Bethejustin.com

Entries in social (3)

Thursday

Nov192009

Twitter Lists: Etiquette. Conversing or Butting in?

Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 6:20PM

I've been spending A LOT of time following the Shuttle mission, STS-129, this week, a good deal more than I have in recent memory. I've always been a fan of the space program and NASA but that fandom received a shot in the arm this week thanks to NASA and their allowing about 100 twitter users to attend a tweetup for the launch. I found myself following the #nasatweetup hashtag as people were posting, videos, pictures, and any other media that would attempt to convey their amazing experiences. What does any of this have to do with Twitter lists you ask? Well a good number of those who attended the tweetup were also self-identified "Space Tweeps" and the Space Tweep Society (which I myself have now joined) maintains a Twitter list of space tweeps. These space tweeps cover the entire gambit of space enthusiasts from NASA employees to educators to just space geeks, like myself, and everything in between. I soon realized that there is a very lively conversation and community concerned about the future of space exploration and they've been hiding on Twitter this whole time ;-) As a result I started following the space tweep list much more closely and I realized that my use of Twitter continues to evolve in the era of lists. However it also raised some questions that I don't really have any good answers to.

Today I've been playing with the Seesmic Web client which has implemented lists. I can honestly say it is the best implementation of lists I've seen anywhere to date. The primary reason being that it will auto-refresh the lists (none of the API limits normal clients have). It is also a pretty descent client on its own with the standard set of features you'd want, the traditional multi-column view, etc. In the case of the space tweep list what I ended up with is an almost real-time stream of all the conversations occurring among members of the list. It is actually a really neat effect, the best analogy to which I've been able to come up with is a chat room. However here's where the questions start.

It isn't really a chat room. In the pre-lists Twitter if I @reply someone I have some idea in the back of my mind somewhere that anyone can see that @reply if the go looking hard enough at my profile or possibly if they have a search running. However there is a bit of effort required to get at an @reply made by me to someone that you're not following, at least in the pre-lists paradigm. Enter lists, now anyone following the list can see any conversation occurring between any member of the list and any other member of the list. Those conversations become much more public. I've found myself a few times over the last few days responding to conversations I've seen happen by on the list that I might have some input on or that might interest me, okay fine, but here's what's new, those conversations weren't addressed to me I saw them only by virtue of the fact that I happen to be monitoring the list in real-time. So the question then becomes is my behavior on the up and up? For me it is a bit murky. I think to best understand the gray area this represents using a real world comparison is helpful.

So as I started to think about this problem I started thinking about how this would work in the real world? Alright so let's say I am in a room with a couple hundred people. I'm meandering around the room but I myself am not engaged in any conversation. As I meander I hear a conversation between two other people talking that piques my interest and I interject with my own two cents. I think in the real world this is liable to be met with a host of different reactions but there is certainly a decent chance that this real world behavior might be known as "butting in."

So is monitoring a list of conversations and adding to it on Twitter butting in? Or simply participating in a global dialogue? Well certainly the argument can be made that the technology allows for this behavior and doesn't prevent it certainly an active list like the space tweeps list in my experience seems to actually encourage a conversation to take place. However the real world example also seems like it could apply as well. Then there's the matter of how many people follow a particular list, there seems to be some disparity so if people aren't following lists will the have the expectation that others are? Perhaps all of this will become a moot point once the tools expand and make this kind of following a list much more manageable. Do people follow lists now? Do do you do it? How do feel? Butting in or good dialogue?

If you have any thoughts on the matter @bethejustin, leave a comment, or e-mail me at the address to the right.

Justin |

Engaging NASA's Human Side

Saturday, November 7, 2009 at 1:08PM

It's no secret that I've been a space geek/nerd/enthsiast since I was about 13 years old. Since that time I've always admired (envied?) NASA, those who work there, and of course astronauts. Now in the world of Twitter/Facebook/YouTube and social media how I think of astronauts as people is changing drastically, and I think that's a good thing.

My mental image of how I think about astronauts as people was shaped early on in my love affair with space exploration as a result of a trip I took in the summer of 1994 to Space Camp in Huntsville Alabama. One of the key components of the program I was participating in was simulated shuttle missions. During my time I served on one flight in Mission Control as "Capcom" and on the next I asked for something with responsibility and ended up, to my serious surprise, as "Shuttle Commander." However I learned quickly just how much responsibility the Capcom has (hint: LOTS more than I ever imagined but that's perhaps another post). During my time at space camp I became quick friends with a fellow space geek in my group. I geeked out over things like shuttle abort modes and acronyms and he open my mind to a whole new world of things like Mercury, Gemini and Apollo. He suggested that I read the book Moon Shot to start catching up my knowledge of the early days of the space program and I did at the earliest connivence. (Btw, J.R. Harris if you're out there hit up the Capcom)

I think it is fair to say that if you look back on the Mercury days and the original 7 you emerge with a romanticized larger than life view of what astronauts are supposed to be. In fact back in those days that is the exact effect that NASA and the government was going for, and I came to idolize guys like Shepherd and Slayton (my to favorites from that era to this day, Shepherd in fact hailing from my native New Hampshire).

