After seeing a tweet from @cslyons about the mydavidcameron.com website I had a look and decided to submit the picture above, a day later it was up on the site. Today, incredibly, it went up on the Mail’s website.

The Labour party have also now adopted the idea and posted an entry on their website, which they’ve used to highlight what they see as some of the misgivings of the Conservative campaign so far. This little idea is really having an impact!

With the simple instruction below and a good idea Clifford Singer, the man behind mydavidcameron.com, has effectively crowdsourced an audience of activists and provided a vehicle through which their voices can be heard and can gain national attention. What a great achievement!

This is the first election that can really harness the full power of social media to intimately involve us in the debate on our terms. With mydavidcameron.com Clifford has started something which may grow and develop over the coming months and result in more people taking an active shared interest in the current feelings about the different parties campaigns. Could that effect the result of the general election? Not on its own, but it can form a relevant part of the debate.

The reason people don’t vote in the numbers they used to is because they are disillusioned and disconnected with the electoral processes. If through activities like this the electorate can re-engage with it then this is an extremely good thing.

This is the first part of the user generated digital election of 2010. As Labour and the Conservatives trade blows over the coming moths it will be interesting to see who really ‘gets’ digital. If one of the parties can harness social media as Obama did to such great effect in the US presidential election last year it could get really interesting!

Reading this presentation by Matt Kelly from Trinity Mirror given at the World Editors Forum I found some interesting arguments.

Certainly as people (hopefully) become less reliant on algorithmic search and more focused on recommendations from friends through social networks, or a new social search platform, brands having this sort of approach to an extent does make sense and cant be discarded out of hand.

We followed the brochure word for word, and we employed the same merry-go-round of SEO consultants to help us build sites that would ping to the top of search engines for a world hungry for our content.

If little things like character, brand…the ingrained values that made the print product a success, got in the way, well … the ends justified the means. Content wasn’t king. Traffic was. Whoever, from wherever, reading whatever. It didn’t matter as long as the audience grew.“

Crucially, traffic from search engines is ridiculously low for a newspaper website. Around 15 percent for MirrorFootball and less than 10 for 3am.
That means the vast majority of traffic has either come from bookmarks, or a referral from an informed source. We get a lot of traffic to both sites from social networks like Twitter and Facebook.”

In part it does sound like a sales pitch based on having an alternative product, going against the flow, ooooooh exciting, what rebels! However with an ambition to grow traffic I often fear it is easy to forget how important engagement is and the value content has to hold for the audience it purports to represent.

In my opinion the way in which commercial revenue is generated by ‘big media brands’ online will completely change in the coming years so we are more focused on delivering integrated engaging partnerships, which will not be measured by eyeballs but by how many people make a meaningful engagement. You cant really do that with a transient audience that are not dedicated lovers of a brand, I think this is what Trinity Mirror recognise, it isn’t just about being rebellious.

We can already see this with companies like videoegg getting more clients who want to base their ad spend not on how many browse past an advert or how many it is forced on, through preroll, but how many actually love the website they are on so much that they would willingly accept and advert from them because it may actually be on benefit to view it.

Of course this isn’t just a debate about SEO, and I certainly do not write this with the intension of starting a war against it! It is about the core proposition of content based sites and what they actually offer an audience that they cant get on a million other sites. It is about making deep emotional connections with our audience, loving them and in turn allowing them to love us so they have a “Loyalty Beyond Reason*”, which can be exploit ed to commercial gain.

*Lovemarks worth reading the book if you haven’t already.

Become Street Fighter allows users to very easily include a picture of their own face on the character in the video. You can then embed the video that is created on a variety of different sites including Facebook and Myspace.

This is a brilliant example of how making commercial media an intimate experience for users and allowing viral distribution through social networks can have a positive impact on the way people form a relationship with a product or brand.

Creating a video like this takes no longer than 1 minute if you already have the pictures. No registration pages or forms to fill out, just upload your pics, get your video and that’s it.

The system is built using technology made by 15secondtv, which renders the face from an uploaded picture on to the video a user has selected to create the final video.

This is an overwhelmingly positive commercial experience, which is infinitely more memorable than a normal game trailer and should therefore have much more of an impact in driving sales of the game.

Disqus is an interesting system because it also removes the barriers put up by different websites and allows commenting on a central hub. It provides users with a very flexible platform on which they can follow multiple threads of discussion in the same place without having multiple sign ins on different sites.

