The SocioSphere

twistory1- Interactive Storytelling on Twitter- Part 2

Here is the summary of events with the initial try of  using Twitter as a storytelling medium, #twistory, an interactive storytelling on Twitter (for a longer description, see the previous post. Since yesterday, Jill Foster added a branch to the initial tweet:

#twistory1 Poised, she launched her ninja skill

I then added:

#twistory1 The shadow disappeared. Janet closed the window & sat down again 2 eat her dinner. & then…   

In summary, here is where we are now with this interactive story:

What would be the next tweet? 

 If you try it, please don't forget to tag your tweet with #twistory1

twistory1- Interactive Storytelling on Twitter

Yesterday, I started to explore the use of Twitter as a storytelling medium.  My idea was to start with a simple example followed by more complicated ones (like a longer series with a number of branches).  The plan for the first experiment was to post a 140-character tweet and letting somebody else finish the story with another tweet.  End of story!

The first tweet was:

#twistory1 Finish the story w/a tweet incl tag #twistory1: Having just finished cooking, Jane sat down to eat when a dark shadow appeared in the window. OMG, she cried.

Gerorge Brett did a nice job by posting his ending:

#twistory1 Janet turned from the window as a knock was at the door. A gentle tapping. She opened to find the ebony feral cat, hungry again.

The beauty of this ending was that George continues the dramatic tension of the first tweet by the knock on the door and ends it with a surprise- it was a cat.  Please note that George changed Jane’s name to Janet.  So, that’s her name from now on.

I was still expecting alternative endings, when Jason Rosenbaum posted a continuation:

#twistory1 Sighing, Janet turned back 2 to get the can opener. She had started keeping cat food around 4 Fred, the name she gave the cat.

So, now it is either closed with the second tweet, or wide open with the third.  This has taught me a lesson: In an open environment of interactive storytelling, the initiator does not have control not only on the content but also on when the story will end or on the rules of the game.  This is not only fine with me but also a great demonstration of the freedom Web 2.0 provides us.

My reaction was to post another tweet continuing the story further:

#twistory1 Fred ate quickly while Janet observed him intensely forgetting her dinner. When she looked back, her meal wasn't there. 

The last sentence creates another point of tension- Janet’s meal disappeared!

What would be the next tweet? 

 If you try it, please don't forget to tag your tweet with #twistory1

Summary

So far, the story is:

Having just finished cooking, Jane sat down to eat when a dark shadow appeared in the window. OMG, she cried.

Janet turned from the window as a knock was at the door. A gentle tapping. She opened to find the ebony feral cat, hungry again.

Sighing, Janet turned back 2 to get the can opener. She had started keeping cat food around 4 Fred, the name she gave the cat.

Fred ate quickly while Janet observed him intensely forgetting her dinner. When she looked back, her meal wasn't there.

The Color Purple- The DC Version

On the morning of Tuesday, January 20, I accompanied two members of President Obama’s Transition Committee to the Inauguration Ceremony.  Needless to say, we were all ecstatically looking forward to participating in this historic event.  In our worst dreams, however, we could not foresee what would really happen.  We had purple tickets. 

As we were approaching the corner of D and 1^st Streets on our way to the proclaimed gate, we encountered a large crowd of people. There were no signs or officials directing us where to go.

After merging with the crowd, it turned out that we were stuck there with no way of moving forward or backward.  Some people in front who acted as if they were in charge but had no clear authority shouted periodically that if we, the crowd of thousands of people, do not rearrange ourselves into a single person line, we would not be allowed to move forward to the gate.  If the crowd would have been able to do so, the line would have extended beyond the White house. Obviously, this did not happen.

Police or other emergency cars came by to the end of the large crowd and activated their loud sirens without a clear purpose. Then ambulances made their way through the crowd pushing people aside as if this street was the only available route in DC. Some people called their friends who were a block away near the gate or got Twitter messages that the gate to the purple space of the Inauguration was closed for some unknown reason.  After 2.5 hours of waiting in the freezing cold (with no bathrooms), the crowd pushed through to Constitution Ave., a block closer to the gate.

