Paul Walsh, the Irish Opportunist

I wrote a post a few weeks ago, complaining about Yahoo!’s stupid integrated registration system. I was so pissed off with the login process I decided to can my use of MyBlogLog and Upcoming. Fortunately I’ve never had a problem with Flickr.

However, since removing the mugshots of my readers from my blogs, I’ve felt like something has been missing. So, I’ve managed to sort out my login details and Kamrul has reinstalled the MyBlogLog widget.

What is MyBlogLog?

MyBlogLog provides a widget that you can place on your blog. MyBlogLog users who then visit your blog are automatically added to the “community” of visitors and you will usually see an image and/or text with the visitor’s user name. Only the most recent visitors MyBlogLog members, will show within the MyBlogLog widget (found on the sidebar to the right).

If you have a MyBlogLog account and remain logged in, your face will automatically appear in the widget on every blog you visit (assuming they have the widget installed - TechCrunch also has one). I didn’t really care for it that much until I had it removed from my blogs. For some strange reason I missed seeing (some) of the faces of my community. I say ’some’ because only a small fraction of people have an account - not because I don’t want to see some people

I’ve gone a step further than most blogs. MyBlogLog users who leave comments also get their mugshot displayed beside their comment. It would be fun to encourage more to join.

Setup an account now and join the community.

Would you like to work with the UK’s longest established association to represent the interests of the interactive industry? If yes, we’d love to hear from you, via, twitter.

You’ve gotta embrace social media tools, techniques and importantly, communities, before you can even think about taking on BIMA’s public relations. So, please make sure you’re on Twitter and are a member of the BIMA Facebook group before getting in touch. Why? Well, if you need me to answer that question you’re not right for the job

I have quite a few PR people following me on twitter so this approach shouldn’t limit us to the extent that we don’t find anyone. Well, I hope not anyway.

Who I’m looking for

I’m looking for a freelancer or small agency to work on a contra basis. So, in return for your amazing craftsmanship with words and untouchable contacts within traditional media, we’ll help raise your own profile. You’ll also have the opportunity to educate industry via BIMA, with respect to the new PR world we live in today. You could even use your work with BIMA as a case study. That’s it. More defined requirements should actually come from you.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank immediate future for its amazing contribution to BIMA over the years. Katy Howell in particular has been personally very helpful to me over the past couple of years. Thanks Katy. Katy is of course, on twitter. You’re probably wondering why we’re looking for someone else if immediate future did such a great job. The answer is simple, Katy did such a good job that her company has grown quickly, winning all of Sony Europe, BT, Diageo, Kinder Kids, NSPCC and BBC in the last 3 months alone. Eek!

Please DM me to get the conversation going. I look forward to hearing from you soon. You’ll first need to follow me on twitter before being able to DM me.

I need your help. As some of you know, I Chair the British Interactive Media Association (BIMA); the longest established association to represent the interests of the UK’s digital industry. In short, one of BIMA’s goals is to ensure the UK remains as the center of excellence worldwide, for creativity in the interactive world.

When most people think of BIMA, they think of the Awards. Known as the BIMAs™, they rightly take their place on the top shelf of prestigious Awards, alongside the BAFTAs, the Brits and the Oscars. Each year we revisit the categories to ensure they reflect what’s happening in the industry currently. With this in mind, I’d like to solicit your help in defining the descriptions and success criterion for two sub categories under the Social Media category.

What do you think the description copy and success criterion should be for

• Best Blog Award (personal and corporate) and
• Best Network Application (e.g. Faceboo, Bebo)

Since writing my last post about how to win a Mac Air, I’ve been asked by journalists if they could have an exclusive and asked why I decided to run this little game. Here’s my response:

1. The exclusive has yet to be given. Although a national newspapper has it in Ireland specifically.
2. I’m running this little game to get people talking about my newest venture, wubud
3. I’m also doing it to demonstrate how the power of conversation with communities of people is the way forward. If it’s the way forward for brands then it must be the way forward for traditional media folk to embrace tools/communities such as Twitter in order to find out what’s happening in the world. I’m likely to announce what wubud is and who my shit hot team is, on Twitter at the same time as whoever gets the exclusive. Some of my team is known to every reader of this blog.

I’ve been using Twitter for some time now. It has almost replaced my RSS reader completely and to a degree, my reliance on Google to find stuff. If I want to find out the latest gossip or ask for advice on how to use something new, I head straight for Twitter.com. If I want to find the latest world news I simply scroll through all the conversations for the past few hours - everything of real importance is likely to have been discussed there before anywhere else. You won’t just find stories, you’ll find opinions on those stories.

I was in New York recently to take part in a panel discussion about Mobile TV. Whenever I wanted a recommendation for a restaurant within walking distance, or the address of a specific clothes shop, I turned to my Twitter community. Within minutes I had the answers to any question I asked. Some people went as far as to Google restaurants and read the reviews before making recommendations to m

Here are some tips for new users

Most people will only spend a few seconds reviewing your Twitter page before deciding whether to follow you or not. The more followers they have, the less time they’re likely to spend. So, these tips should help increase the chances of people following you.

