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Social Networks and Microblogging

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Microblogging (Laconica, Twitter, etc.) is still a hot topic. For instance, during the past few episodes of This Week in Tech, comments were made about the preponderance of Twitter as a discussion theme: microblogging is so prominent on that show that some people complain that there’s too much talk about Twitter. Given the centrality of Leo Laporte’s podcast in geek culture (among Anglos, at least), such comments are significant.

The context for the latest comments about TWiT coverage of Twitter had to do with Twitter’s financials: during this financial crisis, Twitter is given funding without even asking for it. While it may seem surprising at first, given the fact that Twitter hasn’t publicized a business plan and doesn’t appear to be profitable at this time, 

Along with social networking, microblogging is even discussed in mainstream media. For instance, Médialogues (a media critique on Swiss national radio) recently had a segment about both Facebook and Twitter. Just yesterday, Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart made fun of compulsive twittering and mainstream media coverage of Twitter (original, Canadian access).

Clearly, microblogging is getting some mindshare.

What the future holds for microblogging is clearly uncertain. Anything can happen. My guess is that microblogging will remain important for a while (at least a few years) but that it will transform itself rather radically. Chances are that other platforms will have microblogging features (something Facebook can do with status updates and something Automattic has been trying to do with some WordPress themes). In these troubled times, Montreal startup Identi.ca received some funding to continue developing its open microblogging platform.  Jaiku, bought by Google last year, is going open source, which may be good news for microblogging in general. Twitter itself might maintain its “marketshare” or other players may take over. There’s already a large number of third-party tools and services making use of Twitter, from Mahalo Answers to Remember the Milk, Twistory to TweetDeck.

Together, these all point to the current importance of microblogging and the potential for further development in that sphere. None of this means that microblogging is “The Next Big Thing.” But it’s reasonable to expect that microblogging will continue to grow in use.

(Those who are trying to grok microblogging, Common Craft’s Twitter in Plain English video is among the best-known descriptions of Twitter and it seems like an efficient way to “get the idea.”)

One thing which is rarely mentioned about microblogging is the prominent social structure supporting it. Like “Social Networking Systems” (LinkedIn, Facebook, Ning, MySpace…), microblogging makes it possible for people to “connect” to one another (as contacts/acquaintances/friends). Like blogs, microblogging platforms make it possible to link to somebody else’s material and get notifications for some of these links (a bit like pings and trackbacks). Like blogrolls, microblogging systems allow for lists of “favourite authors.” Unlike Social Networking Systems but similar to blogrolls, microblogging allow for asymmetrical relations, unreciprocated links: if I like somebody’s microblogging updates, I can subscribe to those (by “following” that person) and publicly show my appreciation of that person’s work, regardless of whether or not this microblogger likes my own updates.

There’s something strangely powerful there because it taps the power of social networks while avoiding tricky issues of reciprocity, “confidentiality,” and “intimacy.”

From the end user’s perspective, microblogging contacts may be easier to establish than contacts through Facebook or Orkut. From a social science perspective, microblogging links seem to approximate some of the fluidity found in social networks, without adding much complexity in the description of the relationships. Subscribing to someone’s updates gives me the role of “follower” with regards to that person. Conversely, those I follow receive the role of “following” (“followee” would seem logical, given the common “-er”/”-ee” pattern). The following and follower roles are complementary but each is sufficient by itself as a useful social link.

Typically, a microblogging system like Twitter or Identi.ca qualifies two-way connections as “friendship” while one-way connections could be labelled as “fandom” (if Andrew follows Betty’s updates but Betty doesn’t follow Andrew’s, Andrew is perceived as one of Betty’s “fans”). Profiles on microblogging systems are relatively simple and public, allowing for low-involvement online “presence.” As long as updates are kept public, anybody can connect to anybody else without even needing an introduction. In fact, because microblogging systems send notifications to users when they get new followers (through email and/or SMS), subscribing to someone’s update is often akin to introducing yourself to that person. 

Reciprocating is the object of relatively intense social pressure. A microblogger whose follower:following ratio is far from 1:1 may be regarded as either a snob (follower:following much higher than 1:1) or as something of a microblogging failure (follower:following much lower than 1:1). As in any social context, perceived snobbery may be associated with sophistication but it also carries opprobrium. Perry Belcher  made a video about what he calls “Twitter Snobs” and some French bloggers have elaborated on that concept. (Some are now claiming their right to be Twitter Snobs.) Low follower:following ratios can result from breach of etiquette (for instance, ostentatious self-promotion carried beyond the accepted limit) or even non-human status (many microblogging accounts are associated to “bots” producing automated content).

The result of the pressure for reciprocation is that contacts are reciprocated regardless of personal relations.  Some users even set up ways to automatically follow everyone who follows them. Despite being tricky, these methods escape the personal connection issue. Contrary to Social Networking Systems (and despite the term “friend” used for reciprocated contacts), following someone on a microblogging service implies little in terms of friendship.

