State of the twittosphere in Belgium
Check out this blog post for more figures about Twitter usage in Belgium. I'm not exactly sure where all the data come from, but they are still very interesting.
30 Jun
2010
15 Mar
2010
Découverte: Google Public Data Explorer
Cela fait quelques mois que je découvre les diverses expérimentations en cours sur Google Labs et il y en a une que j'apprécie particulièrement: Google Public Data Explorer. Il s'agit d'un site permettant de facilement visualiser et utiliser des données statistiques. C'est le genre d'outil que j'aurais rêvé avoir lorsque j'étais à l'université et que je devais passer des journées entières à la bibliothèque pour consulter des données périmées. Mais qu'est-ce qui rend Public Data Explorer aussi intéressant ?
23 Jan
2010
Que se passe-t-il dans le cerveaux des internautes?
Que se passe-t-il dans votre cerveau quand vous visitez une page web? Voilà une question à laquelle il est relativement difficile de répondre. Jusqu'à aujourd'hui, la majorité des "usability experts" tentaient d'extrapoler des explications subjectives sur base de résultats d'eyetracking et d'autres méthodes de mesure (plus ou moins fiables). Mais le problème de ce genre d'analyses est qu'elles ne font que montrer ce que fait (ou regarde) l'utilisateur, mais ne donnent aucune explication objective sur les raisons de ce comportement. En d'autres mots, on sait ce que fait l'utilisateur mais on ne sait pas pourquoi.
5 Nov
2009
Keep breaking news tweets under 120 characters
About one hour ago, the Nobel Foundation announced that Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, 2009. (...)
(...) But regarding the tweet, I have one tiny comment and that is, if you know you have something to announce, that many people will retweet on Twitter, you should ideally make room for that in your original post. Otherwise you are forcing people to change your message, in ways you might not want. For example by deleting the link to the original post.
The tweet above is 136 characters long. For someone to retweet this with the @nobelprize_org included, the new tweet will be at least 155 characters, including "RT" and spaces. This is of course too long, the maximum is 140 characters. In other words, the ideal length of a breaking news tweet is about 120 characters.
via kullin.net
Here is something I've been thinking about for a long time. It's very annoying when you find some useful information you want to share, but you can't retweet it because the original tweet is too long.
28 Oct
2009
You shouldn't care about your drunk profile pic on Facebook!
Being a Millenial myself, this blog post by Shel Holtz really struck me. Here are some excerpts:
College is for two things: Getting an education and being stupid. The only difference between college when I went and college today is that there was no Facebook, or anything remotely like it, during my days at university.
Today, we’re living through one of the most remarkable transitions in history. We’re moving from an era during which people were secretive and kept things close to the vest to an era where everyone is networked and everyone shares everything. And those who grew up in the soon-to-be bygone era are making hiring decisions about people who grew up in the era that is hurtling toward us like an out-of-control freight train.
It has become conventional wisdom for people of my generation to wag their fingers at millenials, warning them of the dangers that await if they’re too open with their extracurricular activities. (...)
That’s true today, with people who kept their late-night fraternity-house drinking binges on the QT. It won’t be so long, though, before the hiring managers have shared just as much of their social lives online as the recruits they’re looking to hire. The fact that people got drunk and engagred in questionable behavior in school just won’t matter.(...)
Recruiters and HR people can even eek out a competitive edge by overlooking a four-year-old picture on a Facebook page and focusing on their qualifications today. After all, that’s what today’s candidates will be doing in five years when they’re the ones making the hiring decisions.
4 Oct
2009
The Myth of the Viral by Youtube
Kaitlyn Wilkins (at Ogilvy PR 360 Digital Influence Blog) gives us a great summary of Youtube's The Myth of the Viral session at the WPP's Stream 2009 conference. I see a lot of advertising agencies failing to make their videos go viral and these fives myths might explain why.
“Viral success happens, but it doesn’t just ‘happen’”.
