Yesterday I posted the news that I have a new site in the process of being designed built and to ensure it not only launches smoothly, but works hard for me, I have been reviewing how all of my social media strategy hangs together. Frankly, it's less than ideal. Here's my bad photoshopped image of what currently happens.
How it all works.
The whole shebang hangs off RSS. Without the RSS feeds from the content services, then it would all be manual- a total nightmare.
TwitterFeed is a brilliant service (I have donated) and is the hub I use for content processing into Twitter.
Thomasr.org posts are checked every three hours and then posted into Twitter as "Blog Post". The RSS feed automatically shoots into Facebook as a "Facebook Note". Facebook only allows one RSS feed. It's tempting to process all the feeds into Feedburner and then feed the whole lot into Facebook- but that's untenable and Facebook Spam (FBS).
Flickr pics also go into TwitterFeed, but are processed slightly differently. As I have varying degrees of Flickr use- occasional pics from BrightKite as well as whole car/bike sets that can number 50+ pics per car, I use the TwitterFeed feature to limit the RSS checking to once a day and 2 posts at any one time. FBS reduction right there.
I use BrightKite mostly on my iPhone as it can post pics to Flickr (and importantly geo tag them) and send onto Twitter as well. If I'm not using BK for pics, then it works well as a Twitter client and I use it when I want to tell everyone where I am (especially for public event hosting and similar).
My YouTube channel videos update once a day and one video to TwitterFeed. No need for updates more often than that as I have never posted more than one video a day and I doubt I ever will!
My 3AW blog posts are rare, but also update via RSS. This is a once a day thing and one post gets sent to Twitter.
My CarAdvice and BikeAdvice posts do not have an unique RSS feed. I think if I got to the bottom of Yahoo Pipes, I think I could feed the raw RSS into Yahoo pipes and filter it so only the podcasts and my articles make it to TwitterFeed. In the meantime, I write up a blog post pointing to the article and that starts off the Thomasr.org chain of events and that suits me for now as it gives my all-important paid work a double dose on Facebook and a single run on Twitter.
Two services for links I use are my Del.icio.us and Google Reader shared items and these feed into Twitter almost on the spot, though I do limit them to a maximum of 3 at a time.
All that done, the tweets start to automatically appear on Twitter itself.
My Twitter feed goes straight into FriendFeed, which also aggregates my YouTube and Blog posts independently but is smart enough (something Scoble says a lot about FF) not to double up.
FriendFeed then sends all aggregated (And not doubled up) content to Facebook via a Facebook app.
That last point is no longer true, but it's important to note that it was once the case. The problem now at Facebook is not one of double ups, but rather over saturation. Every single Tweet goes to Facebook. Per my previous post, I took my own advice and I'm not letting Tweets set as FB status, but it is appearing in all my friends timelines. Not all are happy:
Quite. I had a feeling this was the case, but as you can't really see when you are creating "noise" on a friend's Facebook page, I just kept going. (Not to be rude, but the more friends you have on FB, the less spammy my FB timeline appears as I am woven into the general fabric of Facebook)
Ok So what's this all mean? The Web 2.oh services are evolving and so too are the users. In fact it's user expectation and user demands that are driving me- I think not so much about what can be done, but what's best for my readers/followers/friends. So I turned off the feed into Facebook. But I do need some sort of feed into Facebook as it is a content cul de sac (Content goes in, doesn't come out) and is very important as my friend base on Facebook increases.
So I'm going to set up a Feedburner account and aggregate most content apart from Twitter posts into Facebook as notes. It's not a huge amount and certain services like Flickr will now be handled by a Facebook App instead of FriendFeed.
Where's the conversation? This is super critical. Corvida's post on ReadWriteWeb was very clear and I believe it.
While there's no formula for success, there are three keys to a killer web service: search, aggregation, and conversation.