One reason I personally find this fascinating is that specifying personal connections has been an important part of the development of social networks online. For instance, long-defunct SixDegrees.com (one of the earliest Social Networking Systems to appear online) required of users that they specified the precise nature of their relationship to users with whom they were connected. Details escape me but I distinctly remember that acquaintances, colleagues, and friends were distinguished. If I remember correctly, only one such personal connection was allowed for any pair of users and this connection had to be confirmed before the two users were linked through the system. Facebook’s method to account for personal connections is somewhat more sophisticated despite the fact that all contacts are labelled as “friends” regardless of the nature of the connection. The uniform use of the term “friend” has been decried by many public commentators of Facebook (including in the United States where “friend” is often applied to any person with whom one is simply on friendly terms).

In this context, the flexibility with which microblogging contacts are made merits consideration: by allowing unidirectional contacts, microblogging platforms may have solved a tricky social network problem. And while the strength of the connection between two microbloggers is left unacknowledged, there are several methods to assess it (for instance through replies and republished updates).

Social contacts are the very basis of social media. In this case, microblogging represents a step towards both simplified and complexified social contacts.

Which leads me to the theme which prompted me to start this blogpost: event-based microblogging.

I posted the following blog entry (in French) about event-based microblogging, back in November.

Microblogue d’événement

I haven’t received any direct feedback on it and the topic seems to have little echoes in the social media sphere.

During the last PodMtl meeting on February 18, I tried to throw my event-based microblogging idea in the ring. This generated a rather lengthy between a friend and myself. (Because I don’t want to put words in this friend’s mouth, who happens to be relatively high-profile, I won’t mention this friend’s name.) This friend voiced several objections to my main idea and I got to think about this basic notion a bit further. At the risk of sounding exceedingly opinionated, I must say that my friend’s objections actually comforted me in the notion that my “event microblog” idea makes a lot of sense.

The basic idea is quite simple: microblogging instances tied to specific events. There are technical issues in terms of hosting and such but I’m mostly thinking about associating microblogs and events.

What I had in mind during the PodMtl discussion has to do with grouping features, which are often requested by Twitter users (including by Perry Belcher who called out Twitter Snobs). And while I do insist on events as a basis for those instances (like groups), some of the same logic applies to specific interests. However, given the time-sensitivity of microblogging, I still think that events are more significant in this context than interests, however defined.

In the PodMtl discussion, I frequently referred to BarCamp-like events (in part because my friend and interlocutor had participated in a number of such events). The same concept applies to any event, including one which is just unfolding (say, assassination of Guinea-Bissau’s president or bombings in Mumbai).

Microblogging users are expected to think about “hashtags,” those textual labels preceded with the ‘#’ symbol which are meant to categorize microblogging updates. But hashtags are problematic on several levels.

  • They require preliminary agreement among multiple microbloggers, a tricky proposition in any social media. “Let’s use #Bissau09. Everybody agrees with that?” It can get ugly and, even if it doesn’t, the process is awkward (especially for new users).
  • Even if agreement has been reached, there might be discrepancies in the way hashtags are typed. “Was it #TwestivalMtl or #TwestivalMontreal, I forgot.”
  • In terms of language economy, it’s unsurprising that the same hashtag would be used for different things. Is “#pcmtl” about Podcamp Montreal, about personal computers in Montreal, about PCM Transcoding Library…?
  • Hashtags are frequently misunderstood by many microbloggers. Just this week, a tweep of mine (a “peep” on Twitter) asked about them after having been on Twitter for months.
  • While there are multiple ways to track hashtags (including through SMS, in some regions), there is no way to further specify the tracked updates (for instance, by user).
  • The distinction between a hashtag and a keyword is too subtle to be really useful. Twitter Search, for instance, lumps the two together.
  • Hashtags take time to type. Even if microbloggers aren’t necessarily typing frantically, the time taken to type all those hashtags seems counterproductive and may even distract microbloggers.
  • Repetitively typing the same string is a very specific kind of task which seems to go against the microblogging ethos, if not the cognitive processes associated with microblogging.
  • The number of character in a hashtag decreases the amount of text in every update. When all you have is 140 characters at a time, the thirteen characters in “#TwestivalMtl” constitute almost 10% of your update.
  • If the same hashtag is used by a large number of people, the visual effect can be that this hashtag is actually dominating the microblogging stream. Since there currently isn’t a way to ignore updates containing a certain hashtag, this effect may even discourage people from using a microblogging service.

There are multiple solutions to these issues, of course. Some of them are surely discussed among developers of microblogging systems. And my notion of event-specific microblogs isn’t geared toward solving these issues. But I do think separate instances make more sense than hashtags, especially in terms of specific events.

