This blog has moved. Please update your rss feed readers to http://feeds.feedburner.com/danielerossi2.

I’ve also moved all my previous posts to the new one. Oh, speaking of which, this blog has been moved to danielerossi.ca. I’ll be devoting this site to my comics.

See you there!

Describing the benefits of Twitter can be difficult. Lately, however, I’ve been stumbling upon fantastic explanations which live up to Twitter’s inconspicuous usefulness. If you’re still scratching your head on figuring out how twittering what you’re doing can be useful to anybody, I recommend the following 2 links:

1) Someone made a fantastic visual aid and uploaded it to YouTube. I found this one out through Twitter.

2) Another helpful explanation was written by Bill Thompson of the BBC.

I can totally relate to Bill Thompson’s experiences. And here’s why:

I first heard of Twitter at PodCamp Toronto 2007 before it took off at SXSW shortly after. I loved the concept however, like most people, I spent the better part of the year trying to figure out a practical use for it.

Birds of a feather

None of my offline friends and relatives care about social media (kids in developing nations with XO laptops are more wired). So I started off using Twitter to follow strangers and people I’ve met at PodCamp Toronto and then PAB in June 2007.

It was after PAB when I found Twitter being a great tool to for keeping updated on what my new friends were doing.

Be it projects they are working on, weirdness they encountered, a site they found interesting, even asking for help on a technical issue.

Status messages you can reply to.

Twitter doesn’t replace in-person conversations or even e-mail. It’s just tiny bits of info that wouldn’t necessarily need e-mails. Messages on Twitter, or ‘tweets’, are more like quick phone calls. Status messages you can reply to. Or perhaps it’s the closest thing to telepathic thoughts.

I was recently able to keep track of a friend’s experience at the InDesign conference in Miami and configuration of her new MacBook Pro. As Bill Thompson describes, it was like being there.

Not much work invovled

The sweet part of the deal is all this track keeping is done at a glance. It isn’t laborious or intrusive like e-mail or Facebook.

Plus, you have the option of sending and receiving tweets via your mobile phone.

At PodCamp Toronto 2008, Twitter was the most used tool for keeping updated on post-conference meet ups. On my way to dinner, I received the following tweets on my phone within minutes of each other:

“Baton Rouge is full. Meeting at Irish Pub”
“Irish pub is crazy. We’re at Mr. Greenjeans”
“Upstairs at Mr. Greenjeans”

Twitter is like an after-party which never ends

And after PodCamp Toronto 2008, I am still having conversations with fellow attendees on Twitter. It’s as if the unconference never ended!

Of course, like all social media tools, Twitter isn’t for everyone. For me, it works because the people who I interact with are regular users.

PodCamp Toronto 2008 has come and gone and it didn’t not disappoint. All my expectations were surpassed. I learned a lot, met up with a few old friends and made new ones. Best of all, I came out of it with A LOT of ideas for my podcasts and future ones, too

I won’t go into detail (secrecy is so much fun!) however I am really excited about my ideas and can’t wait to get started on them. Why are there only 24 hours in a day?

There was lots of Twitter love this year and some truly useful sessions (just like last year). The sessions I attended were:

Social Media & Networking Starter Guide by Chris Brogan
I already know about social media and networking but I’d never pass up a chance to hear Chris Brogan speak. His enthusiasm for community is contagious and you always learn something new no matter how much you think you know ;)

Living On The Cloud - how I have (mostly) given up desktop applications by Tommy Vallier. His presentation made me want to run out and get the MacBook Air (despite my PowerBook) and move to a cloud (with real estate prices these days…).

Soundwalking and Creative Listening by Victoria Fenner struck a chord with me because audio art is another passion of mine.

Podcasting your Passion: How to be Creatively Motivated by Steve Saylor really got me excited about being a creator. I’ll definitely be talking about his presentation on my next SpudCast.

Stand up and Breath! Vocal Techniques for Podcasting by John Meadows applied techniques singers use to podcasting. Brilliant!

Who’s Listening? How to avoid 3 big communication mistakes and boost your audience at the same time by PJ Wade was a joy to sit in. PJ’s enthusiasm for creative business planning was a perfect fit for fine tuning your podcast to your audience.

Open Source Podcast Production Tools by John Meadows and Sean McGaughey was a fun comedy show and educational. Edutainment!

Wikis: the what, where, how and why by Martin Cleaver gave me a whole new perspective on planning uses for wikis. Martin is also the organiser for Toronto Wiki Tuesdays.

The last session was a panel discussion on ooVoo moderated by Jay Moonah, Mitch Canter in Nashville, Laura Fitton in Boston, Mitch Joel in Montreal and Andrea Vascellari in Finland!

