Monthly Archives: May 2009

May 13

A changing role

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A Press Release with reference to me

TWENTYSIX LAUNCHES TWENTYSIX SOCIAL MEDIA

It was announced today that full service digital agency twentysix is launching a dedicated business unit to provide brands with much-needed support in the world of social media.

The new division, called twentysix social media, provides in-depth analysis of the social media landscape, strategies and plans for organisations to take advantage of this route to market and ways to build and maintain dialogue and brand interactions online.

It is headed by Rachel Clarke, head of social media, who joined twentysix after working for Diageo and JWT New York. Her expertise in social media is drawn from working with some of the world’s biggest brands as well as her own online presence through the Behind the Buzz and DigitalStuffing blogs.

Rachel comments: “ Many public and private sector organisations need to know more about how to best connect with customers through social media, whether networking sites, interest groups or the many others ways of receiving and distributing content and information. Currently, very few get it right first time.”

twentysix social media offers a range of services all of which cover every aspect of the online community and, crucially, allow brands to measure their success . These services include strategy and brand planning, campaign set up and monitoring through to asset creation, activity stream delivery and measurement.

Gail Dudleston, CEO of twentysix, adds: “This is a really exciting development for twentysix and complements our existing agency proposition. ‘Full service’ means covering every possible angle of digital communications and social media is a vital part of that equation. Having the expertise and knowledge in house is really important to us and our clients. A lot of clients and prospects have spoken with us about social media, underlining the need for a specialist division to handle it. We aim to deliver expert guidance across every part of the social media spectrum.”

May 13

Twitter Censors

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I woke up today to find that Twitter has decided to break itself and started to censor what it shows me. Before today, when I decided to follow someone, I saw all of their public tweets, all of their replies, no matter to whom they were replying. This was a setting in the system, allowing me to see everything. However, by default, it was turned off. Given that few people never change the default, most people did not use this setting, which could be part of the reason why they never quite get it, why there is such a drop off rate. This means of finding out who is interesting, who is involved in conversations with people you follow, is one of the key features that allows you to enjoy the serendipity of finding new people.

BUt now it’s gone. Removed as an option. The Twitter blog says:

Based on usage patterns and feedback, we’ve learned most people want to see when someone they follow replies to another person they follow—it’s a good way to stay in the loop. However, receiving one-sided fragments via replies sent to folks you don’t follow in your timeline is undesirable. Today’s update removes this undesirable and confusing option.

So now they’re controlling what I can see, they’ve removed the choice. They’re censoring what I can hear. It’s the equivalent of being in a pub with a few friends and a bunch of new people and not hearing any of the conversation between everyone else. I’m not the only one who sees it this way, just search for the hashtag #fixreplies

Twitter Fix Replies (screenshot from site)

Twitter Fix Replies (screenshot from site)

Twitter, this needs to go back. I make a choice to follow people and I make a choice to follow everything they see. Don’t strip out content, just let me see it all.