My friend’s objections to my event microblogging idea had something to do with visibility. It seems that this friend wants all updates to be visible, regardless of the context. While I don’t disagree with this, I would claim that it would still be useful to “opt out” of certain discussions when people we follow are involved. If I know that Sean is participating in a PHP conference and that most of his updates will be about PHP for a period of time, I would enjoy the possibility to hide PHP-related updates for a specific period of time. The reason I talk about this specific case is simple: a friend of mine has manifested some frustration about the large number of updates made by participants in Podcamp Montreal (myself included). Partly in reaction to this, he stopped following me on Twitter and only resumed following me after Podcamp Montreal had ended. In this case, my friend could have hidden Podcamp Montreal updates and still have received other updates from the same microbloggers.

To a certain extent, event-specific instances are a bit similar to “rooms” in MMORPG and other forms of real-time many-to-many text-based communication such as the nostalgia-inducing Internet Relay Chat. Despite Dave Winer’s strong claim to the contrary (and attempt at defining microblogging away from IRC), a microblogging instance could, in fact, act as a de facto chatroom. When such a structure is needed. Taking advantage of the work done in microblogging over the past year (which seems to have advanced more rapidly than work on chatrooms has, during the past fifteen years). Instead of setting up an IRC channel, a Web-based chatroom, or even a session on MSN Messenger, users could use their microblogging platform of choice and either decide to follow all updates related to a given event or simply not “opt-out” of following those updates (depending on their preferences). Updates related to multiple events are visible simultaneously (which isn’t really the case with IRC or chatrooms) and there could be ways to make event-specific updates more prominent. In fact, there would be easy ways to keep real-time statistics of those updates and get a bird’s eye view of those conversations.

And there’s a point about event-specific microblogging which is likely to both displease “alpha geeks” and convince corporate users: updates about some events could be “protected” in the sense that they would not appear in the public stream in realtime. The simplest case for this could be a company-wide meeting during which backchannel is allowed and even expected “within the walls” of the event. The “nothing should leave this room” attitude seems contradictory to social media in general, but many cases can be made for “confidential microblogging.” Microblogged conversations can easily be archived and these archives could be made public at a later date. Event-specific microblogging allows for some control of the “permeability” of the boundaries surrounding the event. “But why would people use microblogging instead of simply talking to another?,” you ask. Several quick answers: participants aren’t in the same room, vocal communication is mostly single-channel, large groups of people are unlikely to communicate efficiently through oral means only, several things are more efficiently done through writing, written updates are easier to track and archive…

There are many other things I’d like to say about event-based microblogging but this post is already long. There’s one thing I want to explain, which connects back to the social network dimension of microblogging.

Events can be simplistically conceived as social contexts which bring people together. (Yes, duh!) Participants in a given event constitute a “community of experience” regardless of the personal connections between them. They may be strangers, ennemies, relatives, acquaintances, friends, etc. But they all share something. “Participation,” in this case, can be relatively passive and the difference between key participants (say, volunteers and lecturers in a conference) and attendees is relatively moot, at a certain level of analysis. The key, here, is the set of connections between people at the event.

These connections are a very powerful component of social networks. We typically meet people through “events,” albeit informal ones. Some events are explicitly meant to connect people who have something in common. In some circles, “networking” refers to something like this. The temporal dimension of social connections is an important one. By analogy to philosophy of language, the “first meeting” (and the set of “first impressions”) constitute the “baptism” of the personal (or social) connection. In social media especially, the nature of social connections tends to be monovalent enough that this “baptism event” gains special significance.

The online construction of social networks relies on a finite number of dimensions, including personal characteristics described in a profile, indirect connections (FOAF), shared interests, textual content, geographical location, and participation in certain activities. Depending on a variety of personal factors, people may be quite inclusive or rather exclusive, based on those dimensions. “I follow back everyone who lives in Austin” or “Only people I have met in person can belong to my inner circle.” The sophistication with which online personal connections are negotiated, along such dimensions, is a thing of beauty. In view of this sophistication, tools used in social media seem relatively crude and underdeveloped.

Going back to the (un)conference concept, the usefulness of having access to a list of all participants in a given event seems quite obvious. In an open event like BarCamp, it could greatly facilitate the event’s logistics. In a closed event with paid access, it could be linked to registration (despite geek resistance, closed events serve a purpose; one could even imagine events where attendance is free but the microblogging backchannel incurs a cost). In some events, everybody would be visible to everybody else. In others, there could be a sort of ACL for diverse types of participants. In some cases, people could be allowed to “lurk” without being seen while in others radically transparency could be enforced. For public events with all participants visible, lists of participants could be archived and used for several purposes (such as assessing which sessions in a conference are more popular or “tracking” event regulars).

One reason I keep thinking about event-specific microblogging is that I occasionally use microblogging like others use business cards. In a geek crowd, I may ask for someone’s Twitter username in order to establish a connection with that person. Typically, I will start following that person on Twitter and find opportunities to communicate with that person later on. Given the possibility for one-way relationships, it establishes a social connection without requiring personal involvement. In fact, that person may easily ignore me without the danger of a face threat.