So search is taken care of and I nearly have the aggregation situation about right. But it's conversation, the third and possibly most compelling element- where will that happen? Thoughts on conversation:
Not on my blog as it stands. I generate a fair few followers and readers, but few comments. I'm not that sort of blogger.
On places of content origin. That's a mixed bag. YouTube- you have to be kidding. Flickr- very occasional. BrightKite- rare. on 3AW, CarAdvice and BikeAdvice a lot of good commenting takes place and should stay there as these sites are focussed on conversation.
On Twitter. That tends to be short: "Good post" "nice pic" etc. Not really conversation, though it can be. Twitter conversations can be intense and real time, but also tend to disappear into the Twitter ether due to the non semantic nature of Twitter.
FriendFeed. I don't think so right now. Scoble may be right and FF might go mainstream, but that's going to take a while and meantime FF is silent.
Conversations on my content. Absolutely. So much so, that I have resolved to do two things: employ Facebook Connect on my new blog comments area and open up my friends list to Scoble-esque proportions.
So there's a bit to do and of course it's ongoing.
I've been collaborating with SharpSushi on a new website for me. It's not an overly ambitious new site- the designs are very different to the old site and we're doing some real UI work to make the site not only a bit more lively on the landing page, but also seek to market what I do and what I offer in a better way. How? Keep coming back people! Some notes:
Changing over from Blogger to WordPress. Thanks Blogger, but it's time. Yes, there will be teething/transfer issues, but I feel WordPress offers features and plugins that Blogger just can't match. It also means I am not beholden to Blogger. WordPress could run my site for the next 20 years.
The site landing page will offer content rather than my current "just freakin' links" page.
On occasions I will offer a podcast featuring off-topic content developed for CarAdvice podcasts. The WP Plugins will service this new content offering.
Changing over my GoDaddy accounts to use WP has been a pain at times. The Power of Twitter assisted the process when I bitched about GoDaddy's terribly messy website. They replied. In the I called their tech support and found out to host WP on windows you need IIS7 and I was on IIS6. Find that on the website if you can...?
I hardly use any bandwidth or cloud space as allocated by GoDaddy, so offering podcasts won't cost me anything more.
I'm finally working out how to get my content to syndicate elsewhere- not from a tech perspective, but from a social perspective. I recently turned off FriendFeed to Facebook as I was almost spamming FB people.
The new site will go into beta shortly and fully launch in a matter of weeks.
Yesterday I posted the news that I have a new site in the process of being designed built and to ensure it not only launches smoothly, but works hard for me, I have been reviewing how all of my social media strategy hangs together. Frankly, it's less than ideal. Here's my bad photoshopped image of what currently happens.
How it all works.
The whole shebang hangs off RSS. Without the RSS feeds from the content services, then it would all be manual- a total nightmare.
TwitterFeed is a brilliant service (I have donated) and is the hub I use for content processing into Twitter.
Thomasr.org posts are checked every three hours and then posted into Twitter as "Blog Post". The RSS feed automatically shoots into Facebook as a "Facebook Note". Facebook only allows one RSS feed. It's tempting to process all the feeds into Feedburner and then feed the whole lot into Facebook- but that's untenable and Facebook Spam (FBS).
Flickr pics also go into TwitterFeed, but are processed slightly differently. As I have varying degrees of Flickr use- occasional pics from BrightKite as well as whole car/bike sets that can number 50+ pics per car, I use the TwitterFeed feature to limit the RSS checking to once a day and 2 posts at any one time. FBS reduction right there.
I use BrightKite mostly on my iPhone as it can post pics to Flickr (and importantly geo tag them) and send onto Twitter as well. If I'm not using BK for pics, then it works well as a Twitter client and I use it when I want to tell everyone where I am (especially for public event hosting and similar).
My YouTube channel videos update once a day and one video to TwitterFeed. No need for updates more often than that as I have never posted more than one video a day and I doubt I ever will!
My 3AW blog posts are rare, but also update via RSS. This is a once a day thing and one post gets sent to Twitter.
