Twitter introduced location-specific Trending Topics to give you an idea on what the recent zeitgeist in your area was based on common terms that show up in the stream of all tweets from your area. These topics often cycle in a matter of hours as new news and discussion take over for older topics.
Still at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference at the Westin Waterfront Hotel and I'm now in a Communilytics session. What are Communilytics? Well, it's actually the measurement of community numbers. So, how people in a community-based group, like Twitter or Facebook or even blogs or Expedia or other online areas-respond and react to each other and the platform itself.
Essentially, measuring communilytics is like finding out what people are doing on your sites and understanding how people are connected to other people and who the influencers are.
Real-time politics, eh? I see that Karyn Polito got a tweet on her website dare to Steve Grossman's Twitter. He just responded to a debate challenge with:
@karyn4treasurer, I accept your invitation to debate. Let’s talk jobs, holding big banks accountable, & protecting people’s $. When & where? 16 minutes ago via web
Game on, boys and girls. Now, she'll have to come up with some substance to match his specific and elaborate proposals.
The Twitter account for WGBH's "Greater Boston" (@GreaterBoston) has been hacked. Either that, or PBS is finally offering some good loot when you donate money during commercial breaks.
It seems like each four minutes there's a new event happening in Boston proper or across the river where I sit typing right now.
These events range from knitting circles to test drive tweetups, and the thing these events have in common is that they're increasingly organized via social media tools.
So imagine my surprise when I found out this morning in one of the first sessions at the Social Technology and Education Conference at Harvard University, that this very conference was completely organized without any traditional marketing.
Susan Johnson was one of the people banned by mistake from Twitter over the weekend. She ponders what it means:
... emailed support begging them to restore my account and promising to be a better citizen of the Twittersphere (though in truth, I think I'm already a pretty good citizen). This morning, with just as much warning (meaning zilch), my account was mysteriously back to normal. There were no signs of a hacker, and Twitter didn't even bother to send me an automated email (Dear Twitter: I know you know how to send automated emails because I get several per day!).
I'm happy to have my account restored and I realize that Twitter is a free service (for now, at least), but I'm also a little miffed that they can suspend someone with zero warning and without even an automated courtesy email explaining why. ...
Another banned Twitterer, Tom O'Keefe, reports, in the comments here that without Twitter, he was forced to use a phone to call a friend to meet for some ice cream at JP Licks.
Today's New York Post Page Six gossip column stated that Deval Patrick was about to be offered the US Attorney position in MA amid sagging poll numbers as Governor. In a public Twitter mention similar to an exchange between the Governor and R.D. Sahl of NECN back in February, reporter Mike Sangalang at WBZ (@MikeSangWBZ) asked the Governor (@MassGovernor) about the validity of the rumor.
As many of you saw yesterday, there was confusion on the Boston Fire Department Twitter feed. I am a Boston Firefighter, and not knowing that the city was intending to set up an official Twitter feed, I set one up to keep those interested informed of fire department happenings around the city. Upon learning that an official Twitter feed was set up, I shut mine down.
This floated across my Twitter stream this morning via @bradsaccount, who is the Director of New Media at the Massachusetts Governor's office:
Massachusetts Governor Patrick's Office has an official twitter feed now. Follow away! www.twitter.com/massgovernor
Interesting, to say the least.
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