Twittering On In A Flash (Of Light)

We are a chatty lot! Social media demonstrates a basic human need; the desire to communicate with others.

TweetPing

And if you ever doubted have active Twitter is a global communication tool, have a look at TweetPing (above), the brainchild of Franck Ernewein, a French web designer.

Every time a tweet is made somewhere in the world Tweetping gives of a light flash, superimposed on a map of the Earth.

But the site provides more details than a simple visual reference.  Activity by continent is detailed in the bottom section of the design -  the total number of tweets, total number of words, characters and the last #hashtags and @mentions.

Here is one hour of the Twitterverse in action presented in just five minutes


There are other excellent alternatives to the above. Frog Design's "A World Of Tweets" also presents data on a map showing where people are tweeting at from the past hour. A region's heatmap gets "hotter" depending on the activity.

A World Of Tweets

Tweereal's animation on the map features only those tweets containing geo-tags (coordinates)

Tweereal

So is Twitter the collective consciousness of the 'Net as some pundits suppose? It must be coming close to be reaching this status as one in eight people in the world tweet, albeit that the range of content followed is often confined to relatives, celebrities and a few chosen brands.

Patrick Meier of National Geographic quotes Hillary Clinton as saying in 2010, that social media is the new nervous system of our plant.  Certainly if you throw in other social media maps such as these for Flickr, FourSquare and Facebook you get a better overview of global activity, but is activity enough to gauge the prevailing mood.

For this you really need to add a layer of sentiment analysis. The Global Twitter Heartbeat Project is heading in this direction. Here is their Hurricane Sandy Tweetbeat.

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The GeoSocial Universe - May 2011

Click on chart then click again to see large image

Note the importance of Skype in relation to its once wannabe owner, Facebook.

Email remains a dominant force with 830 million users signed up to the top three providers.  The chart also provides some context to the recent LinkedIn IPO.

77% of the world's population are now using mobile devices and almost 22% of these mobile devices are smartphones.

China's version of Facebook (QZone) has experienced enormous growth and now has 480 million users.

40% of users tweet using their mobile.

Click on chart then click again to see large image

Click on chart then click again to see large image

Source: JESS3 - a creative interactive agency that specializes in visual storytelling

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Standing Out From The Flowd

There's not a day goes by when something new appears on the app. horizon. One recent addition from Denmark is Flowd, a sort of 'FourSquare for bands and fans' to get together.

Flowd is a location-based mobile application that facilitates conversations between music acts and their fans. Through Flowd, fans can keep up with their favorite music acts’ latest news, views, tours and offers. Flowd also provides an easy way to connect with friends, places and parties. Flowd is currently the location-based mobile app of choice of Armin van Buuren, Markus Schulz and The Wanted

There is a real opportunity for niche players such as this. Mashable's review of this geolocation app. highlights the core functionality:

"Any band — from up-and-comers to established acts — can sign up for Flowd via its website, where they can set up a profile complete with a bio, photo, skins that fans can apply to their own app pages (which can vary from device to device) and a welcome message that fans will receive upon following the artist in question. That artist can also add tour dates via an integration with Google Maps that pins the event in question to a physical location. Fans can then check in to that location"



Flowd is somewhat similar in concept to an app. developed by Nine Inch Nails back in 2009 and which was covered in a report by Wired.com.

Flowd has few of the larger acts signed up at present which limits its appeal but it might be a good space to spot up-and-comers?

Related articles

• Flowd mobile app is made to connect music acts with fans (intomobile.com)
• First Look: Flowd (macworld.com)
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• World Class DJs Interact with Fans (textually.org)

Four Square And Ten

Foursquare is something of a phenomenon in the States.  It is based on the idea of getting people to sign up, explore their own neighbourhoods and then reward them for their efforts.

Activity is recorded in real time on the Four Square site. The explanatory video is below and the beauty of the the idea is that marries the increasing use of mobile devices to customer loyalty.

Businesses are encouraged to produce 'specials'. These range from special deals for the 'Mayor', your single most loyal customer, to check in, frequency and what they term 'wild card specials'. Point of sale decals are provided for download.




So does this work?  A survey conducted in May amongst 127 non-chain businesses in the USA suggests that most businesses didn't get to learn about Four Square from customers; they heard about it from friends and colleagues.

Source: MattSiltala, DreamSystemsMedia

The crunch is that only 10% of those surveyed would be prepared to pay for the Four Square service which makes it doubtful that the site's business model is sustainable?

Certainly as this chart demonstrates the sites reach is growing rapidly.

Screen shot example - Singapore

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