1. Fill in the bio. Include a few words that describe you. Try to make it punchy.
2. Link to a Web page that’s relevant, preferably a blog or biog.
3. Don’t follow everyone you find interesting at once. Wait for some to reciprocate or you’ll look like ‘bill y no mates’.
4. Using a company name as your screen name is ok for some people. Loren Feldman and Mike Arrington are amongst the ‘exception to the rule’ category. I personally prefer to follow people, not companies.
5. Be honest, open and above all, be yourself.
6. Be patient. You won’t build relationships or feel the community spirit over night. It take a little getting used to. Use twitter to have conversations with people for at least a few weeks before forming an opinion.
7. If you’re unsure whether to publish a comment, publish it. Ok, that’s probably not the best tip, but it’s what I do all the time. Sometimes it doesn’t work in my favour but mostly it does as people know that what they see is the real me.

Feel free to follow me on Twitter and drop me a note to say you read this post. It’s always nice to see where people come from.

Have I missed anything? What tips would you give?

I wrote a post a while back, highlighting the lack of journalists on Twitter. Today, thanks to Marie Boran (AKA
PixieVonDust), I read with great interest that Charles Cooper from CNET is of the same opinion. Charles goes as far as to say

Out of curiosity, I drew up a list of 55 technology journalists to find out how many use Twitter, arguably one of the most important social-media technologies on the scene.

Read the full article

Connect to me on Twitter

I haven’t been blogging much of late, mostly because I’ve kept my head in power point writing business plans for Segala and my latest venture (more about that soon). Perhaps I should video blog to ensure I commentate regularly. Loren Feldman and I are mates so he’s not likely to take the piss (often). Well, as long as I don’t try to call myself a professional.

I managed to squeeze in a lot of travel over the past couple of months too, most notable are my ventures to Dublin, Oslo and New York. I gave a talk about ‘Trust on the Web’ in Dublin, a keynote presentation in Oslo about ‘The Future of Mobile Video’ and took part in a panel discussion in New York about ‘Mobile TV’.

I’m gutted I didn’t stay an extra night or two in New York. What a cracking place with cracking people. I hope to get back there very soon to hook up again with Michelle Oshen, Loren and lots of other very cool people.

Here’s the section of my keynote in Oslo where I demonstrate how Qik, in my opinion, is one of the few ‘game changing’ technologies in the mobile/video space today.

Next stop is San Fransisco - will write about that separately.

There are many social networking Web sites out there, but very few, if any, are social networks for mobile users. What do I mean by that? Well, from what I can tell, none of the sites provide a half decent user experience on an Nokia N95; one of the best non-iPhone handsets on the market for Web browsing. In fact, not one of them worked particularly well on the iPhone; a device capable of rendering just about any Web site that hasn’t been optimised.

Very few of the sites in fact, have been optimised for mobile phones. Some even have as many as eight options on the main navigation with a menu underneath that. That’s about the limit for users to comprehend when using a desktop to access the Web, never mind a mobile phone.

What’s the answer?

In short, I’m not entirely sure. However, what I do know, is that you either need a mobile application or a Web site that has been optimised for mobile phones. More importantly, a social network for mobile users should take advantage of the context in which users will access the social network.

For example, one of the first questions you sometimes ask a friend when you call them is ‘where are you’. So, wouldn’t it be useful to have the answer to that question before calling them? Location and presence deffinately need to be the base upon which to build a social network for mobile users.

I have two questions for you

1. What mobile social networking sites do you like/dislike?
2. What’s the one feature you’d like to see in order to get you to use one?

Earlier today I asked the same question on Twitter. Below are the responses I received from some of the people with whom I’m connected in that community.

@Adders Many journos are only interested in web tools when they look like print.

@rdelevan Oi! Or is it that lazy/cocky execs need an easy target to vent their frustrated ambition? Bah.

@jackiedanicki i follow loads of journos. they’re just outnumbered in general by PR twats.

@micflan similar discussion on boards.ie recently re jurnos. Is it really lazy though? everyone else does business online, why not jurnos?

@rslux they are frequently less technically savvy

I don’t assume journalists to be cocky or lazy. I asked the question on Twitter because I don’t see many journalists using the tool. It’s entirely possible, likely even, that I’m just not connected with them, or I am and don’t know it.

Anyway, if you’re a journalist and reading this, let me know if you find Twitter useful. If you don’t use it, try it. It’s a fantastic source of information, not to mention a great way to find out who the real influencers are, from whom you can solicit opinion for specific articles.

I’ve decided to blog more often about the things I discuss on Twitter. I’ll continue to use Twitter in the same way I do now, but I feel that I’m not communicating enough with most of my social network.

What’s my social network?

In short, it’s you and the other people with whom I’m connected. We are connected by the very fact that you’re interested in what I have to say. By the same token, I’m interested in what you have to say, hence why I converse with everyone who’s kind enough to spend time to leave a comment.

My social network is made up of people. Within that network I have multiple communities, each community representing something unique. The three blogs I author for example, represent entirely different communities, each with some overlap.

• Personal blog = entrepreneurial stuff, connecting, networking, social media…
• Segala blog = trust on the Web, standards, search, semantic web…
• BIMA blog = mainly Industry, creativity…
• Twitter = all of the above

You’ll notice that Twitter represents all of my communities. But it only represents a very small percentage of each one and hence, a small percentage of my social network. That’s because only a small handful of each community is represented by the early adopters in each one.

As I said, I won’t stop twittering. It’s a fantastic way to get to know more people whilst strengthening relationships. Twitter is also the world’s most comprehensive news feed and periodic replacement for a search engine when searching for stuff such as contact details or recommendations.

Think about it for a minute, do you sometimes Twitter messages that warrant a blog post? Does laziness encourage you to opt for the more accessible Twitter?