Sorry for having to disguise my face, but I”m getting into some crazy stuff and I don’t know who I can trust. The good news is this: I can trust twitter, because thats where it is all going down!
A conversation with Andy Carvin
As some of my followers know, an assignment for this blog was to interview a leader in the social media world and someone who I could relate to in some way with the theme of my blog. Last week we had a great opportunity to Skype with Mr Andy Carvin, (Twitter, Wiki) formerly of NPR and currently joining First Look Media, a joint venture that is being financed by the owner of eBay. Andy is a great example of how twitter can be used for raising awareness of issues around the globe. His book Distant Witness is a must read, both for those interested in Arab Spring, but also for anyone who wants to see an amazing way of connecting multitudes around the globe.
So if you read my last blog post, I posted 10 questions for Andy Carvin and actually tweeted him to let him know what may be coming in our Skype session the following day. What I did not expect was that he came to my blog, read the questions and then answered them all! Between the Skype interaction we had and him taking the time to respond to my questions I have been blown away by Andy and his willingness to connect with people just like me, when he has so many other bigger things that seem so much more important going on.
A brief clarification about the inspiration for the questions I posed. They related to two pieces of Andy’s work, 1. Distant Witness, his book about his involvement in Arab Spring, especially the way he tweeted it and shared the story of what was going on. 2. Mind The Gap, an essay he wrote regarding the internet and its accessibility to all, especially those in lower income situations, or areas without accessibility and how it could affect things like the sharing of knowledge.
I want to thank Andy Carvin for taking the time to respond, and without further ado, here is what Andy had to say…
10 questions for Andy Carvin, and vote for your favorite at bottom of page!
I am excited for a Skype Session that my Social Media class at Eastern Mennonite University is having with Andy Carvin (wiki, twitter) tomorrow at 9:25am. Part of the preparation for that interaction, I have come up with some questions for Andy. Half the questions are based around his book “Distant Witness” which we read as a class, the rest are based around an essay he wrote called “Mind the Gap” which discusses the digital divide and how it affects equal access to digital information.
So without further ado, my 10 questions for Andy Carvin…
- How does your tweeting make a difference? If you weren’t tweeting them, how could have conflicts you covered been affected differently?
- How do you authenticate a source? How have you been burned by sources who turn out to not be authentic?
- In regards to Mo and his video feed, how was live tweeting beneficial? Was your live tweeting more like advertising for the live feed or were followers choosing to just read your tweets and not participate or view the live feed you would offer a link to?
- How were you able to develop the contacts and following that you have? You had to start somewhere, with nothing, how did you build it up to where you are now?
- Are you in some ways just a collector and distributor of information operating from a safe distance, connecting an audience to sources? Or do you identify more as being directly involved in the issues/conflicts that are going on almost as if you were at ground zero.
- Will children with no regular internet access fall further behind their peers with regular internet access due to the increased use of digital information for educational and research purposes? Is there a way to solve this potential issue?
- Do you think that one day, we might see a “new” internet, that is protected and used solely for the purposes of sharing educational based material? (i.e. almost like putting a parental control or filter, keeping out irrelevant information)
- Is there a difference for you if you are tweeting live and “on location” versus collecting information from “on location” sources, disseminating their messages and then sharing that information from a distant location? Is one better or worse?
- Twitter and text messaging seem to be big culprits in a deterioration of spelling, grammar and punctuation particularly in current youth and young adults; and could be considered culprits of a growth in illiteracy. How could twitter be used to promote proper spelling, grammar and punctuation; ultimately helping support the fight against illiteracy?
- If you wanted your iPhone back from the American history Museum, could you get it?
Ladies & Gentlemen, I have been inspired!!!
As some of my readers may know, my passions lie somewhere closer to an intersection of photography and sports. Lately I have taken on many opportunities to shoot local athletics both at Eastern Mennonite University and at James Madison University. These opportunities are very life giving for me and I enjoy the challenges that live action present. I have also just concluded a project shot in more of a studio atmosphere that revolved around the essence of the athlete, titled “the essence within”.