If there were event-specific instances from microblogging platforms, we could manage connections and profiles in a more sophisticated way. For instance, someone could use a barebones profile for contacts made during an impersonal event and a full-fledged profile for contacts made during a more “intimate” event. After noticing a friend using an event-specific business card with an event-specific email address, I got to think that this event microblogging idea might serve as a way to fill a social need.

 

More than most of my other blogposts, I expect comments on this one. Objections are obviously welcomed, especially if they’re made thoughtfully (like my PodMtl friend made them). Suggestions would be especially useful. Or even questions about diverse points that I haven’t addressed (several of which I can already think about).

So…

 

What do you think of this idea of event-based microblogging? Would you use a microblogging instance linked to an event, say at an unconference? Can you think of fun features an event-based microblogging instance could have? If you think about similar ideas you’ve seen proposed online, care to share some links?

 

Thanks in advance!

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Apps and iTunes Cards in Canada: Follow Up

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Recently blogged about this issue: though information about this appears nowhere on the card or in the terms of service, iTunes Cards (gift cards or certificates) may not be used to purchase applications on the Canadian version of the iTunes Store.

Since I posted that blog entry, a few things have happened. I did receive replies from Apple, which were rather unhelpful. The most useful one was this message:

Hello Alexandre,

I understand and apologize about your situation and i do want to assist you as much as possible . I am going to issue you 10 song credit. Again i apologize and i hope this issue gets resolved. I will also apply feedback about this issue .

Thank you for choosing iTunes Store and have a great day.

Sincerely,

Todd
iTunes Store Customer Support

I had no intention of purchasing tracks on the iTunes Store at this point but I do “appreciate the gesture.” Here’s what I wrote back:

Thanks. I wasn’t planning on downloading songs but I appreciate the gesture.

Not overwhelming gratitude on my part. Simply stating that, though this isn’t appropriate, I can still be polite.

What’s funny is that I received this reply to my simple “thank you” note:

Dear Alexandre,

You’re very welcome. I’m glad to hear that i was able to help some .

Nothing makes Apple happier than to hear that we have pleased our customers. I hope that you continue to enjoy the iTunes Store.

Thank you for choosing iTunes Store and have a great day.

Sincerely,

Todd
iTunes Store Customer Support

From that message, you’d think I had praised the iTunes Store for hours on end.

Just in case it might make a difference, I tried filing another support request. Here’s the reply on that one:

Dear Alexandre,

Welcome to the iTunes Support Site. My name is Staci and I am here to assist you.

Thank you for contacting Apple about the App Store. We’re glad you’re interested in
this new offering.

I’m sorry, but you will not be able to purchase games or applications with store
credit or an iTunes Gift Card in Canada. Customers residing in Canada may only
purchase games and applications using a credit card.

I am confident that the information provided will solve your gift card issue. If
you have further questions, I can be contacted during the hours listed below. Thank
you and have a prosperous New Year.

Sincerely,

Staci
iTunes Stores Customer Support

This one sounds even more like a canned reply and  “the information provided” doesn’t, in fact, “solve [my] gift card issue.”

Clearly, Apple isn’t “doing the right thing.” In terms of customer service, it’s not a positive experience. I did enjoy some aspects of the iTunes Store and I think it’s quite convenient. But I’m not “enjoying the iTunes Store” so much, anymore.

In the meantime, I started receiving comments on my previous blogpost on the issue. One was from someone who purchased a 150$ iTunes Card. Almost as much as the 8GB iPod nano.

Most of the advice given on this issue, outside from Apple’s unhelpful replies, has to do with things which are illicit. One would be to resell tracks purchased with this card to other iTunes users. Since the tracks are now all DRM-free, this is technically feasible. But it’s also illicit and potentially traceable. Another piece of advice, to purchase applications using an iTunes Card, is to buy a card in the US. As far as I know, this is technically doable but it also contradicts Apple terms of service.

Not good solutions, but ones which disgruntled iTunes Card buyers may contemplate.

Since then, I also received a message asking me to complete a survey about my experience with Apple support. Here’s the complaint I included in that survey:

I was given the “runaround” on a very easy issue: I need a refund.
There’s an obvious problem with the fact that iTunes Cards may not be used to purchase applications on the Canadian version of the iTunes Store. Nowhere on the card itself or even in the Terms of Service is this restriction mentioned. As this issue gains prominence, Apple could get a significant hit in consumer perception. Not sure if it will become a class action lawsuit, but it’s as significant an issue.
Email replies were disappointingly unhelpful. Instead of investigating the situation, I was led to a forum post musing about the possible reasons for this restriction. I was eventually credited ten songs even though I had no intention of getting tracks on the iTunes Store at this point.
While the amount of money is relatively small in my case, I’m getting comments on my blog from people who lost the money equivalent of an iPod nano.

Again, I probably won’t file a class action lawsuit against Apple, in part because these suits mostly make money for lawyers. But my dissatisfaction with Apple remains. In a way, it even grows, because there were several opportunities for Apple to “do the right thing.” Yes, it’s partly on principle. But it’s also a matter of the way the corporation is perceived. In this case, they sound polite but quite dismissive.

