Alphablogs

Here are some amazing blogging statistics collected on the Blog World Expo site. (The big enormous Blog World Expo will be held in Las Vegas this year.) These stats are American only, and don’t even touch the Canadian, or world-wide blogging universe. When I checked their links for the sources of their stats, some of them are of earlier reports, such as Pew dated 2005! So extrapolate that to the present. When I started with wordpress.com, there were already 60,000 bloggers there. Now, we have 3,392,124 blogs with 93,184 new posts today. And that’s only wordpress.com.

So if you are thinking about starting a blog, or have heard about it and wonder what it’s all about, don’t wait any longer to join this tsunami wave of participation. Blogging is no longer a rare or unique activity, it’s decidedly mainstream.

Look at these Blog World numbers!

As you can see, these days I’m intrigued by the whole multilingual theme. So I thought I’d finally do something I’ve been wanting to do for quite a while – write a bilingual blog post.

This was inspired by the German blog Blogschrott who asks bloggers who twitter to explain why they use Twitter. As you can tell from my last post, I’ve been reading more and more German Twitters – I get the impression that it Twitter is just now becoming quite the interesting tool over in Germany.

So this is what I’ll do. First I’ll answer the questions in English, and then in German. (They won’t be exactly the same – I’m not applying for a translator’s job here Here we go

Why do you use twitter, where do you find meaning in it?

One of my prime motivators is fun, or a sense of pleasure and excitement. Every time I open my twitter page (I only use it in a browser), I’m happy. I like the visual appeal of both my site and of seeing all these neat avatars. I like the wittiness, intelligence and social consciousness of my Twitter friends. So the meaning is mostly pleasure – intellectual pleasure, sense-pleasure, and the pleasure of making and nurturing connections.

What do you tweet? Personal stuff, internet news, or a mix?

Anything and everything. It’s pretty impulsive (one of the other reasons I like it) I’d say 60% of the time I ask myself, is that of any interest to my friends? I do more and more retweeting, that is, passing on info that one of my Twitter contacts tweeted about – for example, a reminder to schedule cancer check-ups. There’s also little Twitter conversations. Lately, I’ve been posting a “global earth” motto every day, and a reflection on it, inspired by a list of things to do to become more globally and earth conscious that a friend had sent me a propos Earth Day. Once or twice a week I might mention one of my posts. Oh, and I also enjoy writing Twitter haiku, which I call twaiku – like this one here.

How do you use Twitter? Do you use a plugin, etc.?

As I said, I only use it via browser. I don’t even have the little Twitter widget on my blog anymore. I already spend way too much time on the computer, if I start using more than one medium to access something as addictive as Twitter, I’d never sleep!

Now for the German version:

Warum nutzt Du Twitter, wo liegt für Dich der Sinn?

Was mich motiviert is Spass, oder sagen wir mal Freude, oder ein gewisser Sinnesgenuss, eine gewisse Reizung. Jedesmal wenn ich meine Twitterseite oeffne (ich benutze es nur in einem Browser), freue ich mich. Ich freue mich darueber, wie meine Seite aussieht, und ueber all diese coolen Avatars. Ich freue mich ueber den Humor, die Intelligenz und das Sozialbewusstsein meiner Twitter-Freunde. Der Sinn liegt also in Freude – in intellektueller und sinnlicher Freude, und der Freude daran, neue Verbindungen zu machen and zu unterhalten.

Was twitterst Du? Eher private Sachen, News aus dem Web, oder ein Mix aus beidem?

So ziemlich alles. Es ist recht impulsiv (ein weiterer Grund, weshalb mir Twitter gefaellt). Ich wuerde sagen, 60% der Zeit frage ich mich, ob mein Tweet meine Kontakte interessieren wuerde. Ich “retweete” mehr und mehr, das heisst, ich gebe Information von meinen Kontakten weiter, z.B. hier, eine Erinnerung fuer Krebsvorsorgeuntersuchungen. Dann sind da auch kleine Twitter-Unterhaltungen. Neuerdings twittere ich auch taeglich ein Global Earth-Motto, und einen kurzen Gedanken darueber, inspiriert durch eine Liste, die uns hilft, mehr global und umweltfreundlich zu denken, die mir von einer Freundin fuer Earth Day geschickt hatte. Ein oder zweimal die Woche erwaehne ich einen meiner Blog-Artikel. Oh, und ich habe auch Spass daran, Haiku zu schrieben, die ich Twaiku nenne, hier zum Beispiel.

