Justin Dawkins

Updates from April, 2010

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  5 Reasons Why I'll Continue To Use UberTwitter

  Justin 3:07 am on April 21, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: blackberry, twitter, ubertwitter

  A few nights ago I took a few minutes to download the official Twitter for Blackberry client and my initial thought was; “Wow! This is nice!” I immediately found appreciation in the; super fast connectivity, direct message integration and the beautiful user interface. To simply put it, the official client is slick… real slick.

  While these 3 benefits are nice, I must say that the official Twitter Blackberry app is missing a few things. First let me clarify something. For the average user the official app is great but as a power user I decided I need a bit more. I put together a quick list of reasons why I’ll still use Uber Twitter.

  1. Classic Retweet – Twitter’s explanation about how and why the chose to build the official retweet function makes complete sense to me but it’s not flexible enough. I prefer having the ability to create some commentary surrounding the message as a way to express myself and classic retweeting gives me that option. What would be great is a way to mention a particular message so that users can continue to include commentary around the original tweet.

  2. The Uber Bar – This is a GREAT feature from Uber Twitter and I’ve come to appreciate its utility. Essentially the Uber Bar is a universal book-marking system that allows you to quickly access users from an auto-expanding navigation bar at the top of the application. This is great for quickly accessing your friend or favorite brand’s tweets.

  3. Multiple Accounts – This is pretty self-explanatory. Uber Twitter supports quick access to multiple accounts while the official Twitter application doesn’t. The lack of support isn’t a big deal to most users but for brand managers it’s a drag. I guess the one upside is that you can’t accidentally send brand tweets from your personal account or even worst sending personal tweets to your brand followers… Yikes!

  4. Font Options – Though the official client gives you the ability to change the font size and family, I personally would like more options. UberTwitter gives you the ability to edit the font size and family for consumption and creation. I prefer a slightly larger font when I’m creating a tweet, while enjoying the extra real estate when reading tweets.

  5. Photo Sharing Options – Uber Twitter gives users a few options for photo sharing while Twitter only integrates TwitPic. Though it gets the job done I have an account with TweetPhoto so the integration Uber Twitter has works really well!

  That’s about it. I hope that this is helpful but I’d love to hear what you think. What Twitter application do you use on your Blackberry and why?

 

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  Prediction: Google will roll Aardvark into Buzz

  Justin 12:10 am on April 2, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: aardvark, buzz, gmail, google

  Trying to see the future is good for the imagination and spurring innovation but in my personal opinion isn’t very fun. Furthermore, predicting what a large, highly innovative company with deep pockets will do next either requires some sort of magic eight ball or a knack for making really good guesses. Since I possess none of the above I tend not to participate in making predictions but with Google’s recent moves I thought I’d give it a shot.

  With the recent acquisition of Aardvark and the release of Buzz, Google is adding an additional approach to its social media technology strategy. By adding the “put Google anywhere” model (think Google FriendConnect) with tools that draw users back into their existing products to consume content (Google Buzz) Google is looking to cover a lot of ground in the social media space.

  Now with Aardvark under the umbrella I have a feeling things could get really interesting. Here’s 5 reasons why I believe Google will roll Aardvark into Buzz.

  1. Access to friends – one of the greatest and meaningful features of Aardvark is that you can get answers to any question from anyone and you don’t even have to know them. Heck your social graphs don’t even have to come close to one another. However, I believe that every once in awhile you want answers from your friends or at least the colleagues you respect or have a rapport with. Integrating Aardvark into Buzz will give users the best of both worlds.
  2. Relevance – Another strong point of Aardvark is the way it matches questions to those who have expressed knowledge or expertise in the particular subject matter. Using this “classification” will allow any Buzz user to wear a hat of expertise and offer their knowledge to others.
  3. Access to answers (and questions) – Google at its core, is about search and since Aardvark is about questions I believe it’s safe to assume that the new acquisition is about searching for relevant answers to ANY question.
  4. User experience – I believe a fusion of Buzz and Aardvark would make a powerful and extremely useful tool for users. Being able to ask a question, review responses and derive answers in one place will make Buzz a contextual king and ultimately drive more accuracy and relevance for its search results.
  5. Where else would they want to put it? – This is my most straight forward prediction. Simply put, aside from renaming Aardvark “Google Ask” or “Google Answer” I can’t imagine where else they would put it and maintain a high level accessibility. Keeping it as a standalone product isn’t a bad idea but providing results (answers) within a familiar system just seems more appropriate.

  Look I’m not expert and to be honest all of my reasons are shots in the dark. For all I know Google may keep Aardvark exactly the way it is, though history tells us differently. I just thought I’d take a shot, now let’s sit back and watch. Actually… Let’s take cue from Aardvark and ask a question. What do you think?

