photo credit: Stéfan

It’s the Third Thursday of August this week, and you all know what that means! Right, we’re meeting at Paparazzi to have a bite and a chat about the latest and greatest things happening in the Social Media sphere. It’s a lunch time spot that’s open to everyone interested in New Media; whether you’re a veteran on Facebook, or trying out Locaccino for the first time, come and join us.

Topics around the table tend to be varied, but you be sure that if you have a question about social networking there will be someone who can answer it for you. It’s a great way to put a face to your online buddies, to learn the latest news and tips and to share what you have learned in the last month.

So, come join us at Paparazzi in Douglas on the 19th August at 12:30. Everyone is welcome!

Screenshot from Twhirl v0.8.8f

Over the weekend I’ve installed the new beta of Twhirl and am happy to report that I really like the new features. I haven’t got round to testing them all, but the one I *have* tested and love is that ability to specify search criteria which gets merged into your main feed. It’s pretty easy to use, all you need to do is specify your search criteria, say for example “PS3″ because you’re interested in when anyone tweets about the subject. Twhirl will show the results of your search, but you can also “Activate” it with the option of being notified when a relevant result comes up and also add it to your Home stream. Now, when anyone tweets anything with the word PS3 in it, you’ll know about it straight away.

There are other enhancements that have made it into this version:

• Ping.fm integration so your status updates can make to all you social networks
• Your “replies” tab now include any mention of your username. (I love this)
• Video-tweeting (haven’t tried this yet)

Interested? You can watch the interview and join the Twhirl beta if you are on Twitter, and don’t forget to follow me.

photo credit: Ro (wererabbit.com)

Funny thing happened yesterday. I found I had a domain name I registered in October and had totally forgotten about! It’s called OwenCutajar.com and I’m not 100% sure what I’m going to be doing with it. I think I’ll be using it create an online profile for myself and maybe some sort of professional profile.

Thing is, there’s bits of me all over the place, spread across different social networks and a multitude of different blogs. Maybe this is the place I should bring them all together.

Not sure .. what do you think I should do with it? How do you think I can use it effectively?

Someone sent me a link to a great service called Twitt(url)y that lets you find out what’s fun and interesting. It’s a great service that looks at what URLs people are talking about and rates them based on how many people are talking about it. So, for example if someone launches a viral campaign about a diet pill called Orovo. If enough people start talking about the link and about the campaign then the link will start getting ranked higher and higher in Twitturly until it gets to the top of the front page.

It’s an interesting concept, that of using “the masses” to help decide what is interesting and what isn’t. It very much depends on the group of people doing the voting. Twitter still has a high percentage of technical users, so a subject like live video casting solutions is more likely to get traction than, say what happened last night on EastEnders. Still, as the Twitter population spreads to other segments we’ll see more mainstream subjects enter the list and the list get more comprehensive.

Image details: Festival of the Winds served by picapp.com

I think I quite like brightkite. It has a clean interface and seems to be “smoother” than other micro-blogging platforms. The one thing it doesn’t seem to have for me is any sort of momentum. There are too few people I know on it and because of that reason, I don’t really pop in that often. Because I don’t pop in often, I don’t have many friends .. do you see where I’m going with this.

One thing I love is the geo-location facilities built into it, which is a feature which is bound to increase in popularity, partly because it’s real information and partly because people are just nosy. What are your thoughts on brightkite?

If you’re on brightkite: here’s my brightkite profile. If not, drop me a comment and I’ll send you an invitation

The thing is, this new version of Scrabble is going to have some constraints due to the way Scrabble is licensed. Only Facebook members in the U.S. and Canada will be able to play each other, so if I had a friend who worked for a New York Moving Company, I wouldn’t be able to play Scrabble against him using this new version. So, even if Hasbro manages to shut down Scrabulous, I’m not really going to be rushing to use EA’s application.

Here’s a little snippet that explains how it works

The one thing I like about this social network is the emphasis on the quality of your connections rather than the quantity. For example, a technology website will be linked up with a gadget website rather than one that sells term life insurance. It models real life where you have 100s of acquaintances, but only a few friends. And the more people who sign up for it, the better it will get. So what are you waiting for? Sign up now!

I attended the seminar with some work colleagues and we’ll be using some of the things we heard and trying to weave them into our services. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a huge company, Government or sell back racks for a living, you can always pick up something new by listening to somone else describe their experiences and what they have learnt. Thanks for sharing Sherrilynne.

She’s doing it again next week if anyone wants to sign up

I love the simplicity of the video, especially as it has been particularly tricky explaining to people just why I’ve found Twitter so useful. The video is a starting point really, and doesn’t go into why Twitter has such a lasting appeal: quick access to information and social interaction.

I’ll be pointing a number of friends at the video. Explaining why Twitter has been so useful for me is a bit like trying to explain fractional ownership to a 2-year old. The explanation of how microblogging fills in the spaces between blog posts and emails is a particularly useful analogy and it’s been a great medium for me to keep in touch with loads of people without getting too distracted from what I was doing. Maybe it’s because Tweets can be absorbed in a single glance, just like checking the time on your watch. Now I just need to get more friends on it (Sherrilynne .. I mean you)

It’s been interesting to see how the blogosphere has picked up on it and see the clip echoed here, here and here. And if you’re on Twitter, you can follow me here.

I suppose there are positives and negatives behind this. On the plus side, setting up your own social networking website will be a doddle and everyone can have their own Facebook! However, it will promote an even greater fragmentation of social bases around the Web. People will start “living” within their own clusters, dedicated to fast cars, psoriasis treatment or things to do with chocolate,? I suppose? really limits the scope for reaching out and making new friends. Meeting new people is a great way to expand your ideas and learn new things, but if you inhabit a number of different ecosystems, each focusing on people with your tastes and preferences, isn’t this making the world a bit more boring.

Time will tell, it will be interesting to watch this develop, though Mashable is hoping for this to happen imminently. One thing is sure, if this takes off, I’m going to hate having to remember more and more different login details for each of these little worlds. Luckily the plan is for data to be interchanged rather than walled in.