So what does this all have to do with my blog, and ultimately my foray into twitter? Well, I started a twitter account for my sports photography here. By simply going out and and sending a single photo to a couple athletes in a few games I shot, I was able to get over 1600 views!!!
I have continued to shoot and last weekend I was fortunate enough to shoot at the NCAA Division III First Round Championships at Ferrum College. Using Eastern Mennonite’s Sports Information Director’s contacts, I was able to get my images to all 4 teams who were competing at the event. This one image was used by Capital University’s women’s basketball team and has gained me a number of followers all the way up in Ohio.
So, what have I learned about gaining multiple followers and increasing my visibilty on twitter? Figure out what it is you are trying to say or promote and go out and get your message into the hands of people who will care about it. Give them a good reason to want to follow you and to learn more about you and what you are about. I have been blown away by how fast things jumped for me initially, and I intend to continue to reach out to new people and groups. EMU Athletics, JMU Athletics, JMU Softball, JMU Football, countless athletes, their friends and family have started to follow me, or atleast have seen my work. I can’t guarantee that any of this will translate into work beyond what I have already done, but I know that I like my odds better when 1600 people are looking at what I am doing. To close this post I will include a couple of the more popular photos that I have posted so far on my twitter page.
Want to Know More About Twitter, This friend’s Blog is a Must Read!
So this week I got the great opportunity to review a fellow blogger’s site. Londen Wheeler started a blog at the same time I did. His blog, “Aye, Yo! You See My Tweet?! – Let Me Explain The Evolution of Twitter” looks at all the wonders of Twitter. While I am blogging about setting up a Twitter account and getting things going, he is on a similar plain, however he is exploring the wonders of twitter and its evolution. Combined I think you can find multiple reasons why tweeting can be beneficial to you, your business, as well as how to do it. I recommend you give him a look here.
A look over Londen’s “About” page gives you a good overview of his intentions for blogging – “I will inform you about the wonders of the Evolution of Twitter”. He has targeted the teen/young adult demographic, however I think that there is plenty in here for those who are beyond that scope. One recommendation would be to remove the teen/young adult denotation, and simply replace it with something more welcoming to all. Londen is very welcoming and wants you to come and join his adventure while he shares about his already 2 years of tweeting experience. It would be nice to hear some suggestions of the “other things” he may mean in his last paragraph about Twitter being for more than just venting about struggles, but it is not an off-putting comment, and I do want him to tell me all about “it”.
Londen’s blog has some very clean lines and the black on off-white is visually pleasing. While I know the top article will change, the image of Jackie Chan has already got me wondering about what that article is about. I never would have connected Jackie Chan with reading the news on twitter, but Jackie got me to look and I am glad that I did.
The headline font is a bit soft, and I might consider going with a stark black to jump off the page and really draw my eye. The column on the left is connected directly to Londen’s twitter account and being able to see his last 4 tweets gives me a good idea of what he has been up to.
Reading through Londen’s articles, he has a very distinct style. It has a young and modern feel to it. It feels authentic and honest. His articles don’t just talk about why Twitter is cool, or how it grew, but he is incorporating current events into his posts while he educates on how twitter has evolved.
His article showing how a well captured image, re-tweeted at the main person in the image can get you multiple re-tweets and favorites is a great example of finding a way into multiple people’s twitter feeds, which can result in followers and more people who may be interested in what you or your business are saying, and can connect you in with what they are saying. His hyperlinks take you to places that are worthwhile going, and he is thinking about a lot of different people who may read his blog (i.e. non-profits and small businesses getting separate links in one of his posts).
And who doesn’t love a list post? Londen’s use of fun lists, that are also educational for twitter-addicts are well thought out and executed. Between his top-5 unbelievable twitter statistics to his top 10 things not to do on twitter, you will find humor but also food for thought. The use of images makes it fun to read along too.
Seven Things I Really Like About Londen’s Blog:
1. The clean and simple esthetic of the whole site. I find it easy on the eyes and simple to use, however it is not so plain that it is boring.
