For a long time in my own inept way, I tried to create a daily page of news items that I found interesting and that other people I know might find interesting. But without programming skills and enough disposable income to get someone to do it for me, the idea fell by the wayside.

more on my posterous blog

What do users think about Google Buzz? Not much, it would appear. See my column in the Belfast Telegraph.

This week's Twitter column in the Belfast Telegraph is 10 (very) basic rules for using Twitter for business. Read all about it ...

This is a version of my Belfast Telegraph column from 2 Feb 2010

It is more than a year since the Great Twitter Adoption.  Within a few months Twitter stories were all over the media. @StephenFry earned acres of coverage when he sent a photograph and Tweets from inside a lift stuck between two floors.  This was the new frontier and Mr. Fry was elevated to be the great public Twitter leader of the non-digerati – rightly so.  Stories of an easy way to communicate with strangers (in or out of a lift) emerged just as the economy was crumbling. Businesses saw this mass migration to one platform as a new way to market. Some blundered in and started firing off marketing messages to an audience they hadn’t got to know and without understanding that the great thing about Twitter (and other social media) you can chose not to listen to someone.

Some got it right. From their experience I offer the following as “learnings”.  Businesses can use Twitter successfully; they just have to appreciate the local customs.

1 – Human or Business?  People like people and they tend to be less interested in corporations and businesses.  A business is there to sell – social media is about being social.  Be a person, use your own name not your businesses.  There are some exceptions – information providers like newspapers and magazines are generally OK to use their business name, only.  But a person is even better.

2 –Write with a personal voice, write the way you speak.

3 – Beware, 140 characters does not lend itself to subtlety or irony.

4 – Follow and be followed. Twitter is a place to get to know people.  Find followers.  What are you interested in? Find people posting on the same topics. Follow them and some will follow you.

5 –Sell? Sell? Sell? – No! No! No! But do provide information.

6 – Reply. If someone sends a message – reply, unless you want to ignore them.

7 – Share.   Don’t just promote your business.  Tell people about what you are doing, reading, exploring and find interesting.

8  – Unless you are amazingly talented – humour rarely works.

9 – Re-Tweet.  Someone you follow said something interesting?  Then Re-Tweet.  Support your friends and they’ll support you.

10 – Remember #followfriday.  Recommend people you find interesting to others.

Posted via email from Davy Sims Posterous Site

This week’s Belfast Telegraph column:

The third series of the brilliant BBC TV comedy “The Thick of It” has come to an end. It tells the story of the fictional Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship and in particular the relationship between the Number 10 “enforcer” Malcolm Tucker played by Peter Capaldi and – in the most recent series – the Minister for the department Nicola Murray MP played by Rebecca Front.

“And this has got to do with Twitter because …?” It has to do with Twitter because of the number of members of the cast and writers who use Twitter and the way they interact with fans who follow them. After each programme Rebecca Front (@rebeccafront) will be on Twitter talking to people who have just watched the programme. You’ll also find Chris Addison (@mrchrisaddison) who plays Oliver Reeder, writer Ian Martin @IanMartin and others. Before the end of the series I sent this “Follow Friday” • #ff Special for fans of The Thick of It @mrchrisaddison @rebeccafront @IanMartin @jessearmstrong1 @richardpbacon @willsmithuk @AIannucci

The next day I got this message from Ian Martin:

• IanMartin @davy_sims plus… @joannascanlan @pollykemp and the massive massive writing talent that is @simonblackwell x

Here is the point. A programme has just been broadcast – a fairly controversial one, too (“contains strong language”). And the writing and acting talent are in a public place to talk to each other and their friends and their fans. It’s not a construct, it’s not a publicity stunt. It’s just people talking to people. When I talk to businesses about engaging in Social Media the first response is always “but what if somebody says something bad about us?” Then we have the conversation about talking to your customers as friends not as potential whingers and whiners. I tell them that if they are a good business then people will speak well of them and anyway, if someone has a complaint, should you not be dealing with it and even better to be seen to be dealing with it?

It’s hard to identify anyone more exposed to complaints and whinges than an actor who has just been on TV in a controversial programme. But there is the cast and creator Armando Iannucci (@AIannucci) having perfectly decent conversations. Would Social Media be good for your business? Yes, unless you have something to hide.

This week’s Belfast Telegraph column:

The third series of the brilliant BBC TV comedy “The Thick of It” has come to an end.  It tells the story of the  fictional Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship and in particular the relationship between the Number 10 “enforcer” Malcolm Tucker played by Peter Capaldi and – in the most recent series – the Minister for the department Nicola Murray MP played by Rebecca Front.