I also participated in the Q&A panel discussion about social networking in The Mentor’s Lounge moderated by Tommy Vallier which I recorded for the upcoming episode of my Stuttering is Cool podcast.

All sessions were streamed live on the Internet and will soon be archived for viewing on the PodCamp Toronto 2008 video archive page. I will have to the chance to see all the sessions I missed!

A great, big thanks to all the orgsanizers of PodCamp Toronto.  I didn’t take many photos (too much learning going on!) however they are posted on my Flickr page.

I received my first order of MOO cards tonight! I made them for my Stuttering is Cool podcast and I must say, I am very, very impressed with their quality and attention to detail! I’ll post photos of what I mean when I receive my second order which I placed a few day later. That order is for my danielerossi.ca site which I plan on handing them out at PodCamp Toronto on the weekend of February 23.

Live blogging and live twittering, in my humblest opinion, are unnecessary. I can see why the idea is appealing. After all, you’re providing the first scoop as the event happens.

Here are a few reasons why I’m not too keen on the idea.

As a member of audience, my attention is diverted away from the speaker to everyone else’s laptop screens as they twitter or blog. Especially when you can’t help noticing a quite a few people are checking emails, working on a business card design, reading the news, etc. Clackity, clack, clack, clack, clackity, click, clack, click, spacebar, click, clack, tap, tap, tap all around you. It’s like hearing a cellphone conversation going on.

How can you pay attention to the presentation if you’re focusing on typing away? It’s also disrespectful to the presenter. “Am I that boring? Is my fly undone?”

Not that I’m telling you what to do (well, ok, I’m beseeching you), however, if you feel the need to live blog and twitter, I think it’s best to do so at the back of the room.

Live blogging and twittering gives you no time to reflect on the information presented. Good writing needs time to germinate. Not that I’m old skool, but I prefer writing in a notebook throughout the day and then blogging at night after the party’s over when I can provide my own thoughts on what I’ve learned. I don’t think you can really get that from quick bursts of sound bites put together from someone who didn’t pay full attention.

Live twittering becomes spam. Or at least bacn. A pet peeve I have is logging into Twitter to see full pages of tweets by the same 2 people giving me moment-by-moment updates on a conference they are at that I couldn’t care less about. The tweets make no sense. “Everyone hates the coffee”… “@someguy said something profound” so I go to his page hoping for a new person to follow who I could learn from but see a bunch of tweets about pizza… “technical troubles”… “someone offered their microphone”

Riveting.

I won’t remove the person from my following list because it’s too much hassle and I usually enjoy their tweets. It’s gotta be hard to make a proper judgment call on what’s worthy of a tweet when your full attention isn’t on the presentation.

The brain just isn’t capable of multitasking. It wasn’t made for it.

What are your thoughts on live blogging and twittering? Or for that matter, the clickity, clack, clack, spacebar, clack of notetaking on laptops (I am suddenly crotchety).

Do you like live blogging and twittering? I hope I haven’t offended anyone—it’s just that when I go to a presentation for the purpose of learning, I end up with all these distractions for the sake of using technology because they can. I don’t hate you, I just need to learn. I CRAVE EDUCATION!

Anywhoo, tell me your thoughts.

I had the pleasure of attending the Talk Is Cheap social media unconference for PR professionals back on November 15^th here in Toronto.

Social media has been the big thing these days really because it’s been reported in the traditional media (newspapers, tv, magazines, etc.).

Sure, items on Digg’s homepage get widespread notice and buzz around the blogosphere can make or break a politician or corporation but for true maximum impact, the rest of the world needs to hear about it on the news.

I don’t think Lonelygirl15, that crazy bride, cyber bullying, YouTube, even online dating and Facebook wouldn’t have be as huge if they weren’t reported offline. Social media is still not truly widespread but it’s getting there.

Take for example, the carbon footprint campaign WWF Canada had in Toronto in November 2006. Long story short, they wanted to promote their saveourclimate.org website and show people what 3,000 of greenhouse gas looks like. 3,000 balloons were filled up (yes, they’re biodegradable) and were placed on the street during the morning rush to work.

The usual social media integration was done: blogosphere buzz before the event, live blogging on the day of the event as well as uploading videos on YouTube and photos on Flickr. I liked their idea of using del.icio.us as a media kit. Their media advisory used a catchy headline (“Huge black cloud invades Toronto”).

