Please Leave a Message At the Sound of the Tone…
January 5, 2009
“Domo Origato, Mister Roboto…” – Styx
There’s been a bit of hubbub lately about automation on social networks like Twitter. Prominent folks have come out saying how anti-social it is to automate certain functions because it simulates engagement without actually being genuine.
I get dozens of automated Direct Messages (DMs) in my Twitter inbox daily that say something along the lines of “Thanks for following me! yadda-yadda-yadda…” After awhile I was on the band-wagon. “Don’t send me your auto-DMs! I don’t want your free e-book, or a link to your website! Be real!!!”
But I kept seeing these DMs despite the seemingly general sentiment against them. Then I realized something – those calling for the ‘end to the robots’ are also power-users. By power-users, I mean they’re folks who a) are followed by thousands of people and b) follow most of them back.
It’s that following back part that triggers these automated messages. Sent out from a variety of different services, the average user signs in once, sets up a generic “Thanks for following me! yadda-yadda-yadda…” message and doesn’t think twice about it afterwards.
So clearly, there’s a discrepency here: the usage/impression varies depending on how the user interacts on Twitter. If you follow less than one person a day, say maybe 5 a week, and only a couple of them send those messages – the annoyance factor is going to be far less.
That got me started thinking about automation in general. Since I had gotten behind on my own ‘followbacks’ in the month of December (to the tune of about 1500 people!) I turned to a friend of mine who really ‘gets’ thewhole automation thing – Jesse Stay [@jessestay] the creator of SocialToo.com.
The reason I contacted him was that I knew his service offered an option to “automatically follow back” those who followed me. I asked Jesse if that was “from the time I registered” or if there was a way I could retroactively follow all of those people whose notifications were sitting in my inbox, pushing it over 2,000 unread emails.
Jesse told me that he had been working on a premium option (now live) that allowed the user to run a ‘one time’ catch-up script. Was I game? Sure. Because at that kind of number, it would be easier for me to go back through them and unfollow people that I didn’t want to interact with than it would to a) open each email, b) click on the link to their twitter, c) click on the follow button (or not), d) go back to the email, close it and go on to the next. For fifteen-hundred-plus people. So Jesse ran the script for me. About 10 minutes later, what would’ve taken me hours was done.
Do other ‘power-users’ use this automated follow-back? I suspect so. There are some who probably do what I do and try to manually do it every day – but you know what? That’s a lot of time spent just going thru the notifications.
So is some automation good but other automation bad? My analysis? No. It’s how you use it that makes it effective or ineffective. To that end, I wanted to ask Jesse some questions about SocialToo.com and find out a bit more about what he’s done and why.
Here’s that Interview
GeekMommy: Jesse, I hope you don’t mind if I write about the fact that I turned to you for help with the automated following.
Jesse: That’s no problem – I’m probably going to turn that into a one-time payment, or possibly donation tonight or tomorrow as a new feature on the site if others would like that. I’m thinking maybe $15-$20 to turn that on once, but I may just make it a donation. (Note: the service is presently live at a one time fee of $5 on the SocialToo site ~GM)
GM: Your script took literally *days* off of my timeline for that. After the script ran, I went back through my following list and pared it down a bit based on whether or not people were following/engaging with me and also if they were spammy or scary – and I still had to go thru 348 pages of following folks on Twitter for that!
Jesse: I’m glad it could help. That’s why we started this – there were too many time-consuming tasks like that, and as Twitter grows that will only get worse.
GM: I really think that people are mistaking the tools for the issue. Anyone can use automation – but how they use it may or may not ‘work’ for someone else.
Jesse: Exactly. My goal is to try and satisfy those for automation, and those against automation, too. If you don’t like the auto-dms people send you, we’ll provide an option for that as well (I should note that I currently have a beta feature turned on for just my account that disables socialtoo-generated DMs from being sent to me.) Many, if not most people I hear from don’t mind them. Most of those people also aren’t following 4,000 people. We all have different circumstances, and should be able to control the way we use the service, and enhance the relationships we have as we use it.