“And this has got to do with Twitter because …?” It has to do with Twitter because of the number of members of the cast and writers who use Twitter and the way they interact with fans who follow them. After each programme Rebecca Front (@rebeccafront) will be on Twitter talking to people who have just watched the programme.  You’ll also find Chris Addison (@mrchrisaddison) who plays Oliver Reeder, writer Ian Martin @IanMartin and others. Before the end of the series I sent this “Follow Friday” • #ff Special for fans of The Thick of It @mrchrisaddison @rebeccafront @IanMartin @jessearmstrong1 @richardpbacon @willsmithuk @AIannucci

The next day I got this message from Ian Martin:

• IanMartin @davy_sims plus… @joannascanlan @pollykemp and the massive massive writing talent that is @simonblackwell x

Here is the point.  A programme has just been broadcast – a fairly controversial one, too (“contains strong language”).  And the writing and acting talent are in a public place to talk to each other and their friends and their fans.  It’s not a construct, it’s not a publicity stunt.  It’s just people talking to people. When I talk to businesses about engaging in Social Media the first response is always “but what if somebody says something bad about us?”  Then we have the conversation about talking to your customers as friends not as potential whingers and whiners. I tell them that if they are a good business then people will speak well of them and anyway, if someone has a complaint, should you not be dealing with it and even better to be seen to be dealing with it?

It’s hard to identify anyone more exposed to complaints and whinges than an actor who has just been on TV in a controversial programme.  But there is the cast and creator Armando Iannucci (@AIannucci) having perfectly decent conversations. Would Social Media be good for your business? Yes, unless you have something to hide. Posted via email from Davy Sims Posterous Site

This week's Belfast Telegraph article

It's called “Slacktivism”: a mix of Activism and Slacker describing how some people support a cause by doing no more than signing an online petition, or joining a Facebook group or taking part in a Twitter-storm.

Slacktivism is a pejorative term, but the motivation behind a person’s engagement in an issue can be positive. Most of us are not in a position to change public perception or opinion even if we had the time and resources, even the inclination to put our boots on and take to the streets. Following the Iranian elections in June supporters of the Iranian opposition did take to the streets in protest. Some Twitter users outside Iran added a green tinge to their profile photo to show support to the protesters. Some even changed their profile location to Tehran believing that this would hinder the Iranian authorities. We were told Iranians were using Twitter to arrange protests, the government was trying to monitor them and it was though that the more people on the platform with a false Tehran location the harder it would be to track the real organisers. Who knows whether it did or not.

In October newsrooms were prevented from reporting information about Trafigura by threat of severe legal action. It was a Twitter-storm that brought the story into the public domain showing the “super-injunction” to be impotent. While some registered outrage others became online detectives digging up the information that the public was being prevented from knowing. This was not slacktivism, this was mass collaboration that confounded the legal status quo. But every hash-tag helped.

Signing up to a Facebook page in protest or support doesn’t take much effort. People have been hoodwinked. As a part of a psychological experiment, Anders Colding-Jørgensen created a Facebook protest group that went from 125 to 27,500 members in two weeks. The cause, “Save the Stork Fountain” was a totally fictitious protest against the demolition of a famous Danish fountain. He wanted to understand if political campaigns like that could work. His conclusion was that they don’t. People sign-up to the headline not the issue.

Some Twitter and Facebook campaigns might be superficial and transient but Slactivism is surely better than apathy. It is us Slackers 40th birthday present to the Internet.

My column for the Belfast Telegraph is here.

Only occasionally will you find “breaking news” on Twitter. If you are following the right people and reading at the right time you might. If you follow any of the newspaper feeds including the Belfast Telegraph, you will get a headline linking to the story online. Once or twice news has been broken on Twitter. The biggest story was the US Airways plane crash landing on Hudson accompanied by Photos on Twitpic. It is said – although I’ve yet to see the evidence – that Michael Jackson’s was announced on Twitter 13 minutes after it was declared from within the hospital. News of earthquakes is Tweeted and sometimes other major disasters are covered by citizens caught up in them. More >>>

