It was my 11th Twitter birthday yesterday

I've been a member since 15th December 2006. Eleven years. I was one of the early adopters in the UK. This is how it happened.

The calm before the storm
London Tech Christmas Party December 2006

I was part of the London Tech community's Christmas 'Mega Bash' of 2006 led by Ian Forrester of BBC Backstage. The idea was to get all the London tech community groups together and to have a big Christmas bash on Saturday 9 December 2006. Swedish Beers was one of the groups involved alongside London Girl Geekdinners, Geekdinners, London Perlmongers, London Webstandards Group, London Ruby user group, Open rights group, London 2.0, Mobile Monday, LondonSEO. Of those, Swedish Beers is definitely still going strong with no sign of letting up any time soon (I hope).

The sponsors on the night fared better. Trusted Places went to Yell. SkillsMatter, Chinwag, TechCrunch UK, and O'Reilly are all still around in one form or another. AdMob sold to Google for megabucks. And Connect Me Anywhere was the precursor to Iovox.

Twitter didn't quite make the grade as a full-on sponsor, but they were involved in some way. It's a long time ago. I can't remember the detail. There was some Twitter activity that night, but I hadn't been organised enough to sign up to the service. And in all honesty, I really couldn't see the point of micro-blogging. I'd been doing long-form blogging for 3 years at that point and I'd been an active member of Flickr since 2005 and even had a PRO account so I could store more photos. That was my social network of choice at the time. We used that and Moblog a bit like Instagram is used now except we took our photos on our mobile or cameras and uploaded via desktop or laptop computer.  My business networking was done on Soflow, Ecademy and LinkedIn. So I could see the point of social networking (although we didn't call it that then), but microblogging? Yeah, wasn't so sure on that one.


I took some nudging from Ian to get signed up to Twitter. I did it as a favour to him after the party to help him meet his obligations to Twitter. And in those early days, I really couldn't see the point so I wasn't particularly active. And my first tweets don't reveal very much of note either. Also at the time, Twitter wasn't market leader. We also had Jaiku and Pownce. Jaiku has more functionality. I seem to remember Pownce having some weird USP that I can't quite remember, but they were both also about micro-blogging.

Fast forward to February 2007, and it's 3GSM in Barcelona - what is now Mobile World Congress. Twitter is integrated with SMS and you could do things like create an interest group and everyone in the group would receive the messages via SMS. You could post and receive via SMS for free as well. In Barcelona, on roaming, and many of us on the same mission to find out where the action was at 3GSM, Twitter suddenly had a purpose. The most similar thing to that now would be a WhatsApp or WeChat Group. Now I got the point. We could share messages with each other easily and for free. We could find out about what was going on and get answers to questions. All useful stuff. And now, all superseded by other services.

It's fair to say that for a few years I was an enthusiastic Twitter user. I met many people via Twitter. Engaged in the offline Twitter meet-ups and I met new clients via Twitter as well. It was still small enough that you could keep track of the people you were following and in turn, you could be found and make an impression. Most people still couldn't see the point of it so it stayed in the category of quality not quantity in those days.

But as the masses joined in, the usefulness and relevance for me decreased. And for the last few years, I've hardly used it at all. Facebook and LinkedIn have taken over in usefulness and reach for me - particularly the former, even for business-related content.

But, I'm still there and I'm using it a bit more again since I picked up the blogging pace this November. It's harder work because of the volume of stuff to wade through. And I'm not sure how much reach I get from Twitter. My blog stats say Google and Facebook are my main drivers of traffic with Twitter barely showing a blip these days. But maybe that will change now that I'm a bit more engaged. These platforms have a way of ebbing and flowing over time. And maybe now that Twitter is not quite as micro-blogging as before, it will make a difference.

If you'd like to relive that London Tech Mega Christmas Bash 2006, you can do that here. And if you're feeling brave, you can check out the photos. We certainly look younger, but so many of the photos are deeply, deeply unflattering!

Day 16/25 Blogmas

Voice marketing is part of the mobile marketing mix too

When talking about mobile marketing these days, the assumption is that it's all about mobile data and that the format of that data is mobile internet and sms. Let's not forget that the mobile phone was primarily designed so that we could *talk* to each other wherever we are and whenever we want to. Voice communications are still important and voices do matter. So it's great to see companies taking this seriously and using voice effectively as part of their marketing efforts. And I've stumbled across a couple of examples just today to share with you.