GM: To me, the real issue with DMs is that they shouldn’t be tied to following. Just because I read your blog doesn’t mean I want to give you my home phone number too…. Likewise, just because I’d like you to have my home phone doesn’t mean I’m interested in reading your blog… The issue lies with Twitter, not with automation.
Jesse: Very true – I’ve got a post I’ve been meaning to write about this as well. Twitter relationships are broken. On Facebook, if I want to be your friend and follow your updates, you have to approve me doing so, and vice-versa. Once you approve me, there is a mutual relationship there, and both can know that they can see and follow each others updates if they choose. It’s built into the system. Then, Facebook has built in Friend lists and privacy filters to control what you want to see amongst those you have agreed to be friends with. Twitter gives no protection to users – relationships can be one-way, which IMO hurts the network. People can follow me but there’s no guarantee I’m listening, or even have the chance of listening down the road.
Then again, some people like that, and that’s how they use the service. There’s no wrong or right way to use the service – this is just my perception.
GM: That said, automation is a good tool used effectively. Ask anyone complaining about it if they have voicemail or not?
Jesse: Twitter itself is an automated tool – I don’t see people criticizing Twitter. These are all tools, and they’re built to give you flexibility to build the strongest relationships you can, and retain those relationships. I call it Relationship Metrics – the tracking of those you follow, and those that follow you, and finding ways to retain those followers and build strong relationships with them. The more people you can build a strong relationship with, the more “authoritative” (for lack of a better term) you can become.
GM: What made you decided to start SocialToo.com? Was it more a matter of wanting certain functions yourself and making them available for others, or of seeing people ask for something and fulfulling that niche? (or something else entirely!)
Jesse: It was a combination of the two. I don’t ever like to do things manually that could be automated. I was already manually following everyone who followed me on Twitter – I like to solidify the relationships of people that are interested in me. It’s just my policy, and it’s important to me. At the same time I wanted a way I could choose not to follow certain people. I believe it was Chris Pirillo [@chrispirillo] that mentioned he wanted a way to follow those that were following him on Twitter automatically, so I wrote a script for him to run on his servers (or Mac – not sure which). I ran the script for myself as well, and I built blacklisting functionality into it so I could exclude spammers and the like from being followed if I didn’t want to follow certain accounts.
Then, after following Guy Kawasaki [@guykawasaki], I noticed when he asked for the same functionality. I offered him my script, but quickly realized not everyone was going to be able to set up my script, and setting it up for them would require me asking for their Twitter credentials in person, which I really didn’t want to do. So I wrote a UI (user interface) around the script, put a database on the backend, and enabled it to support multiple users, allowing them to enter their own Twitter credentials in so I didn’t have to see them. And that was the beginning of SocialToo.com – I believe this was around April or May of this year.
Chris Pirillo also gave me some great advice as we were building it (along with Ponzi [@ponzarelli]) contributing to the auto-unfollow capability. Guy then later approached me with an idea about creating surveys you could Tweet to your friends, in similar manner to TwitPic, but for surveys and polls. I gave him some ownership of SocialToo, we built it out, and launched all features of SocialToo, officially to the public in November.
TechCrunch featured a survey Guy posted on our first day of launch, and we knew it was an instant hit. In just a month we have garnered near 5,000 subscribers on the service, and I expect that to at least triple in the next month.
GM: Do you foresee premium services down the line?
Jesse: Yes, we will be building on a Freemium model. The base features that are currently there should remain free. Our target market is small to even large businesses that want to better track the relationships of people that follow them on the social networks they belong to. We’re establishing a new concept I call “relationship metrics”, which tracks statistics around the relationships you create, along with another concept I call “relationship retainment”, helping you to retain the relationships you build. We’ll provide premium features on top of an already rich feature-set that will support these concepts.
GM: You managed a function for me by running a script that followed back for me over 1500 people in a matter of minutes – do you plan on offering something similar to users down the line? What about a script that does the opposite – unfollowing everyone for someone so that they could ’start over’ on their follow lists?
