Twitter Account Consolidation

Posted on 04/04/09 by Andrew Miller

I Twittered under the username @AndrewCMiller for a long time before launching RichmondWiki.org as a side project. At that time I created the @RichmondWiki account to update people in Richmond on the project, but I lazily started using it for ALL of my Twittering.

To avoid confusing both accounts’ followers and relaying wiki information to personal followers and personal information to wiki followers, I’ve re-activated my old account and the breakout is such that:

@AndrewCMiller will be my personal and business-related twittering
@RichmondWiki tweets will be related to wiki stuff only so that people that are interested in the RW project don’t have to listen to all of my personal ramblings

Thanks for following!

#followfriday You’re Doing It Wrong

Posted on 03/20/09 by Andrew Miller

How are these #followfriday tweets useful to anybody?

Would you follow these people?

I’m not trying to pick on anybody in particular, which is why I used examples from multiple users and left out their names. It’s just a good example of how NOT to add value to a communications network.

The Failure of #followfriday

In the past year I’ve watched the #followfriday phenomenon evolve from personal introductions to mass shout outs in an attempt to help other Twitter users grow their networks and become more like the self-proclaimed “power users” or “social media gurus”.

Here are my problems with the aforementioned #followfriday executions:

It doesn’t tell me WHY I should follow any of these people. Are they helpful, funny, informative, or otherwise unique?
It FAILS to communicate what they can offer me or what I can offer them. Do they need my services? Do I need theirs? Do we have anything in common other than being one of your followers?
It doesn’t build VALUE for your followers or the people you “pimp”. Based on my experience with being called out in several mass #followfriday messages, the only new followers it attracts are the aspiring “power users” that follow everybody. Then the cycle repeats itself next Friday.
It sacrifices QUALITY for quantity. It tells the world that you value a large follower list more than the relationships with the people on that list.

I understand the #followfriday concept clearly: introduce your network of followers to other twitterers that they should follow. Hence the name “followfriday”. It’s the Twitter equivalent of introducing people at a cocktail party and saying, “Bob, meet Sally. Sally also trains racing snails. I’m sure you’ll have a lot to talk about.”

Now You’re Doing It Right

Just like a personal introduction in real life, a #followfriday mention can be a great way to match up people you know with others that can help them or add value in some way. The key is, you have to tell me WHY.

This wouldn’t be a productive post without a proper example of doing it right. Here’s my #followfriday recommendation: You should follow @LimaBeads because Kevin and the Lima Beads team are a great example of a company that treats its customers as people, rather than social media sheep.

25 Things I Learned at UR

Posted on 02/22/09 by Andrew Miller

I recently discovered that The Collegian, the University of Richmond‘s student-run newspaper, is online and published in a very cool WordPress theme. So, naturally, I subscribed to the RSS feed and love reminscing about the “good ole’ days”.

A recent post caught my eye called “25 Things I Learned at UR“. Although similar to the “My 25 Things” Facebook meme that I dislike, I clicked over and settled in for a quick jaunt down memory lane.

I started off nodding and smiling at the first few items, such as:

1. Walking around campus and asking every acquaintance about their general well being. This instinctual habit throws off my friends from home, who don’t quite know how to respond: “Er…I’m okay, I guess. Thanks for asking.”

and…

7. Looking forward to the beginning of every semester to check out the new batch of exchange students.

After that it started going downhill.

8. Every moment is a Facebook moment.

Facebook wasn’t around when I was in school, and I didn’t graduate that long ago (Class of ’03). Okay, starting to feel a little old.

12. Learning fratty lingo: bro out, freshman skeeza, care, etc.

Hmmm…not sure but I can probably guess.

I could go on, but I don’t want to give away too many sordid details about my college experience (my parents read this, and they still think they paid for a late night study sessions and weekend cultural activities).

After all, it was years ago and thankfully Facebook had not yet been invented to document every single detail of our transgressions. So I have that going for me, which is nice. Sorry college kids, your exploits are captured, documented, tagged, shared, and waiting to be dug up several years from now when you run for office or apply for a job.

Stanford Interns Approving Facebook Ads?

Posted on 02/17/09 by Andrew Miller

Are Stanford student interns responsible for approving Facebook ads? It seems that way, considering I launched a test FB ad campaign today to support a fun side project site (RichmondWiki.org) and noticed the following referring URL in the RichmondWiki.org Google Analytics Referring Sites report:

stanford.intern.facebook.com/intern/ads/review.php (doesn’t resolve, probably only open to certain IP ranges)

Here’s a screenshot:

(click for larger)

I’m not the first to notice this, and there’s some speculation that “intern” is short for “internal”, but I’m not so sure. Why would Facebook buy the cow when they can get the milk for free? There must be dozens, if not hundreds of Stanford students that would gladly work for free to add “Facebook” to their resume.

That Job Must Suck

I can certainly understand wanting to jump on the Facebook bandwagon while still in school to try to land a job with one of the hottest properties in town, but I can only imagine that repetitively reviewing ads, clicking through to the landing page, and approving or denying them must get really old, really fast.

Then again, based on some of the ads I get served on Facebook, maybe it’s not such a boring job for a college kid after all.

Really?

Anybody know anything more about this? Am I jumping to too many conclusions?

My Facebook “25 Things About Me” Post

Posted on 02/16/09 by Andrew Miller

Rules:
Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.

(To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.)

1. Made you look.

2. Don’t you have anything better to do?

3. What’s with the sudden fascination with intimate details of people’s lives?

4. Would you ever ask somebody about these details of their life if you were talking to them in person?

5. What about if they could track who was reading their “25 things” note?

6. Did you know I can track who reads my “25 things note”?

7. Did you know Facebook changed their Terms of Service recently and now they FOREVER OWN the rights to every bit of information, photos, “25 things”, and comment you ever make on here? http://consumerist.com/5150175/facebooks-new-terms-of-service-we-can-do-anything-we-want-with-your-content-forever

8. I consider most of you “friends” or “acquaintances”, but only a handful of you could write my “25 things about me” note for me. You know who you are, and you know exactly what would be in it.

9. I don’t dislike this trend, just think it’s a little voyeuristic and impersonal.

10. If you want to know more about a person, why don’t you call them more often or grab a coffee or a beer?

11. I vowed not to write my “25 things note” and I still don’t think this counts.

12. Some of you may take this personally. Don’t. Social media changes the way people communicate, but it doesn’t replace personal relationships developed over long periods of time and/or shared experiences.

13. – 24. I’ve got nothing else to go here, but if you want to catch up sometime over a coffee or beer, I’ll be happy to chat.

25. #6 is a lie. I can’t tell who reads this. But would it change things if I could?