We found another huge crowd facing the fence with no gate in sight.  The crowd periodically shouted in unison:  “Open the gate” “Let us in”, or “Let my people in”.  Nothing happened, except being squeezed and pushed by “peer pressure”.   I was ready to quit. But one of my companions “insisted” that we examine the other side of the large crowd. After pushing our way out, we came to the opposite side and were told by some in the crowd that the gate was on this side.  We incorporated ourselves into this part of the crowd and slowly, slowly were approaching the promised gate.  As we approached the gate, the human tunnel became a human funnel- the pressure got more and more intensely suffocating until we were literally ejected into the door-sized gate.  We felt like we were born again!!

After going through this 3.5-hour ordeal, we arrived inside just 3 minutes before President Obama gave his acceptance speech.  At that time, however, it was hard to get a space with a view of the ceremony. On top of that, it was impossible to understand the sound of the spoken words that came through the faulty sound system.

The good side of the whole experience was that we were surrounded by a spirited and celebrating crowd.  People came there with their whole families literally from all across the nation.  I realized that in spite of what amounted to physical torture that morning, this experience was not just about seeing or hearing the ceremony- we could always watch the event later on TV or on the Internet. This was about BEING at this historic event as it happened TOGETHER with many thousands of our fellow citizens of all colors and from all walks of life.  What a day!  We wouldn’t have missed it!

Touch Vs. Feel- Thoughts on the iPhone 3G- Part II

When I talked with Avi Kalderon last week about the virtues of and issues with the iPhone, as most people, he raved about the iPhone.  But he pointed out, the absence of a tactile feedback from the touch keyboard does not allow him to type without looking at the keyboard.  This, he said, could be awkward when typing while in a meeting, for example.   He expressed a similar view in a comment to my last blog- A Finger vs. a Mouse- Thoughts on the iPhone 3G- Part I . This is a real issue for busy users or other multi-taskers.

My iPhone is rather new and I am still awed by the experience. So, I do not like to share the thrill of using it with another task, and this might explain why this aspect of the touch keyboard has not been an inconvenience for me as of yet.  But, two things bother me sometimes regarding the touch keyboard.

My first discomfort with the touch keyboard is its absence most of the time.  I got used to have a keyboard available  any time I need it and to not have to prompt for it and wait a second or two for its appearance.  This might also explain why we do not have quick-keys shortcuts on the iPhone (the BlackBerry has it, as Avi pointed out).  At the same time, I understand that the usual absence of the touch keyboard gives us more available touch screen area and the inclusion of a physical keyboard would make the overall device thicker and thus less appealing both visually and tactilely.

My second inconvenience with the current implementation of the touch keyboard is related to the special characters and numerals.  When you like to type a numeral or a special character, you need to press the “@123” touch key to get an array of numbers and some special characters.  So, you go from one special layout of the keyboard to another.  This change of the spatial layout could be confusing.  Would it be nice if the touch keyboard would be like most others- having an ‘alt’ key that will allow each touch key to have 2 options- all in one keyboard?  Yes, the keyboard would look more crowded, but we got used to this situation in previously used mobile devices. I find it to be more practical.

Any thoughts? Feelings?

A Finger vs. a Mouse- Thoughts on the iPhone 3G- Part I

Ever since I bought the iPhone G3 a few weeks ago, I have been using it together with the BlackBerry 8830 that my office had provided me.  Since human interface is one of my passions (social interaction is another), I have been discussing with friends & colleagues my reactions to the iPhone and how it compares with the BlackBerry and the Treo 650 (the predecessor of the BlackBerry on my belt).  To get reactions from a broader audience, I thought I’d express them on a literal media such as a blog.

Before I start, I would like to clear up a question that I am sure is on your minds- why do I talk about the iPhone and related devices in a blog dedicated to social media?  The reason is that I think that portable devices like the iPhone could transform the way we interact socially as compared with using just a desktop. These mobile devices are changing the way social media is being used- my social media contacts (or however you like to call them) are now available any time and from anywhere. This is a big difference.