This romanticized view worked for the time but this is 2009. NASA and its astronauts, as best I can tell, have embarked on an unprecedented mission of engagement with the public they serve. I found myself wondering the other day for example as I checked in on one of my Twitter lists, that contains all the Astronauts currently on Twitter, if 13 year old me would believe that I might one day be interacting directly with actual astronauts. NASA and the astronauts have truly embraced social media, and that might almost be an understatement, we've now had everything from tweeting shuttle commanders, to "tweetups" on the International Space Station. Even now this new engagement is evolving and soaring to higher heights and much like Moon Shot defined my early impressions of astronauts Twitter and YouTube are shaping my impressions of the current brand of astronaut in an even more positive light.

Let me just highlight a few of the things I've come across recently that 13 year old me probably wouldn't have believed. The other day I came across a video of future Space Station Commander Scott Kelly (@StationCDRKelly) had posted to TwitVid giving a brief tour of the American crew quarters in Star City Russia. In case that doesn't register for you we are talking about tweeting from one of the most closely guarded secrets of the Cold War. We also recently got a look inside the "Astro Van", thanks to Astronaut Leland Melvin (@Astro_Flow) who posted another video to Twitter, as the astronauts rode to the pad for their TCDT (or "terminal countdown demonstration test") of astronauts joking around laughing the mood was light, and it was fun to see. Last but certainly not least Astronaut Mike Massimino has been producing a great series of videos (just one of many) on YouTube giving an inside look at the training of the STS-129 crew, if you are at all interested I highly recommend checking them out. In addition definitely follow @Astro_Mike on Twitter he's very active and a pretty cool guy.

So what does all this mean? Well I believe it adds up to unprecedented engagement and access to our space agency. After all NASA is a public effort and it is great to see them engaging the very public that keeps them flying. As a space geek it is somewhat mind boggling to me to get tweets from Star City for example a place that is not known for being open and has always fascinated me. More than anything though what you come away from following the tweets, videos, etc. is that these are just real people they have families, kids that need to do homework have sporting events to get to, they like to joke around, they have good days and they have days that are down right frustrating...like all of us.

What NASA is succeeding in doing, I hope, is showing the world the human side, beyond the rockets, acronyms, and tech talk they are an organization of truly great dedicated...real people. Hopefully seeing this side will make kids realize, "hey I can do this, they're just like me or my dad/mom, and I can be an astronaut too" and that's a good thing when we've heard much talk lately from the President about NASA's mission to inspire.

Here's the bottom line from all of this for me, for a group that spends much of their time circling it astronauts are a very down to Earth group of people.

Justin |

Tracking the Inauguration on Twitter (HOWTO)

Monday, January 19, 2009 at 2:33PM

So I know there are a lot of ways to do this but I figured I would share the one I came up with last night. For those who aren't familiar with the site "search.twitter.com" it allows you to search everything on Twitter. As a result of this functionality a syntax known as hashtags has come into being. Hashtags are a term preceded by the # symbol and make it easy to search for all conversation on a particular topic such as #inaug09 or #debate, etc. For big events what you often get when following the hashtag is the back channel conversation occurring in real, or at least near, real-time as the event is happening. Yesterday for example I was following #inaug09 during the "We are One" concert in D.C. it was definitely interesting and felt a lot like a big chat room. Another useful search operator for Twitter Search is "near:<Location>" so for example I also had a search running on "near:Washington DC within:10km" to see what people who listed their location as Washington DC were talking about but perhaps not tagging with #inaug09. The real trick here is to find away to monitor this chatter in real-time, at least if you're a twitter/information junkie like me. Of course if the inauguration isn't your thing then I'm sure you can think of plenty of other uses for this search capability.

As I mentioned there are a few ways to do this and I noticed the sites "twitterfall.com" and "monitter.com" getting some traction this morning. I'm guessing that both of these sites use the Twitter Search API and what I've noticed about the search API in the past (particularly on various iPhone clients that use it) is that it doesn't seem to support the "near:" syntax via the API only via the actual search.twitter.com. In addition to this when I was playing with moniter.com this morning I couldn't seem to get it to do a hashtag search when including the #. I don't mean to detract from the development effort that clearly went into these sites, your mileage will most definitely vary and I suggest trying them out. If however you'd like a slightly more geeky solution, read onward.

So here's the solution I came up with:

First download the Firefox add-on Greasemonkey which allows userscripting in Firefox.
Once Greasemonkey is installed properly and is enabled (there is a little monkey head icon down on the statusbar of Firefox make sure it is not grayed out) download the userscript "Twitter search auto-refresh"
Now browse to search.twitter.com and type in a search term since we're just a short time away from the Inaugruation of Barack Obama why not try #inaug09
The search results should automatically refresh when new ones arrive. What you get is in effect a near real-time updating feed of the results as opposed to before where you needed to manually refresh. Why Twitter doesn't make this the default behavior is beyond me.
Now you could stop here but what if you want to see more than one feed side-by-side?
My solution to this was another Firefox add-on I discovered via a Google search known as "Split Browser" which allows you to create as many vertical or horizontal panes within a browser window as you like. I ended up creating a pane for the #inaug09 search and then loading the "near:Washington DC" search in the main browser window.
What you'll end up with is something like the screenshot below. Enjoy!
One last thing you can use Tweetie (and other clients) for the iPhone to track searches when you're on the go. I highly recommend Tweetie it's the best Twitter client for the iPhone, in my opinion.

Justin |