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140 Characters Conference: Twitter Is Power

Guillaume — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:38:29 +0000

Yesterday I attended the 140 Characters Conference that had for task to explore the state of now (i.e. the real time web) and I really enjoyed it. With more than 50 speakers gathered thanks to Jeff Keni Pulver , creator of #140conf, the conference dealt with all sorts of issue: communication, racism, crime, education, democracy, culture, marketing, branding, etc. You can have a look at the whole program here. What really amazed me what the diversity of the different stakeholders and how they all admit Twitter has changed things in their industry.

The speakers and attendees agreed on several points:

Twitter has transformed the way we communicate, receive/get the news and to some extent interact with people.
Any barriers that prevents people from using the medium should be destroyed (e.g. 30% of universities in the UK block access to it)
Twitter might not be around in 5 years time (who knows?)
The medium (micro blogging) should be detached from Twitter: if the company stops now, what would happen?

There are two things that struck me at the event:

Social media has a newspeak, and hearing it during a whole day might be a bit annoying. Of course I agree on the fact you have to “Listen”, “engage the conversation”, “create a community”, “humanize your brand”, “be honest and transparent”; but honestly I feel it is such a common place now. Personally I want something different; I want to hear new views on things, different angles. Which brings me to my second point.

Andrew Keen, the author of the Cult of the Amateur, just brought that to the event. He took a stance on two things: the first one being that he criticized the fact that Twitter helps us to be more human because it makes it easier to communicate with people. I think he was right, especially when James Poulter, Digital Strategist for Ogilvy PR, as asked everyone turn back and shake the hands of the people behind them. It just makes me realize it is a bit weird to talk about being social all the time and not talk to people around us. The second point was he insisted on the power that people can get from Twitter: of course it is soft power, but when you realize that 90% of the tweets come from less than 10% of the users and that among them there are lots of RT from big names, basically you end up with a few people concentrating a huge communication power on their hands. So what happens if they go rogue? Better not to know.

To Get more information on the conference you can have a look at the following articles or read #140Conf

#140con: On racism and Twitter

#140con: The rules of Twitter and things that tweet

#140con: Police test Twitter strategy

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Facebook Developer Garage: Content and Engagement Are Kings Forever

Guillaume — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:34:05 +0000

Another month, another Facebook Developer Garage in London, this time dedicated to the platform changes. Joshua March and Iskandar Najmuddin presented all the different elements that have changed on Facebook: Newsfeed/Livefeed; notifications modifications; policy changes; profile boxes gone, etc. What really struck me is that despite all the changes that can really be annoying for people depending on the Facebook ecosystem (e.g. application developers), you realize that the fundamentals are still there: content and engagement.

Of course developers and people working with them can feel Facebook has deprived them with tools they used before and blurred things, but there is a trade off: developers will get email addresses, bookmark button for their apps but above all a more conciliatory Facebook. Honestly Facebook, to say the least, has not been very nice with developers by changing stuff overnight without any warning or information. But this is over, as the company has released a developer roadmap for the future developments on the platform, which will increase the visibility of everyone working around FB.

The other interesting fact that I noticed during the evening was the pursuit of the pervasive strategy of Facebook: they are increasingly invading the web. From Facebook Connect to the idea of an open graph API that will allow any page on the web to get the feature of a Facebook fan page, they are becoming the entry and exit door of internet users. More and more you will stay on Facebook because from there you will be able to do anything, as Cameron Church showed us with his live streaming performance. And wherever you go Facebook will be with you. Moreover, this is the way for the company to ensure its future and become an indispensable player. If the ultimate goal of Google is to organize all the information on earth, I feel the Facebook’s one is to organize all the humans on earth.

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Jack Bauer and Social Media: Launch 48

Guillaume — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 14:26:14 +0000

I am a big fan of 24, mainly because it leaves no time to breathe as it is all about the thrill. Imagine this for a start up competition: 48 hours competing against other teams to create a web application? Crazy isn’t it? Well not so much as it is going to take place in London this weekend with Launch48.

