Paul Walsh, the Irish Opportunist

This post won’t mean anything if you don’t already use Twitter. So, either join and follow me, or ignore this post

This is a fantatsic tip given to me by Louise Doherty. First I’ll explain what RT means - it’s short for Retweet and it’s something you do when you wish to promote someone elses twitter message to your own followers. All you do is type RT followed by the message you wish quote and where appropriate, include your own thoughts.

When someone retweets your message, they include your screen name, the letters RT and a space. So, it’s difficult or time consuming for others to RT your message if it’s almost 140 characters long and they’re forced to edit your message. My screen name is @PaulWalsh which means I must keep my messages to 127 characters or less to make it easy for others to retweet without the need to edit. Below is Louise’s formula which I think is pretty cool - it sums up what I’ve just said in less than 140 characters.

RT formula: <140 - (username + 4) x interestingness = probability of RT

If you find this post useful, why not retweet it

I’ve decided to head to the Dublin Twestival on February 12th - hosted by my buddy Aido. A few other London-based folk have decided to do the same since I sent out my note on Twitter. I’ve included my itinerary below should you wish to join us on our wee expedition. Everyone is welcome to join us.

Depart from Heathrow on February 12th at 13:25 with BMI. Return on the 13th at 20:20 - flying with BA - into Gatwick. Book via lastminute.com to get the best deal - hence why we’re flying in and out of different airports.

We’re staying at these apartments for just 95 euro per night.

If you’re wondering what this Twestival thing is all about, check out the Web site - hat-tip to Amanda for putting on this great global event.

Feel free to drop a comment if you’re going to attend this event - as I might arrange a meetup beforehand. And make sure to nudge me if you see me hanging around. I don’t visit Dublin often enough, so I don’t know as many people as I should. See you there!

Again this afternoon, Twitter, or the community more to the point, has come true for me. An Irish entrepreneur asked if I could recommend a lawyer or agency to help him claim debt from a UK based company. So, my first port of call was to ask the question on Twitter. I received no fewer than 8 recommendations publically, by email and by direct message within 10 minutes. Given that each recommendation has come from my community, I’ll have much more trust in passing on the information than had I say, conducted a search on Google.

Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t like to take advantage by being lazy and getting others to do my search for me - I too, contribute by providing feedback to people looking for recommendations.

Whilst I’m writing this post I might as well highlight the point further by telling you about my trip to New York – I posted the request for a recommended restaurant based on my location. Not only did I get a great response, some people actually went out of their way to search on Google and then read reviews before passing on the recommendation to me. Stunning collaboration! I love it.

If you’re on Twitter then why not subscribe to my ramblings at http://twitter.com/PaulWalsh

It’s way too difficult for me to follow everyone back, but I do take the time to read every message directed to me and where appropriate, I reply either publically or privately by direct message - depending on how much crap I’ve already subjected the community to

So, do I need Google? Perhaps I do. But one thing is for sure, I certainly don’t rely on any type of search as much as I used to - trusted communities who use social networks to communicate and build relationships is the way forward. Remember one thing though, it’s all about people at the end of the day - not the technology.

How have your search habits changed, if at all? Do you use Twitter, Facebook or other tools/networks to find information?

I’ve finally encouraged my sister to start blogging and to open a Twitter account so she can show off her fantastic work. In case you’re wondering, Dee Breathnach is actually Deirdra Walsh in our native tongue - she feels it’s more unique. I just think it sounds more arty farty

Her work is truly brilliant in my opinion. Her latest project will involve a roaming journal around the world - something I will help with, by getting some of my friends to take part.

Visit her blog at http://www.deebreathnach.com

Connect with her on Twitter - would you believe that MC Hammer started following me within minutes of finding and following my sister - and that was within hours of her joining Twitter (she didn’t follow him first). How cool is that.

Recommended: To easily understand who the great followers and influencers in your network are, get MrTweet. It has helped me to find the influencers who follow me, but whom I don’t follow. It may take a few days for it to work, but be patient. It’s worth the wait in my opinion.

If you’ve already tried it, was it useful? Who did you find?

Check it out now.

Follow me on Twitter here.

Here’s a fun Web site that displays a person’s reach on Twitter. I scored 1,117,492. I’m not entirely sure what that means but I’m guessing from the wording on the site that it’s two layers down from me; my followers and their followers.

Either leave a comment or @ me on Twitter with your reach

My last post focused on the negative side of a good tool called Qwitter. My motivation was driven by the urge to provide a little insight to how it ‘could’ be used in the wrong way. It wasn’t my intention to slate the product. So, there are good reasons to use Qwitter, but at least digest my post and remember not to make too many assumptions when people unfollow you.