 
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  5 Reasons I Use Skribit

  Justin 3:08 am on January 25, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: skribit, social

  Ok, I’m just going to put it out there! Writing for a personal blog, consistently, is likely one of the most challenging task of my online life. Between my to-do list, ongoing projects, staying connected with friends and family and answering email, I rarely have the time needed to consistently produce quality content for my blog. Add in the fact that it’s hard to come up with topics and my blog is often a content disaster. Though the first set of excuses are completely on me, there is a solution to the second on. Enter Skribit.  At its core Skribit is a tool that enables you to take suggestions for your blog or website and manage those recommendations in one spot. It also lets you see what the rest of the web is planning to write about, keeping you abreast of trending topics and possibly inspiring your next blog post. Now there are quite a few other features that make Skribit great but I’ll leave that up to the tour. Now the site does a great job of revealing its features but I didn’t want miss the opportunity to tell you why I use Skribit!

  5 Reasons Why I Use Skribit

  1. It’s really helpful- Though I only have a few hundred unique visitors per month, the suggestion box seems to be a place for the “regulars” to voice their opinions about what I should write about next.
  2. Easy to use – I literally installed the Skribit widget in about 30 seconds. Once I did, I immediately shared it with friends and family to see if there was anything I should write about (since I cover such a wide range of topics). Another idea is to add a link to your Skribit blog profile into the signature of your emails and/or email marketing messages.
  3. Flexible – I imagine that the team over at Skribit’s initial idea was for bloggers, but the service can really be used for just about anything. In just a few minutes you can integrate it on websites, Facebook profiles (tricky but doable), corporate blogs or any other site you may create original content for. I suppose it’s up to you.
  4. The team – Paul Stamatiou, Lance and the rest of the Skribit team are great people. Lance has given me quite a few pointers on a couple of my startups and Paul is just a good guy to know in the Atlanta (always in the know).
  5. It’s an Atlanta startup – Skribit is an Atlanta based startup and is one of a handful of startups still in active development from Atlanta’s Startup Weekend. Though I believe you can build a great startup anywhere, I do believe in supporting Atlanta based startups, so if not for the other 4 reasons I would support them because they’re based in Atlanta alone.

  Well have you signed up yet? If not check it out and let me know your thoughts. Oh and feel free to suggest something… my Skribit widget is located on the left.

 
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  Social Networking Sites Killing Email?

  Justin 7:04 pm on March 16, 2008 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Email Marketing (7), Social Media (4), Social Networking

  Ok ESPs, inbox providers and ISPs, relax. Email is just fine, I just wanted to get your attention, but you should still pay close attention to the question. Here’s an excerpt captured from a recent article I read;

  For the first time last month, traffic to social networks overtook traffic to web-based email services in the UK. Top networks Facebook, Bebo and MySpace took 5.17% of all UK Internet visits, with only 4.98% going to email services including Hotmail, Yahoo Mail and Gmail.

  If you pay close attention you will see that this took place in the UK, where email already gives way to SMS, but I have to wonder whether we will see a similar trend in the US. If so, then the first question I have to ask is; How will this shift in communication preference influence eMarketers that use email as a primary point of communication?

  Another reason this is particularly interesting, to me, is because I previously wrote a post about how social networks started with email. In that article I made mention to the fact that social networks, were a mashup of web 1.0 technologies, that simply faded away in late last century. This, recent, statistical observation reiterates my point, and raise another very big question; are social networks just the evolution of email, or the Texas sized asteriod that will crash into the Planet Email and kill the now pre-historic communication medium? Ok, i’ll admit it’s a bit dramatic, especially considering email is still a baby compared to other forms of communication. Nonetheless, as technology evolves you have to wonder, does the exponential growth rate of technology mean that we will see the product life cycle of internet technologies become shorter? Or does it simply mean that the product evolution cycle will become more and more obvious. I’m not sure, but there is plenty of room to imagine where this is all going. Just something to think about. What do you think?

 
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  Social Networking started with email

  Justin 2:46 am on November 3, 2007 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Email Marketing (7), Internet Marketing (5), Social Media (4)

  Absurd. Right? Well, I recently jotted down some of the reasons I originally started to use email and compared it to the reasons I joined a few social networks. I soon discovered that the fundamental reasons I use social networks, is very similar to the original reasons I use email.

  Before social networks, people would share their photos, interest, and information through email, and before that… well let’s not go there. Online photo galleries would soon give people the ability to share photos and experiences with family member and friends and on many occasions the world, extending the amount of people a person could touch with just a few extra clicks of a mouse. Next came personal websites and the concept of a guestbook. Remember those? A guestbook would allow people people to enter their email address, web address, or name and leave a message on your page(Today we call it a wall). These messages, though now visible to anyone, look very similar to basic conversation style emails you would receive from a friend or colleague. Today social network users have; an inbox, where they can carry a dialog through one-to-one messaging, a photo gallery where people can tag, comment and exchange experiences, a wall where people call publicly post comments and more.

  I know that this observation is vague, but if you really take a step back and think about the nature of a social network you may realize that it is basically, and I stress the simplicity, the connection of; email, photo galleries, and personal websites with guestbooks. Of course with the addition of widgets, videos, and broadband connections, sharing information, photos and one’s digital-self has becomes easier, and faster, than ever before, but even with the progressive nature of the internet, the fundamental reason to use a social network stems from the same reasons people originally use email. Again I stress the fact that this observation seems fairly simple, and doesn’t take into account the sophisticated nature of a social networks today, but you really have to ask yourself. Is the social network one of the internet’s first Mashups? Just something to think about.

  -Justin D.