2. Hyperlinks – taking the article you are writing deeper with relevant links, makes the reading experience even more worthwhile.
3. The fun “voice” that is intertwined with meaningful article. The whole blog and its articles are easy to read and your voice is easy to like.
4. Images, I just want to keep scrolling down to see what you may have put in next.
5. Your list posts. Fun, informational, relevant. A dynamic trio that makes the lists a really great read.
6. Your sidebar is clean. Twitter, Instagram, Recent Posts, Blog Stats. Simple, relevant, not crowded together, nothing useless.
7. Your about page. I noted a couple little tweaks in my opening paragraph, however it is inviting, and encourages me to go on this journey with you.
Seven Suggestions for Londen’s Blog:
1. You headings for articles are in a grey font. While this isn’t off-putting, it blends together. I would love to see it be a bold black and really stand out.
2. If someone over 35 read your about page, they may not read your articles because you don’t really include them as your target demographic. While I agree with the thought that your writing may be more appealing or relevant or understood by the teen/young adult population, your articles run deeper and can be well received by a wider demographic. Don’t cut yourself short.
3. Your title is a bit confusing “Aye, you! You See My Tweet?!” The sub-heading clears it up a bit, but I am failing to make the connection between the two.
4. While it is also something I like, the amount of images, particularly in the “10 Valuable Things …” post, can get overwhelming where I don’t really read the text, and just look at the images.
5. Your footer is tucked away down there pretty far. Would you consider bringing the Recent Posts up to the sidebar, and maybe even making them 2nd from the top for me to use as a bit of a table of contents? The Creative Commons icon is a little less important and could probably stay tucked away down there.
6. The post that could’ve used an image the most is the “What Are Your Looking For?” post. It could have elongated the text box, and given it a sense that there was more there. Because it is so short, my initial response was to just skip over it and get to something more on par with the two posts above it.
7. I would love to hear more about how twitter is evolving YOU. I know that this isn’t necessarily a goal of your blog, but it would really add an even deeper connection between reader and author and could build an even more loyal fan base. The one article where you use your tweet of the Olympic runner is a great start on this path, I would suggest even more things like that, it was a great connection between a tweet of yours “blowing up” and how business or people can do the same thing. How has Twitter made you even more relevant in social media?
Based on our list from the beginning of the year, I would say this blog connects with the following topics/ideas…
1. Practical
2. Visual
3. Inviting
4. Organized
5. Authentic
6. Provides Resources
7. Develops Relationship with Audience
For my own blog, I am going to take away a need to increase my hyperlinks to enhance my posts. While I have used some images, some more eye catching ones to keep the reader on my page could/should be incorporated. Also, Londen’s voice is very easy to read, he has a positive spin and makes the reader feel important. While I don’t know that I have to go all the way to happy town, being more positive and dropping the Eeyore tone a bit wouldn’t hurt.
While I did put 7 things I would suggest to improve Londen’s blog, I can’t overstate how great of a read it is. Londen’s combination of humor with relevant news and Twitter education is well blended to give a great experience. I recommend you give it a read and then keep coming back for whatever he has coming next!
Bill Watterson is my hero
It takes guts, ambition, and so much more, but what a great thing to aspire to.
Live Tweeting
So I got my first dose of Live Tweeting the other day. It was an interesting experience, I felt a range of emotions, from being cutting edge in my reporting, to being kinda rude by having my head down in my smartphone while some really awesome people name Susan and Tyrone talked about their beautiful images and adventures in Brazil at their gallery opening at EMU on Saturday.
Live Tweeting, while an interesting concept seems to me to be a great challenge. The truth is, the people reading your tweets need to be informed enough to be able to catch the drift of what you are tweeting about, but you are limited in how much you can say. In many ways it is an art form. Then again, for the person live tweeting, it is frustrating (at least for me) because I just want to stand there and listen to them, take in wholly their presentation, their words, the experiences they share, and that is really hard when you are just trying to pull out quotable phrases.