There’s no question in my mind that a mistake was made: no information on this restriction was added anywhere a gift card purchaser may find it. Because of this, people are redeeming iTunes Cards with the specific intention of enjoying their iPhone or iPod touch in a new way. As this was a season of gift-giving, some people probably received these gift cards and, thinking they might use them anywhere on iTunes, redeemed these cards instead of returning them. Only to find out, after the fact, that “you will not be able to purchase games or applications with store credit or an iTunes Gift Card in Canada.”

Bummer.

This frustration isn’t such a big deal in the abstract. But context is everything. Part of the context is the set of restrictions placed by the iTunes Store in general. It may not have been much of an issue, for a given user, that it’s impossible to buy applications directly from developers, unlike Android Market (the Google equivalent to the App Store). For casual users, this is pretty much a non-issue, especially since the App Store is so convenient. But this restriction becomes quite conspicuous once an iPhone or iPod touch user runs into this kind of problem.

There’s a broader issue. With the iTunes Store, Apple is sometimes said to have “solved micropayment.” Ever since the iTunes Music Store opened, at least part of Apple’s success has been assigned to the Amazon-like way they implemented their payment structure and it’s quite likely that the iTunes Store model has been having positive effects on the way Apple is perceived by investors. Because of the way it handles payments and reduces overhead, Apple has been able to make money on relatively small amounts of 99¢ (and, recently, 69¢). I’d call this “minipayment” because one can easily imagine even smaller amounts being paid online (for instance, a minute of cellular or long-distance communication). In this case, Nokia, eBay/Skype, and cellphone carriers have better micropayment systems. But Apple still deserves “Wall Street cred” for the way it handles small payments.

Yet, once you start thinking about Apple’s payment system in more details, say because of a bad experience with the applications section of the iTunes Store, you start noticing how flimsy the payment structure is because it relies on users willingly entering a closed system. It’s not just that the iTunes Store is closed. It’s that, once you buy on Apple, you need to restrict yourself to “Apple’s ecosystem.” This has often been the case on a technical level. It’s now a matter more visible to the casual end user: money.

From a “tech media” perspective, this closed ecosystem is part of a pattern for Apple. But the financial part isn’t frequently discussed.

It will sound like a strange analogy but it’s the one with which I come up as I think about this: IKEA bedding. Because IKEA’s measurements are metric, bed linen was an issue with IKEA-purchased mattresses in Canada. Not sure if it’s still the case but it used to be that those who bought beds at IKEA were then stuck with metric measurements for bed linen and those are difficult to find in Canada. In effect, those who purchased beds at IKEA were restricted to IKEA linen.

In computer terms, the classic case is that of a difference in fileformat between products from two developers. Apple certainly had its share of “format wars” but it mostly solved these issues. Recent Macs (including the Mac mini Intel Core Duo I’m currently using) support a Windows installation as well as Mac OS X. In terms of networking, it’s now quite easy to set up mixed networks with both Mac OS X and Windows machines. Even the music part of the iTunes Store is lifting those restrictions which made them technically incompatible with other devices. All in all, Apple has gone away from its strict control, at least in technical terms.

But in financial terms, Apple is using a fairly restrictive model for its iTunes Store. Once money gets into an account (through gift cards, allowances, or “gifting”), it can only be used on that account. Because of some restrictions specific to Canada, some of that money is restricted from use for buying applications. And Paypal isn’t available as a payment option in the Canadian iTunes Store. In effect, the only way to purchase an application for the iPhone or iPod touch is through a valid credit card. Given the fact that a majority of people are likely to have some kind of credit card, this doesn’t seem too restrictive. But there’s a variety of reasons people may not have valid credit cards and there’s no connection between buying something on the App Store and using a credit card. The iPod touch has been marketed as a gaming platform during the holidays and chances are that some iPod touch owners are children without credit cards. I’m not sure what the options are for them to buy iPod touch games. The same could be said about games for the iPod Classic, a device which clearly is used by children.

Part of the problem relates to the Canadian financial system. For one thing, debit cards with credit card numbers are rare in Canada (I’m not sure they exist). Many Canadians tend to use Interac, which does offer some advantages over credit cards, IMHO. As I’ve recently experienced, Interac now works online. It would make a lot of sense for Apple to support it online (I’m sure Canadian Apple Stores already support it). And there must be a reason Paypal, which can be used for iTunes Store purchases in the US, is unavailable in the Canadian iTunes Store.

So, yet again, Apple’s Canadian customers appear “underprivileged” by comparison with US customers. In public perception, this is pretty much a pattern for Apple.

I don’t think that the messages I’ve received helped. Though they were polite, they were dismissive as my problem was basically dismissed. From being dismissive, Apple can sound arrogant. And arrogance is tricky, in today’s marketplace.