Wie nutzt Du Twitter? Über Twitter.com direkt, oder über ein Plugin? Wenn ja, wo liegen die Vorteile des jeweiligen Tools?

Wie gesagt, ich benutze nur die Webseite. Ich habe noch nicht mal mehr das kleine Twitter-Widget auf meinem Blog. Ich verbrauche schon viel zu viel Zeit mit dem Computer. Wenn ich mit einem weiteren Tool anfinge oder auch meinen Handy benutzen wuerde fuer sowas verfuehrerisches wie Twitter, wuerde ich nie wieder schlafen!

Image by smitty

Returning to the English is not the only language” theme, through my Twitter friend @Lotree I just came across a new Twitter meme (or tweme – you can see them all here; on Twitter you will see them identified with a # hashtag, like this one). They are German “Twitterweisheiten” or “Twitter wisdoms”. I quite like them so I’ll translate them here:

Sprachspielerin (“language player”, of the female sort, with her blog here) says

He who sows tweets shall reap a thunderstorm.
As you shout into the twittersphere, so shall it echo back.
There is no tweet unless you tweet it.
I tweet that I tweet nothing [leaning on Socrates]
You cannot step twice into the same tweet. Or: Everything twitters.
The tweet is the goal.

Lotree, a “reader and information broker” with his blog here)

More truculent than a tweet are often a tweet’s followers.

Werkstatt (“workshop” – a social science guy from my hometown Munich whose blog is called knowledge workshop)

And why Twitter and not, rather, Nothing? That is the question. [leaning on German philosopher Heidegger]
Whereof you cannot tweet you must keep silent.
Everything you can say you can say as a tweet. [leaning on German philosopher Wittgenstein]
Nothing is twittered as hot as it is cooked.
Where there is a tweet there is a way.
The next tweet is always the hardest.

rrho who lives in Berlin and has a blog here

Where there is one tweet there is more.

textundblog (”text and blog”) from Hamburg, a Spanish translator, among other things. His blog is here.

Speech is silver. Tweet is gold.

PickiHH Tina Pickhardt from Hamburg, who’s into CRM, with her Blog Themenriff

A hashtag does not a tweet make.

bosch who waxes intelligently at Boschblog:

Before the tweet is after the tweet.
And of course after the tweet is also before the tweet and vice versa.

jati - Jan Tissler, a journalist from Berlin who blogs here

The really interesting things happen bewteen the tweets.

Iranerin, an Iranian feminist in Hamburg, who has been blogging since 2004. Read it if your Farsi is good!

A life without twitting is a life without pleasure!

(Amusing little sidenote: I was just about to publish this when I realized that I had gotten my languages mixed up and capitalized the word “blog” throughout - for a momen I was confused … how do you write that in English again?)

It’s been a busy month, with all the activity of spring - new projects brewing and more to do than time to do it!

I recently interviewed Social Media Evangelist/Consultant and woman-about-town Monica Hamburg about one of her areas of expertise: Crowdsourcing. Check it out here in the YouTube version:

One thing this video doesn’t convey is Monica’s terrific sense of humour. You can find out more about that side of her through her blogsite(s). Contact Monica here.

Looks like this will be one of those “mark your calendar” events in Vancouver.

Bridging Media: Addressing the Challenges - this Saturday, March 29, 2008, 9:45 am - 3pm

Aimed to provide a bridge between the two communities of film/television and interactive/social media, I think this event comes just at the right time. The expertise we have here in Vancouver is remarkable, and the panelists assembled for this event have a lot to share in the short time they have available, so it looks like the whole day will be power-packed.

The tools are here and easier to use than ever, and the panelists are articulate and experienced in the slippery ever-shifting world of web/mobile/social media. Its free, its informative and it can change what you think you might know about social media, and more. Plus there is a door prize: a free pass to nextMEDIA, just before the Banff Television Festival.

Want to know who’ll be there? Go to the registration site and take a peek.

And did I mention that lunch is sponsored? Yes it is a free lunch!

Brainchild of Megan Cole and Erica Hargreave, the event now has a terrific team putting this together, with good will and sharp skills:  Cinci Csere, Monique Trottier and Monica Hamburg. I’m really glad to help out with this event and be in their company!

Back in January, Vivien from Inspirationbit started an ambitious project – the social media mega project. The idea was to bring together information on the most important social media tools by asking bloggers to contribute their posts on the topic.