Some will argue that Live Tweeting can actually be done after an event is over, but c’mon, that doesn’t feel live. Someone tweets – “what a clutch strikeout by Weaver in the bottom of 7th #Angels surviving” I already know that the Angels blew the game in the 9th inning. So Live Tweeting can’t work in that circumstance.
I’m open to others opinions on why live tweeting is important, and maybe it is just that I am caught up on the word “Live”. To me it seems like another excuse to not make eye contact, or to exist in two different worlds (reality & cyber) when we should really just be putting down our devices and giving hard working people our attention, regardless of the event that is going on.
Live Tweeting to me needs to go the way of the dodo. You want to rename it something else, how about “multi tweets” or “event tweets”, but as long as the word live is connected, I know I will have a hard time doing it.
I go to events to take them in and experience them. If you choose not to, I feel bad for you, and don’t think that my attention being taken away from the event, so you can get a dose of what is going on is fair to me.
On the Horizon
Looking forward is a great way to think about where you want to go. That may seem like a fairly obvious statement, but to some, me included, it becomes easy to get focused on the here and now. Living in the present definitely has its benefits, such as being present, but being mindful of what could be coming can bring plenty of excitement and energy too. Admittedly, this blog and my adventure into twitter has been difficult. I watch some people who seem to tweet every little nuance of their lives like everyone else’s lives depend on it, and it is that type of behavior that has repelled me from twitter for so long. So luckily, someone more intelligent than I suggested I put together a list of future topics that I can blog about, in hopes of energizing my mind and getting me excited again for what is to come. So without any further delay, here is what you can expect in the coming weeks from this blog!
1. How can I do this too? Yes it is a continuation of what has already been happening here, but I think it is important to document and continue to try and be supportive of others who may choose to delve into the twittersphere.
2. How do I find others I can relate to and talk with on twitter? The world can be a lonely place, and without some people who share similar interests, it can become easy to stop putting your message out there. So how can we use tools and resources that twitter provides to find people beyond our immediate friends who may be easy to talk with and continue our conversations with?
3. Will someone famous ever read my tweet, or better yet, tweet me back? This could do a little bit with who exactly you consider famous, but we will discuss some ways to catch the “famous” people’s eyes and perhaps get ourselves a shout out from them.
4. “I have something to say, but no one is listening” (How do i get more followers?) We will explore groups and delve deeper in hashtags and other ways to get our name out there and entice people to want to follow us and hear what we are saying.
5. Seriously, isn’t tweeting kinda stupid? This is a question that still floats around in my mind. I plan to be honest in my experiences and to give you some of my thoughts towards the importance of twitter, tweeting and the benefits of being in this world. This post will wait for a while until I get my feet a little wetter.
6. More on how to speak tweet. How to maximize your 140 characters, use hashtags, understand twitter etiquette and more. Its not just about tweeting, its about being polite, respectful and maximizing those 140 characters.
7. I’m going to find someone who tweets ALOT! And try to get them to answer a couple questions for me about why they do it, the benefits they have seen, and maybe some suggestions on how to become a voice to be reckoned with.
8. Has twitter brought people closer together, or has it just added to the noise & continued the reduction of face to face interaction? Let’s be honest, we are living in a digital age and being saavy at using technology to help us be better communicators is important, but I can’t for a second sit here and say that any of it replaces the value of looking someone in the eyes and talking directly with them. Has twitter added to the erosion of the face to face interaction, or has it connected voices that never would have crossed paths? Could both be true? We will discuss this idea.
9. The history of twitter. Want to know more about the symbols, why only 140 characters, who is the genius who created this whole thing? I will try and provide some answers.
10. Do I really need to tweet in order to take advantage of what twitter has to offer? Grazing on the tweets of others is a great way to find lots of information to sustain us. Do you really ever need to tweet a single thing in order to find twitter beneficial?
Well, there you have it, 10 things that you can expect to read about over the coming weeks. Hopefully this will keep you checking in for more.
Walking down a highway at rush hour.
