Brian Kerr

Laura Fisher and Dan Klyn both wrote this morning about being marketed to on Twitter. Individual marketers are dangerous on twitter since — at the bottom of the barrel — twitter enables content-free low-friction networking; plays to their strengths.

But nobody I follow (including some marketers) uses it in that way. Twitter is broad, but it’s also deep. If there’s anything at the frozen center of this network it’s in the aggregation of drinking buddies, or collection of condolences re: the passing of a tiny animal companion, or the organization of ad-hoc coworking w/ donuts.

What are you doing with twitter? The same thing you always do, just with a little opt-in cybernetic mock telepathy / telegraphy baked in.

(tags: aggregation animal companion bottom of the barrel donuts fight 'em until we can't friction marketing networking same thing we always do telegraphy telepathy twitter)

Twitter stats: use this cute perl script + Numbers template to take a slightly different look at twitter activity. Here’s mine; I’m @bkerr on twitter.

(tags: activity chart twitter)

Late last week, Catherine twitterinvited folks to bulk up Ann Arbor on Placeshout. Three days later, Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti are the first and third most “shouted” cities, with San Francisco coming in second. This reminds me of the early, happy days of upcoming.org, when Ann Arbor was one of the locations with the most user and event churn.

So what the hell is Placeshout? Take a look. For context, see Ed’s notes on the KARB/KYIP Placeshout event. Here’s all of my activity on the site.

It’s too bad there’s no API, and no feeds. You can search and Google Maps browse and so forth right on the site, so there’s no pressing need, beyond the standard desire to pipe Placeshout white noise into various filters. Or grab a KML. Or update Placeshout from Twitter (I can only assume that’s what the additional 40 characters in twitterspace are for).

I do like how you aren’t expected to make friends with everybody. It’s enough, at least for now, to see a username you know and think O HAI and just move on with the pressing business of downrating inappropriately positive reviews of Ann Arbor’s crappier brewpubs.

(tags: annarbor coffee food interaction media microneogeography networks placeshout representation twitter ypsilanti)