(The other participants are - for Del.icio.us: Aaron Stroud from On financial success; for Facebook: Ina from Inspiring Wear; for flickr & zooomr: Brian Auer from Epic Edits; for Stumbleupon, youtube, myspace: Karen Zara from a1-fan-fun; for Sphinn. Simonne from All tips and tricks; for Second life: Dandellion from Metaverse; for Mixx, netscape, squidoo: Pearl from Fresh perspectives; for Sk*rt, blogging zoom, bvibes: jhs from Colloquium; for Digg, reddit: Vivien at InspirationBit; and for Technorati: Monica at Me like the interweb.)

Here on Alphablogs, we hosted the section on LinkedIn. What is LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is an online network of more than 20 million experienced professionals from around the world, representing 150 industries.

When you join, you create a profile that summarizes your professional accomplishments. Your profile helps you find and be found by former colleagues, clients, and partners. You can add more connections by inviting trusted contacts to join LinkedIn and connect to you.

Your network consists of your connections, your connections’ connections, and the people they know, linking you to thousands of qualified professionals.

Here are the submissions:

At All Tips and Tricks, Simonne says:

I still see LinkedIn as a cool place to meet people you’ve once known and forgot about them, a place to start building new connections, and why not, a place to check on your potential bosses or partners.

In an interview with Vivien at Inspirationbit, entrepreneur Rastin Mehr observes

I kind of like LinkedIn’s Q&A - it is like sitting in the boardroom of traditional companies and eavesdropping on what the old school managers think about the current state of Internet industry. Traditionally having that kind of close encounter required knowing a friend, who knew a friend, who knew a friend within a corporation.

Here is an absolutely fabulous guide on how to use LinkedIn for your job search, plus it’s followed by a slew of more links to posts on LinkedIn. Fantastic job, Jacob from JobMob!

And I don’t know if this counts as entries to the project, but if you go to this post, you’ll find a few great success stories about LinkedIn that bloggers Lisa Gates, Gerrit Visser, Terrence Seamon and Director Tom shared with me in response to this project.

Most group writing projects I’ve participated in had many more entries than this one. I wonder why we had so few for this project? Here are some thoughts:

First, I think I could have gotten way more participation had I signed up with the Yahoo LinkedIn bloggers group. Why didn’t I do that? Because I’m only a superficial user of LinkedIn. After spending about 30 minutes trying to hunt down the LinkedIn profile badge I was required to show on this blog in order to become a member of that Yahoo group, I gave up. If I was a more well-versed user of LinkedIn, I probably would have known exactly where to pick up that badge, or, alternatively, I wouldn’t have given up after 30 minutes.

This is an example of something I have observed before: Even though these types of social media are free and open, there is still an invisible barrier between superficial and in-depth users. The fact that I had more submissions regarding Twitter on my other blog - a social media tool on which I spend quite a bit of time – bears that out.

Second, I suspect that group writing projects are part of a culture of bloggers who may not be hard-core social media types. For example, if you google for “group writing project” on Twitter pages you get – 9 hits. Nine. On LinkedIn? Zero. On my other site? 31. Yes. Little old Change Therapy with her under 1,000 posts has more than three times more hits on that topic than Twitter.

Group writing projects seem to be something that’s done much more by bloggers in the self improvement / productivity / “artsy” world than by the people who dominate social media: geeks (who have blogs but are constantly exploring the outer technological edges of the world) and people who like to chat and socialize, who often don’t have blogs.

What do you people think?

Here it is: another terrific video from Lee LeFever’s Common Craft Show.

(This post is being submitted to the social media megaproject, started by Vivien at InspirationBit. The Twitter section is hosted by none other than myself at Change Therapy)

Over the past year or so that we’ve been posting to the Alphablogs site there have been some tremendous changes in the adoption of dynamic websites as a much more common practice than in the past. We’re proud to be part of this wave.

Terrific designers are doing wonderful things with WordPress and Drupal, making the world a better place for many of us. As the social networking/marketing fusion occurs at an increasingly rapid pace, we see many people standing in the dust, holding their few remaining belongings and asking with their eyes, “What happened?” as they watch the big buses recede over the horizon. And the question remains: what to do now?

We can look to history. In the very old days there was a phrase about the world wide web (or was it the internet?) “Get on it or get out of the way.” There are still some people asking, “Get on what exactly?” “What does it have to do with my business?” Well if you watch, learn and participate, the answers will come to you through participation. All you have to do is jump in and start swimming, and we can help you do that.

What if you don’t even care about the technology, but just want to have a website that you can update and maintain yourself, one that is as dynamic and changeable as the seasons, but with continuity and presence? Well this is the moment for you. It’s all happening now and it’s easily available and affordable.

