Techmamas

TwitterFreakout: Follower Counts Down To Zero - Then Restored

As the world is battling important issues such as the world financial crisis, oil spill and the recent Dow plunge - what may push social media types over the edge is what happened today: Twitter follower/following counts were set to 0.

Yes, I sent a tweet out, pushed enter then could not believe my EYES as I saw my follower count reset to 0.

After frantically searching on the Twitter support forum (which had no information) - I found the Twitter "support" Twitter ID that had updates:

1. "Following and follower counts are temporarily unavailable. You should still receive updates. We're working to resolve this." at around 10am.

2. The follower count reset was related to a bug they found which had the effect of "forced" following. A few minutes after that the bug was posted about in the Twitter status blog: http://status.twitter.com/post/587210796/follow-bug-discovered-remedied

I tweeted updates to my followers so they did not need to go through the shock that I experienced. Seeing the behavior of my tweeps (and myself), this made me think of the old saying ""If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?".

The modern equivalent of that is "If My Twitter count falls to 0, Do I exist?". This is a subject that can reflect modern society's dependence on social networking, which leads to many who now feel a connection between their "friend" or "follower" count and their self esteem.

Not that I feel that way.. Really.. OK! I DO and will feel calmer after my Twitter follower count is restored. I hope a get a few more followers out of this. If I just tweeted that, I would use the hashtag "#sadstateofaffairs. I may need to search out a Twitter follower loss support group after this.

My value add for Twitter has been connecting with an amazing community - that I ended up making many real life business connections from. I view Twitter as a place I share "whats going on" in my niche of parenting and technology and read what my followers are up to. So while I may joke about my Twitter addiction, I have seen real value from the site.♠

Conan O'Brien also shared my emotions with his tweet: "Twitter exploded today! I guess my dream of a world where Twitter runs our stock market, phones, and nuclear defense is still a ways off."

UPDATE: A short time after I posted this, Twitter restored follower counts and all is well (I do exist again - at least for now..).  Here is my Pearltree that summed up this morning's exciting Twitter events:

What? Twitter Is Good For Classroom Use?

I have personally benefited from taking part in "live" conversations on Twitter. I view news trends on Twitter. I connect with other social media types on Twitter. I get my comic relief on Twitter. On my recent trip to Paris with the Traveling Geeks, I extended that conversation globally while I used Twitter to liveblog my trip.

But I always imagined that if I was a student, use of Twitter in the classroom would be discouraged. At the same time, I see that students are embracing social media at a frantic pace so there is a disconnect if schools don't utilize social media for learning.

Tonight I read an article on Mashable titled "How Twitter in the Classroom is Boosting Student Engagement". The article was written by Greg Ferenstein who, among other things,designs college curricula. He wrote "Fortunately, educators (including myself) have found that Twitter is an effective way to broaden participation in lecture". The post discussed that Twitter friendly classrooms could have increased participation and extend the conversation outside of the classroom. Greg Ferenstein concluded "For schools hit hard by the recession, Twitter is an inexpensive solution to the growing problem of increasing class sizes. It is a tried-and-true platform to let conversations flourish".

I have already seen how my 11 year old uses texting to communicate with his friends and has extended their conversations outside of playdates. While there is a dangerous side to social media use by kids, which includes cyberbullying and inappropriate use of online communications, I agree that the there is great potential to increase channels of communication.

To prepare for increased use of social media by students, I hope that schools are spending time creating social media policies and making sure teachers and students get the appropriate training. Then just having some fun. I know I am..

Grammys Tech: Stephen Colbert and the Apple iPad, Imogen Heap and the "Twitdress"

First I saw many other tech journalists that had access to hands on demo's of the Apple iPad during the press event. I was happy and content to crawl the web and do my own post about the features of the Apple iPad from that information. Even though I am a tech blogger, I was happy to wait until the Apple iPad came out to test drive it for myself at the Apple Store.

Then I saw a headline on Mashable titled "Pee Wee's Big Apple iPad Adventure".

What?? I was upset wondering when Pee Wee Herman became a tech journalist and why he got to use the Apple iPad before I did.

But then I watched the video, and realized it was the Pee Wee Adventure version; just a sketch.

Tonight as I was watching the Grammy's I saw one real comedian (and one of my favorites) that had access to a real Apple iPad: Stephen Colbert from the Colbert Report used the Apple iPad while presenting. I agree with the post on the AppleiPhoneApps.com - nice product placement! I guess paper ballots will be passe in the future.

