Netizen: Guy Kawasaki

Showing posts with label Guy Kawasaki. Show all posts

Friday, June 12, 2009

Mashable Did It

Facebook And Mashable: Social Media And Social Media Blog
TechCrunch Now Number Two Tech Blog As Mashable Surges Business Insider

Mashable did it. They rose with the rise of social media. While TechCrunch wanted to cover everything tech, Mashable honed on its niche. It refused to cover everything tech and instead honed on primarily social media. Mashable has aspired to be the bridge between the average person and social media. And they have done the smart thing of selling their own

Image by Laughing Squid via Flickr

ads. When you do that, you can ask for much higher prices.

Congratulations to the team. Pete Cashmore has been ubiquitous on Twitter, more so than Guy Kawasaki. Kawasaki has been more of a lone shark. Pete has zoomed ahead by building a high profile team around him.

People talk of Dell using Twitter as a marketing tool. I think no other brand name has used Twitter to its benefit quite like Mashable. That just might have been their biggest secret weapon, or maybe not so secret.

Mashable rose by demystifying Twitter for the average person. Mashable rose by having a hyper active Twitter stream.

Nobody explains Twitter quite like Mashable.

Mashable: Twitter

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10 Twitter Tools to Organize Your Tweeps
Local Tweets: 9 Ways to Find Twitter Users in Your Town
Everything I Need to Know About Twitter I Learned in J School
20 Developers to Follow on Twitter
Top 7 Twitter Tutorials on YouTube
10 Ways to Share Music on Twitter
85 Comedians to Follow on Twitter
Twitter to Facebook: 5 Ways to Post to Both
HOW TO: Create Custom Twitter Backgrounds
Top 5 Ways to Share Videos on Twitter
Nonfiction Tweets: 70+ Authors to Follow on Twitter
HOW TO: Create and Share a Twttrlist of Your Favorite Tweets
HOW TO: Build Your Personal Brand on Twitter
5 Ways to Share Images on Twitter
25 Twitter Apps to Manage Multiple Accounts
HOW TO: Put Twitter on Every Web Page [Video]

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Twitter Sign In Comes to Disqus: Try It NOW on Mashable!
The Journalist’s Guide to Twitter
Tweet Street: 7 Extraordinary Twitter Uses in the Home
5 Impressive Mashups of Twitter and Flickr
HOW TO: Use Twitter for Customer Service
Literary Tweets: 100+ of the Best Authors on Twitter
85+ of the Best Twitterers Designers Should Follow
5 Terrific Twitter Research Tools
29 Twitter Apps for the iPhone Compared
HOW TO: Build Your Thought Capital on Twitter
HOW TO: Find Out What Those Odd Twitter Trends Are About
Beyond #FollowFriday: 24 Daily Twitter Memes
6 Twitter Search Services Compared
Inside the Minds of Twitter Users
5 Ways to Get Your Questions Answered on Twitter
The 7 Ways to Approach Twitter

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HOW TO: Retweet on Twitter
13 “Twits” Who Will Change Your Perspective on Reality
Data Visualizations: 5 Beautiful Social Media Videos
10 Most Extraordinary Twitter Updates
HOW TO: Get the Most Out of Status Updates
Head-to-Head: TweetDeck vs Seesmic Desktop
20 Twitter Badges to Show Off Your Tweets
6 Twitter Games To Make Tweeting Fun
26 Charities and Non-Profits on Twitter
6 Unique Twitter Visualizations
HOW TO: Find a Job on Twitter
Pro Cycling on Twitter: 48 People Who Aren’t Lance Armstrong
HOW TO: Organize a Successful Tweetup
Tweetable Art: 10 Twitter Tips for Artists
Twitter Professors: 18 People to Follow for a Real Time Education
HOW TO: Create Groups for Twitter

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5 Ways to Help Twestival Raise $1 Million
HOW TO: Live Inside Twitter and Still Stay Productive
Most Popular Twitter Clients Revealed
Find ‘Em On Twitter: 15 Twitter Directories Compared
20+ Great Twitter Tools for Firefox
40 of the Best Twitter Brands and the People Behind Them
Top FriendFeed Tips for Twitter Users
9 Ways Twitter Can Help in the Real World
HOW TO: Use Twitter on the Go
FOLLOW FAIL: The Top 10 Reasons I Will Not Follow You in Return on Twitter
10 Ways Twitter Will Change Blog Design in 2009
The 10 Users You’ll Meet on Twitter
The Year in Tweets: 10 Most Memorable Twitter Moments of 2008
HOW TO: Win Friends and Twinfluence People
20+ Great Greasemonkey Scripts for Improving Your Twitter Experience
HOW TO: Quiet the Twitter Noise