Jesse: Unfollowing *everyone* is a novel idea – I’ll think about that one, but I could certainly imagine that being a feature. To answer to the function we ran for you, the answer is yes, and hopefully in the next couple days. There is a chance that will be a one-time pay feature*, or perhaps at least a donation of some sort. We’re a completely bootstrapped company, so I’m very eager to start monetizing some of this! A family of 6 is not easy to support as an entrepreneur! (*again, this feature has been implemented since our interview, for a small one time fee of $5 ~GM)
GM: What are your plans for SocialToo.com in 2009?
Jesse: Expect some interesting partnerships with other products and services. I’m not going to say what right now, but we’re going to be launching some unique services that will make these partnerships much easier, and will provide a wealth of information for other products and services. Expect some interesting monetization strategies – in particular around the SocialSurveys themselves. There will always be a free option, very similar to what we provide now, but I have some ideas that could be win-win for our users and us as a company.
My hope is, as we become profitable, to hire several more people and build out the statistics much more than they are currently. I’d also like a much more solid and feature-rich Survey product. There will also be several new products released – remember, our goal is to be your “companion to the social web”. Whatever we can do to further complement your experience on the social networks you belong to, we’ll be working to do so.
Oh, and Twitter will not be our only focus. Very shortly, as soon as we solidify our focus around Twitter, we’ll be expanding features around the other networks we support (Facebook and Identi.ca), along with some new networks we haven’t yet announced. Keep an eye out for that, as I think that is what will make this service very powerful.
GM: How do you deal with people who are saying that “automation” or “robots” don’t have a place on Twitter?
Jesse: Those people are right, based on the way they use the service. People that don’t mind “automation” or “robots” are also right. Personally, I don’t enable auto-dm (except when I’m testing new features, which is happening currently) for my personal account [@JesseStay]. At the same time, I think it’s appropriate to auto-dm for our company’s @socialtoo account. We thank them for joining SocialToo and tell them how to contact us. I don’t think that’s any different than an auto-responder for new subscriptions to any new service. We’re just doing it through Twitter.
Some people have thousands of followers however. Getting a new auto-dm every minute gets annoying, especially when many of them are generic and meaningless. It’s my intention to provide solutions around this as well – our goal is to stay flexible enough to where we can satisfy the way multiple types of users use these Social Networks. For instance, I’m testing a feature right now which we may or may not release, in which you can opt to not receive SocialToo-generated auto-dms. That may or may not be released, but it shows that I am aware of the other opinion. We’re also working on better ways to make the auto-dms much more personal, and more real. For instance, I’ve found when you mention a person’s real name in the dm they are many times more likely to start conversation with you, and appreciate the message. People should have choices, depending on the way they use Twitter. At the same time we all have a responsibility to be responsible, and considerate of different types of users that may be overwhelmed by such features. There’s no wrong or right way to use these services.
There’s no wrong or right way to use these services… How many times have I said that? Yes, I have my preferences too – but in the end, telling someone else that how they use a service is “wrong” because it’s not how you do it? Is like telling them that they should like spinach because you do and they shouldn’t like kumquats because you don’t. Automation isn’t the end of the social aspect of networks like Twitter – used correctly, it’s something that just gets us to the socializing faster.
After talking to Jesse, I changed my policy. I now have an auto-DM set up – it says “Nice to meet you <<firstname>>. This *is* an automated message, but only to say I will check out your Twitter shortly” because I’m all about transparency. I’m not going to pretend it’s not an automated message – any more than I pretend that you’re talking to me when you reach my voicemail. But I do think it’s nice to acknowledge to someone that I’m not just going to ignore them just because I’m not online 24 hours a day.
Am I using the auto-follow feature of SocialToo right now? No, I’m back to my old methods of adding manually. Which means I need to quit writing this and get to back to my inbox. Thanks for reading (if you did) this lengthy post. I really think we’ll see people adapt to the automation tools the same way we have to voicemail and call-waiting… but until then, we may have to slog through a few unwanted DMs.
Make Your Life a Little Easier
July 4, 2008
Okay – I know I haven’t been posting much… but are you ready to love me for this one?