Having toying around with the iPhone 3G, I came to regard the un-sexy-flat-brick BlackBerry 8830 as a truly Medieval device.  I wear my iPhone on the right side of my belt while the BlackBerry is on the left hand side- right brain vs. left brain.  Why is it so?

Apple folks know how to design an appealing user experience and interfaces. The BlackBerry developers have not developed an experience that would rival it (and I can’t wait to experience their new touch screen product to see if it is still true).  But, the most important lesson for me was that there is no such thing as all good or all bad.  The wonderful iPhone has its shortfalls too, and here are some highlights.

The Thick Finger Versus the Mouse &  the  Stylus. A great application called Twitelator allows users to read and post Twitter short messages on the iPhone.  You use your fingers to scroll down, to reply to a message, or to go to a linked web page. This is a natural use of a finger and certainly it does not require learning a new skill.  However, it is difficult to point to a web page and to actually activate the link using your finger.  I find myself pushing my finger a number of times before the appropriate action takes place.

The web browser is another example. Have you ever tried to read the NYTimes on the iPhone?  The pages look good, but it is quite difficult sometimes to use your thick finger to point to a link in a dense array of links. Moreover, it is easy to inadvertently move the finger over a link while scrolling resulting in the device bringing an unwanted page, interrupting your reading and your thoughts. To my irritation, it happens time after time.

The reason for it is that the design of the usual web page is geared for a mouse that has a much finer resolution on a large screen than of a typical finger on a small screen of a mobile device.  Enabling the use of a stylus (like in the good old Treo 650) or redesigning web pages specifically for small mobile devices might alleviate this problem. As for the iPhone, a vertical scroll bar like in a Treo 650 might help too.

The Blackberry 8830, on the other hand, has a trackball.  I find it is easy to move it around and control and aim it to a particular point on the small screen.  However, the device does not have a vertical scrolling bar either making scrolling quite slow and tedious.

Any thoughts?

Being More Considerate & More Social During the Ongoing Twitter Crisis

For the past few days now, Twitter has allowed you to see only one page- the most recent one.  This means you have an access to the 20 most recent messages that span on the average 28 minutes during the day!!   If you tweet, let’s say, 12 messages in any 28 minutes, you are going to occupy more than half of the space.  This means that your friends who posted tweets before you are going to be pushed out of sight quite quickly.

I know that it is easy to be carried away and to forget the ongoing Twitter crisis. But, the net result is that people’s Tweets are pushed out too quickly. Is this fair to them?  I don’t think so. 

I’ve a suggestion for this dark period of the current Twitter crisis.  How about limiting one’s tweets to no more than 1 tweet in 30 minutes? You could then aggregate the rest of your thoughts or announcements in a blog. This might make more room for other people to express themselves and increase the chances to be read as long as the present Twitter crisis persists.

Any thoughts?

Future of Media 2008- Are Newspapers, TV and Radio Traditional Media Going to Disappear?

I enjoyed watching the nicely done video produced by @csuspect (Chris Condayan), The Future of Media in 2008. The video outlines what seems to be an apparent conflict between traditional and new media. “Newpapers are dying. Craigslist is taking over classified. Video is on the web. Radio is on the web. I mean, everybody is trying to get their content on the web, because, that’s where it is headed. Everyone has access to it”, proclaims Scott Stead. “With everything going digital now and the tools being easier than ever for people to edit and create their own content, it’s now possible for anyone essentially to have their own Radio or TV channel” continues Andy Carvin.

So, are the traditional media of newspapers, TV & radio going to really disappear? Since I do not have a crystal ball, I cannot predict the future, but at least I could reflect on it.

The potential of breaking news generated by people who capture great events as they happen is both important and fascinating. But imagine 100 million people with Nokia N95s constantly streaming their videos on the web, in addition to posting their blogs, and audio comments. Some of this barrage of information will be relevant to me or to you but the VAST majority of it will NOT be. A good example is people announcing where they are located at the moment using something like brightkite.com. This barrage will create havoc and actually prevent people to get the real news of the day, the news they do care about.

A potential panacea is applying the first law of simplicity- “REDUCE. The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction” (The Laws of Simplicity, by John Maeda, MIT Press). But, who will reduce the barrage to a manageable portion of the important news?

