Toluu

The Social Networker

Covering all things in the Social Software industry and networks

Going live tonight for year end TheSocialGeeks podcastDecember 30 2008

Join in and listen and interact live, details inside for Talkshoe

My micro-community is better than your social networkNovember 24 2008

In a discussion today in a group chat (that is based around an upcoming conference) it was brought up how to effectively communicate and locate each other when there will be upwards of 8,000 people there, in person.  How do you quickly sort through a large Twitter stream, or how do you build a location awareness service around conference rooms spread across 3 hotels and open areas?  Without making your own tools, it adds a high level of complexity.  Services like Brightkite are not really made for that type of location service, even with the awesome ability to upload pictures.

What soon came to mind was that this little micro-community, far exceeds the benefit of posting and weeding through the larger macro-community.  That is why sites such as Ning as so popular.  You can build a smaller, manageable community that deeply serves the needs of the users, instead of being trapped in function based on large scale deployments.  I whipped this ugly drawing up quickly.

Examples of any micro-community is one built around your blog for starters.  You are the core of

Social Media and Real EstateNovember 20 2008

I attended a conference on Tuesday from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) put on by their Center for Realtor Technology.  Here are some interesting statistics from a room with almost 300 people, all in the surrounding area of St Louis, MO.  Keep in mind anytime you see the number of people saying yes, that would include me raising my hand.

• Who has a blog - 12
• Who has used Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn or the like - 30
• Who has kids that have used those - 100
• Who has used Twitter - 3
• Who reads RSS feeds - 2
• Who uses instant messaging - 100

So what I began to notice was the average age in the room was well into the 40's.   I am not saying this is old at all, just a large gap in how this market does business.  Agents there live in the world of social networks.  Real social networks of friends, family and then the tiers around those people.  That is how they get business.  Referrals are the goldmine.  Cold calls suck.  Here is the gap.

As more people search first on the Internet for homes (see the new service coming from Dwellicious) they spend less time have agents randomly look for homes.  It is not surprising when a call is received with the prospect stating, I want to see a specific list of houses I have already gathered, shall I email or fax it.  That should have been the first sign

Top 150 Social Marketing Blogs in OPML format for your feed readerNovember 7 2008

I saw the link today for a list compiled of the top 150 Social Media Blogs.  I liked it but was disappointed to see that it was not in OPML.  It was far easier to add the feeds and then whittle them down if I didn't like them.  So I went ahead and did it myself as a gift to all of you

Here is the OPML file, just download it and import into your favorite feed reader!  And once again, if you are not sharing links with me on Google Reader, get at me!   add IdoNotes gmail com on google chat and get to sharing!

Downloadable OPML file

Using Laconi.ca for automated health reporting and alerts from machines? Yes!November 5 2008

This idea of using a private, open-source microblog service for reporting and alerts intrigued me.  I was posting some tweets and received a response from  @DomiNoYesMaybe.  What I found was that they had configured Laconi.ca for their company but went far beyond normal communication channels.  They had found out that their 'engineers' (for lack of me knowing a better word) had the daunting task of watching production machines on the shop floor.  They had to check how they were performing as well as the current status of all sorts of variables.  What they also discovered is that the software running on the machines was able to product a HTTP post/get command ability.  Before I describe, this was the outcome:

@IR_CK1_001 #data Temp:146 Hum:4.36% Yield:98.6%

What they have done is enabled each machine with it's own Laconi.ca account covering 20 plants in 10 countries in the range of 600-700 machines.  I am sharing this since his twitter feed is not private nor was this a DM.  In essence, the engineers now can run a client and subscribe, or follow, all of the machines across the globe to get a constant flow of performance.  Not only are they able to see a trend coming, but they can get to repairs and downed machines faster.  While letting the machines themselves cry out for help.

Take that to all the pundits that say there is no benefit in this type of microblogging technology