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HOW NOT TO: Build Your Twitter Community
HOW TO: Build Community on Twitter
Sixteen Great Twitter Moments
25+ Celebrity Twitter Users
Seven Ways to Get Your Mom on Twitter
5 Twitter Tactics for Building a Stellar Brand
7 Twitters Of The World
TWITTER TOOLBOX: 60+ Twitter Tools
Twits to Go: Top 12 Twitter Apps for Your Phone
Miniblogging:8 Pownce Rivals Compared
Jaiku Rocks! 19 Cool Jaiku Tools
8 Awesome Firefox Plugins for Twitter

Mashable Mega List

Mashable Most Popular

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Converting To The Mass Follow Formula On Twitter

InRev TwitIn
TopFollowed
MyTweetFollowers

I only follow about 200 people on Twitter now, and it is not like I read every tweet by every person I follow. You log in, and most of the time you skim through that first page. You spend some time in the stream. So the best way to have a more representative stream might be to follow a large number of people.

But I also like the idea of having a smaller group of people. For that I think I got TweetDeck. There I can create a group for the current 200 people. That way I can get the best of both worlds: TweetDeck to follow a small, intimate group, or two, or three - I also have a group with only 20 people there - and Twitter as a marketing tool.

I am also driven by a desire to jack up the traffic for this blog.

A few minutes back I read this article by my friend in Bangalore Bhupendra Khanal, the top Tweet in that city measured by the number of followers he has - he is also from Nepal like me - and he kind of made me think.

Tweeters: Here's The Growing Formulae! go to a mass follower .... and follow his followers
http://help.twitter.com/forums/10713/entries/14959

Enter Guy Kawasaki: Looking For Mr. Goodtweet: How To Pick Up Followers On Twitter

Kevin Rose: 10 Ways To Increase Your Twitter Followers

Twitter Is Not Micro
The Depth Of Your Friendships At Twitter
Goal: A Billion People On Twitter
Search Come Full Circle: That Human Element
The Search Results, The Links, The Inbox, The Stream
Fractals: Apple, Windows 95, Netscape, Google, Facebook, Twitter
I Talked To Google Through Twitter And It Worked Like Magic
Twitter And The Time Dimension
What Should Facebook Do
TweetDeck, Power Twitter, Twitter Globe, Better Than Facebook
TCC: Twitter Community College
Twitter Tips: It's A Bird, It's A Bird
Mitch Kapor Now Following Me On Twitter
I Get Twitter

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

The Depth Of Your Friendships At Twitter

Sex and the City

Image by hawaii via Flickr

I must admit there have been times when I have struggled with doing a Guy Kawasaki on Twitter: follow everyone who follows you. Should I? Should I not? I decided against the idea. For Guy Twitter is a broadcast medium. Noone else does that part better than him. His tweets get retweeted more times than that of any other. He is numero uno.

And there is Bhupendra Khanal, the top tweet in Bangalore, as in the one with the most followers:

Business Analytics: Twitter : Why unfollow who dont follow you?

He is a software guy, a CEO, who has come up with this program that allows you to follow or unfollow people about 50 at a time. He is brutal. He sees no point in following those who don't follow him. His following shot up to over 20,000 in a matter of months.

I decided I am biased towards an organic growth of my following, so I did not go down the Bhupendra route either, although we were and are good friends.

I found at Twitter what I did not find at Facebook. After I signed up at Facebook I realized my number one urge was to say hello to people I had never met before. Next thing you know I had about 1500 friends there. Then I signed up for this Facebook group that shall stay unnamed, and started emailing people in that group. Facebook deleted my account. 1500 friends gone. That was unfollow Facebook style.

I got another account, and now I have 500 friends, almost all of whom I personally know. Some are online friends I have never met in person, but we have interacted online enough that it feels like friendship. And I have over 40 friend requests and counting that I have decided to not accept, not decline either. If I end up chatting some of those and becoming online friends, I might still accept some of them.

At Twitter not only do you get to follow absolutely anyone you wish to follow, my number one dig has been this idea of being able to follow luminaries in the tech industry. Once in a while you come across this blog post or that which has recommendations of the people you get tempted to follow.