My CarAdvice and BikeAdvice posts do not have an unique RSS feed. I think if I got to the bottom of Yahoo Pipes, I think I could feed the raw RSS into Yahoo pipes and filter it so only the podcasts and my articles make it to TwitterFeed. In the meantime, I write up a blog post pointing to the article and that starts off the Thomasr.org chain of events and that suits me for now as it gives my all-important paid work a double dose on Facebook and a single run on Twitter.
Two services for links I use are my Del.icio.us and Google Reader shared items and these feed into Twitter almost on the spot, though I do limit them to a maximum of 3 at a time.
All that done, the tweets start to automatically appear on Twitter itself.
My Twitter feed goes straight into FriendFeed, which also aggregates my YouTube and Blog posts independently but is smart enough (something Scoble says a lot about FF) not to double up.
FriendFeed then sends all aggregated (And not doubled up) content to Facebook via a Facebook app.
That last point is no longer true, but it's important to note that it was once the case. The problem now at Facebook is not one of double ups, but rather over saturation. Every single Tweet goes to Facebook. Per my previous post, I took my own advice and I'm not letting Tweets set as FB status, but it is appearing in all my friends timelines. Not all are happy:
Quite. I had a feeling this was the case, but as you can't really see when you are creating "noise" on a friend's Facebook page, I just kept going. (Not to be rude, but the more friends you have on FB, the less spammy my FB timeline appears as I am woven into the general fabric of Facebook)
Ok So what's this all mean? The Web 2.oh services are evolving and so too are the users. In fact it's user expectation and user demands that are driving me- I think not so much about what can be done, but what's best for my readers/followers/friends. So I turned off the feed into Facebook. But I do need some sort of feed into Facebook as it is a content cul de sac (Content goes in, doesn't come out) and is very important as my friend base on Facebook increases.
So I'm going to set up a Feedburner account and aggregate most content apart from Twitter posts into Facebook as notes. It's not a huge amount and certain services like Flickr will now be handled by a Facebook App instead of FriendFeed.
Where's the conversation? This is super critical. Corvida's post on ReadWriteWeb was very clear and I believe it.
While there's no formula for success, there are three keys to a killer web service: search, aggregation, and conversation.
So search is taken care of and I nearly have the aggregation situation about right. But it's conversation, the third and possibly most compelling element- where will that happen? Thoughts on conversation:
Not on my blog as it stands. I generate a fair few followers and readers, but few comments. I'm not that sort of blogger.
On places of content origin. That's a mixed bag. YouTube- you have to be kidding. Flickr- very occasional. BrightKite- rare. on 3AW, CarAdvice and BikeAdvice a lot of good commenting takes place and should stay there as these sites are focussed on conversation.
On Twitter. That tends to be short: "Good post" "nice pic" etc. Not really conversation, though it can be. Twitter conversations can be intense and real time, but also tend to disappear into the Twitter ether due to the non semantic nature of Twitter.
FriendFeed. I don't think so right now. Scoble may be right and FF might go mainstream, but that's going to take a while and meantime FF is silent.
Conversations on my content. Absolutely. So much so, that I have resolved to do two things: employ Facebook Connect on my new blog comments area and open up my friends list to Scoble-esque proportions.
So there's a bit to do and of course it's ongoing.
Here it is- in place of an actual blog post, I just grabbed the Nikon Coolpix (which adds an annoying tap tap noise for unknown reasons- excuse me!) to film this...
Me ol mate Peter "Donny" Carradus has left the employee nest to strike out on his own at last making shade sails and he will of course install custom Awning and Shades for you. Go to his contact page and say I sent you. That ought to amke no difference to anything at all, but will make me feel better.
YEs I designed the site and it's clear my skillz are falling behind the pack. We'll address that in due course. Anyway if you want shade sails in Victoria, Australia then Donny is your man.