Disqus makes it easier for people to comment and track their contributions on a single profile which they can display as a comment blog. After all, there is no difference between a great comment and a great published article.”

disqus.com

A shared space like this is great because it makes the process of engagement easier and facilitates debate though commenting, which adds value to the content being debated and to the comments themselves.

For larger brands who want debate to happen on their “digital property” thus generating registrations to their system from which they can collect data a system like this could be seen as disruptive, however if Disqus allows communication to happen more productively across different sites and are able to facilitate the sharing of user data then then content providers may find this sort of solution very attractive.

Below I have tried to represent this idea through the example of UK national newspaper websites. The Collective Community which is joined by a system like Disqus can push and pull users between different debates and points of view allowing users to move between different debates easily and interact with them using the same identity. The Separate Communities on the right are more isolated and contained. They don’t allow a freedom of expression amongst them without using different identities.

Traditional content publishers (which newspapers are) may find this a difficult concept to buy into initially. The system is not exclusive, so users could be actively recruited by another content provider, who might be a direct competitor. Users might then choose to spend more time with that other content provider if their experience of the content and debate are better than that which they had before.

Content providers such as newspapers and magazines have very competitive rivalries for sales in hard-copy that now spills over into the digital world in a battle for users, this influences the relationship these brands have with their readers. Whether or not a system like this would be used by a competitor should be put to one side and the user should always be considered first.

Content providers own the content being presented, when it then takes a life on of it’s own through the comments made on it that is not their property, it belongs collectively to those who have continued the conversation.

Content creators don’t own the conversation, users do.

Having a collective community which is able to move betwen different newspaper websites means those websites can concentrate on what they are traditionally good at. Not managing a community but producing interesting, exciting content that users will love.

One of the things I learned about when first studying Communications as an A-Level student was that online platforms give people the opportunity to contact other users and view content anonymously.

Back then social networks didn’t exist as they do in their current form, where it is essential to display your true identity and communicate as yourself in order to engage and connect with other people you know.

The ability to communicate without people taking your physical demeanour and appearance into consideration is of great advantage to some people who might otherwise be treated differently because of their physical characteristics. However If people hide something though a false online identity and the communications they then make have a positive impact on the people they reach, the positive impact that could have had on the persons real identity is lost, which devalues the communication process.

If as an individual you were to come into a room and introduced yourself wearing a mask and with a false name people wouldn’t take you seriously, respect you or find you particularly easy to communicate with. Why is it any different online? If you put up a veil people cant see though it. The problem is you can’t see the mask if they are wearing one online, you can in the physical world.

I recently changed my profile picture on Twitter with the expressed intention of making that method of communication as human as possible so people can see who I am. At the time I said the following.

Changed my profile pic to an actual picture of me (before I had a little graphical avatar). Feels more direct when you see a picture of somebody’s face next to a message. 3:39 PM Jan 25th – dpwilliams

I think it makes a big difference if you can see the face of the person you are talking to, it makes it more intimate and personal, which increases the value of the message.

• I adjusted my user facing profile to one which I think is more meaningful and that represents me physically.

I think that a dehumanised online identity will have a negative impact on the way in which people communicate with each other and the understanding people have of the communications being made.

Before concluding I should mention that I believe these things are a personal preference and it’s important people do have a choice about the way in which they represent themselves online and in the physical world.

Saying that, I think…

…we can do some simple things to make our identity as clear as possible.

Different networks and situations call for people to adopt different identities if they want to communicate in different ways or engage in different narrative threads. If you are for example representing a brand then it is appropriate to display an identifiable company logo. The comments being made are on behalf of that brand so this is an appropriate way to communicate and one that people will understand and be comfortable with.

As an individual if you are using a network which is a representation of yourself as a human then it is best to be seen as one and not as a character or logo. If possible you should show a picture of yourself clearly displaying who you are. Also where possible you should use your name so that the adjacent comment is received with a meaningful human association.

The more I think about identity the more complicated it becomes!

The issue isn’t just the identity you take on in different places but also the communication partners perception of identity and the perception you have of yourself. The perception others have of your identity is also it turn governed by their own perception of themselves.