A year ago we dedicated Alphablogs to provide a bridge for the individual entrepreneur or the very small business or consultancy - a communications bridge that would make use of all this wonderful new(ish) easy to use and easy to update web technology. We knew that many clients don’t need a big huge setup. We knew that not everyone can afford a total communication PR package. Others want to keep their costs as low as possible. Some small-business people just want to have a website, and some arts organizations heard they needed blogs, and some artists were ready to take that step into this form of publishing of their work, or self-promotion. In our work for real estate clients, we became aware of many dynamics of the process. It was simple to take what we knew, and offer it to the entrepreneurial clients who could use these skills.

Now we see the environment has sped up tremendously, and there is a new dynamic social marketing component that has really gone mainstream in the last year. Everyone is using the same buzzwords. If you don’t know where to start, how to approach it, or what to do, we can help smooth your entry. Some people say: “I don’t want a blog or any of that other stuff. I just need a website.” We can help you do just that - and just in case you might want to blog someday, the site we create for you will be ready for that (because we create your site using WordPress to begin with.)

(Thanks to Jabbara Edwards for her photo of Zeppi at Valdez Island)

We’re doing more research through Alphablogs, but here I wanted to share this fun toy with you, just for the hell of it!

There are lots of online tools for this, and here’s a free one that’s easy and engaging.

We offer much more indepth research services, as both Isabella and I have strong research backgrounds, so contact us if you’re interested in finding out how we can help you design research to position your work and engage your audience.

A few days ago, I had the great pleasure to interview Svetlana Gladkova from Profy.com, a new player in the blogosphere that has gained attention everywhere. Here is what Profy does

Profy, a new player in the blogging arena, provides users with a one-stop web platform for all things blogging. The Profy solution provides a single point of comprehensive access to the full range of activities involved in blogging, from reading and sharing news to publishing posts and networking with other bloggers and readers. Profy’s vision is to provide bloggers with all the creative tools they could possibly want - in one place.

Svetlana and I had been chatting casually in cyberspace for a little while (you won’t be surprised to hear that we talk on Twitter and StumbleUpon, will you?) and had been sympatico right away. The interview was just like that - a warm and friendly chat on Skype, all across the oceans and timelines: Svetlana in Siberia, I here in good ol’ Vancouver.

We talked about culture, learning, the IT gap and other things. Here is the interview:

It’s not about location

IM: What’s it like to be a netizen (“blogospherian”, Anthony said yesterday) in Siberia and be so much at the pulse of leading edge in social media?

SG: This is the only question people are ever interested in asking me usually though I still love answering it again and again

As far as I know it is only after getting to know me at least a dozen of people bothered to take a look at the map and find the city of Novosibirsk, which they otherwise never heard of before you know, it is not very difficult to be a web 2.0 person now, I think - all it takes is a laptop, some place to work, and flexibility because to be able to talk to people you need to be online either early in the morning, or late in the evening (preferably both which I rarely manage myself :)) After all, Internet is available in the majority of towns and even small villages here in Russia

It is not exactly about location, being a geek is more a state of mind - as I’m sure you know yourself better than me

Networking: A Different Culture

IM: Last night we had our monthly bloggers meetup here in Vancouver. I really like meetup because it facilitates the “social” in social media BOTH online and face-to-face. Do you have any opportunity to be social with IT people/geeks in your area?

SG: Well, that’s a tough question. You know, Novosibirsk actually is a very big scientific center and we have lots of web developers graduating every year. But the best of them prefer to move to Moscow looking for higher salaries - thus people that stay here usually prefer to establish their own small businesses, like web design studios - there are dozens of them here but they do not have any common interests and goals.

I only know 2 web 2.0 projects (besides Profy) here in Novosibirsk. Other IT people specialize in software development outsourcing - thus they have even more different goals than we.

And this lack of common interests affects negatively the offline communications here. Only recently we have had the first meeting of a Novosibirsk web club - mostly intended for people to finally get to know each other here. But I cannot say it was successful - people are much less open here than in the Western communities. Besides, we are not as good in networking - the habit of networking is only emerging and people often feel uncomfortable with lots of people they don’t know.

And nothing of the Open Coffee type exists here - I tried to offer this format for meetings but it is very difficult to bring bloggers to the same place for a talk - mostly because bloggers often prefer to stay anonymous and use nicknames here.

IM: So it’s a different culture?

SG: Yes, very different culture - very young and only emerging. The IT people mostly started as software and web design outsourcers - things as social media, professional blogging and networking are extremely unusual here.