First off, you can jump start your kid's morning routine with a Hannah Montana (TM) wake-up call! This is a new(ish) campaign from Walmart and Disney. The idea is quite a simple one... you subscribe to the service and you can organise a pre-recorded surprise telephone call from Hannah Montana to brighten up your sprog's day. It's good to see good, old-fashioned voice at work. I haven't tried it myself, and let's face it, I'm a tad old to be a Hannah Montana fan but even I know she's incredibly popular so I imagine this campaign should fly too. The FAQs are very clear that it's a free service and no email addresses will be used for marketing purposes. Very refreshing.

Nearer home in the UK, the teams at Spinvox and Moblog have joined forces to launch the 'We Love Your Accent' competition and voice blog. This is your chance to tell the world what accent you like and why and in doing so, you're in with a chance to win a fancy schmancy new Nokia phone, a year's free subscription to both Spinvox and Moblog and 250 shiny new personalised moo cards. So have your say and tell the world what your favourite accent is and why.

If you have other examples of marketing campaigns where voice is the key element, then please add a comment below and share what you know.

Telco 2.0 round up on 'digital yoof'

The Telco 2.0 initiative is about brainstorming how telcos, handset manufacturers, media companies et al can generate revenue in an IP based world. They had a recent brainstorm session at the end of March and the write up of the session on digital youth is now on the website and is well worth a read.

Some highlights include:

Research from Peter Miles from SubTV, the UK student TV network

1. 90% access the internet daily in 2006 (up from 82% in 2005 and 65% in 2004)
2. 51% of students visit social networking sites each week
3. 99% own a mobile (and 74% ‘would lose their mind if they lost their mobile’)
4. They are VERY good at multi-tasking and filtering - normal marketing messages may not get through

Nick Bassett from Vodafone's research unit tell us of the key phone requirements for the predominantly pre-pay 'Tireless Texter' :

• Modern. Yup, the device must be cool ‘n’ funky.
• Have good quality camera. To capture those young fun-lovin’ moments…
• Include Bluetooth. So those pics and games can be exchanged with friends for free.
• Have lots of memory. To store those illegal music and video downloads.
• An MP3 player. To play those (still) illegal downloads

Alfie Dennen from Moblog reiterates the need for sensibly priced flat-rate data plans to encourage mobile web usage without fear of billshock and appealed to the operators to come up with alternative (improved) revenue share models.

Well worth a read.

Bank Holiday links

As the Bank Holiday draws to a close, I thought I'd better capture a few links that might be of interest, so here goes...

Comeks raises cash but I still don't know how to get it on to my phone or my 'puter so I wonder if it's a network operator specific service? If so, it's a shame, as I reckon it would go down a treat with the community at Moblog UK. It looks to be a great service that gives you the tools to turn your photos and images into a comic strip so you can create those photo-love type stories as seen in The Sun (print version) or in days gone by the much missed Jackie magazine. Thanks to Dan for the tip-off.

Talking of which, they've been very busy of late at Moblog UK with new moblogs for Channel 4's Binwatch, a new anime moblog for Gong Studios (and there's prizes 'n everything on offer) and the official launch of the Big Art Mob, again for Channel 4. It’s the UK’s first comprehensive survey of Public Art – based entirely on pictures from the camera phones of art-lovers nationwide. It aims to record for posterity the wealth of artworks in public places right across the country and serve as the focus of a dynamic national conversation. Go check the site out and take part yourself.

Vodafone/Cingular (USA) has included in its website terms and conditions to disallow deep links to their website, and also disallowing bloggers or anyone really from saying anything negative about them. Now that just seems barmy to me. I understand copyright issues and libel or slander and that's fair enough, but to stop free speech and hyperlinks seems ridiculous. Although it does appear to be legal. I imagine monitoring this will become nigh on impossible as the internet and blogosphere both grow exponentially. Ewan has also commented on this over at SMStextnews. It seems to me that the days of 'controlling' your message are long gone and these ts and cs seem a bit last century.