Myth 1: I don’t have to promote it
The most successful videos are rooted in smart creative and promotion. Videos need a robust syndication and promotion plan that incorporates elements such as video ads, brand integration on .coms, influencer outreach, and social networking plays.(...)Myth 2: I can just put a video on YouTube and users will find it
Naming, tagging, and engaging content people spend time with all help you index on YouTube. To stand out you have to understand search terms that people use, and search optimize against those words.(...)Myth 3: Consumers don’t like branded content
Branding is ok if it’s tasteful and appropriate to the content – stripping the brand out, or having all UGC content is not necessary. Examples: Samsung Omnia i900 Unboxing, riffing on the unboxing video trend (3MM views), or my favorite Smirnoff Raw Tea Partay (5MM views).(...)Myth 4: It’s not just about one video
Come up with ideas that people can replicate easily, so that viewers feel empowered to create additional content in response to the original piece. If you’re smart, you can build an ecosystem around your content. (...)Myth 5: Being in control is a good thing
Take advantage of your accidental spokespeople who are creating content without the brands “permissions.” For example, McDonald’s has leveraged a UGC McNuggets rap in advertising, and UK’s Cillit took advantage of a popular UGC techno remix of one of their commercials. Another common YouTube fear is the inane comments that are often left on videos, the discussion group felt that brands need to have tolerance for the YouTube community and the good/bad comments – and be confident that silly or unnecessarily disparaging remarks are often shouted down. (...)
Source: Ogilvy PR 360 Digital Influence Blog.
3 Oct
2009
Posterous: mon format de publication idéal?
Vous l'aurez sans doute remarqué, je blogue beaucoup moins ces derniers temps. Les raisons sont simples: je suis à la recherche d'un emploi et j'écris un peu ailleurs. Ca fait bien longtemps que je suis à la recherche d'un format qui me convienne pour écrire sur le web. Ce blog me permet d'aborder des sujets en profondeur et de les travailler de manière approfondie, mais certains thèmes, articles ou réflexions ne nécessitent pas un traitement aussi détaillé.
C'est pourquoi je me suis mis à la recherche d'un outil intermédiaire entre le blog, Twitter et les liens partagés sur Delicious. Et c'est ainsi que suite à la lecture des passionnants articles de Steve Rubel sur le lifestreaming, j'ai découvert Posterous.
J'utiliserai donc désormais cette nouvelle plateforme pour aborder des sujets plus concis, pour évoquer des articles trouvés chez d'autres auteurs et pour partager mes (courtes) réflexions. Le tout en anglais. Je continuerai à écrire de manière plus approfondie ici, mais je privilégierai Posterous pour les articles ne nécessitant pas la rédaction d'un long billet.
10 Sep
2009
The Power of Pull according to Steve Rubel
CREATE RESOURCES THAT INFORM THE CONVERSATION
When it comes to information, consumers will increasingly have a general ambient awareness of things they don't care about. However, they will go deep into pockets of passion. Brands can stand out and be more discoverable by becoming digital curators in a given niche -- and doing it well. They can work to separate art from junk (...).ADOPT RATHER THAN INVENT
Although it offers a lot of reward, creating content is work. This can be mitigated by finding digital assets that consumers are already using, remixing it and/or partnering with its creators to give it further lift (...).WRITE FOR SEARCHERS, NOT JUST READERSMost of us still write for readers. But in the pull economy, we need to also write for searchers. One way to think of it is that Googlers are looking for "how to get rid of roaches," not necessarily for "bug spray." We can suggest using Google Trends and Twitter Trends to learn how people express themselves, and map language accordingly.
That's what the power of pull is all about.
via steverubel.com
Interesting thoughts by Steve Rubel.
26 Aug
2009
Looks like Kids Don't Hate Twitter Anymore!
For the past week or so, the country has been obsessed with the theory that kids hate Twitter. Well now comScore tells us that kids used to hate Twitter, but they don't anymore.
While Twitter's user base historically favored older users, people between ages 12-24 have been Twitter's fastest growing age group of late. And now that age group is actually disproportionately visiting Twitter, according to comScore.
(...) In summary, if comScore's stats are accurate, people between ages 12-24 are using Twitter, and a lot more are using it now than before.
Interesting new trend. I'm really curious to see how this is going to evolve in the upcoming months.
26 Aug
2009
Standard cv/resume file format
I'll graduate in less than a month so I have to start looking for a job. I subscribed to different websites, services and cv databases and one thing really struck me: it takes ages to fill in all these forms everytime you want to register. I have my resume in Word, PDF and HTML format but (most) of these websites can't import it. So, everytime I register I have to manually add my studies information, my previous jobs and internships, etc.
It would be so easy if I could make one standard resume file that could be automatically imported, don't you think!?
Image credit: meltingnoise.
Gregory's Posterous
Junior online media strategist. Early adopter, music and photography lover, and a social media addict.
I share links on Delicious, I read my emails, I have a Linkedin profile and sometimes I tweet.