I’m reminded of the recent Simpsons episode about Apple. Excerpts of it made their way to YouTube as they play on several gripes people have with Apple. Arrogance was clearly a key theme in that episode. Another Apple parody, the MacBook Wheel spoof from The Onion, was more directly centred on making fun of users and elements related to Apple’s perceived arrogance were less obvious.

I don’t own AAPL.0 stock but, if I did, I might sell some. Sounds silly but corporations which treats its customers in this way aren’t something I would invest in. Despite the fact that I do “invest” in Apple products.

I just wish Apple “did the right thing.”

Academia, cluefulness, cluetrain, Cluetrain Manifesto, comment-fishing, Ethnography, geek crowd, geek culture, geek niche, geekness, geeks, knowledge people, linkfest, mindshare, participatory culture, Placeholders, playfulness, ramblings, responsiveness, social butterfly effect, workflow

Buzz Factor

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I have an ambivalent relationship with buzzwords and buzzphrases. I find them dangerous, especially when they contribute to groupthink, but I also like to play with them. Whether I try (perhaps clumsily) to create some or I find one to be useful in encapsulating insight.

The reason I’m thinking about this is that I participated in the PodCamp Montreal UnConference, giving a buzzphrase-laden presentation on social media and academia (or “social acamedia,” as I later called it).

[slideshare id=609833&doc=socialacamedia-1221997312636223-9&w=425]

I’ll surely revisit a number of notes I’ve taken (mostly through Twitter) during the unconference. But I thought I’d post something as a placeholder.

Some buzzphrases/-words I’ve been known to use should serve as the bases for explanations about a few things I’ve been rambling about the past few years.

Here are a few (some of which I’ve tried to coin):

Not that all of these paint a clear picture of what I’ve been thinking about. But they’re all part of a bigger framework through which I observe and participate in Geek Culture. One day, I might do a formal/academic ethnography of the Geek Crowd.

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Flying Saucer: Doing the Right Thing

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Few things impress me more from management than responsiveness and a sense of responsibility. Contrary to what some people seem to assume when I say a thing like this, the reciprocal isn’t true. There are several things managers can do which disappoint me more than their lack of responsiveness or their failure to take responsibility for something going on in their business. The main point is that I don’t really expect most managers to be responsive or responsible in matters pertaining to their business. Without my noticing it, there might be an implicit indictment of common managerial styles in the way I perceive responsive and responsible managers. But I mostly mean this as praise for what I perceive as proper management.

Now, those who know me would probably shout out that I’m really nothing like the “managerial type.” At best, I’d be the kind of person managers may pay attention to, on occasion. But I like ambivalence and nuance too much to be a “decider.” Since I have never been (nor do I ever plan to be) in a position of power over others, “it’s all good.”

What does any of this have to do with the Flying Saucer Draught Emporium, you ask so eagerly I can smell the anxiety in your voice? Simple: Management at FS has just provided me with an excellent example of what I consider to be responsible and responsive management. And this does almost as much to endear them to me than their beer selection. SRSLY!

Here’s the deal…

Went to the recently-opened Austin location of the FS beerpub chain. Based in Houston, the chain has pubs in different parts of Southcentral and Southeastern United States (AR, TN, TX, NC, and SC). Because their beer selection tends to be rather extensive, their pubs are mentioned occasionally in beer podcasts and informal discussions. I was thus enthusiastic about the opportunity to go and sample some of their beers. Anything which brings people to understand beer diversity has my attention.

To make things even more exciting, the pub has a Monday night special (every week, apparently) during which draft beers are sold at $2.50 a pint. There are less expensive beers around (including some carefully crafted beer brewed locally) but given Flying Saucer’s beer selection, the deal sounded too good to be true.

And it kind of was. Not every beer on the draft menu was part of the special. Fair enough, of course. But a bit confusing. In fact, something on their Austin website was slightly misleading. Nothing to sue them over but, still, it’s a bit frustrating to have reality not live up to expectations set up by information given out by an enterprise. (A rare occurrence, right? 😉 )
So I submitted some comments using their feedback form. Because my comments were (hopefully constructive but still) somewhat negative, I sent those comments in the “Criticize Us” category. I tried to make my comments as thoughtful as possible but I did feel a bit silly to criticize a pub for what is objectively a very nice special. It’s probably just something about myself that I like to tell people what I feel about what they do to me. It might even be a Quebecker thing.

Thing is, I didn’t really expect an answer. I was sending comments in the hope that, maybe, it would reach someone who might be reminded of it on an occasion where it might matter, somewhat. I almost sent a copy of my comments as an “open letter” but, probably because I felt a bit silly for sending such comments, I refrained from compulsively blogging the issue.

I sent my comment at 10PM CET. An automatic response told me, in a humorous way, that I should receive a response within 12 to 24 hours and, failing this, I should send another message. I don’t even expect that kind of a response time in time-sensitive situations (say, a moving or a courier company) so I really didn’t expect a response in that timeframe. But this auto-response did prepare me to get some kind of reply (probably a generic response) at some point in the not-too-distant future. Again, this wasn’t something I was really expecting when I submitted my comments.