If I can't have a hands on demo of the Apple iPad, maybe I could get my hands on that Twitter Dress (#Twitdress) that Imogen Heap wore to the Grammys. In a brillant use of engaging her community, she tweeted an email address that fans could email pictures - that then appeared on her Twitter stream.

Here is the picture Imogen Heap put on her YFrog account with the techie part of the dress:

 

Geek is a Global Language - But Twitter is Not (yet)

During the blogger embark on the USS Nimitz this past May, I enjoyed learning how social media is being used aboard an aircraft carrier at sea. Similarly, when I was invited to join the Traveling Geeks trip to Paris, I looked forward to experiencing social media in France first hand. Especially with - as fellow Geek Matthew Buckland referred to - a "top secret, Illuminati-type organization". Except we were not secret about anything as we all share openly our thoughts online.

True to expectations, only moments into the first Traveling Geeks French start-ups meetings and LeWeb discussions, the similarities and differences of social media around the globe quickly came to light. Similarities were easy to see in the programming and features of application development, which quickly proved to a be a global language. As for differences, they fell primarily into three buckets  (with comedy insight provided by a Current TV video on the bottom of this post):

1. Where are the girl geeks in Paris? I know there are girl geeks in Paris; I  found a link to  my favorite Girl Geek Dinner organization in Paris. I did enjoy talking with Anne-Celine Jeanneau from Zoomorama (pictured, right) at the Paris Digital Content Companies Incubator. While fellow Traveling Geek Eliane Fiolet lives in the US now, she was born in France and is one of the most knowledgeable geeks I know! I was thrilled to see Geraldine Le Meur on the LeWeb stage, someone who ranks TOPS in my Tech Mom Twitter list.

When I visit different countries, I don't keep track of how many women versus men I am meeting with. But I do enjoy seeing women globally communicate their strong, social media voice. In Silicon Valley, I connect with girl geeks through BlogHer, She's Geeky, Anita Borg Institure, Women 2.0, Girl Geek Dinners and Girls in Tech (and more). While I don't expect every area to have so many groups, I do enjoy meeting with local girl geek organizations while I am traveling and sharing ideas. Renee Blodgett and Eliane Fiolet worked hard to have diversity in the Traveling Geeks crew. Back in the US, BlogHer is researching into how women use social media: "BlogHer Team to Bring Research and Insights About How Women Use Social Media, Blogs to the White House and Republican Leadership".

2. European Geeks Out Style Silicon Valley Geeks: While Silicon Valley geeks put on a clean tee shirt for tech conferences, European geeks take it up a notch. Here is a random  geek waiting in line for LeWeb. I told him I was chronicling European Geek Chic. He looked confused but smiled for the camera. To top it off, he and many other Euro-geeks paired the geek uniform of jeans with a nice pair of (non-sneaker) shoes.

Just to keep up with the style, I put on every black and stylish piece of clothing I had. If I had time, I would of shopped from the assortment of beautiful french scarves to take my outfit up a notch. Luckily I am back home in my gym clothes, which is my preferred blogging uniform.

3. Where are the conversations? Person to Person or Twitter to Twitter?: In Silicon Valley, online social networking ID names rival business cards as a means for introduction and maintaining contact; I introduce myself as "TechMama on Twitter". My perspective is that Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are required applications for global business interaction, especially for those wanting to do business in the US. These applications are becoming the center of the conversation, with complimentary applications being built around them.

Traveling Geeks 09 Paris: Microblog via Twitter

My platform of choice during the Traveling Geeks 09 trip to Paris was first Twitter to microblog, then loading the microblog items to a blog post (my blogging platform is Typepad). Twitter is an application that allows people to share what they are doing at the moment in 140 characters or less. My niche on Twitter is to share parenting and technology updates, so this information would fit within my framework.  At LeWeb I learned about Seesmic so I hope to try that out as an interface for my next microblogging adventure. I will also be experimenting with using the BlackBerry app for Whrrl to capture "stories" on the run.

I purchased an AT&T 200 MB International data plan for my BlackBerry Bold in preparation for microblogging in Paris, using my own daily calculations to make sure I would not go over (which is very expensive). All of this preparation would allow me to enjoy the tour, capturing the key moments while not taking too much time away to prepare blog posts until I returned home. Although microblogging does now allow in-depth analysis, it does capture the key points.

The International Data plan also helped me keep my smartphone email and social media app. addiction satisfied during my trip to Paris. The thought of a smartphone without a data plan was too much to handle.

Here is my Twitter Stream from the  #TG09 Traveling Geeks 09 trip to Paris. Each tweet is from my Twitter stream unless it has a "RT" or retweet in front of it. I took out my Twitter ID (TechMama) and hashtags after the first few to make it easier to read.