I guess this is mostly due to the fact that we are pretty much behind you in terms of time - we are here where you used to be some 10 years ago so it is only starting here. So internet is still a rather geeky place in Russia and general mainstream users are only arriving now

IT in Siberia

IM: So what does this do to your sense of location? Where does most of your life take place?

SG: Well, I am mostly here in Novosibirsk - this is where Profy development team is located so my place is here as well. But as any marketing person I love travelling and participating in various events. For example, I thouroughly enjoyed Le Web 3 last December and now that we have launched Profy in alpha I’ll be traveling a lot this year. But still most of my work happens either in the office or on a sofa at home

IM: I bet there’s lots of people in Siberia who don’t know that there is such a thing as a blog and don’t even have email.

SG: You are not particularly right here there are tons of people that have never heard the word blog (imagine how difficult it is to explain to my older family members what my job is) but all the internet users here start by creating an email account. mostly mainstream users use internet for 2 things: checking emails and searching for something.

The IT Gap

IM: You’re obviously quite the pioneer. Were you always like that?

SG: well, now that you ask it, I think yes - though I never considered myself to be a geek here. Though I really was the first among the students of my faculty to buy a cell phone (when they first emerged here in Russia), then I was the first to start using a pocket OC, the first to buy a laptop, etc. This does not mean it was because I had more money than my counterparts - I just preferred gadgets to clothes at the time. Not a very girly behavior

IM: … and how do you explain to your older family members what your job is?

SG: well, I use some traditional categories - like publishing news on a website for blogging and giving people the place to create their own blogs (here I usually need to explain what a blog is finally) for the Profy blogging platform. But usually I prefer to explain that I have an internet business that is pretty difficult to explain

IM: The reason I’m asking this is because I’m quite fascinated by the very wide range of experience and interest people have in IT; this is an issue here, too. Have you ever successfully explained to someone at least the rudiments of what you do, and if so, do you remember what you said?

SG: yes, I once had a whole free evening in a country house and the entire family gathered together. So I used an hour explaining 1) what a blog is and why people blog, 2) how a blog can be a job, 3) how you can create a website for thousands of people to blog, 4) how we are going to make money off it. So it took about an hour but I finally managed to explain it to the entire family all at once. I don’t think there is anything extraordinary in this - provided that you use simple common language and have enough time for explanations. After all, if I don’t explain this to my mother, she will never know what a blog is. And I have so many older online friends from US, Europe and Canada that I think my own mother deserves understanding

IT People Are Lifelong Learners

IM: What’s the most out-there, futuristic thing you’ve ever done, even in IT terms?

SG: I don’t think I have ever done anything extraordinary in IT terms myself (at least nothing that would seem extraordinary to any reader from North America). But I remember once I learned how to edit videos to produce TV commercials using some very complex software I don’t even remember the name now. It took me about a month and I was absolutely happy I learned it - though it turned out I soon changed my job and never used the skill again

IM: I guess that’s part of being a pioneer - being willing to put lots of effort into something that you don’t know whether it’s going to pan out. A lot of IT people are like that, don’t you think? Learn lots of programming languages, applications, etc. - and you end up using only a few. It takes a certain personality for that - what do you think?

SG: I think you are 100% right here - IT people are very different in their willingness to learn constantly. You can always see a developer (even a successful one) reading new books, looking for useful information online, studying new languages, discussing new approaches in forums. Chances are they will never use many of the skills they gain in such a way but if they ever get a chance to apply them, they will feel superior and they won’t need to spend some extra time learning. This is a very special type of mentality - the learning developer

IM: Okay, very last thing then: what’s your learning edge right now?

SG: Well, right now I am too focused on marketing and networking (alpha launch, after all) to be able to get myself any time for learning anything I don’t need right now. My major learning now is in terms of marketing - I read books and blogs focused on internet marketing and promotion and consume tons of information that I need right now to do my job well. But when I do have some free time for learning, I think I would have preferred some offline activity for a change - learning Spanish language, for example. Nothing very geeky

And honestly, I hardly even know HTML, let alone any complex programming languages and tools: I consume web 2.0 as a user and I understand it mainly as a user

IM: Wow, that was an interesting revelation, Svetlana! Is there anything you’d like to add before we say goodbye?

SG: no, I think I would only like to thank you for asking me about the interview. In fact, for me web 2.0 is all about people (not AJAX) - people and the closeness it allows. I have lots of friends around the world I would never have met otherwise and to many of them I actually talk much more than I do to some of my real-life friends. This is what really is precious about web 2.0 and the tools it provides - we are all so very close now it is absolutely amazing. So thank you very much!