Maybe the newspapers of today as we know them are going to die if they do not adapt and change their business model, but there will always be a place for media that will sift through the zillion or so news sources, make selections, and present an “outline” or summary (albeit biased) on paper, on the web, TV, or elsewhere. Individuals could influence the selection and writing processes, but much of the routine reading will be done on organized media. A good example for future centralized media is The Huffington Post (see a great discussion by Arianna Huffington, Craig Newmark, and Barry Diller, Moderated by Ken Auletta about this brave new future that took place at the New Yorker Conference 2007). Rome fell, but it was not the end of future empires, states, or politics.

Any thoughts?

Twitter Metrics? Not Everything Could be Measured Easily or Not At All

Recently, I read what seem to be two opposing opinions on Twitter. In The Secret to Tweeter, Robert Scoble (@scobleizer) argues that the more people you follow, the more you show that you are a person who listens and interested in what others say. This is better, he says, than to just be listened to (i.e., be followed). So for him, Tweeter is a place to listen and to learn via social interaction.

In Scoble and The Twitterized Conversational Index, Stowe Boyd (@stoweboyd) asserts that Twitter is "a party, not a pulpit" and that "it's not a good place to proselytize, to endlessly dump 'content' on people". He further proposes that the number of responses to your tweets divided by the number of tweets you send determines the degree of your involvement.

Different Faces of Twitter- Different Qualifiers & Quantifiers
Actually, there is more than one way to look at Twitter depending on what are your expectations and how you use it.

If you are interested merely in conversations- dialogs (party-like, or otherwise), then what @stoweboyd suggests is a good start. But, what about situations where you get a response to your tweet and then you respond to it? Should we not include your response in the mix? And, what about the first responder even if you do not respond to him/her? Doesn’t a response signify the involvement of the responder? These are good indications of one’s involvement and participation in dialogs, but they would not be counted in what @stoweboyd calls "Boyd's Twitterized Conversational Index".

Besides conversations, some people use Twitter to convey and get information. Many times, I enjoy learning about really interesting pieces of information or about links to interesting blogs (see, for example, the tweets of Guy Kawasaki (@guykawasaki) & others). I think we need to take this into account. Then, there are other aspects of Twitter that might be important to some people too.

In the case of tweets containing links to other web pages, one, of course, could count how many times people clicked on the link. But, one needs to also consider how interesting the linked page was to the viewers and the same thing should apply to the tweets themselves or to conversations on Twitter. As many others, I like interesting, meaningful, or entertaining conversations and exchange of information, even at parties. Another good use of Twitter that is common in large urban areas like Washington, DC, and NYC is bringing people together in real life after “meeting” on Twitter. How do we quantify this use?

Not Everything Can Be Practically Measured
The trouble is that it is difficult to quantify the degree of ‘interesting’ and involvement. This fact points out to the general notion that not everything could be measured accurately especially some social processes and characteristics. When dealing with situations that have some aspects that can be measured and some aspects that cannot be easily measured or not at all, it is important that we do not take into account only the measurable aspects and ignore the others. On the same token, following metrics blindly could be misleading.

Twitter is such a case, so evaluating Twitter as a whole is difficult. Given that Twitter is a different thing to different people (e.g., party, learning or teaching place, or a combination of things), it is important to know what are the aspects that are important to a particular group of viewers (e.g., work environment vs. causal group) and find out if they could be meaningfully measured or evaluated and how.

Twitter: Social Noise or Social Interaction?

Not Done In Real Life, Done at Twitter
Have you ever considered going to Grand Central Station in NYC 
during rush hour and yell to the busy crowd “Going to buy cereal!”? 
Probably not. You realize that the crowd does not know you and the 
people really do not care if you are going to buy cereal or just go home. Objectively speaking, it is likely that this piece of information has no relevance to the lives or interests of the individuals in the crowd and it is unlikely that they are going to respond to you. If you nevertheless decide to do it, many in the crowd might think that you are a lunatic, or even worse.