I’m going to post two links that are going to make your life much easier. At least one, if not both of these applications is going to make the day-to-day stuff so much easier that you’ll wonder how you got along without them.
I need to credit Chris Pirillo [@chrispirillo] for bringing my attention to the first one and Aaron Brazell [@technosailor] for the second one. All thanks go to them, not me. I’m just sharing my giddiness!
Ready?
Okay then…
Application #1
http://whenisgood.net/
You know how freaking hard it is to schedule anything in your life? Especially when you’re dealing with your busy friends and family – or trying to set up a meeting or something fun…
You send a ton of emails back and forth, right? You say “let’s get together! Do you have any time next weekend?” and you get back “Um, maybe on Saturday, what works for you?” and you say “How about 2pm?” and get back “um, we’ve got a prior engagement…”
I’d keep going – but I’m sure you know the routine from here. A dozen or so emails later you have “penciled in plans.”
Not any more.
Now you go to When Is Good?
screen shot of the whenisgood grid
1) Click the grid for all the times that are good for you – you get a link to email to your invitees.
2) They see your proposed times and click on when they are free.
3) You visit your results page and see when everyone can do.
No sign-up form. No password to choose. No fuss at all.
And when you’re done marveling over how easy it was to find a time that everyone can get together this time – you’ll be sending the link to everyone who ever asks you ‘When is good for you?’
Yes, if we’re in the same town you can send me a link some time to let me know when is a good time to celebrate your freedom from this little scheduling dance!
Application #2
http://awayfind.com/
landing page awayfind.com
Now this one is Private Beta still. So you’ll have to apply for an invite on the homepage – or wait until they go open to the public – but if you wait, you’ll be kicking yourself when you do get around to it for not applying sooner!
What exactly it does is a bit more complicated – so rather than reinvent the wheel, I’ll let you go to AwayFind.com yourself to see the full description. But what if I told you that you could stop obsessively checking your email all the time – and only check it a couple of times a day – knowing that if it’s something really important, you’ll get notified?
The Reader’s Digest version is that AwayFind.com allows you to manage your inbound email whether you are in the office or out on vacation so that the truly urgent stuff finds you. Need to delegate a certain type of email? You can do that too. Want to be able to ‘pre-sort’ your email so that it goes to different email addresses depending on the type of contact it is? Yep. You can do that too. How about having notices sent to your phone if it’s an emergency or even just that one email you’ve been checking obsessively for? Yep. You guessed it.
Alright – I won’t keep you any longer. If you’ve read this far, you’re already itching to get over to AwayFind.com and see what the heck I’m talking about. Go on. I’ll be around.
But later? Let me know what you think of it.
Because after all… that’s the only way I know whether to post more of these things for y’all or not.
Have fun being more productive!!
My ooVoo Experience
February 22, 2008
The past couple weeks, I’ve been fortunate enough to spend some time playing around with ooVoo as part of the MyooVooDay project and playing with it with a few friends who have taken the plunge and downloaded the client as well.
I was lucky enough to get to spend some time chatting with some of my favorite people from Twitter as well as to meet some new friends during the MyooVooDay event. I did miss a couple of ooVoo sessions I was really hoping to catch (like one with Chris Brogan, who has his own ooVoo review here) due to unforeseen complications offline – but I’ve spent a few hours navigating the software and experiencing different configurations.
As I’ve only used it on the laptop, I’m speaking from the perspective of a PC user with XP loaded. My understanding is that there are some differing issues for Mac users – but I can’t address those.
So onto my review of it – with the caveat that it’s still in Beta, so I expect that many of these things will be addressed down the line.
Overview:
ooVoo is video calling application – what differentiates it between the more common players like Skype or Windows Live Messenger or their competitors is that you can have up to 6 people on the call. Additionally, you can open a chat window simultaneously, or use the client to place regular phone calls to any number in the world. If you are a PC user, you can also record however much of the session you’d like.
Positives:
- Allows simultaneous video calling for up to 6 people
- Allows users to either be called and added to the gathering or to call in to one of the participants and be added.