Oh Spring- how lovely thou art! Now while the single horsepower spring racing carnival is looking shaky, the machine based high horsepower racing season is looking more exciting than ever. Alonso vs Hamilton: too close to call! V8s- Bathurst looking as exciting as all get out.
To top it all off, we are perhaps a week or so away from having Casey Stoner crowned MotoGP world champion: our first in the four stroke era and our first since Mighty Mick Doohan. While the GP corporation would ideally have this Championship decided at Phillip Island (and so would the fans no doubt) it looks more likely that the Japanese round at Motegi on the weekend of 22/23 September looks the likely round (trust me, we've sat down and done the points scenarios!).
To celebrate 3AW has organised to have the Station Hotel in Greville st Prahran booked out for MotoGP fans to watch the race on the Sunday 23rd. Being in Japan, the race is one hour earlier- so no late Sunday night! From midday, join Australian Superbike Champion and 3AW commentator Adam Fergusson (and other guests) and me as we preview the race, review the season and watch the race on the multiple projectors and plasma screens at the Station hotel. Numbers will be limited, so get along early!
My Xbox 360 has just returned after what I'm sure was a lovely holiday in NSW having his innards sucked out through a USB opening and then repaired and reinserted via the DVD tray. Ahem.
Anyhoos, I've no idea what precipated this cataclismic event, though I gather these suckers get good n warm.
So to prevent a repeat I bought an "Intercooler" a three-fan cooler that goes over the back of the 360, taking its power from the existing power supply (and moving the actual plug in point back a litte as illustrated).
Upside: no heating issues (hopefully) Dowside: Sounds like jet engine in the living room.
As is nature's want, sometimes our smallest creatures are our most delicate.
And so it was with Caboose who died sometime this afternoon. She was unwell yesterday and a little worse this morning, so I placed the heater in the room and scattered seed on the floor of her cage as well as some water in a bottle lid.
She ate a little, drank a little, and even took time to push her ping pong ball for a moment. I sent Rachel a text to say "She looks a little better!"
Rachel came home at 4pm to find her cold little body on the floor of her cage, feet to the sky.
We're going to bury her in the park next to the gum tree she visited once (and sat in!). It's also the tree where I used to pick a small branch of leaves she loved to chew on.
Xbox 360 with Crackdown pack that gives me access to the beta testing for this
5.1 surround system.
Techno geek am I, but methinks I have the setup that will take me forward for at least 6 months. Ok 5. 4 minimum.
Damn, I want another Xbox controller and the wireless networking kit. damn damn damn!
Confession: I've had the TV/DVD/surround sound setup for a while and the sound has been crappy at best. A close inspection has revealed that the centre speaker and the subwoofer were wired around the wrong way.
Rachel and I purchased a new Canon D80 (you google it not me!) and so I've been thinking about how to get said pics online in a timely and efficient manner:
FLICKR! I've had an account for a while, but finally got off my arse and started using it. The upload tool is excellent- resizes AND tags and does all the hard work for you...
It's no secret that I am a bit immature. I call it "forever young".
Getting a clear indicator of how grown up you are is rather difficult: in a stable long term relationship? check. Married? check. Stable income? check-ish.
Based on the life expectancy of a white, Australia male, I am halfway there- 35 today.
Here's how I went (Rachel insisted on this photo and was the creative director and photographer...): A fine mix of apparel, technology and reading material. The Sennheiser noise cancelling earphones and the Albert Jacka book are fantastic. As is the new (sore back saving ) windsurfing harness- though it won't get ut into use this week as the traditional windy Boxing Day came a day early.
Speaking of weather, Mt Buller yesterday: Not bad considering it's summer and a week ago they were fighting fires that threatened to engulf the whole place. As my Grandmother might have said : "The Lord works in Mysterious ways"
Quite. I had a feeling this was the case, but as you can't really see when you are creating "noise" on a friend's Facebook page, I just kept going. (Not to be rude, but the more friends you have on FB, the less spammy my FB timeline appears as I am woven into the general fabric of Facebook)