Entering the twitter-verse was an interesting immersion into a new world for me. I would liken it to walking down the middle of the beltway around Washington DC at rush hour. Tons of traffic moving in both directions, but if you stay in the median you’re relatively safe. The setup of the account was easy, the step-by-step account setup by T
witter was easy to navigate and within minutes I had an account. The catch is how to get the thousands of cars zooming past to see you, hear you, or stop and give you a ride AND how to hear what they are saying too.
The tricky thing I have been finding with twitter is that it isn’t exactly the most intuitive after you setup an account. Understanding how to communicate isn’t spelled out, and unlike some other places where once you signup, those little step by step boxes pop up and guide you through your first time or two of using the software; Twitter seems to expect that I automatically know how to communicate using their platform.
I get the general premise of communication on twitter. In 140 characters or less, I put out a message. Anyone who follows me will be able to see it in their feed and if my account is public, anyone who looks me up should be able to see it too. But the tricks come in actually communicating with others. Using the @ sign is the first step to including someone else in a tweet, but you need to find these people, AND know that you have found the correct person you are trying to talk to.
Once you have worked through some steps to find friends (twitter can do this by matching emails in your contacts to existing accounts, or by taking you through a list of more popular tweeters that you may share similar interests with). You can have those usernames pop up automatically as you start tweeting. This helps make communication easier.
The hashtag (#) is another interesting little guy. This guy is not necessarily attached to any single person, but to a single thought or slogan. By using a hashtag you can add your thoughts to an existing group of thoughts. I would argue that the hashtag is the reason for twitter’s emergence. The ability to speak with each other through the @ is convenient, but the hashtag brings people from all around the world together. While I may want to send a tweet to my favorite band, U2 (@U2), the odds of ever getting a response or thinking that it was actually seen seem minimal, but by adding the hashtag (#U2Invisible), I get to have my comments join the conversation with thousands, if not millions of others who are talking about U2’s latest song, which has all proceeds going towards the RED project for the eradication of AIDS. This feed can be seen by everyone, and while Bono may never read it himself, my voice is being added to a world-wide conversation.
This is where I am going to stop for today. While I am still a newbie at all of this, the more I use it, the more twitter makes sense. This rings true for almost anything we do in life, and why wouldn’t it.
8 reasons for entering the twitter world.
1. Because while this blog will start with the documentation of my immersion in twitter, both my tweets and blogging will evolve into something where I talk about things that matter.
2. Its an opportunity to follow others who are sharing breaking news and having conversations that matter and who knows, maybe getting a retweet along the way.
3. It’s a class project. Truthfully, I can’t say that I would be doing this if it weren’t for the fire lit under my butt to do it for a grade from this lady.
4. It seems like everyone else tweets, and half of those people have nothing interesting to say (example), so I may as well take a crack at it.
5. An opportunity to build my brand. As a University senior, and a photography major at that, its time to start building my online presence. This is a good first step to get comfortable in this new world, so I can be effective in sharing my work as I seek clients and supporters of my work.
6. I do want to inspire some people who may not “get” twitter, or may be overwhelmed by using “@” & “#” nd nt splng gr8. Truthfully, there are too many people with real wisdom to share who should/could do it fairly easily. I’d much rather hear from those people than from Miley Cyrus or Justin Bieber.
7. Not only am I learning about tweeting, but I can learn about new things in general. As I continue to follow new people and read new tweets and articles attached to those tweets, I’m hoping to expand my overall knowledge of things going on in our world.
8. It’s a challenge. Could I get 100 followers? I’m not sure, but its a good goal to begin with.
32 going on 19 
• How does your tweeting make a difference? If you weren’t tweeting them, how could have conflicts you covered been affected differently?
I don’t think this is something that could ever be answered. There’s been a ton of debate in the last three years over whether or how much social media played a major role in these revolutions, but there are too many variables, like the role played by Al Jazeera, txt messaging, etc. I’m of the mind that these platforms affected the revolutions to one extent or another, but it varied from place to place. Also, I think it would be presumptuous on my part to assume that my personal tweeting impacted anything beyond the public’s understanding of what was happening.
