Blog | Archive for February, 2008
Trampoline begins 2008 with two prestigious award nominations
By Charles Armstrong | Tuesday, February 5th, 2008
Trampoline has received two award nominations recognising its leadership in enterprise social computing.First, Trampoline has been nominated for the Partnering for Innovation Award at the UK Technology Innovation and Growth Awards 2008. The nomination recognises the strong partnership between Oracle and Trampoline which has brought together the world’s largest enterprise software company with Trampoline’s enterprise social computing techniques.
Secondly, Trampoline has been nominated for Emerging Business Partner of the Year at the Oracle UK Partner Awards. We brought home the gong for Innovation at the ceremony last year so we’re hoping for a second year of success.
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Twitter FTW
By mike | Monday, February 4th, 2008
So, the Facebook hype dust has settled and what we’re left with is a solid, social networking platform. I check my feed several times a day. But since Facebook added per-feed-item preferences I’ve started to notice exactly what it is I’m interested in hearing about my friends… and it’s Twitter.Applications are a great way to broadcast your identity and they fulfil what I think is the most underrated of Maslow’s needs – esteem. The thing is, I already know all my friends on Facebook. I’ve met them all in the real world. Applications are an entertaining distraction but they aren’t sticky. Not for me, at least. What I come back for is the status updates – the contact with my friends – the ambient intimacy. I think applications were key to Facebook’s adoption – a soft, understandable way to get people interested – but it’s presence that’s of lasting interest. If anything, the applications have become a noisy albatross, distracting from the core signal.
Facebook’s genius was wrapping the new behaviour of broadcasting status in a consumable package. Presence, identity and ‘is’. It all fits perfectly. I’m glad that Facebook have finally removed the compulsory ‘is’ from their status input but I think that, initially, that little word provided a vital hint to the function of the box. Without it I’m not sure as many people would have grasped the concept. And that’s the problem Twitter has come up against: understanding.
From the very beginning I’ve had trouble explaining why I use Twitter. I love the sense of community and the constant stream of society that I get from it but I could never get that across to anyone. Why would I want to broadcast what I’m doing? Well, because my friends do. I like hearing from them so I’m reciprocating. These days I describe it as “Facebook status updates but without the applications crap”.
That description does Twitter a terrible disservice but it’s the simplest analogy I can find. What’s interesting though is that the functionality I derive from Twitter, despite its simplicity, actually covers off both Facebook status updates and wall posts (public but directed comments, via the @username convention) with one input field. It’s everything I’m interested in with none of the crap.
And its openness is a massive benefit where Facebook’s walled garden is going to become more and more of a hindrance. I log in to Facebook a few times a day to check my feed; I have Adium open receiving Twitter updates constantly. Twitter wins – it’s got more of my attention.
Twitter FTW!
Posted in Organisations & Technology | No Comments »