This is my column for Belfast Telegraph for this week. Only occasionally will you find “breaking news” on Twitter. If you are following the right people and reading at the right time you might. If you follow any of the newspaper feeds including the Belfast Telegraph, you will get a headline linking to the story online.  Once or twice news has been broken on Twitter.  The biggest story was the US Airways plane crash landing on Hudson accompanied by Photos on Twitpic.  It is said – although I’ve yet to see the evidence – that Michael Jackson’s was announced on Twitter 13 minutes after it was declared from within the hospital.  News of earthquakes is Tweeted and sometimes other major disasters are covered by citizens caught up in them. Instant communications about events are enhanced by micro-blogging.  Although back in the summer on 10 July when there was a bomb alert in Belfast, only two people Tweeted about it – me and someone else milling around the Waterfront.  At that time there was smoke coming from a building in west London which was getting a lot more attention from the Twitterati.  London was recently recognised as the Twitter capital of the world.  So we haven’t got the bulk users yet. Short form messaging will play a real part in breaking news in the future, but for now Twitter and similar are reactive spaces. Throughout September there was hardly a mention of the Nobel Prize. Yet on 9 October according to trendistic.com the Nobel Peace Prize was the biggest topic – for a day.

Great comment on TIME: Nobel committee should be given a peace prize for uniting the twitterverse in sarcasm Was that thunder we heard? Or Alfred Nobel rolling over in his grave? Must have been the “beer summit” that put #obama over the top for the Nobel Peace Prize. What else could it have been?

You don’t get a lot of analysis in 140 characters, but you do get sense the mood.  Sometimes you’ll find pithy observations.

But that’s what it’s for.  If there is something more interesting or important a link with the comment will take you to there.  It’s not news, but it is a global editorial page where everyone’s view has equal exposure.

Posted via email from Davy Sims Posterous Site

I've posted an Audioboo on hijacking Twitter names

This article appeared in the print only edition of the Belfast Telegraph 28 July 2009

Two Web developers in Northern Ireland have each just launched Twitter based websites and applications; TweetNI.com and RTweeter.com. TweetNI aggregates the latest messages from Northern Ireland members who have tagged their Twitter posts “#tweetni”. It also automatically RT’s (re-tweets) the Belfast Telegraph’s news feed.

Read the full article here

This article appeared in the print only edition of the Belfast Telegraph 28 July 2009 Two Web developers in Northern Ireland have each just launched Twitter based websites and applications; TweetNI.com and RTweeter.com.  TweetNI aggregates the latest messages from Northern Ireland members who have tagged their Twitter posts “#tweetni”. It also automatically RT’s (re-tweets) the Belfast Telegraph’s news feed. TweetNI, developed by Lee Munroe (@leemunroe), bills itself as “An easier way to find and follow Twitter users in Northern Ireland.” One of the early members was Grace Smith (@gracesmith).  Grace is at the top of the list of members with the most Twitter followers – almost 8,000.  She is a freelance web designer working in north Antrim but has customers around the world.  These are some of her recent posts:

25 Essential Web Services for Designers http://bit.ly/9P2Wr 5 Tricks That Make You More Attractive to Clients: http://bit.ly/L0kKV How To Properly Archive Your Design Work: http://bit.ly/MdaZl      The Ultimate A-Z of the Best Design and Development Related Sites: http://bit.ly/aDb5Z

David Airey (@davidairey), a graphic designer, has just short of 6,000 followers and also shares information useful to him, his followers, anyone who reads his Twitter feed:

10 top notch typography websites — http://tr.im/t2fs — via @DesignerDepot Reading through the design process of @MaggieMacnab — excellent. Recession advice for designers — http://tr.im/rzmO

Sharing information and letting everyone know about interesting websites and blog posts is part of the community ethos, even if that means tipping off competitors about what might be useful to them. Sharing is a good way to help develop a following. Every Friday there is a rush of “#followfriday” posts.  Most people use the site as a business communication tool as well as for fun and will recommend people they follow. On the day Stuart Manning (@stuartmanning) launched RTweeter.com website and desktop application, his Friday recommendations were:

followfriday @RTweeter @antonmannering @markjfinlay @helentreacy @johngirvin @Straandlooper @belfastbiker @davymac @Jaoibh @maehara

Stuart explains that RTweeter started as a way for him to manage information on Twitter and put it into a more meaningful context. He calls it a “Swiss Army knife of sorts” for users and developers. “Twitter is a phenomenon and while it has been around for a while I think it’s in its infancy. RTweeter and its tools and services are used on more than 200 sites to help track, measure and share links across a multitude of social networks. That’s pretty good going for a service that didn’t exist two weeks ago.”