Does Twitter Spam Really Matter?
Apr 18, 2008

There’s been a lot of commotion over Twitter spam lately, with Mashable’s Adam Ostrow writing that Twitter Spam has spiralled out of control. Adam goes on to suggest that “the time has arrived for Twitter to require a CAPTCHA with every new follow you want to make”.

Personally, I never really liked CAPTCHAs because of the negative impact on usability. But that’s a post for another day, I guess (Wired’s Paul Adams asked the question of whether Captcha’s moment is passing, and you can see the discussion there if you’re interested.)

The question I want to ask here is the question in the post title. Does Twitter spam really matter? Yes, it’s slightly annoying getting the random email notifications of being followed. But other than the email notifications, I personally don’t see the big deal about Twitter spam.

Twitter, by its nature, is inherently permission based, isn’t it? You choose who to follow. So how does Twitter spam fit in? Users can just choose not to follow the spammers, and that’s done, isn’t it? And based on Andre Nantel’s study, users are more or less intelligent enough to choose who to follow.

When the user controls what messages he receives, can spam really be that big an issue? Can it even be considered spam in the first place?

The second question, I don’t have a fixed answer to. But for the first question, I don’t see how spam can be such a big isssue.

What do you think? Is there something I’m missing from all of this??

More Conversational Tools
Apr 8, 2008

You might have noticed I’ve made a couple of changes to the blog, and I’m hoping that they’ll help improve the conversations here.

Firstly, the sidebar has been changed to include my conversations from Twitter. This was inspired by Andrea Vascellari’s Twitter Comments. The idea is that a lot of conversations today are happening on Twitter, so why not bring that conversation here to the blog. I edited the pipe slightly, to include my own tweets, so that a more complete picture of the conversation is shown – my updates and the replies to those updates. If you want to use it, you can get the pipe here, and if you want to be updated on the conversations I’m part of, you can subscribe to the feed here.

Secondly, the comments on the various posts are now embedded as part of the RSS feed. I figured that since I don’t get that many comments, it won’t clog up your readers. And I think it’ll make it easier to keep track of the conversation (you won’t have to click through in order to read the comments). You can check out one of my older posts in a feed reader if you want to see how it looks.

So yeah, those are the two changes I’ve made. Let me know what you think of them.

Conversation Silhouettes picture by Brian Solis, via Flickr

Rules for Using Twitter
Mar 19, 2008

Jeremy from Global Geek News recently posted his guide to “Twitter Etiquette“. It’s basically a list of supposed rules/guidelines on what shouldn’t be done on Twitter. Rules include moving long conversations to direct message instead of using “@”s and not twittering more than once every 15 minutes.

It sparked quite a few comments, and the majority of the comments disagreed with Jeremy. And I’ve got to say, I agree with them on this.

Twitter, to me, is about conversation. It’s about relating to people. It’s not just about posting updates. And I think it’s that way for a lot of people.

And the thing about Twitter is it isn’t a chat room or anything. You’re not forced to follow people. If you don’t like the way people are using it, then unfollow them.

I think the value in Twitter is it’s simplicity. And the flexibility that comes with it. It’s many things to many people, and there’s no one way of using it. And the beauty is, you can interact with people who use it in the way you like.

So, if you ask me, the only rule for using Twitter is that there are no rules. Or if you really need a rule, try the Law of the Two Feet (or the two hands – on your keyboard). If you’re not happy with a conversation that’s going on, if you don’t feel like you’re gaining anything from following a person, if you don’t like how someone is using the tool, then just unfollow him. No need to make a fuss about it.

What about you? Do you think there should be rules for Twitter?

Web 2.0 in Education
Mar 1, 2008

After watching the webcast of the TEDPrize talks this morning, I checked out Once Upon a School, and saw this idea: Help a school develop a useful website presence.

That got me thinking. I’m not sure about America, but over here in Singapore, most schools don’t have much of a web presence. And most schools aren’t making the most of web tools. And reading that basically got me thinking about how schools could make better use of web (or Web 2.0) tools.

The first idea that came to mind is Twitter. Those of you who are on Twitter (and if you’re not, you really should be) would have seen how it has been used during the Superbowl, the Oscars, and even during Podcamps and various events. It provides a way to have live discussions – live ‘commentary’, if you will – about the ongoing event. Couldn’t we transfer the way Twitter is used in Podcamps to the education system – for use during lectures, for example?

That’s just the first, most instinctive idea that came to mind. What do you think? And what other ways do you think schools can make use of Web 2.0 tools?