The event will start on Friday 16th with a conference on how to create web app but also how to get through the weekend and get the most out of it. And then this is non stop creativity as you can see on this busy schedule.

The whole event will gather all different people united by their passion for everything digital: web developers; web designers; marketers; entrepreneurs; people from finance and the law industry; etc. They will have to form teams and pitch for ideas.Each group will choose one of them and work on it during 48 hours. Groups will receive support and advice from mentors (experienced business people that went through the hardships of entrepreneurship and business management). At the end of the weekend groups will present their work to all participants.

Beyond the competition itself, the concept of Launch48 is a fantastic opportunity to meet people of the tech and digital industry, but above all to jump into creativity: as you may have ideas on your future start up or a new product, being there will give you new directions or perspectives on what to do next. It might be one of the most networking events of the year, so do not miss it and register here. And with sponsors like PayPal, Google, Amazon Web Services and TechCrunch, you can be sure you are going to get proper weapons for the tech version of 24.

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Facebook Developer Garage: What not to Do in Social Media!

Guillaume — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 11:23:21 +0000

Another month, another Facebook Developer Garage in London, but this one was even better than usual. First because the event keeps gaining traction and new people (developers, marketers and entrepreneurs) were present last night, which is really helpful to get fresh views on the industry. Secondly, speakers were just great.

Joshua March and Iskandar Najmuddin kicked the event by talking about changes on the platform. The former mentioned the buyout of FriendFeed, the new search function, the better Inbox and joked about the Twitter mimic functions that are Facebook Lite and the @ referencing status tagging. He also briefly explained the most important thing for virality regarding a Facebook app: the retention rate! The higher it is the better as people that continuously spend time on your app are likely to keep attracting new users from their own network.

Iskandar talked about technical changes: the release of the API for Notifications and Inbox; the possibility to create desktop and web applications that push updates on a fan page; the Tornado release; The Twitter integration for Fan page; the new engagement ad that uses samples.

Then Clara Shih, author of The Facebook Era, exposed us her view on how Facebook completely transformed sociability and marketing. People share more information with a higher number of people that it takes less time to meet, befriends and keep in touch with. This is not one-to-many or many-to-many communication, this is everybody-to-everybody. And as more information is available to marketers, people will expect us to adopt more targeted, subtle ways of reaching them. The most interesting part was when she explained how this changes the Customer Lifetime Value equation. Here is her view: CLV_new = CLV_old + (Level of influence x Size of Community) + (Level of influence x Size of Network) + (Sales resulting from idea contributions). This truly shows the value of the most important asset of the Facebook Era, the social capital.

Mat Clayton and Simon Stewart took care of the technical part of the event, explaining what not to do for developing a Facebook app and coding. The latter used a word that in my opinion truly shows the problems encountered by social media in many corporations: mumpsimus. It means that you keep doing things in a certain way because you have always been doing it like this. Sounds familiar right? I guess this is the challenge many developers and marketers can face with clients or within their own company. Finally Hermione Way closed the evening with the five biggest “epic fails” in social media, the winner coming from Denmark.

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Twitter at its Most Useful Condition: the Twestival

Guillaume — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 16:23:52 +0000

We heard it so many times: Twitter is not useful at all! Well, here is the thing that can prove you wrong. The Twestival gathers charity events that will take place all around the world between the 10^th and 13^th of September 2009 (This week). The goal of these events is to raise as much money as possible for charities. The last edition that took place in more than 200 cities with more than 10,000 people attending raised more than $250,000.

The novelty of this one is that each local event needs to find one local charity that will receive the money collected during the night. 77Agency will be present at the Twestival in London and if you want to join us, book your tickets here: with several bands playing such as The Hours, it is going to be a great night. If you are anywhere else in the world, go to Twestival.com and see if there is anything organized in your city. If you are still not convinced, here is an example of what you could miss.

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