• How do you authenticate a source? How have you been burned by sources who turn out to not be authentic?
I’ve never been burned like that before. Especially during the Arab Spring, the people who were out to mess with me weren’t very good at it. But there are all sorts of ways of authenticating a source, generally boiling down to figuring out who you might know in common and talking to those people about them. Meanwhile, social media leaves a paper trail behind, allowing me to examine everything they’ve posted and everyone they’ve interacted with. So piecing these things together make it possible to get a read on a potential source pretty quickly.
• In regards to Mo and his video feed, how was live tweeting beneficial? Was your live tweeting more like advertising for the live feed or were followers choosing to just read your tweets and not participate or view the live feed you would offer a link to?
My live-tweeting of Mo’s feed was primarily just another way for my Twitter followers to experience the Libyan revolution. I don’t know how one would quantify how many of my followers ended up watching the feed directly. On one level, I was trying to get more people to watch his feed, but more importantly, his feed was another important source of real-time information that could be integrated into the conversation already taking place on Twitter.
• How were you able to develop the contacts and following that you have? You had to start somewhere, with nothing, how did you build it up to where you are now?
I joined Twitter in February 2007. It took me about a year to reach my first 1000 followers, and when the Arab Spring started, I was at around 20k followers. But the numbers don’t mean much. It’s always been more importantly to focus on the contacts I make on Twitter, and their expertise. Much of that built up over the years through live-tweeting other news stories, but also simply by talking about the stuff that interests me, and to people who I found interesting. It grew organically, until it reached a critical mass at the start of the Tunisian revolution, and then went crazy after that.
• Are you in some ways just a collector and distributor of information operating from a safe distance, connecting an audience to sources? Or do you identify more as being directly involved in the issues/conflicts that are going on almost as if you were at ground zero.
Well, that’s why I called the book Distant Witness. 🙂 My primary role was to tell the stories of the revolutions, particularly stories that wouldn’t have been possible to document before the age of social media. But I never saw myself as a proxy or an extension of these revolutionaries. I was able to amplify their experiences and hopefully help people feel more informed about the situation, but I never endorsed a particular policy position beyond the general notion that dictators are bad and freedom is good. Each revolution needed to chart out its own path.
The situation re: the digital divide has improved a lot in the last decade as far as overall access goes, but those communities that remain offline are impacted by that lack of access more acutely than ever before, as there’s a general attitude in our society that every is online. As long as there are economic and educational disparities, unfortunately, there will always be a divide, so the ongoing challenge is how to mitigate it.
• Do you think that one day, we might see a “new” internet, that is protected and used solely for the purposes of sharing educational based material? (i.e. almost like putting a parental control or filter, keeping out irrelevant information)
God, I hope not. It’s bad enough that we’re seeing Internet companies trying to partition the Internet for their own profit, not to mention governments doing the same to isolate their citizens from the rest of the world.
• Is there a difference for you if you are tweeting live and “on location” versus collecting information from “on location” sources, disseminating their messages and then sharing that information from a distant location? Is one better or worse?
They’re not better or worse; they’re different methods that are more appropriate in different contexts. I’m not one of these people who advocates ending the tradition of foreign news bureaus in favor of more effective use of online reporting. Offline and online reporting excel at telling different types of stories, and we should encourage both.
• Twitter and text messaging seem to be big culprits in a deterioration of spelling, grammar and punctuation particularly in current youth and young adults; and could be considered culprits of a growth in illiteracy. How could twitter be used to promote proper spelling, grammar and punctuation; ultimately helping support the fight against illiteracy?
I don’t find this a major issue. Twitter isn’t designed for long-form writing and grammar. I think it’s more important to teach people the appropriate ways to communicate in different circumstances, and knowing when it’s appropriate to communicate that way.
Nope. I donated it to them and signed it away to them so it could be added to their permanent collection. It should go on display in the spring of 2015.