On the rise of autoposting to Twitter

Increasingly more services are making it dead simple to autopost everything you're doing/watching/buying/consuming directly to Twitter, real-time and in the moment.

I can't help but feel that this predicts a ridiculous future for a platform built around 'conversation.'

This is mostly because I started to imagine what Twitter streams would look like if they were nothing but autoposts.

After thinking this out loud, Daria had a response to share: 

I almost want to say "true, but I just don't think stuff like 'hey everyone I just beat the ice level [posted via Xbox Live]' counts as 'interesting enough'," but the tricky part about talking about how we all use Twitter or any network is that we all use them so differently. That is to say, I can imagine the scenario where someone sees that their friend is playing some game they've considered playing, and now considers playing it themselves knowing that their friend is on it too.

I also got this thought from thepeopleseason:

 

Which reminds me of a conversation I was having yesterday with thegirlriot. Ultimately I believe that when it comes to things like Twitter, or marketing, or pretty much anything that involves being a person who interacts with other people, there's a right way to do things and there's a wrong way to do things. And I don't mean this in an objective, specific kind of way, I more mean it in a ''there are people doing it right, and then there are douchebags" kind of way.

Ultimately I think that you can have a worthwhile conversation over Twitter, but some people are definitely doing it wrong. Certainly not to the same extent that you can have a face-to-face conversation, but in terms of using the right different channels to express different ideas, there's definitely a way to do it right on Twitter.

I can't help but feel that if your entire stream is 'I'm doing X' 'I'm doing Y' 'I'm doing Z' and you're not even there....well what's the point? It's like seeing someone whose entire stream is a push from their blog (...why don't I just go to your blog?), except that where someone (might) want to know what you're thinking and sharing, no one cares about everything you're doing doing except you.

In the end, the whole douchebag/not a douchebag thing isn't too hard to figure out; the line exists somewhere in the realm of 'how much you're actively sharing with/helping other people vs how much you're just talking about yourself.'

(And all this doesn't even touch autoposting leading to convergence with respect to the idea using different platforms for different purposes, which is an entirely different conversation itself...)

"twitter integration" do's and dont's: extension vs. rehash

I saw this headline show up in my feed reader the other day, from PSFK:

Video Game To Feature Twitter Integration

Which got me excited immediately, until I clicked through to find the following image:

Imagine my disappointment when I found that the game Uncharted:2's idea of 'Twitter Integration' is essentially just 'cramming as many publicity-seeking updates into the tweet pool as possible." While investigating some more thoughts, I ran into a Flavorwire post on 5 Appliances That Desperately Need Twitter Integration. It's humorous, and describes notification services that some appliances really could use (read: in the future, will use), but I don't think Twitter is the right medium in any of the above cases; text and iphone push notifications go over much better. Think of the difference this way: Twitter is a collective medium, one that thrives off of thoughts and messages that benefit the community. Imagine what the tweet pool would look like updated every time someone's coffee was done or notified that their laundry was ready to turn over.

 

"Twitter Integration' can and should mean so much more. My initial excitement conjured thoughts of Twitter acting as a medium to extend the game experience, not just rehash it. We haven't seen any truly great executions along these lines but I think we're on the verge of seeing some. These extensions will fit into the natural flow of how we use Twitter; some thoughts might be around the idea of extending the game experience with in-game NPC's personified out-of-game with their own Twitter accounts, providing critical game information.

In fact: consider this. What if a console game relied on Twitter extensions of in-game characters, such that in order to truly follow and progress through the game you had to actively engage with these out-of-game Twitter characters? This might only work if the game is orchestrated as a limited-time window of opportunity for playing, so the replay value of the game would be limited as well, but it'd be one heck of an experience for everyone who was on board.

Thoughts?? Would you play?? Have you seen examples of truly excellent Twitter integration?

Cisco/@theconnor, safe spaces, and eternal/ephemeral thoughts

Today I ran into the Cisco/@theconnor story, summed up nicely by Oliver over at the The BrandBuilder Blog:

1. @theconnor gets job with Cisco.

2. @theconnor posts less than enthused opinion about the Cisco job on Twitter (actually naming Cisco as the new employer).

3. Cisco employee on Twitter spots the post and promptly responds.

4. @theconnor blocks her Twitter updates (hides them from public view)... but it’s too late. The damage is done, and he probably spends most of the day wondering if Cisco will now rethink its job offer.

This is certainly not the first time this kind of thing has come up (re: FedEx and @keyinfluencer), because it reflects an idea that's becoming increasingly more true: online, everything is archived - instantly and forever. And anyone can/will find it, eventually.

I've had a few related thoughts recently on some of the emerging implications of collecting more and more of "all the worlds people and information together at our fingertips."

This is one of the most salient ones, that there are fewer and fewer "safe spaces" for expressing thoughts and feelings online (ask any teen who's gone from myspace to facebook to twitter to ??? as their parents follow suit).

