twestival)

The Dublin Twestival is in The Sycamore Club, No 9 Sycamore Street, Temple Bar , Dublin 2 and Is being put together by Aido McMahon, Anton Mannering, Debbiemet, Qamir Hussain and others. Given the musical talent on offer; there will be dancing (help).

The Belfast Twestival is in Laverys Bunker from 8pm – 10.30pm (currently before Radiation / Laverys DJs, changed from the earler venue) and is organised by Andy (Good On Paper) McMillan and Phil (Iced Coffee) O’Kane.

There are a lot more. If you’d like to help in a volunteerism role with any kind of Twestival organization, wherever you are, get in touch with Amanda Rose or Jaz Cummins. For updates, follow @twestival on Twitter.

I’m going to be at the Dublin one, are you going?

take care,

Will

Jennifer Connelly in charity: water Public Service Announcement from charity: water on Vimeo.

Twestival from charity: water on Vimeo.
Thanks to Neville Hobson for being the first to tell be about it.

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I think the Media Virgins put it succinctly. “Before you fully commit yourself to a social networking site I think that it is a good idea to listen in on what is being said. The same idea goes when you are deciding which people to follow.”

And so it is with IGOPeople.com, the latest company being promoted in the revamped “Tuesday Push“.

The I, G and O of IGOPeople stands for Individuals, Groups and Organisations. The idea is that this is a network for real people. Not the social media elite (both of them) nor is it aimed at the youth market. The idea behind this site is that it allows individuals to contact organisations (mostly businesses, but there are a few charities in there too) and have the feed back in the public domain. It also allows for groups to form.

Groups like the proposed OpenCoffee Kilkenny. Groups like the DellCamp project to get things going in Limerick (and surrounds again).

Of the companies in there, its not just the technical ones like Blacknight and Eircom nor those using social media in other aspects like FBD and Vodaphone (who are running free top up offers) but accountants, recruitment companies and sellers of waterproof childrens clothing (who have their own special offer on IGOPeople).

This Irish company is paying attention to its users. Thy will take and act on suggestions. Its a tightly wel run (and threaded messaged) ship.

I joined it very early on, but I’m still listening. I’ve said this to the founder, Campbell Scott, I can see the appeal, but I just don’t get it.

Yet.

I’m still listening,

Will Knott

So the PR / Bloggers conference took place in Edelman PR. And I’ve seen Alastair McDermott blog post on how a PR pitch should be a social exchange, Rick O’Shea blog on the difference between his media head and his blogger head when approached, Peter Donegan on how blogging is about passion and why you need to be careful with passion. Eoin Kennedy gives a nice concise summary of the event, Christian Hughes’ is even shorter and different, while future PR star Thomas Brunkard gives a different account of the night.

Much thanks need to be given to Damien Mulley and Edelman PR Dublin for orginasing the night, and to Donnchadh O’Leary, Piaras Kelly and Alexia Golez who blogged on how its better to learn about bloggers by trying it out for yourself. In fact most of this post began life as a comment on her blog (so sorry if you’ve read it before).

The unasked advice I would give to PR people is:

Think of bloggers in the same way a journalist thinks of contacts. This contact is the go-to girl for tech related matters. This contact is the go-to guy for music.
That type of thing.

While forming a media list may be “monkey work”, a targeted media / house list is worth its PR weight in gold.

Remember : For us its a hobby, not a job. Few bloggers want to become journalists, those that do already are journalists in their day job.

The professional media expect to be contacted with something thy are not interested in. Some spent their careers writing about stuff they aren’t interested in.

Bloggers have the freedom to write about what interests us. Its “our view”.

Things that may help both sides.
1) Introduce yourself and ASK.

If we bloggers were looking for a contact in X then chances are we would tweet it first and see what happens.

Of course we are following a lot of conversations.
Join in.
Babble.
I’d suggest you mention Collision Course in your first tweet before you “follow” anyone. Most (all) of us look to see “who is this person following me”. Of the 15 there on the night, I think most of us will follow back.
Just let us know who you are first.

Then ask…

E.g.
Would anyone like to go to the launch of the new Orange Tea Box on Tuesday at 8pm.
Or
Could you suggest any bloggers interested in Orange Tea
(I hope that there isn’t an Orange Tea at this point)

You’ll get a few time wasters, but not too many. And you might get a good contact for that one.

But joining Twitter and just tweeting without following anyone will not get noticed. Look up “Network Effect” to see why twitter seems to work.

Get to know twitter clients (software applications) and search.twitter.com.

By the way, Bloggers aren’t looking for freebies. Most are looking for information. If blogger X writes about Tea, they will want to know all about Orange Tea. No freebies needed (unless you count images they can used and information as a freebie).

On that note, if you find that a blogger has blogged about Red tea, see if (s)he has contact details on their blog ans ask, if the blogger would be interested in the forthcoming Orange Tea. No press release, no clips.
Just your details, and why you’re mailing them.

It doesn’t smell like spam, because it isn’t. They may e-mail back abuse, they might accept.

Time consuming. Yes. Cost high.
Potential rewards, higher.

2) Don’t spam…
If you got someone for Orange Tea, they may be interested in Yellow Coffee.
ASK.
But that does not mean they want to be contacted for Blue Cars.
The Blue Cars mail would look like spam. A mail with “I see you were interested in Tea, could I interest you in coffee” wouldn’t. (It does sound automated, but you get my point).
Besides, you’re asking.
You’ve formed a relationship with the blogger, don’t destroy it really quickly.

