When I was a kid, I used to pretend that my sister’s horsewhip was a sword and play Highlander by myself. I mostly dueled with inanimate objects…sometimes destructively. I most assuredly looked like a huge dork. YouTube wasn’t invented yet and this paragraph is the only proof (along with some scuffs on the wall in my parents’ basement). So, there was no one to make my antics into something awesome.
Several years ago, a young lad was inspired to do similarly. However, he was inspired by Star Wars, he taped it and it made it on to YouTube:
And, either fortunately or unfortunately for him, it went viral (Ahhh…it was almost me!). Then something cool happened. Someone made his awkwardness into awesomeness.
Recently, this happened again. And, it all started with a double rainbow. A full on double rainbow, and someone who really liked it…a lot.
And, this nice gentlemen became famous, and even went on Jimmy Kimmel.
And, yet again, someone made it awesome.
It’s amazing what an auto tuner can do. I want one permanently embedded in my voice-box so that I can sound awesome even during regular everyday conversation.
But that’s beside the point. The take home message here is:
It turns out that you can crowd source awesomeness without even asking for it, and people are so creative that they can be inspired by literally anything.
A while back I posted a story about how companies can “Twitter Sniff” and find out what people are saying about them. You can read that here. In that post, Smokey Bones found one of my tweets about them, and started a dialog with me. Recently, I had another experience that mirrors this. It involved an application called Foursquare.
When I became mayor of Chipotle on Foursquare (meaning I checked in more than anyone else), Chipotle tweeted a congratulations to me and started up a dialog with me that was similar to the one I had with Smokey Bones. Earlier today I was at Chipotle (feeling some brand loyalty, given my experience with them), and eavesdropped on an employee getting trained. I was very impressed with the thoroughness of it and I let Chipotle know about it via Twitter. Below is the conversation:
Me: @ChipotleTweets I am listening to an employee being trained and am very impressed. Very thorough.
Them: @PureCognition Nice. We’re pretty thorough. Even for us staffers we had to work in the restaurant for at least 4 weeks. -Colin
Me: @ChipotleTweets Very cool. I bet that helped a great deal with your perspective on things.
This is another great example of a company that is speaking and listening through Twitter (and Foursquare) in ways that were previously unheard of. This is not an impersonal TV spot or billboard sign. This is a high touch one-on-one conversion, and a glimpse into the direction that marketing is going. And, did I mention it was mostly free?
As many of you know, Google has the ability to make suggestions for search phrases as you type. These suggestions are based on what other people are most commonly searching for with the same combinations of words. So, by starting a question, you can see how many others have finished it. And, this can give interesting insights into what’s on people’s minds.
I based my question beginnings on different ways to group people, such as race, gender, religion, and sexual orientation. Why? Because I believe people want to understand themselves and each other, but are afraid to ask certain questions to other humans. So, they not ask Google instead. After all, Google won’t judge.
You’ll see a lot of questionos about stereotypes. Perhaps I am a glass half full kind of guy, but I would like to think that people explore stereotypes to understand them and to eventually see past them.
Below are the results of my research. Let me know what you think?
A while back I watched some video on how to get a bunch of followers on Twitter. Oddly, at this point in time, I can’t remember why I wanted a lot of followers on Twitter.
The gist of how it worked was one searches Twitter for things that interest them (for me that was stuff involving softwaredevelopment, Web 2.0, and the Semantic Web). Then they clicked on and followed almost anyone that mentions those things (particularly if they are hashed because that means that that is what the tweet is about). I say “almost” because there are certain indicators that imply you shouldn’t follow someone. For instance, if they have only tweeted twice and don’t have a profile picture then they probably aren’t into it enough to follow you back and start a dialogue. Also, if someone unfollows you you unfollow them in kind. This opens up a “space” for following someone else (due to the limitations of Twitter following that I now believe in more than ever).
The basic idea is to follow people who share an interest, have a high likelihood of following you back, and have a quality Twitter stream. Then, in 3 or so days you un-follow the people that didn’t follow you back and try again. This works…if you want a lot of followers (and don’t mind following a bunch of people). However, I have since found it unsatisfying, and here are three reasons why…
Even though there are millions of people on Twitter and the like, I like to keep the web at least somewhat personal. Following this many people defeats that. I now am following far more people than I could ever keep up with and am thusly not keeping up with any of them. There are a small number of people that I would like to follow and keep up with but their streams have since drowned in Twitter chaos.
With the exception of a small number of Twitter streams I find more use in following things not people. For instance, I used a term in a previous post called “Twitter Sniffing”. This means to continually monitor a particular search on twitter (such as #Lost for the Lost TV show) and see what updates there are concerning it.
If you think that a lot of people following you means you have a lot of people that will get your tweets…you’re wrong. Most of the people who follow you back using this method are already following so many people that you aren’t even on their radar. Using a hash tag will actually work better because people monitoring that subject will read it and they are who you WANT to read it.
So, in short, I got wrapped up in following and getting followed. But, it’s no longer how I wish to use Twitter. I wish to have a small number of people I follow and spend most of my time Twitter Sniffing subjects with an application such as TweetDeck ,which I also mentioned in a previous post. And, if others feel the same way, then I won’t need a lot of followers because those that are interest in what I’m tweeting will be sniffing for it using Twitter search.
And I’m hoping if, with the advent of tools like TweetDeck, people are starting to care less about following and followers and more about sniffing for particular subjects. If you follow someone because 1/3 of their tweets are about a subject that interests you, would you need to follow them if you could just sniff for tweets about that subject? You would not only get tweets about the subject from people that you aren’t following, but you would only get the interesting tweets from those you are following.
The concept of following on Twitter is based on the original intent of the application as a means by which to keep in touch with your friends in real time…which it can still do. But, that’s not the main use case anymore. And, I think more and more people will be following subjects (by continually searching for certain keywords and hash tags) more often than other people.
Now…How do I un-follow thousands of people without looking like a jerk?
Most people have heard of the conscious and subconscious mind. Your conscious mind is the part of your mind you have conscious access to. Your sub-conscious mind is the part of your mind that you don’t. Below, I show you how this is mirrored in the web.
The web’s subconscious mind concerns the intelligence that is mined from what people do, without them necessarily knowing it. This is often done through taking large amounts of search data, and finding interesting patterns in it. Also, if it’s a site you buy from, then places like Amazon put you into various groups based on your choices and recommend what other people in your groups have chosen.
A lot of times things are done both consciously and subconsciously. What unites consciousness and subconsciousness? Two things: Reflection and Meaning. We consciously reflect on on what we are doing unconsciously, and we finding meaning with it.
Web 2.0 (the interactive and collaborative web) becomes Web 3.0 (the semantic web or the web of meaning) when it begins to reflect on itself and gives meaning to itself. And, this is what we are doing when we mark up what we create with semantic meta-data…such as tagging.
Web 2.0 will become Web 3.0 more and more when meaningful reflection (and the resulting meta-data) becomes a first class citizen of our content. Meaning allows information to be leveraged in creative new ways. So, there are some very exiting developments to come, and I definitely want to be part of that.
Web 2.0 | Nathan | 
August 5, 2010 8:18 pm | 
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