Tag: twitter posts

Twitter in plain English

The folks at CommonCraft have put together a great basic video explaining Twitter in plain English.

Great stuff. I know my mom reads my Twitter feed (per some of the questions and conversations she brings up) but I think she reads it via the Casa de Blundell news feed – not going to the Twitter site per-say. Wonder if I can ever get her to sign up and start Twittering during the day…..

If you’re interested, I’m jdblundell on Twitter.
My best friend, (that doesn’t live with me) Matt, is Medicmml.
My buddy Thomas is headphonaught.
My good friend and pastor Brian is at Brian12345678 (although you won’t get much out of him).
You can get encounter news via encounterthis.

Anyone else out there that I should be following?

BTW – I love the simple video CommonCraft did as well. Nothing with fancy computer graphics – just fun paper images moved around with their hands and fingers.

Who did you twitter about on Super Tuesday

Twitter just released a graph showing name mentions of all the remaining presidential candidates on Super Tuesday.

Looks like Obama was the clear winner with each candidate getting a spike when they spoke that night.

See the graph for yourself.

And here’s a look at Twitter traffic during the Super Bowl.

Oh – and according to the Twitter blog – looks like AT&T was sucking up all my SMS messages last week and early this week.

Twitter peeps

So you’re browsing SSL and you see this box on the right hand side that says Twitter updates.
Currently (as of 8:26 a.m. on Jan 29) it shows:

  • what happens when you live alone and die alone > who picks up the pieces? http://tinyurl.com/yto2or 21 minutes ago
  • Listening 2 this american life podcast podcast on the bus about an hour ago
  • Cant find my keys about an hour ago
  • The new Casa de Blundell is live :: http://tinyurl.com/27cyj2 about an hour ago
  • time to take out the trash and head off to work… now where’s the dog at? about an hour ago
  • Getting my morn caffeine fix while checking email about an hour ago

Wait, you haven’t noticed this yet? Well go check it out. We’ll wait for you….

OK now that we’ve all seen it, you’re probably asking, OK so what is it? It’s my Twitter feed. The feed displays everything I add to my Twitter account throughout the day.
Now explaining Twitter might be a little bit harder.

Twitter.com is another one of those fancy Web 2.0 sites that is built around community and 140 character text messages. The site asks the basic question, “What are you doing?”

Users then respond throughout the day with their own activities, thoughts, notes and what not. There’s even a channel set up for things people overheard in their day-to-day lives. You’ll find all sorts of things happening, or being mico-blogged about on Twitter.

ESPN has a feed that alerts people with the latest NFL news. College professors are Twittering with their students. Folks are sharing their insight from the Sundance Festival. Reporters are sharing insight on the presidential race and MacRumors abound.

So what’s the big deal? Well once you sign up for your free Twitter account you can follow any of these feeds, including mine, to can get the updates from your own Twitter page, via txt message or e-mail. And what amazes me is the community that’s built around Twitter. I’ve mentioned this before, but thanks to Twitter and his blog, I know more about Thomas and his life in Scotland than I do about my friends and family that live within 20-30 miles. That’s good and bad — but for this blog entry, we’ll go with the good ;-).

We’re also starting to use Twitter for encounter. We’re posting info on upcoming events and hope to start using it for prayer request notices as more encounter peeps get on board.

Kevin Hendricks over at CMS has more suggestions for Twitter as well (who by the way kept me entertained/informed last week on living life without a furnace via his Twitter feed):

The main thing to keep in mind is that Twitter is just another medium. It could be a volunteer coordinator or an evangelism tool. Experiment and see what works:

  • Ask questions: Sermon research, who’s coming to an event, what people might be interested in, etc.
  • Share insights: Maybe it’s a quote from a sermon, maybe it’s a sudden insight from a Bible study.
  • Highlight content: Point people to blog posts, articles or resources on your church web site.
  • Hype events: Remind people of events and give a glimpse of what they’re missing.

So that’s about it. Now go for it. Twitter away.

Social networking and the church

So I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not – but there’s this phenomenon going on around you – Web 2.0.
I don’t know that anyone’s really settled on a definition of this new wave of Internet sites but I think everyone can agree on what it’s not – stagnant, outdated websites that simply push information onto people, rather than allowing them the opportunity to pull the information they want/need.

Think about sites like Flickr, YouTube, Myspace, Facebook, Wikipedia and Twitter where there’s a broad wealth of information and content that is typically user driven and user created. No more Mr. Corporate America telling people what they will and can’t read. Users are sharing content and connecting in new amazing ways.

Last week as Laurie and I were out and about I received an update via txt message from my mate Thomas over in Scotland. He was watching the final episode of 24, Season 6 with his wife.
I commented that I knew more about Thomas than most of my friends who live within a 30-45 mile radius of my home — and Thomas and I have never met in person. Thomas later commented that he knows more about Laurie and I than he does our next door neighbor – maybe a good thing and a bad thing.