However…
If you have formed a relationship, asking if they know someone interested in Blue Cars isn’t that spammy. Bloggers tend not to hoard information, if we did, we wouldn’t blog.
I’ve passed on info to people I know who blog about stuff (or are just friends interested in things).

But ask.

3) Read Blogs.
If you invite bloggers to do something, you should have read their blogs first.

Read other blogs. I know, long and boring work but look at what you are interested in only (at first). There are blogs about everything under the sun (and a few things that aren’t). Blogs on Make up. Blogs on Man U. Blogs on cars. Blogs on caravans. Blogs on rashers.

Blogs on PR.

Look at things. Get to know a feed reader.
This is a slow step. If you need a hand to hold, see step 1 to find one.

4) Audio blogs / podcasts
Listen to how others have done it.
F.I.R (For immediate Release, the Hobson and Holtz Report) is the big daddy in this arena. It’s also 90 mins long and twice a week.

For lighter listening, I’d suggest
“Media driving” or “Marketing Over Coffee”
Yes their focus is different, but they are short. Media Driving is 10 mins, Marketing over Coffee is rarely 30 mins. And only once a week. Think commute times.

They suggest others to listen to as well.

5) Join in.

You might be happy with twitter/facebook/linkedin/justsomerandomsite but by blogging (maybe blogging on PR/Shoes/Cars/Tea) you’ll see why.
For us its a hobby, not a job.
It’s called passion.

Do it yourself. If you can, say what you are working on. If not, blog on what you care about.

And finally…

The Irish blogging community is, surprisingly, a community.
I don’t know anyone who would visit me in hospital via blogs; but its happened (remembering tweets and people dropping food parcels off to people stuck on Casualty trolleys). Wandering up to a random person in a community centre and pitching to them is, well, silly.
Remember that when you want to talk to us.

Its better to ask for permission as a backlash is too late to ask for forgiveness (examples were given in the meeting).

Once we get to know you, we’ll let you screw up.

take care,

Will Knott

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• Collision ahead

Young LeCraic had this bright idea… lets do a Irish Bloggers Christkindl. So I signed up and got something in the post.

“Please come to the sorting office”. After a nice chat with the sorting office people (where either they will leave stuff on my doorstep, or I’m showing up at 6.30am when they arrive at the office and I have to get a bus. I also got a package (censored below).

And inside the package was another package.

I know that sounds like a joke, but I wrapped my present too.
So knock knock open wide

Its a food package!
And a card (which the secret person signed, I won’t reveal him/her unless (s)he asks).
And the decapitated heads of endangered Swedish puppets.

And a crystal tree decoration which was promptly hung with great care and love

Hiding underneath the puppet carnage was the “Blackbird” album by One Day International. Oddly this arrived just when Darragh Doyle posted his interview with One Day International. Synchronous timing like this happens a lot. Lots of good things have been heard about this and there will be a review. Eventually.

Sadly I know I’ll be playing with the Titta heads for the next while.

But for the season they will be placed in another tree

take care,
Will Knott

I took a little too long with this, and with a question.

Joel Drapper of ProTwitter posed a question.

“What is twitter? How would you describe it? Because it is not just answering the question “What are you doing?”

Twitter technically is simply a means of communication. Its a giant instant message tool which is always on. You can choose to follow the messages (called tweets). Others can choose to follow your messages. There is a method to send private messages, but (unless you choose the option to only allow people you follow to see your messages) all your messages are public.

Its like holding a conversation with someone on the other side of the room by shouting to each other. Anyone can choose to listen.

I posed a different question based around how people use it. My plan was to simply collect information about twitter clients based on the observation that there were so many out there. My survey posed 4 questions.

1. How do you use Twitter (or more to the point, how do you access Twitter to post comments or to read answers)?
2. If you use an interface to read and/or post to post to twitter, (other than for mobile access) why do you use it? (Do you gain some benefit using this interface, if so, what?)
3. How many people do you follow?
4. How did you check the above figure?

A far more clinical set of questions.

But two things happened.

Firstly, TweetRush released a “by client” set of stats, where I could see some of the data I was looking for.

and secondly, While I asked some clinical “what” questions, I also recieved some non-clinical “why” answers.

I’ll go through my data analysis in a later post, but I wan to comment on the “why”s.

People communicate. Its possible that some areas of our brain evolved differently because of communications, and given our abilities to read expressions (and see faces out of random patterns) it seems clear that our desire to be with someone is something what drives us.

What does a tweet do. It (somewhat) reassures us that another person is there. A constant flow of messages via Twitter indicates that people we care (enough to follow) are still out there. Conversations aside, a tweet (or Jaiku or Pownce or Facebook / linkedIn status message) is simple a status update.

“I’m having coffee”

“The food here is terrible”

“Its wonderful here”

“I’m alive”

ping

ack

Twitter is a communications channel. Tweets are important messages. Mundane sometimes (“I’m finally home”), but important to someone (“He’s finally home; I was worried”).

In short, the importance is not the medium, or the message; but the messages themselves.

Anyway, the slides from my presentation on November 1 are included below, and I’ll talk about my findings of the statistics in my next post.

Take care,
Will Knott