There is a sensor of some sort in Beijing that is measuring the quality of the air in that city and broadcasting the information via Twitter. (BeijingAir (BeijingAir) on Twitter)
In some ways, this may seem like a set back from a webcam. But in other ways, it is better, because now someone could take this data and do some analysis of it over time, or do a mashup with it. It’s a small example of instrumentation and it is interconnected via the web and Twitter. Now to do something intelligent with the data.
Tim O’Reilly and company recently offered a
“…Twitter Boot Camp, (which was) held June 15 in New York, (and) offered a variety of best practices and case studies revolving around Twitter’s business, marketing, branding and advertising opportunities. Slides from the day’s presentations are available…”
…by clicking on this link and then clicking on the various hypertext links (e.g. Create More Value Than You Capture)
If you want to know more about what Twitter can do for your organization, I suggest you check this out.
The NYTimes.com has very good coverage on the situation in Iran, including an article pertaining to the social of Web 2.0 technology there:
Social Networks Spread Iranian Defiance Online - NYTimes.com. I am struck by how actively platforms like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter are being used inside and outside of Iran. So much so, in fact, that Twitter had one of their infrastructure service providers postpone a outage to maximize access to the service by the people of Iran. (The outage is now scheduled for 1:30 am in Iran: middle of the afternoon in the U.S.).
Like Obama did during the election and afterward, Iranians are doing many things, including changing how people perceive social networks.
..you may be asking yourself: is there times I shouldn’t tweet? Well, yes. These may seem obvious, but I have seen may people break the guidelines listed in this posting on the blog Meg’s Single Step. There may be more than this, but start with the Top Ten Worst Times to Tweet. Incidentally, what goes for tweeting goes for blogging and any other digital communications.
(Thanks to Andy Piper for the tip.)
It’s alot harder than you think, what with all this new Web 2.0 technology! The following is a funny take on how much harder it can be to promote a book these days. See:
[youtube="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxschLOAr-s"]
Lucy Waverman knows food: not only how to prepare it, but how to communicate to others about it. She has appeared on television and has written numerous cook books, magazine and newspaper articles, including the Globe and Mail. I was fortunate to get to know her when we both took informal Italian classes at Grano’s years ago. She’s delightful.
Recently Lucy has taken on a new challenge: using Twitter to talk about food, including the sharing of recipes. For example, here is the classic spaghetti carbonara recipe reduced to a demi-glaze of 140 characters:
Carbonara: 12 oz spaghetti cooked. Mix with 6 slices ch fried pancetta, 3 eggs, ¼C evo, 1C grated parm, S&P. Garnish ch parsley.
Impressive! I think this is another innovative example of what you can do with Twitter. Lucy writes about the experience here: globeandmail.com: Cooking on Twitter. I highly recommend it.
According to USAToday, quite alot. I think the headline says it all: Oprah effect: 43% jump in Twitter traffic
Even with Twitter’s exceptionally strong growth, this was alot.
More good stats can be found in the article.
CNN reports that Twitter, WordPress and other Web 2.0 executives are in Iraq to help country use new media.
It’s part of a mission led by the U.S. State department. Like many places in the world, Iraq doesn’t have alot of homes with Internet access (around 5%) but practically everyone there has a cell phone. That might seem like a serious limit for new media, but it is becoming less and less of a limitation, based on stories I have been reading concerning places with similar usages of technology.
For more on this story, see the article linked to above. I look forward to seeing more contributions from the people of Iraq, soon: perhaps I’ll get some Iraqi followers on twitter.
P.S. Not sure what Hillary Clinton is apparently “bogging”, though. I suspect she is “blogging”.
Chances are that you’ve heard of the difficult situation that Domino’s Pizza is in with regards to a YouTube video that some of its employees made. How Domino’s responds, and how it plays out, is going to be instructive for everyone.
At the TIME’s web site is a good article that not only summarizes what happened, but provides some advice on what Domino’s can do next (Domino’s YouTube Crisis: 5 Ways to Fight Back - TIME). While this may never happen to your company — and I hope it doesn’t — it is worthwhile reading about and considering. Likewise, the NYTimes.com web site had a good article on the story with the added benefit of highlight other recent examples of companies (like Amazon) that have suffered from problems as a result of social media. Read them both.
I have started to notice a backlash against Twitter. Some of the critiques are warranted, but others fault it for things that it is not and cannot be responsible for. But rather than dwell on the negative, I’d like to focus on the positive, specifically this article that Mashable has on the 10 Most Extraordinary Twitter Updates. Even people who don’t use twitter will find it fascinating, I believe. As for people like me, who have been a part of the Twitter movement for some time now (4000+ updates and counting), well…I am happy to have been part of it the whole experience.
And how did I come across this article? Why, from someone else’s tweet, of course! 