What I still wasn’t expecting after receiving the automatic response was what actually happened. By 4:30AM CET,  a message was sent to me by someone at the Austin management for Flying Saucer. That message was CC’ed to other people but was clearly addressed to me. No form letter here. In fact, the message was directly addressing the issues I had raised, in exactly the right tone and most appropriate way. The person who sent the message took responsibility for the misleading statement and pledged to rectify it right away. In fact, by the time I read that message, the actual webpage had in fact been updated, and the statement I had quoted had been replaced with a claim that I find humorous, honest, and quite appropriate.

Wow!

Of course, it didn’t take them too much of an effort to make these changes. And they might have acted so quickly for fear of legal issues (even though my message wasn’t at all meant to be threatening). But I’m still very impressed by the responsiveness and sense of responsibility displayed by management at Flying Saucer Austin.

To remain in the corporate mindframe, it reminds me of ads for a fast-food chain in which people act in a “refreshingly honest” way. Though I’m certainly not going to eat fast-food because of ads like these, I definitely appreciate the concept. Openness, transparency, effectiveness, responsiveness, responsibility… Taken together, these qualities make for a very pleasurable experience, even when they relate to relatively large institutions. I sincerely think that if more managers were like that, many problems could be solved.

Now, if I can only get Texas to change its beer import laws… 😉

The Flying Saucer Draught Emporium – www.beerknurd.com

blog comments, Blogging, Cluetrain Manifesto, comment-fishing, Digital Life, linkfest, mailing-lists, online communities, ramblings, readership, responsiveness, shameless plug, statistics, tags, WordPress.com

Readership to Comments Conversion

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As mentioned recently (among other times), I’d like to get more reader comments than I do now. Haven’t been really serious about it as I’m not using any of the several methods I know to get more comments. For instance, I realise shorter, quick-and-dirty posts are likely to get me more comments than my longer ramblings. Everybody knows that inflammatory (Dvorak-like) posts get more comments. I also know that commenting on other people’s blog entries is the best way to receive comments from fellow bloggers. Not to mention generating something of a community aspect through my blog. And I could certainly ask more questions in my blog posts. So I guess I’m not doing my part here.

It’s not that I care so much about getting more comments. It’s just that I do like receiving comments on blog posts. Kind of puts me back into mailing-list mode. So I (frequently) end up wondering out loud about blog comments. I don’t really want to make more of an effort. I just want my cake and eat it too. (Yes, this one is an egotistical entry.)

One thing I keep noticing is that I get more comments when I get less readers. It’s a funny pattern. Sounds like the ice-cream/crime (ice-crime?) correlation but I’m not sure what the shared cause may be. So my tendency is to think that I might get more comments if I get lower readership. I know, I know: sounds like wishful thinking. But there’s something fun about this type of thinking.

Now, how can I decrease my readership? Well, since a lot of readers seem to come to this blog through Web searches and Technorati links, I guess I could decrease my relevance in those contexts. Kind of like reverse-SEO.

As my unseemly large number of categories might be responsible for at least some of that search/Technorati traffic, getting rid of some of those categories might help.

On this WordPress.com blog, I’ve been using categories like tags. The Categories section of WordPress.com’s own blog post editor makes this use very straightforward. Instead of selecting categories, I just type them in a box and press the Add button. Since WordPress.com categories are also Technorati links, this categories-as-tags use made some sense. But I ended up with some issues, especially with standalone blog editors. Not only do most standalone blog editors have categories as selection items (which makes my typical tagging technique inappropriate) but the incredibly large number of categories on this blog makes it hard to use any blog editor which fetches those categories.

Not too long ago, WordPress.com added a tagging system to their (limited) list of supported features. Given my issues with categories, this seemed like a very appropriate feature for me to use. So the few posts I wrote since that feature became available have both tags and categories.

But what about all of those categories? Well, in an apparent effort to beef up the tagging features, WordPress.com added Category to Tag Converter. (I do hope tagging and categories development on WordPress.com will continue at a steady pace.)

This converter is fairly simple. It lists all the categories used on your blog and you can either select which categories you want to convert into tags or press the Convert All button to get all categories transformed into tags. Like a neat hack, it does what it should do. I still had to spend quite a bit of time thinking about which categories I wanted to keep. Because tags and categories perform differently and because I’m not completely clear on how tags really work (are they also Technorati tags? Can we get a page of tags? A tag cloud?), it was a bit of a shot in the dark. I pretty much transformed into tags most categories which I had only applied to one post. It still leaves me with quite a few categories which aren’t that useful but I’ll sort these out later, especially after I see the effects tags may have on my blogging habits and on my blog itself.

As luck would have it, this change in my blog may have as an impact a decrease in readership and an increase in comments. My posts might end up being more relevant for categories and tags with which they are associated. And I might end up having sufficiently few categories that I could, in fact, use blog editors on this blog.