As part of my job here at DCCCD we’ve been discussing our district’s and specifically our department’s Intranet presence. I was forwarded an article (must be a member to read) yesterday from Communication World that suggests most Intranet sites are built around early 1990 standards, not the new Web 2.0 ideas. I would hardily agree – at least of the few that I’ve seen.

Most companies chose to block Web 2.0 sites and applications from their users – I’m sure Laurie can give you an earful on how annoying that is for her where she works. She’s now blocked from visiting our own personal blogs and sites at work. She has to use a work around by using a VNC viewer to access the web over her computer and our DSL at home – very clever on her part.

The article in Communication World also suggests that because these Web 2.0 platforms work so well, people are finding their own work arounds for sharing information and building communities – even work related communities.

So what about our churches? Do we know folks we’ve met through Myspace or Facebook better than those around us at the ultimate community – our own church? And can churches use Web 2.0 ideas to build community – or should they?

After reading the article in Communication World it occurred to me, there may also be some Open Source Social Networking software out there. Sure enough – there is.
I found Elgg which looks like it’s super customizable (and also appears to have their entire website built around a Wiki). Could churches use software like Elgg to build their website, or at least expand on their current website? Or should churches simply build communities around social networks that are already out there?

I tend to believe we should be where the people are – not pulling them into separate realms or worlds but I don’t know. Maybe something like encounterSpace or iencounter would be beneficial. Right now our average attendance is between 180-250 each week. By far MySpace seems to be the most used social networking site used by folks at our church. We have 75 MySpace friends, we have 21 members in the encounter Facebook group and 4 or 5 people who have submitted photos to the encounter Flickr group. But would those numbers increase and communities form on a separate network “exclusive” for encounter folks? I don’t know. I participate in a semi-social networking site for geocaching but I don’t typically seek out other geocaches on places like Facebook and MySpace. Yet while my university offers an Alumni Social Networking portal, I’m more likely to connect with folks from UMHB through MySpace or Facebook. What do you think?

More changes to SSL

Got around to setting up accounts with del.icio.us and twitter over the last few days. So far I’m liking them both. Don’t know why I’ve been putting it off. They may mean I’ll cut down on some of my usual blog posting, but I don’t know.

You would think that I would have jumped on these bandwagons a long time ago, but I put them off until seeing them really utilized by folks like Thomas and others. Even various organizations and companies are getting on the bandwagon to easily share links within their organizations or to clients.

For example The Sunlight Foundation sent me to their del.icio.us page a week or two ago to show me all the articles and information I might ever want on their new Google Earth layer. Rather than e-mailing me a list of a few articles, I was sent a link and it had loads and loads of links and information.

Also several presidential campaigns are running del.icio.us pages and twitter pages as folks follow the candidates around.

If you’re not familiar with the two services, del.icio.us allows folks to save bookmarks for websites, videos and misc. that are of interest and that they want to share with others. As you’ve probably noticed a lot of my posts are simply links to other sites and articles I want to share with others. Now with del.icio.us that’s done in one easy to follow place. I’m working on trying to set it up so it will automatically post one blog entry with all the links for the day – but I’m still working out the kinks on that one. Until then, you can visit http://del.icio.us/jdblundell to see the various links.

As for twitter, the service allows users to keep others posted throughout the day & night about their going ons. It’s like a simplified report or re-cap of the day – 24/7. Don’t know how often I’ll be using it or updating it. We’ll see. It can be updated form the website, my cellphone or IM and it also updates my Facebook status too. My twitter status will update on the right hand side of SSL, right under the calendar or on my twitter page.

Crazy stuff going on around here – who knows where it will all lead.

UPDATE: With the pending shutdown of Delicious sometime back I jumped ship and moved to Pinboard.in which has far more features and benefits than Delicious ever did. I highly recommend it. You can see my links there at: http://pinboard.in/u:jdblundell.

The txting church

Over the last year or so text messaging has become more prevalent than ever. Luckily I have an unlimited txting plan for my cell phone, because it seems I rarely use any minutes on my monthly plan (thanks to free calls to other AT&T users) but I do lots of txt messaging.
I’ve even become known as the go-to-guy when a prayer requests needs to be shared. I take advantage of text messages first and then normally send a follow-up email with more information.
Brian sent me a link to a story from MondayMorningInsight.com that I apparently overlooked, “How Will The Church Use Text Messaging?”
We’ve been discussing over e-mail the last couple weeks some ways that our church could possibly use text messaging to more effectively communicate with our partners. We’ve had several ideas, including feedback during the services. But I think some of that may take more hardware and software than we’re ready to pay for. But their may be other areas, services we can offer that we haven’t seen yet or tackled.
It could be something as “simple” as using twitter to track what Brian or other leadership folks do during the day, or it could be as complex as responding to the message and then showing the responses on the screen during our Sunday morning Service – kind of like VH1’s Pop-Up Video.
Any ideas? Do you see your church utilizing txt messages? If so, how?