The MossyBlog Times Archives 2007 - 2009 : Microblogs

Twitter is changing perception about Microsoft.

scbarnes — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 07:23:00 GMT

I've watched Microsoft like most for many years. I first noticed a change in our behavior when folks within the company would start blogging. It gave us in many ways a focal point of interest around various products and it was how I first stumbled upon Scott Guthrie in the early days (via his blog).

Scoble and other folks in Channel9 then put camera's in front of various people, and they began to expose how raw and somewhat open most of the teams within Microsoft really are. In fact, I had no idea whom Scoble was until someone explained earlier this year that he was the main guy behind the camera (point: I knew of Scobles work, not the personas surrounding him).

My bet is the next wave of transparency is likely to be Twitter - or - it should be. As we can all focus on the respective folks within Microsoft's "work speak" via their blogs. Yet, if we want to get a better understanding of the person behind the blog, things they do and habits they at times fall into, then Twitter.com is my preferred option for such.

Frank Arrigo was a classic twitterer for most, as most would not only read his hatred for "Yet another conference call" but also on Saturday's read how proud he was of Billy's football games - in fact, it was one of the only reasons I checked my twitter's on Saturday mornings was to get a twitter-update of his son's football game.

I've also had some tongue in cheek arguments with some of the Adobe guys, mostly nothing serious and just a bit of taunting back and forth (no big deal) whilst at the same time it's good to read that these guys are also human and also hate airport terminals (there is a degree of commonality after all).

I'm a fan of Twitter as it's got all the appeal of transparency whilst ensuring folks keep it short and on-point. In fact, it's hard to get noisy in Twitter - unless your Scoble (whom just today did a dump in Twitter.. yet I read it, and understood his motivation).

It was also kind of cool to see Brian Goldfarb embrace twitter not only as a once-off thing but he not only got it first go, but now he's fully immersed in it. Now Anna Liu, my new boss has finally accepted thine Twitter enticement.

This is why I'm more inclined to put my Twitter address on my business cards instead of my email address. It's the best medium to contact me short of calling my cell/mobile phone. I personally have formed better working relationship(s) with the community via Twitter then most of the time in person?

It kind of reminds me of the old days when I used to use a lot of IRC.

http://twitter.com/mossyblog Out.

Twitter the new Blog?

scbarnes — Tue, 22 May 2007 08:10:25 GMT

Last week I listened as Chuck explained Twitter to someone whom has never heard of it, and he essentially explained at as being a consolidated version of blogging. I however up until then would always explain twitter as being a disconnected version of Instant Messenger (simply due to the reply approach) - yet - both could be argued as being correct.

This got me thinking a little on what Twitter is truly hinting at, and why I guess it's popular. At MIX07 I was at a Silverlight party, talking to John Udell about it and I argued that all successful Web 2.0 applications have a hint of silliness about them, and that in turn is why it makes them successful. As when you think about it, take one of the foundation pieces of the Web 2.0 world - GMAPS.

Here we have human beings, jumping online to find directions or gain a keyhole look into the world from above. We memorize as best we can the directions, we then embark on our journey and half-way along, we forget the way points we memorized (well I'd argue majority do anyway). How stupid is this concept, but it's not as it hint's at potential goodness.

Twitter, is a classic for me. As last night I had my left big toe nail removed by a doctor, and via my Black Jack phone, I was able to twitter a minute by minute account of the experience and folks were interacting. It was actually quite helpful, as it was extremely painful experience but I was laughing at some of the twitter comments. Why! Why on earth would anyone want to subscribe to this line of conversation! and more to the point what were people thinking as I typed my "The Doctors back, she has needles!!!"

Blogs today have kind of lost their way thanks to aggregators (we adjust our blogs based on what mainstream aggregators will listen). They have taken on a whole new life from the early days when I'd read "Ping" files from programmers at id Software about what they were up to. Today, it's to structured, we have an apparent etiquette how we blog, so much so Tim O`Reilly & Co are looking to formulate some rules and standards of practice (I unsubscribe from this as I dislike it's very existence)..

Point is, I like Twitter as it's chaos, it's a way of publishing thoughts online in under 140 characters and no rules. People don't like it, don't subscribe! - just like blogs, you don't like it, don't read!.. If you don't like someone's comments, delete them! We are heading in the wrong direction with blogs, and I for one hope concepts like Twitter give birth to the next generation of blogging.

I love my twitter.