Month: July 2008

the twitlist – analysts

Posted on by Becky Green (was McMichael)

Thanks to Wadds for drawing attention to this post by SageCircle: a really useful list of analysts on Twitter….some I follow but many I don’t but will be checking out in future.

I am sure it is only a matter of time before someone does publish a list of journalists too as Wadds discusses and if/when that happens, I just hope (PR) people have the intelligence and the nous not to abuse the data.

As a PR person, the better I know someone, be it journalist, analyst, blogger or whoever, the more accurate/relevant I can be when approaching them with a story or meeting invitation etc and the less time of theirs (and mine) I will waste.

Abusing people’s Twitterfeeds with worthless pitches or inaccurately targeted comments is about as sensible a move as phoning Charles Arthur to see if he got your press release… I really value being able to follow journalists/analysts on Twitter and I’d hate to see the current conversation format ruined.

no communications? no holiday for me

Posted on by Becky Green (was McMichael)

This weekend, my husband and I took or daughter away in our new (to us) campervan for the first time and it was fab. Sea, camping, cooking outside, lying on a rug with the papers, drinking champers to toast the new van…all good!

I, however, forgot to take my blackberry charger and consequentially was without any Internet access all weekend. Big deal? well actually, yes it was.

I know some people’s idea of a holiday/weekend away is turning the PC off, not reading a paper or watching the news and generally switching off from everything and if that is the case, you will probably think I am a total saddo. However, for me, not being able to look stuff up during a discussion, prove my husband wrong in an argument, check the spelling to a crossword clue, pop onto Twitter, check the weather or the surf report/tide times or read the headlines online is my idea of hell!

As we packed up our lovely van and left the secluded farm up on the Cornish cliffs, I spotted a sign saying wifi available here…£1. So I booked us in next weekend but will remember the laptop next time.

Twitter and Summize…a match made in heaven?

Posted on by Becky Green (was McMichael)

So Twitter has bought Summize, not exactly unexpectedly and turned out to be a bit of a non-story…as with so many things, the story was in the speculation I guess with the main discussion happening last week.

So what will it mean for Twitter then and its loyal users?

A sketch of search inside Twitter

According to the Twitter blog….

Like Twitter, Summize offers an API so other products and services can filter the constant queue of updates in a variety of ways. The Summize service and API will be merged with our own and integrated under the Twitter brand.

There is an undeniable need to search, filter, and otherwise interact with the volumes of news and information being transmitted to Twitter every second. We will be adding search and its related features to the core offering of Twitter in the very near future. In the meantime, everyone is welcome to access search.twitter.com—there’s no need for a Twitter account.

Good news if you ask me.

Summize is a great tool and in my opinion it is the best way of using Twitter for PR research.  It provides an instant snapshot of the live conversation about any given topic, product, company or person at any time.

Combine that with 5 new engineers now on the Twitter payroll and it might just help keep the fail whale away too…