- Allows user to initiate separate text chat box while in call – this can provide for 1-on-1 side conversation, multiple users, or even take the place of audio if one of the participants is having an issue with it.
- Allows PC users to record portions or all of the session and save on hard-drive for later viewing or distribution.
- Informs all users when they are being recorded so they have the option to disconnect if they don’t wish to be recorded.
- Users can record ‘video voicemails’ for other users, to be viewed at a different time if they are offline or otherwise busy.
- Main control panel shows status of other users on your ‘friends list’ so that you can see who is available or not – also allows user to type in customized status or message to others.
Areas that need work:
- User search requires that other users have entered specifically searchable information… no requirement for valid names.
- Calling other users requires adding them to your contacts list – and being added in return.
- Apple users cannot record (at present).
- Initial startup doesn’t walk new users through camera set-up or verifying settings – assumes a certain level of comfort with IM/internet calling programs and webcam configuration. If default webcam application running, cannot take control of camera or use.
- Could use a timer/clock inside the program for users to track time
- Video windows automatically rearrange themselves inside display depending on minimizing/maximizing and when someone enters or leaves. No ability to rearrange order manually or customize
- Headphones with microphone are absolutely required – using built-in mic/speakers results in very bad echo/feedback with even just one user w/o headset. If multiple users w/o headsets, cacophony results to the point where no one can hear/understand.
Also, since there seem to be a number of similar applications, I thought it would make sense to review some of the differences that ooVoo offers at this time.
Differentiation between other similar applications/offerings
ooVoo vs. Yahoo! Live
- Both allow multiple video users to be seen at the same time – ooVoo up to 6, Yahoo Live up to 5 (one in main window, 4 in ‘minor’ windows below – options to change out minor video feeds with others listed in the chat room)
- Both allow simultaneous chat room activity – Yahoo Live allows anyone to join the chatroom, and to decide whether or not to stream video themselves
- Yahoo Live allows user to change individual volumes for each video feed – increasing those that are quieter, decreasing the noisy – or even muting any of them. ooVoo’s volume bar controls all of the boxes simultaneously – so a louder input can drown out a quieter one.
- ooVoo is private – only those invited into the call or accepted into the call can participate. Yahoo Live is open to anyone with a browser.
- ooVoo allows recording and saving of the session – Yahoo Live does not (at this time.)
- ooVoo allows searching for individual users – Yahoo Live does not (at this time) have searches other than ‘currently live’ or ‘by popularity.’
All in all, they both have video and chat rooms – but the target audiences seem very different.
ooVoo vs. Skype, IMs, IRC
- ooVoo presently has the ability to mimic aspects of all of the others – the main variant is numbers. ooVoo allows multiple concurrent users unlike Skype or IM programs. But allows fewer users than an IRC channel, and is not public.
- ooVoo is a ‘one-stop shop’ for these functions – no need to keep instances of all 3 of the others open in order to use the different aspects.
- ooVoo is still in Beta, so there are bugs, feed issues, and not a lot of documentation on how to resolve errors right now.
As I guess you can tell by now, I’m fairly sold on ooVoo as an application. I think if marketed correctly, it can and will become a mainstay in several different arenas.
Yes, there are still some rough spots… honestly? In this day and age, you can’t deliver a second-class experience to Mac users and expect them to be happy. Additionally, it’s important to be able to find people on ooVoo that you want to talk to. Without a reliable search function, you’re left with the feeling that you can’t find people you want to talk to anyways, so why bother? ooVoo without advanced searching is like a land-line without a phone book or 411… useless unless you know there’s someone else out there with it to call.
I have identified 2 ideal target markets and one general market for ooVoo that I hope they explore – but I think I’ll leave those for the next post, because I’m busy researching it myself and want a little more data before I push that out there. Besides, this is getting a tad long for an initial review.
What I’ll say is that I think if you’re a PC user with a webcam and a headphone set, it’s worth a try. Download it and let me know what you think.
If you want to leave me a video voicemail, or see if I’m available to ooVoo, I’m GeekMommy on there as well. Look forward to hearing what others think.
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