And clicking on the follow button is not enough. How well do you know them? Could you recognize them in your stream two months later? Could you name the company they might be associated with? Can you remember at least one blog post of theirs you have read?

How do you do all that? You spend some time on the profile pages of the people you follow. You read their intro. You reply to some of their tweets. You go read a few posts on their blog. You get to know them well enough that the next time they show up in your stream, their tweets look extra interesting to you. Each tweet by that person helps you know them a little better.

If you do that well enough, you just might strike a two way friendship, or rather followship, with a person who until recently was a distant celebrity to you. Like Craig Newmark, or Darren Rowse.

Goal: A Billion People On Twitter
Search Come Full Circle: That Human Element
The Search Results, The Links, The Inbox, The Stream
Fractals: Apple, Windows 95, Netscape, Google, Facebook, Twitter
I Talked To Google Through Twitter And It Worked Like Magic
Twitter And The Time Dimension
What Should Facebook Do
TweetDeck, Power Twitter, Twitter Globe, Better Than Facebook
TCC: Twitter Community College
Twitter Tips: It's A Bird, It's A Bird
Mitch Kapor Now Following Me On Twitter
I Get Twitter

Friday, January 30, 2009

Mitch Kapor Now Following Me On Twitter

43 is my lucky number. Mitch Kapor, a legend in the industry, is now following me on Twitter. This is not like Guy Kawasaki following me. That guy is officially the number one Twitterer in the world, but then he follows as many people as follow him, which is about 50,000. Which means he does not follow anybody. He just makes them feel good. It is like when you first signed up on MySpace, you automatically got one friend, I believe some guy called Tom, a MySpace staffer. Tom was everybody's friend at MySpace. Guy Kawasaki, great guy, a legend in his own right, Guy Kawasaki the Rich Dad Poor Dad guy, is the Tom of Twitter.

But Mitch Kapor. He is not trying to become a celebrity. He was a celebrity before anyone knew who Bill Gates was.

So when I saw he was my follower number 43, I immediately sent him a direct message. I am honored to have you follow me here on Twitter. He is only following 331 people. What that means is that once in a while he will read your twit.

The Hare Rama Hare Krishna people aspire for a Krishna consciousness. I think today on Twitter I have come to acquire a Kapor consciousness. Now on when I twit, I am going to ask a question, not What Would Jesus Do, but How Would Kapor React?

I don't believe this. I kept Twitter at arm's length for the longest time. Then I came in kicking and screaming. Within days I became an addict. (I Get Twitter) I mean, I want to snatch Guy Kawasaki's title away from him, but not by fraud following as many people as might be genuinely following me, but by becoming a genuine celebrity, someone who people want to follow, because they are interested in knowing what you do, what are you thinking about, what you are reading.

I almost want to lock up my account. As in I already got Mitch Kapor, I don't want any more people following me. But instead I decided to immortalize the moment with a blog post.

I do want more followers, more than most. This is PR at its best. If you think about it, this is Reverse Paparazzi. The paparazzi follow you e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e. Twits follow themselves everywhere.

We have become our own paparazzi. But this is fun. In a way this is the ultimate mindfood. Suddenly all my news browsing has become a social activity. I am not some loner reading a ton of news. Almost every news item I read these days, I feel the urge to share. I feel the urge to comment and share. I don't have enough followers yet to spark conversations, but I will get there.

I have met so many amazing people here already. For the longest time I thought the tech world was all male and boring. Then I saw all innonate was following. And I found all sorts of outrageously gorgeous women on the New York tech scene who I also decided to follow, one of whom I have kind of sort of become friends with. She has an exciting YouTube channel. By the way innonate is the Organizer of the New York Tech MeetUp, the top tech event in town. He was voted into that position. Used to be my friend the MeetUp CEO Scott was the Oragnizer.

I am honored you are following me now on Twitter, I said. Promptly I pitched. I thought I was done with round 1 fundraising back in June 2008. But I will save the details of the story. I am still a little short. I pitched the Plenty Of Fish: Online Dating King Markus Frind yesterday, but now I believe it that his company is a one person operation. I have not heard from him.

I mean, I could not resist. Mitch and I have exchanged a few emails since. At Twitter those emails are called DMs. They are Direct Messages. They also have that 140 character limit. Whoever came up with that random number? It feels scientific to me. Good enough for one unit of expression, especially if links are allowed.