Kajeet launches an MVNO in the USA for tweens with snazzy mobile phones *and* related, targeted content aimed at kids aged 8 to 12 and it looks pretty good to me. The characters they've invented are appealing, the handsets look ok (although they won't be as funky as their older siblings' Razr and Krazr handsets from Motorola), it's well priced, a lot of thought has gone into keeping both parents and kids happy so maybe this is one MVNO that will work. Their aim is to sign up 175,000 customers in their first year.

Moblog UK has had a *major* revamp

And it's looking good!

Additions include a tag cloud, better search facilities, a cleaner look and feel, and generally making it more inviting to mobloggers new and old.

And while they've been doing that, they've even had time to launch a new moblog for Three's X-Series.

Now all they need to do to make it *perfect* is to come up with a middle-ground pricing structure so that it's in line or cheaper than flickr to complement their existing free and paid-for versions. Not all of us need the all-singing, all-dancing but need a bit more than the very generous free option.

Well done guys! Seriously impressed.

A few links for you

First off, the podcast/videocast of the last MoMo London event is now live courtesy of Clarity Partners. It was a demo night so there are lots of short demos and right at the very end, Roving Reporter Keegan interviews some of the audience to get their reaction. I think I'm right up there with Bridget Jones' roving reporter skills!

Today I was on a panel for the Guardian's Changing Media Summit which was really interesting. I was ably accompanied by Justin Davies from NinetyTen (makers of Buddyping), Tom Hume from Future Platforms and Andrew Scott from Playtxt. In the Jeremy Paxman role was Mike Butcher of Vecosys and he also blogs about the event here. I'm pleased to say that we didn't use powerpoint (good thing) but the session seemed to absolutely whizz by without covering topics in enough depth so I left feeling I could have said a lot more (well, we all did actually). Jemima Kiss has blogged about our session over at the Guardian and I believe the event was filmed so if those films ever make it into the wild, I'll let you know. There are good write-ups of all the sessions in the Greenslade section of the Guardian website. Go see what you missed.

I just stumbled across this directory of web 2.0 services including a section on mobile. Might be worth checking out and adding to it if you know of a service that should be up there. There are certainly some interesting links up there.

And well done to Alfie, JC and Ben at Moblog for their Channel 4 deal for 'The Big Art Mob'. It's a really interesting project whereby anyone can send in pictures from their mobile of 'art' in their area, whether that's graffiti or statue or whatever. And they're using location tagging to create a map of where the art can be seen. Looks pretty cool to me. Go check out the Vecosys sneak preview of it. This follows hot on the heels of Moblog's support for the recent Red Nose Day.

I know there's more to write about - I have a backlog as long as your arm, but being busy on client stuff, sorting out the next WiMD (28th March) and Swedish Beers events (11th April), still suffering from a post-3GSM lurgy and generally trying to live life has meant I haven't been as giving as usual on the blog front. I will try to do better in the coming weeks!

Moblogging as mobile marketing is taking off

I've been playing around with moblogging as part of the mobile marketing mix for sometime now - not least with a campaign I ran for Sony Ericsson a year or two ago (BeepMarketing - my company - did the mobile bits and pieces with ijack managing the website). And I see it as an important way of connecting people and an effective marketing mechanic and this is reflected in the success of sites such as flickr and myspace and fab services such as shozu which confirm the rise in appeal and usage of so-called user-generated content.

Well my friends at Moblog UK, are really going for this moblogging thing and doing it really rather well. They not only have a live community of mobloggers (that's folks who take pictures and send them to the site via their phone - with shozu integration now - yay!) but they've also found imaginative ways of tapping into that community for advertisers without hurting the brand equity and following they have acquired to date. Typically, they've done campaigns for bands and artists such as Maximo Park, Goldfrapp and Girls Aloud. But they have also run successful competitions and promotions for Sony Ericsson and Ravel and have just launched an awareness campaign for Action Aid's Extreme Cuppa initiative.

As if that's not enough, there's a new moblog competition to celebrate the launch of the new Michel Gondry film, The Science of Sleep. You can win a signed movie poster and 2 tickets for a special Valentine's screening of the film, with tickets going to 10 runners-up. All you have to do is send in your video clip or still picture that captures one of your dreams. The best ones win.