Lotusphere Day 1: Twitter versus blogs
January 19 2009
There is an interesting change in the dynamic of sharing information and providing feedback at this Lotusphere. At least from my side of the table as the vendor, I am finding myself watching the Twitter #LS09 stream (11th most-popular hashtag at the moment) and the people I follow a lot more than I'm checking the blogs.
Both are useful and important ways of hearing what you all have to say about Lotusphere. Both provide a sense of the good and not so good -- which is important, because my colleagues and other execs have been asking all day "what are you hearing?" But it was truly amazing to be watching the Twitter stream during the opening session, breakouts like BP304, and yesterday's general session to get a really honest, unprocessed feel for how things are going.
Hit counts on PlanetLotus are pretty low. I realize a lot of the bloggers and users of that site are here, but I also think that microblogging is far more consumable when you are at a conference and in this kind of setting than the regular blogs are.
I also picked up a slew of new followers today -- looks like somewhere north of 60. Many are here at the conference, so that seems to imply that you, too, are finding the Twitter stream to be a (more) valuable source while you're here.
This has some interesting implications. Would we have a twitterer seating section in the OGS? Would we invite Friendfeed participants to an executive Q&A? How soon before Yelp has its own chat board, criticizing the temperature of the ballrooms and the number of grains of rice used per rice krispie treat at the breaks?
What I'm saying is, it will probably take weeks to digest everything that has been said online during Lotusphere 2009. As a source, though, it's been really nice for me, since I've been in so many meetings and much less available for the social pleasantries that are as much a part of Lotusphere for the IBMers as they are for you as attendees. The Twitter stream really makes me feel like I am caught up with my friends and customers/partners/extended community that I'm close with, even if I haven't shaken hands yet this week.
On Tuesday, I'll be hosting Lotusphere Idol!, the Lotus+Apple BoF (though I'll be leaving early, but John Beck from my team will take over), the blogger news gathering, and one of about six different evening functions. In other words, I'm not sure where I'll be yet -- but you can be sure I'll let you know via Twitter.
Post a Comment
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Michael | 1/19/2009 11:27:42 PM
Agree. I've been following twitter (probably more than I should) and the updates are constant and realtime. I actually landed here at your blog via twitter rather than planetlotus.org as twitter is more current and is what I'm wanting to follow for the moment.
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Harald Gaerttner | 1/20/2009 5:49:10 AM
I used the live-blog provided from Paul Mooney for updates of OGS. Just put the frame of the live-stream in the Notes Sidebar as a widget and I could perfectly follow the action without interrupting my work too much ;-)
- 4
Jos Balster http//www.nidera.com | 1/20/2009 9:15:44 AM
Is there any posting of the OGS? Youtube?
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Bilal Jaffery http://www.Bilal.ca | 1/20/2009 10:28:05 AM
I agree, I have also noticed more traffic through #LS09 (@bilaljaffery) twitter stream as opposed to the blog postings. Its logical as its lot easier to follow as well -- iPhones, Blackberries and netbooks!
Bilal Jaffery
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Martin Koser http://www.frogpond.de | 1/21/2009 3:59:29 AM
Indeed there's a kind of shift in conference blogging, both from the side of people contributing content and those reading up on the events.
Tweeting during keynotes and speeches was something very common at LeWeb too. Few of the conference bloggers tackled the challenge to live-blog (which is indeed stressful and a pretty tense job) but decided to tweet first and compile those tweets into posts later on, while some went the middle road and tweeted/blogged with services like coveritlive.
The point is that this is not so much of a trade-off / either/or or versus situation, but something to be used in combination for best use.
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Tony Hollingsworth http://twitter.com/LotusEnergizers | 2/20/2010 8:44:57 PM
Hi Ed,
Being in Sydney I was thrilled to see the IBM Lotus community embrace live-tweeting this year. It's incredibly valuable for learning, sharing, and validating the zeitgeist, and I'm just getting started on its value here.
I'd like to share a couple of resources with your readers.
Firstly, I posted on live-tweeting etiquette recently and received some interesting comments:
{ Link }
Secondly, to your point about "taking weeks to digest everything said online" I would agree. Something I've found useful is the ability to "Feed for this query" option in Twitter Search. I first heard about this feature from Chris Brogan via his "How to Listen for Opportunities on Twitter" post:
{ Link }
I'd be happy to present or explain on these concepts to your team in more detail - don't hesitate to get in touch.
Best regards,
Tony Hollingsworth
I agree Ed - I can see where microblogging is easier for physical attendees - also, sitting out here in fly-over country - I have been following the events of LS09 (including the OGS) much more via microblogging than PlanetLotus (love it) and directly to blogs.