Particularly relevant here: as the amount of exposure of any particular phrase increases throughout the net, so does the capacity for the phrase to be taken completely out of context.

Not that this is at all an attempt to argue the case that @theconnor should be shown some understanding, it is more an attempt to get a glimpse of how our actions, behaviors, beliefs and social norms will adjust over time to the inevitability of this massive public forum where context is non-existent that we're inching our way towards.

Where will we go to make a comment that is anything less than glowing about someone/something/somewhere without fear of the hammers coming down when the people close to those things inevitably catch wind of it? Will this kind of speech just go away? (ha. not likely.)

Will we develop more efficient methods for clarifying/expressing our true feelings? (waiting for the "lol the following is a joke, if you take it seriously it's probably because we're in no way close enough to understand each other, hey how about we go get a drink I know this place you'll probably like" emoticon/convention to emerge/catch on)

In a world where written statements are increasingly more permanent and pervasive: will we be able to recognize individual statements as one of infinitely many in a persons' life?

Not to long ago I started asking: "what is it that we'll be nostalgic for, 25 years from now?"

One answer that's starting to look good: "that time long ago when we could share thoughts online and have them exist as they do in our heads: temporary, changing, and subject to many more fleeting influences than permanent ones."

(btw it'd probably do you well to read Connor's thoughts as well.)

specific vs general, conversation, and TwitterHawk

"

I was watching this interesting conversation between Seth Godin and Loic Le Meur re: specific vs general approaches to marketing posted today. (if nothing else get to approx 4:50 or so with Loic Le Meur: "ehh we don't do any marketing, because then boring people come [to our conferences]" ha). Among plenty of other things, it got me thinking about that necessary balance between reaching the right people, and being able to efficiently find where those people are. I'm thinking that in some sense, that's going to mean talking to a lot of the wrong people, no?

I also today ran into the automated-twitter-response service TwitterHawk (and their necessarily strong anti-spam stance, having hit the scene in the wake of similar attempts from the likes of Magpie et al). It seems to me that finding the right 1000 people undoubtedly takes a lot of time and effort; TwitterHawk's approach is clearly to curb some of that load. My question is - to what extent is that effort an essential part of solid conversation-based marketing? My suspicion is that it is a lot more critical that automated-conversation services would have us think.

At first glance, TwitterHawk has a glimmer of potential but ultimately, successful use of the service would be dependent on crafting the right questions and the right search queries. And probably to the point that you'd be spending the same amount of effort having real conversations anyway. After all, even if you craft the right conversation starter with me at the right time, the first place I'm going is to your twitter profile, right? And if you're not having these real conversations, I'm just going to see a bunch of canned TwitterHawk @ replies.

What's your take - do you think there's something to say for efficient use of time/effort in determining where those key 1000 people are? Do you still see Magpie around (I don't)? Do you forsee any interesting/successful uses of TwitterHawk?

EDIT: btw I asked Seth himself too, and got a personal gem of wisdom in response - "I think that when you replace the huge marketing system with the elegance of what we have now, you still have to work really hard. Just on different things."

control, branding, and @theBKlounge

So there's a well-thought out (and oft hilarious) reveal of the @theBKlounge project written by Indiana-University-student-turned-brand-hijacker Caleb Kramer that's hit the press today.

What I find most interesting is that the project reflects the all-too-often-forgotten truth that we have control over what we build/present to the world, but no control over what people do with/take out of it.

Where Caleb's original intent was:

"I thought, how cool would it be if Burger King created a Twitter account called theBKlounge? Users could tweet “@theBKlounge” every time they visited the restaurant."

the end result was a much different beast.

In the comments, there's a good piece where he talks about being followed by creatives at CP+B. An excellent thought about the true nature of transparency and control comes to mind, because it begs the question: to what extent can BK / CP+B / anybody truly have control over brands/characters that are so easily hijacked?

But actually... this isn't really an "easy" task, right? Do a quick search for any number of branded characters (@ronaldmcdonald came to mind, appropriately enough) and you'll find that a good many of them have zero to few followers.

It's not about just taking the name, it's about doing it well.

The conversation of late seems to be "the task is no longer to manage the brand, rather to guide it" (Kelley Mooney's The Open Brand is a great read on this). And that's exactly what has happened here. Caleb's project has become less an act of thievery and more an extension of the brand, by necessity guided by the rules that the BK brand has laid down well in advance. If he didn't play by those rules, he would never have seen the same kind of results, right?

If there's a lesson for brands here somewhere, I think that's where it can be found: brand "creators" still have a great responsibility in being the rule-setters and ultimately the brand's foundation. Users can take it wherever they want, but they've got to start somewhere.

Were you following @theBKlounge? What other hijacked faves do you guys have?