Free thinker Gregory Lent, who I follow with great interest on Twitter, mentioned to me when Tweeting about online identity that “(it is an) interesting topic .. not sufficiently understood yet, sensationalized too”. He is completely right, this is such a complicated topic, which I am not at all qualified to analyse in enough detail to give the depth to this post that is necessary to truly understand the wider issue of human identity.

When I have time I’ll try and do some reading around this subject until then I leave you with an open mind.

With Janis Krums having tweeted the first picture of the Hudson crash using his iPhone yesterday the opportunity that citizen journalism offers publishers is clear for everybody to see!

This is surely going to be one of the landmark tweets. It was sent from on board the first rescue ferry to come to the aid of the plane that crashed in The Hudson yesterday.

A couple of weeks ago I commented on a post by Lewis Gray entitled “10 Predictions for 2009 In the World of Tech”

I would add that in terms of delivering news in real-time that citizen journalism and a croudsoursed delivery mechanism will me more closely integrated with main stream news sources. Services like NowPublic.com will really come to the forefront and start making more of an impact.”

Me on 10 Predictions for 2009 In the World of Tech By Louis Gray

I think this event demonstrates with dramatic effect how powerful citizen journalism can be and how events like this will bring it more praise as an incredibly important part of the modern news delivery mechanism.

Only two weeks into the year and a major news event with world wide interest has been captured first by a citizen journalist, there will be a lot more to come from citizen journalism in ’09!

Janis Krums was on MSNBC while still on the ferry and is set to appear on breakfast shows in the US today to hopefully spread the word about how he took his photo and how other people can get involved with the network in the same way he did.

I wait with iPhone in hand eagerly anticipating the opportunity to deliver news to the masses.

Links:
- Janis Krums Twitter page
- The Tweet he sent from the ferry
- The Twitpic entry of the plane in The Hudson

The more you use Twitter the more interesting it becomes and the more you learn about other people and yourself.

As I have previously written I have only recently been discovering what Twitter means to me and have still not really completely settled on what that is.

What I do know for sure is that Twitter isn’t RSS. It doesn’t really work if all you do is automatically feed it through recently posted entries, Tweeting out a link and the headline. As a user there are other more effective tools that you can use that for and as a publisher there is a whole lot more you can do with Twitter.

I recently had a conversation with Dan Thornton, Community Marketing Manager at Bauer Media, who outlined the following to me.

Twitter is a place for individuals, including those that work for a company or brand, to interact on a personal level – so their messages are far more valuable than an automated feed from a website or blog post.

By authentically posting, you add details and personality, giving it much more value and impact – which encourages people to interact with you and build up a relationship with you and the company you work for.”

Dan Thornton, Community Marketing Manager at Bauer Media

If as a user I come to a site and am tech savvy enough to want news updates automatically fed through to me as soon as they happen; then I will have an RSS reader, I might not want a the personal touch that Twitter can add, I just want to know when news has happened and read it, RSS performs that function perfectly.

As a user, choosing to follow somebody or something on Twitter means you want more a more intimate relationship with the person or brand. You want to interact and have a conversation on a personal level.

As Dan mentioned this gives that communication much more value and impact and creates the possibility for people and brands to forge more meaningful, intimate relationships.

Let’s look at a couple of examples.

1. I stopped following Reuters yesterday because as I mentioned to Dan (@badgergravling) via Twitter “The more I use Twitter the more automatically generated posts become invisible.”

Looking at their Tweets resembles looking at an automatically generated RSS Feed. Entries like this can work sometimes when you send them out. These tended to come in all at the same time a few times a day so would temporarily completely take over my twitter feed and crowd out message people have spent time personalising.

I still don’t completely disagree with sending out entries like this but I think there needs to be a balance so that the quality of what you are sending out to people makes them anxiously anticipate the next one an enjoy it for what it is not just as a promotional link.

Reuters is a news service so we could look at this as exactly what we would expect from them. They are still a brand though and this is a missed opportunity for their brand to start a conversation with it’s consumers rather than telling them something that they can already get somewhere else.

http://twitter.com/reuters

2. If we look at Dan’s tweets you can instantly see that it’s very much a conversational broadcast platform. It’s interesting and intimate.

This is a personal twitter page rather than a brand’s page, as in the Reuters example above. We need not think that because of that they should be different and the Reuters should be doing what they are doing and Dan should be doing what he is doing.

http://twitter.com/badgergravling

The second example above is clearly the more engaging one as the entries come in different shapes and sizes. This is going to hold my attention and keep me more interested in them.

