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Twitter’s limitations shown by Harvard study

stewart@w00tonomy — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 11:08:02 +0000

Eager to cut through the hype engulfing Twittwe, some Tefal heads at Harvard Business School have done somerather clever research into how the microblogging tool is actually used.

First of all, despite what you may have heard, it turns out that Twitter is not the most important invention since fire and, surprisingly, will not bring about universal happiness and peace among all the peoples of the Earth.

The research found that most people using Twitter follow others. It also found that

The top 10% of users account for 90% of Tweets (as opposed to most social networks where the top 10% account for 30% of content)
50% of users update their feeds less than once every 74 days
Most users make one Tweet and then leave (mind you , on average 60-80% of blogs are abandoned after one month and blogging remains a powerful phenomenon

Sounds pretty damning, doesn’t it? But it depends what you are expecting from Twitter. As a two-way mass communication tool it fails but, in marketing and content-distribution terms, Twitter is incredibly valuable.

It’s huge: visitors to twitter.com grew 1,200% from Feb 2008 to Feb 2009 and Twitter has become the third largest social networking site in the US. Where Twitter excels is in narrowcasting relevant information to users who have expressed an interest in your content.

It’s not a mass communication tool but a way of connecting to specific interest groups. And targeted content is the Holy Grail of online communication.

TED’s life lessons from climbing

stewart@w00tonomy — Thu, 28 May 2009 12:05:40 +0000

We love TED – the annual technology, entertainment and design conference that posts videos of its speakers so the world can share them.

It’s well worth browsing through the talks on offer. (We highly recommend Malcolm Gladwell on spaghetti sauce.) It’s also noticing the very cool functionality surrounding each video (social sharing, embedding, transcripts, “what to watch next”).

We were very taken with this talk from advertising bod and veteran climber Matthew Childs (who also has a vague look of the Scottish Government’s web guru Willie Paul about him) taking lessons from the rockface and applying them to real life. And, yes, “don’t let go” is in there.

Web creator lays out vision of what comes next

stewart@w00tonomy — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 20:02:31 +0000

Sir Tim Berners-Lee tells TED 2009 what the web of the future will look like.

For his next project, he’s building a web for open, linked data that could do for numbers what the Web did for words, pictures, video: unlock our data and reframe the way we use it together

w00tonomy on the radio

admin — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 19:49:28 +0000

Our Content Marketing Director, Stewart Kirkpatrick, has once again graced the airwaves with his considered opinions. Mercifully for the eyes of the public, he was on the radio this time. (His appearance on BBC 1 Scotland’s Politics Show required teams of makeup artists working in shifts to cover the most appalling crevasses).

Stewart was on Lesley Riddoch’s programme talking about the Scottish media and public sector issues with SNP MEP Alyn Smith and the Leader of Glasgow City Council, Steven Purcell.

Content Marketing Watch – improvements to Google Analytics

admin — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 11:25:07 +0000

Content Marketing Watch is the latest feature section to be added to our interviews and opinion pieces. For those of you in the industry who are looking to maximise the most value from the content on your site each week we will have a piece on the latest industry news; covering areas of content marketing such as analytics, internet marketing, content optimisation, search engine marketing and digital communications.

An essential element to optimising you site content is having the right measurement tools. Google Analytics seems to get better and better and the rational of using its free service instead of a licence product is becoming more compelling, especially in these hard times. Recently Google has announced 7 new improvements to Google Analytics that will see it become more like an enterprise solution. If you are current Google Analytics user then you should see these enhancements rolled out over the next few weeks. The new enterpise features are

Improvements to the user interface
Improvements to the management interface
Integration with adsense
Custom reporting
Advanced segmentation
Motion charts
New API

Google has created a few videos in its YouTube channel to help explain these changes in more detail. We particluarly like the video on the new motion charts.

w00tonomy and The Drum create Drum TV

admin — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 16:40:00 +0000

w00t! w00t! we were really pleased to see the launch of The Drum TV this week. This is a new innovation we have been working on with those good people at The Drum so it was great to see it go live. Let us know what you think.

w00tonomy one of top 15 new agencies – The Drum

stewart@w00tonomy — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 02:01:31 +0000

Those nice people at The Drum have named w00tonomy as one of the top new agencies. We’ve also got a piece in this issue about our seven deadly sins of online publishing.

And we’ve spotted a must-have addition to our bookshelf, “Get content, get customers” by Joe Pulizzi of Junta42 fame.

Content Marketing cast transcript – Mark Gorman

admin — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 09:08:50 +0000

For those of you interested in reading the full interview please download the Content Marketing cast e-book. Hope you enjoy and if you have any feedback on the interview we would like to hear from you.

Content = prosperity

w00tonomy — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 08:46:51 +0000

You might be thinking, what a lot of w00t. These w00tonomers are w00ting, whittering, even twittering. Where’s the beef?

Well, ok – follow the money!

Businesses prepare to spend nearly $5 billion by 2013 on social networking tools, according to Forrester research. Social networks will attract the greatest levels of investment.

The old monolithic marketing models are rusting like an old Trabant. For social networks you need marketable content: content to interest, amuse, intrigue, empower your audience – and yourselves.

w00tonomy director relentlessly delivers nauseating self promotion

stewart @ w00tonomy — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 19:19:31 +0000

Stewart Kirkpatrick, our Content Marketing Director, has induced a bout of vomiting at w00tonomy with this self-serving communique:

“I have been elected to the New Media Industry Council of the National Union of Journalists (in a jobshare with Euan Williamson of Imagineering). Like nearly every large body, the NUJ has struggled with what the web means for today and tomorrow. I am delighted to have this opportunity to help guide its thinking.”

Stewart will also be speaking at the Sunday Herald’s Shaping Scotland’s Digital Future event – at 9am on 24 April at The Teacher Building, St Enoch Square, Glasgow – where he will be tarred and feathered by the rest of w00tonomy if he comes out with anything similar in tone to the above statement.