While I was converting these categories into tags, I ended up changing some categories. Silly me thought that by simply changing the name of a category to be the same as the name of another category, I’d end up with “merged categories” (all blog posts in the category I changed being included in the list for the new categories). Turns out, it doesn’t really work like that and I ended up with duplicate categories. Too bad. Just one of those WordPress.com quirks.

Speaking of WordPress.com itself. I do like it as a blogging system. It does/could have a few community-oriented features. I would probably prefer it if it were more open, like a self-hosted WordPress installation. But the WordPress.com team seems to mostly implement features they like or that they see as being advantageous for WordPress.com as a commercial entity. Guess you could say WordPress.com is the Apple of the blogging world! (And I say this as a Macaholic.)

Just found out that WordPress.com has a new feature called AnswerLinks, which looks like it can simplify the task of linking to some broad answers. Like several other WordPress.com features, this one looks like it’s mostly meant as a cross-promotion than a user-requested feature, but it still sounds interesting.

Still, maybe the development of tag features is signalling increased responsiveness on the part of WordPress.com. As we all know, responsiveness is a key to success in the world of online business ventures.

Blogging, praises, responsiveness, WordPress.com

Joe the Ninja

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He’s been called a rogue ninja. And I think he deserves a raise. Whatever he’s getting.

“Rogue ninjas”… I wonder if we can get that on our business cards.

Best compliment ever « whateverblog.

Well, these days, I’m doing “evaluation of quality” surveys over the phone so I often hear about people who apparently deserve praises and raises. Joe Cheng is probably one such person. Chances are that so do other people on the WLW team.

What’s WLW? Windows Live Writer, a blog editor developed as a Microsoft project. Mentioned it in previous entries about blog editors. It’s become the most popular standalone blog editor for WordPress.com:

Obviously some of you have already discovered the coolness that is Windows Live Writer because we found it was our most used blogging client,

Windows Live Writer FTW « WordPress.com

It’s in fact the app I’m using right now to post this entry. It has plenty of neat features including a nicer link management than I imagined.

So, a nice little app that can be useful. World-changing? Maybe not.

Now, why would I want Joe to get a raise? Simple: responsiveness. The keyword that I would associate with getting a clue.

This Joe Cheng character actually posted three (count them) comments on my blog about WLW. True, I had mentioned a bug I got and a report was sent somewhere. But, man, talk about dedication! Not only did he post three separate comments on my lowly blog but those comments were actually useful, straightforward, and at exactly the right tone

Added to this is the transparency of Joe’s own blog. Microsoft seems to have learned something from the Scoble era. Now, I’m clearly not a Microsoft fanboy and some of my comments about the company might have been a bit harsh, on occasion. In fact, I still think that some of Microsoft’s practises were, erm, beyond the pale. Not that Joe and the rest of the WLW team really change anything about this but, you know, I like to give credit where credit is due and I like quality work enough to reassess my opinion of a company based on some things that are done well.

So, for the record: WLW actually comes close to my dream blog editor in terms of accessing a browser history when adding links. If it could actually access my cross-browser history through Google Web History and social bookmarks (including links added to previous blog entries), I might really start singing the praises of that development team.

Until then, I may merely say that Joe deserves praises.

Hey, it’s something!

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Beer, brewing, cluetrain, homebrewing, responsiveness

BeerTools Pro Comments

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Currently entering a recipe in BeerTools Pro. A few quick comments. Overall, I do like the program but it’s not revolutionary. I have a lot of ideas about a complete brewing database program, including brewclub and brewshop features. I wish I could code in PHP/MySQL just so I could implement some of these ideas.

So, BTP.

What’s neat:

  • Responsive staff (even on a Sunday!)
  • Ease of entering ingredients
    • Searching for ingredients
    • Add multiple times
  • All ingredients view
  • Templates
  • Download from BeerTools.com

What I had to learn to do (or could be made clearer in the UI):

  • Back-tab to select next ingredient in recipe’s list
  • Grams before quantity (to prevent conversion)
  • Distinguishing between database ingredients and current ones (price, vitals)

What’s not so neat (bug or bug-like non-feature):

  • Doesn’t automatically add .btp to template filename (so file isn’t recognized as template)
  • Direct heat adds volume
  • Can’t export to common formats
  • No stage for grains (mash or infusion)
  • Recipe ingredients aren’t added to database directly
  • Style listed by BJCP numbers, field can’t be searched

What could be neat:

  • Duplicating ingredients in database
  • Search all ingredients
  • Add ingredient on double-click
  • Grains and adjuncts together
  • Multiple additions same grain (adjust proportion)
  • Add schedule steps visually
  • Mash volume in schedule graph
  • Style templates
  • Date field (calendar)
  • Multiple dates (recipe formulation, brewing, tasting, etc.)
  • Download data for new ingredients

The last few items are somewhat connected to what I have in mind for the ideal brewing application. What I envision is really more than recipe formulation. It includes references between batches, tasting comments, lots of observations, blogging features, beer-related social networking, etc.

I really should blog about my “vision” but that will have to wait for another day.