As a twitter novice it’s really easy when you first come to Twitter as a brand to think that the best use of Twitter for you will be to set up Twitter feed and let it go to work and that’s it, just leave it to pick up the occasional click through to your content.

The fact is – you then miss out on the ability Twitter offers your brand to have an ongoing dialogue with your consumer and for them to really engage with your brand values and build up a strong relationship with it. The users who are then following your Brand and receiving personal communications from it on a regular basis are more likely to buy into other aspects of the Brand.

I read a book by Kevin Roberts, CEO Worldwide of Saatchi & Saatchi, a few years ago called Lovemarks: the future beyond brands.

One of the key factors that is crucial in turning your brand into a Lovemark is your consumer having an intimate relationship with it.

The third signature of a Lovemark is that people feel they have an intimate connection with it (the brand). Intimacy is about body contact, scent, touch. You want to be close.  You feel pain when it is withdrawn. The signposts about community, loyalty and relationships fit right here.”

saatchikevin.com

The ability Twitter has to make that intimate connection with a consumer rather than just push out automatically generated links is what makes it so special and what gives a brands presence on the service real value and purpose.

Talk to your followers, start a conversation with them, love them and they will love you.

Asking some friends (25/26 year old professionals) at the weekend only one out of five had heard of Twitter, and he worked in IT. All of them have a Facebook account.

I don’t have many personal or professional acquaintances who use Twitter and don’t regularly interact on a human level or work directly with any of the people I follow or who follow me on Twitter. This might change in the future as more people pick up the service or if it becomes integrated with another more mainstream service

• Facebook tried and failed to buy Twitter. How Twitter are putting a presumably massive price tag on their service, over $500m, when it makes no money I am not sure. Potential to make money? Have they watched Dragons Den!? Theo wouldn’t have any of it. Take the deal!

I was a bit confused as to what benefit twitter could have for me when I first signed up and what benefit they have from me using their service.

• I am still unclear on the benefit I will have for them as I have no idea how they plan to monetize me. Especially in the current economic climate.

It is a poignant time to write this entry for me because yesterday I posted my on hundred and first Twitter. It was a Twitpic entry taken when I was at Borough Market with some friends. You can see it below. I had planned on having more description but ShoZu only fed through the title with no the description which was something like “Really busy today and prices are up again”.

I posted it because I was surprised at how many people were out buying really expensive food this weekend, I presumed when we went that it would be fairly quiet.

In posting this I thought there was some common interest in how busy a relatively well known place is that I was visiting is to others. I am trying to think how when I twitter “would I want to know about that?”. If that is the case then I don’t think you can go wrong.

I quite like posts like this, they are simple and hold value for me as the publisher to record an event and later look on it to remember the day and to those who read it, because there might be some common interest.

I experimented with the sort of twitters I made when I first signed up asking friends questions, setting up automated feeds to post links I save to Delicious, automatically twittering my latest Facebook status, putting a link through to the latest set of pictures I have put on Flickr, playing Playtwivia and just putting up general thoughts that occur. Some of this I have continued to do and some this I have completely stopped.

I don’t want to Twitter too much. If I want make a Twitter then I want it to carry some value for those who receive it (this is micrblogging, not status, isn’t it?), I don’t want my twitters to overcrowd other peoples already overflowing inboxes, RSS feeds and update lists.

I have no need or desire to tell people what I am doing throughout the day if it is not outside the norm and/or of any value to people through a common interest. I also don’t really have any need to know what they are doing, in fact I would like to filter out some of the stuff people do Twitter.

• Perhaps you should be able to assign a category to your Twitters. Users could then just follow a certain category of twitter. For example “My Life” and “My Work” categories could be created for one user. I could decide to follow both of them of just one of them. For example, I don’t want to know when somebody I am following is watching TV but I would love to know when he has put up some new photos, made a new blog post of has a comment to make on the news.

But this is my character. I am not a nosey person, I hate gossip and run out of the room when people start it. I also don’t listen to people when they tell me about completely pointless stories that do not involve me or anybody I know. But it is their right to do that as it is anybody’s right to use Twitter in whatever way they might like.

Twitter is different things to different people. I think I have just about found what it is for me, although the infant that Twitter is needs to mature in order for me to have a proper relationship with it in the long term.

See my Twitter page here