WWF Canada also had an on-site booth so they would be able to speak to the public directly. The mayor was invited (and videoed), the media reported it on the news, t-shirts and chalk drawings were made and to their advantage, CBC television personalities stumbled upon the event and included it on their shows (Rick Mercer did some funny stuff with the balloons and a bicycle while pretending to be Kim Jong-il).

That day, the event received 11 media impressions, 10,000 views on YouTube and1,600 hits on saveourclimate.org. Bloggers were blogging about it and the whole shbang was declared a success.

The surprise of the campaign is the huge demand for the t-shirt they made. The t-shirt had the words, “Hotter than I should be” and WWF Canada ended up selling them on their web shop. The shirts were such a success that they were given out to celebrities at the Toronto International Film Festival.

You know you had a successful campaign when it creates a life of its own after the fact.

Kudos to the BBC News website. I get most of my OLPC news from them. Anyhoo, I stumbled upon this article with a lot of positives listed from the One Laptop Per Child project. And of course, a few expected negatives.

The best benefit of the project I’ve seen is in this line: But it is not only in the school they make use of the laptop. They use it at home and even help to teach their parents.

How does that saying go? Teach a man to fish…

I came across this interesting article on the BBC News website a few days ago. It was written by Michael Geist, Internet law professor at the University of Ottawa. He talks about how the next billion users of the Internet will influence the Internet.

The article is best summed up in the last 2 paragraphs (emphasis mine):

…the next billion is an enormously positive story. A tale of improving economic condition that will allow for much broader participation in the communication, culture, and commercial opportunities most Canadians now take for granted.

As we welcome the next billion, we must recognise that they will do more than just use the internet. They will help reshape it in their own image and with their own values, languages, and cultures.

You see why bringing Internet technology is important for developing nations? Of course, food, water and shelter (and non-corrupt government—actually, the rest of the world needs that, too) are important and they will never be replaced by technological aid :p However, the technology will help them grow food, water, etc., as described by Nii Quaynor, professor of computer science at the University of Cape-Coast, Ghana. After all, it works for us in the West.

Internet use is growing rapidly in developing nations and will make up the majority of the next billion users. These users won’t be speaking English as a first language (or at all?) and they will have different views about online issues such as privacy, copyright, free speech, etc.

They’ll also be using cheaper (free) open source software programs. Well, we all know Microsoft is going to try to change that.

They’ll also be using mobile technology (cellphones, XO laptop) and satellites for access. Actually, they may even have mobile wireless access points. Michael mentions that this will affect the way we code websites. Imagine trying to code your website to display properly across even more multiple platforms.

Imagine the way social media would look like then? You can play Scrabulous with a friend in Africa.You can use your iPhone clone to not only download music in the middle of the rain forest (what’s left of it),you can also chat with your family back home.

A school kid living in the desert can meet other fans from around the world of his (or her) favourite band. Imagine the videos on YouTube!

PodCamp Toronto 2008 will be happening on February 23 and 24^th at the Rogers Communications Centre at Ryerson University. I am very excited that it’s happening again— I had a great time and learned a lot from people who share the same interest in podcasting as me and I made a lot of contacts and new friends*.

I registered as soon as I heard it had been announced (I’m #20 on the list of registrants). Take a look and it will come to as no surprise to you that I’ve listed superspud.com as my website as well as another site called stutteringiscool.com.

Stuttering is cool is the name of my new podcast which was soft launched a few weeks ago. Regular listeners to my SpudCast will remember episode 9 where I devoted an entire episode about my stuttering (a stuttering podcaster? WTF?!). Now it has grown into a podcast of its own! You can check it out at stutteringiscool.com.

*Same thing happens at Podcasters Across Borders. Next one takes place on June 20-22, 2008. Not to be missed!

What happens when you live in a country which controls the media and culture while also allowing access to the Internet? Specifically, providing access to a site like Facebook which offers instant gratification such as the ability to set up your own discussion group in a matter of seconds.

I came across this interesting post from the SacredFacts blog which describes how “Facebook has become a virtual civil society in Syria. Many civic groups sprung up overnight and became popular with thousands; groups about preserving the old city, getting back the Golan Heights, supporting civil marriage, women’s groups, art associations, and you-name-it…” (quote from blogger Joshua Landis)

Check out the post. It provides a breakdown of the social and political experiences of Facebook users by country.

It’s remarkable that we (in the west) forget or not realize how simple features on a deceptively pointless website can have quite an impact. In a way, Facebook is another reminder of how we tend to take our freedom for granted.

I don’t mean to trivialize this phenomenon, but it reminds me a lot about the unnecessary fearful attitude corporations here in the west have of offering features on their intranet like employee blogging. Trust issues? Anarchy paranoia? Loss of control fears?