Now onto a more positive post to balance it out. TweetDeck is my desktop client of choice for Twitter. As you can see from the screen shot above, you can separate your main friends’ feed, replies, groups and direct messages (DMs). I haven’t shown my main feed because I didn’t want to show who wasn’t amongst my ‘Toilet Cleaners group.

The ability to group people is what I love most about this application. Some people create groups for family, friends and colleagues etc. I only have the need for one group, which contains about 25 people; people who I consider as either friends or very interesting people.

Qwitter, a tool which informs you when someone unfollows you on Twitter, is likely to break relationships, sometimes before they’ve had an opportunity to prosper. This is the complete opposite to the ethos of the Twitter community.

I first learned of Qwitter (it didn’t have a name at the time) in January, when the developer asked for feedback on the functionality. I thought then, that it was a very smart widgetery piece of functionality. I still like it from a technical perspective. However, I don’t like the idea of a tool that is likely to give some of its users the wrong impression.

How can it give the wrong impression?

1. Some followers subscribe to my RSS feed instead of following on Twitter. I know this because a few of them took to the time to write and say that I shouldn’t be offended if I didn’t see them following me. Some chose RSS so they didn’t miss any of my tweets, whilst others thought I had too much to say and they didn’t want their stream taken up by so many of my tweets.
2. Some people follow/unfollow/follow… depending on the noise level they receive from individuals like me.
3. Some thought they were following me, but weren’t, as the system unsubscribed them for some reason.
4. Some thought I wasn’t following them as they were unable to send me direct messages. I checked and confirmed I was actually following them.

You could argue that Qwitter is a nice way to enable users to nudge friends who they think should be following them, but aren’t. Whilst this might be true for some, it won’t be for most. I’ve been using Twitter for longer than most - before it became a conversational tool. So, I’ve had time to learn all of the above. However, some less experienced, or people with less insight, will undoubtidly get the wrong impression and assume that people have unfollowed them for the wrong reason and without asking why, may reciprocate.

With just 5 hours notice on Twitter, lots of cool people met at The International in London on Friday evening. I was joined by:

• Alex Hoye, Chair, Seedcamp
• Simon Prockter, Founder, SpeedDater.com and SpeedBreaks.com
• Justin Champney, Global Head of Brand Innovation, McCann
• Robert Loch, Founder, Recommendbox.com and my partner in crime for Top Cats
• Zoe Margolis, Sex blogger and best selling author.
• Paul Carr, Author of ‘Bringing nothing to the party‘.
  
• Mark O’Neill, DCMS (he’s in charge of the Olympics 2012 - all of it!)
• Amanda Rose, Social Media Consultant

It’s a shame I didn’t capture Mark telling us how he made sure the British officials were given disposable mobiles before going out to the Beijing Olympics. Apparently, the Chinese government could continue to track calls even after a SIM swap back in the UK.

I gave a quick demo of Wubud and everyone seemed to really like it. After a thorough grilling, Zoe said she will use it. Alex was very impressed by the progress we had made since the last time we spoke - we went from an idea to a product in less than 3 months.

We ended up at a party in the Last.FM office.

Claire O’Halloran and I are arranging a night out with friends on August 29th - so I’m arranging a tweetup beforehand. Put the date in your diary now. 5:30 to 19:30 in The International, London.

Earlier today I was contacted by a friend at a major international TV broadcaster - looking for a recommendation for a WAP/Mobile Web development company. My recommended supplier will build the platform that will deliver its entire content for a major brand via mobile. It’s a massive project and they only had 2 hours by which time to appoint a supplier. I hope they get more than 2 hours to deliver the brief.

WAP and Mobile Web are areas close to my heart, as some of you will know - in fact, one of my blog posts on the subject attracted comments that exceeded 17,000 word count from companies such as Google, dotMobi, Microsoft and Opera. So, you’d expect me to rattle off a couple of companies right away, right? No. My mind went completely blank and I couldn’t think of one provider, even though I know lots. So, I sent a message on twitter and emailed Mobile Monday - I did explain that I could only recommend a company I knew. Within minutes I received a direct message (DM) from Tom Hume via Twitter. I know Tom and was delighted to recommend Future Platforms. Tom would have been one of my first choices, if not my first, had I thought about him without the gentle nudge.

Not a bad reason to be on Twitter? That project alone is likely to pay for all of Tom’s time on Twitter. I get asked to recommend agencies and individuals all the time - Twitter is always my first port of call if I need to make an announcement. Isn’t that use case alone, enough to spend a little time on Twitter?

Follow me on Twitter if you want to be driven insane by the noise.