Twoogle?

TechCrunch is pumping up the idea of a Google acquisition of Twitter. Kara Fisher pours cold water on the idea.

Back in February the same idea was briefly noted on this blog here.

My key question -- beyond the personalities and dramatic cat and mouse game with GOOG, MSFT and other digital leaders like Facebook, Twitter and their financiers -- is about the potential integration of these companies. There is more to an aquisition than APIs and additional cubicle space.

At least superficially, Twitter is innovating its search, Twitpic, Twistori and related product lines and compelementary services precisely because it is small and can do so. With only 7m members and a relatively "new" feeling at the company, innovation can flourish in a hyperspeed Darwinian fashion. At Facebook or Google, the massive installed base of users and the -- relatively speaking -- maturity of the firms, their internal processes and culture are in a different catagory.

Tightly Argued in a Short Space.

I didn't see the valuation numbers and cash on hand figures in this post that would have been really persuasive, but this is a great little thought experiment on the future of search, Google and Twitter.

Live Twitter -- Not for Me.

Three times in the past two weeks I've tried to tap into the larger online conversation via live Twitter blogging.  I am not a fan.

The first time I gave it a whirl was during a professional conference at the CU Law School.  A handful of folks in the audience were on Twitter and after a speaker on the very first panel made a point about a telecom crowd that doesn't know Twitter.  As you might guess, he wasn't impressed.  Nonetheless, we few, we merry few soldiered on at #sfdbm.  I had heard about conference participants who Twittered during presentations or to find each other during breaks at large, multi-day events.  I have to say, the Twitter stream didn't do much for me.  Perhaps, there were not enough people engaged -- probably less than five percent of conference attendees.  The main problem was that I was more interested in what the speakers had to say than the 140 character commentaries of the audience.

About ten days later I had the Amgen Tour of California on television in my office while I slogged away at some administrative work.  I jumped into the Twitter stream with a couple dozen posts and watched #atoc climb to number three in the Twitter trends.  It was exciting to see live posts from the team director of Astana home to Levi Leipheimer and Lance Armstrong's.  I watched as the collective reporting of the Twitterati beat the announcers on television with key information such as who had fallen, which rider was joining a break and winners of various climbing or sprint points available on the racecourse.  Yet, it basically served as a distraction.  Any given post was too short to convey rich information.  Perhaps doing three things at once is too much for me.  I was content to focus on my accounting while the television murmured from across the room.

Finally, during last week's episode of Lost I fired up the computer and watched in astonishment as scores of Twitter posts came in every couple minutes.  #lost was an immediate information overload.

Sadly, my conclusion is that multitasking is fine but multitasking with multiple streams of incoming information is too much for my slow mental processor. 

Ketchum Responds to Twitter Dust Up.

Many of you recall the recent dust up about a public affairs professional who had unkind words about the hometown of a client.  The good people of Memphis were not flattered.

Well, now Ketchum replies.  Here is the story from PR Week.  The advice is quite good, if late for its own employees.

Taking Radical Immersion to LinkedIn -- Too Much of a Good Thing?

Today I added the BlogLink application to my LinkedIn profile. It should pull a feed from this blog. The deed is done, although I'm wary.

There is a fine line between spamming and keeping up a relationship. If my Twitter feed goes into FaceBook status and now can be directly pulled into LinkedIn, and these posts are pulled into LinkedIn, at what point is there oversaturation?

One has to assume that there are significant overlaps among Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter populations of friends/connections/followers. My hunch is that the periodic emails that received from LinkedIn featuring changes in a person's network will start featuring the title of these blog posts for my contacts. At best, it is a low-noise, easy to delete signal that I'm a person engaged in the digital space. At worst, it will become an aggravating burr under the collective saddle of my professional network.

Like so much, it is a testable hypothesis. We'll see.

Lance v. Kent. You Be the Judge.

If you follow @lancearmstrong on Twitter, you would know that he rode 120 miles today in 6 hours.

By contrast, I rode for 40 minutes on rollers in the garage.  And, just to make sure that he knew I am serious about this training, I followed up with a 4.5 mile run in 40:34.  While not earth shattering, this was the best workout I've had all year that didn't involve a pool.  I bet Lance is checking my race schedule right now and adjusting his plans for 2009.  Or not.

What we do have in common, beyond Twitter, is that we both ride a Trek.  His is custom made and tricked out with all the latest technology.  My is a 2600 from circa 1996.  Regardless, they both have two wheels and a carbon fiber frame.

Gov. Granholm on Twitter for State of State.

Hat tip to @katieharbath. Check out this story about the use of hashtags on Twitter to improve the level of discussion and understanding for a news story.

Live Twittering.

The past day and a half I've been at a conference in Boulder, Colorado. I've also posted a couple dozen times on Twitter about the discussion -- primarily this morning.

However, I didn't start using the relevant hash tag until just now. And then, the first time I used it I mis-spelled it. Go to http://search.twitter.com/search?q=SFDBM to follow the conversation.

Ten Days Into the Exercise...and 50 Messages Went Out.

The big lesson so far is that I'm not nearly as intense of a social media user as I had thought.  Okay, so I have a profile on several platforms.  I Digg the stories that I like and hit the Share button on my GoogleReader for the really good bits that I see.  But the numbers are stark.  After ten days, this is only my tenth blog post.  There are only a handful of comments -- posted or in my email inbox -- and no epiphanies yet.

Alas, there is still time.  Last week I sent messages to 20 friends on Facebook to get more people involved in this conversation.  Today, I sent a message to 50 connections on LinkedIn for the same reason.  Welcome to all of you.

This post isn't full of insight or penetrating questions.  But I do have a good link for you.  Check out this short essay -- and equally important the graphics -- on the Twitter use in the U.S. Congress.  Hat tip: Steve Rubel.  Bottom line, the most influential talkers in the social media environment are the most active listeners.

So What is the Point?

What's the point here? Cut to the chase. Hey Kent, don't you know blogs are supposed to be punchy and get right to it?

I get technology. I use some social media tools. I'm acutely aware of how organizations communicate to shape outward circumstances to improve their standing -- or potential. What I hope to learn is the nitty gritty details and nuances of how the sum of a comprehensive social media presence can be greater than its individual parts.

To that end, one tool that I use to keep up with the flow is FriendFeed. It aggregates all of the RSS and other feeds of a given person so I can follow that person's activity in one place. I know that the service is widespread. It is used and not in the backwaters of the Internet. Yet, I don't know the strategies of how people build useful friend lists. Why is it that after a couple months on FriendFeed there are 9 people I am following but many multiples of that on Twitter or Facebook?

How are you using aggregators in your work life? Are you following Radical Immersion on FriendFeed? If not, why not? Comments open.