Yet at Twitter one could read many messages with similar content 
like “Not feeling great”, “# DEN” (at Denver Airport), or “Playing with my cat in the sand”. Even from my significant other, I don’t expect to receive, in the middle of the day, a message like “eating almonds and tomato salad” unless it has some significant consequences like "we are running low on these items, please buy some more". I wonder why is it then acceptable at Twitter to send such messages that for the sake of the discussion, I will call them non-sensical.

The first culprit might be the banner at the top page of Twitter saying: “What are you doing?” This statement has a tacit assumption: the 
world is interested to know what you are doing right now. Maybe some people at Twitter are expecting this type of messages or enjoy writing and reading them and this is all right. But, for many others including myself, this is not the case.

Announcing to the uninterested world “I am in a cab going to the airport” and the like is a quite simple social interaction. One says something that he/she knows people will hear, yet it has no significant value to them or to anybody else but to the sayer. And moreover, one does not usually get a response. Once it is said, it disappears in a vacuum. Would it be nicer to rather have a dialog, a more meaningful dialog?

Good Discourse at Twitter

Things are not always so “bleak” at Twitter... At times, I find a good number of interesting dialogs- like @Pistachio asking people to describe themselves in 140 characters, discussions on various matters, or @Suki_MHC05 helping @mindofandre to plan his forthcoming travel. Quite frequently, I also find useful links to interesting blogs and other sites. Another good use of Twitter is using it to coordinate action among a group of people. During the recent SXSW, for example, people announced "I'm at such and such place" 
inviting others to join them. I also liked seeing some people like @shelisrael tag the beginning of 
their Tweets with "#SXSW". Since I didn't participate in SXSW this 
year, it allowed me to easily skip these messages, if so I wished, without reading them.

Non-Sensical Messages Dilute the Twitter Stream
The messages that are non-sensical to me just dilute the many good pieces of information and real interactions expressed at Twitter. In one of my next blogs, I plan to discuss with all of you how to design a new smarter Twitter interface that will help us diminish the impact of this difficulty. A good design should satisfy both the non-sensical-message affectionados and those who don’t care for them. In the meantime, looking at things from a macro level, I could see a potential advantage for these non-sensical messages. The mere existence of a dynamic social stream, regardless of its content, could be useful in getting us a perception that life around us is awake and bubbling- like sitting in a café and watching the world going by.

My Silent Partners- Adventures in Twitterland. Part 2

When I first “met” Shashi Bellamkonda on Facebook, he suggested that I check out Twitter. I followed his advice and found this world, a new world. While Facebook is essentially a 1 on 1 medium (judging from its main use), Twitter is often a true group activity exhibiting sometimes a great social energy. I do enjoy this fervor.

But quite often, I find some messages that do not make sense to me (“I’m at Stop & Shop shopping for cereal”) or they are completely uninteresting and I wonder why they are posted at all. When I described my disdain to Shashi Bellamkonda and Jill Foster last night, they pointed out that they do not necessarily feel so because on Twitter, you do not always have a full view of the entire conversation that is going on.

Unlike in real face-to-face life, at present-day Twitter, you don’t always know all of the participants in an ongoing conversation. You know who is or could "listen" to you and to whom you "listen", but you do not know who else is "listening" to the tweets your peers are sending or to whom they "listen" at present.

So, while you might find a particular Tweet not making sense to you, it might make sense to another participant (silent & unknown to you) in this conversation. This silent participant might be interested, for example, in what his/her buddy is really doing now or what type of cereal he/she prefers. It’s like in real face-to-face life, you talk with somebody who has an earphone on one of his/her ears listening and talking simultaneously to others, not just to you. You hear what he/she says, but you don’t fully hear what he/she hears. Moreover, to your silent partners, you might be a silent partner yourself. Similar situations might feel unpleasant or even impolite in real life, but at Twitter they are considered to be acceptable. Personally, I find it difficult to accept.

Would it be nice if Twitter would provide means to bring these silent partners into full view and "hearing" range for a particular conversation- even temporarily, or at least provide information that your buddy is also getting simultaneous input from silent others. This will make it a more real social forum and only then, I would be able to better perceive if particular tweets really make sense to me or not.