The continued growth of social networks is the strongest indicator of that trend, but the explosion of microblogging is another that bears watching, is worthy of your participation sooner-rather-than-later, as it’s already beginning to shift how early adopters in Minnesota are connecting with one another.

If you’re reading this blog post — whether directly on Minnov8, through an aggregated feed like the one at CentralStandardTech, or a publication we support with our content, MinnPost — you’re already familiar with blogging.

Though blogging is still one of the best ways to connect with people, inexpensively self-publish, create search engine friendly frequently updated content, or be a ‘container’ in which one can place value and position oneself as a a thought leader, good blogging requires significant time and effort in order to build and maintain an audience.

Microblogging, on the other hand, is a method to quickly publish small snippets of commentary or value — usually 140 characters or less that is somewhat like a persistent instant message, public in nature — and is therefore much easier to update when the mood strikes. Add to that the ability to make a brief comment and include a web link URL if so desired (so people can go out and read or view what you’re pointing them to on the Web) allows anyone publishing in this way to have their “followers” or audience quickly read that snippet, comment on it, forward it on, or let it stream by as other content appears from other followed microbloggers.

Minnesotans have embraced microblogging and its promise is that it will help to shift the way we all connect with one another, are alerted to items of interest, and even to collectively be engaged in running commentary like what has been exhibited during the various presidential or vice presidential debates where people were making real-time comments sent over Twitter.

The first mover in the microblogging space was Twitter. During the 2007 South by Southwest conference in Austin, TX, Twitter setup up 51″ displays that showed the ongoing stream of “tweets” as they’re called, alerting attendees to parties, bands and other must-attend venues. In a short time, many of the top bloggers attending were gushing about Twitter, and many of us following those bloggers signed up and starting using Twitter to see what all the fuss was about with this new service.

Unfortunately, as Twitter exploded in use it had scalability issues. The site and service was often down, updates didn’t refresh properly, and the outcry from the tech community was relentless. One reason its use grew so quickly was not just the number of people signing up and using it, but also because Twitter (perhaps too early) released an application programming interface (API) that enabled developers to create new applications that used the underlying Twitter architecture.

If you’d care to view a dizzying array of applications making use of the Twitter infrastructure, you can do so here.

This didn’t stop people from using it, but the pressure made them address it quickly. It also helped other microblogging services obtain new users such as FriendFeed (an aggregrator of all your digital breadcrumbs left around the internet); Pownce; the open source identi.ca; and even a recently introduced private, enterprise-class version called Yammer.

Uses of microblogging are numerous and include everything from instant notifications of earthquakes, grassfires and other events, to live updates from news organizations, political campaigns and even auto-microblog-postings when a blog post or article is published by a microblogging person or organization.

This is one way Minnesotans are using microblogging. Here’s a random list of microbloggers to give you a sense of what’s out there and whom you could follow:

+ PoliticsMN

+ Minnesota Historical Society

+ MN Headhunter

+ KARE 11

+ UofMN Golden Gophers

+ MinneMom

+ Minnov8

+ ComicTwit

+ Finally, here’s a Twitter search for tweets within 100 miles of Minneapolis, which will give you a sense of the volume of people actively engaged in this service within Minnesota.

IS TWITTER THE PERFECT COMMUNICATION MEDIUM?
Not by a long shot and some have even pointed out the uselessness of microblogging. But if you consider how the internet, web and access to it with desktop/laptop computers, smartphones and netbooks has made it even more important in all of our lives, then evolutionary communication mediums like microblogging are important stepping stones along the path toward richer, more robust and deeper human connections.

Some find microblogging a distraction, especially since real-time updating clients have emerged (e.g., Twhirl) that require fairly frequent attention be paid as messages keep appearing and then scrolling off the page into the ether.

Others point out that there is trouble with microblogging exacerbating the negative trend of a “sound bite” culture since too many people already focus only on the “headlines” and not the “article or story”. This headline-only nature is akin to how many people only skim newspaper headlines with disturbing assumptive results, “Carjacking in St. Paul by Two Teenage Males” with the article stating, “Today’s apparent carjacking victim realized she was completely unaware of any danger as two Roseville teenage boys pulled her out of her rear-engined car as flames began shooting out from under the hood.”

Even BusinessWeek has weighed in with several articles, most importantly this one from May of 2008 entitled, “Why Twitter Matters“:

Businesses such as H&R Block (HRB) and Zappos are now using Twitter to respond to customer queries. Market researchers look to it to scope out minute-by-minute trends. Media groups are focusing on Twitterers as first-to-the-scene reporters. (They were on top of the May 12 China earthquake within minutes.) Loads of new applications and services are growing around the Twitter platform, leading some to suggest that the microblogging service could become a powerhouse in social media.

More likely is that Twitter, Pownce, Yammer and other microblogging ‘platforms’ will continue to evolve and increasingly become personalized conduits within which alerts, notifications, links and even GPS-location based photos or updates will be sent to those following the person or organization sending the message.

One thing is clear, however, and that is Minnesotans have already embraced microblogging and are incorporating it into daily life.

+ Definition of microblogging

+ Microblogging News

+ The Microblogger: a blog about microblogging (is this paradoxical?)

Minnesota Microblogging is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

As you can see from Phil Wilson’s Unsummit post, there were those who ignored the hype and chose to do their own (free) concurrent event at a nearby pub, thank you very much. (Okay, many of them were too cheap to pay the big MIMA fee.) And the MIMA folks actually cheered them on (even from the stage the day of the two events), since they felt bad they couldn’t have accommodated more people. But the venue — the very nice Depot downtown — could literally take no more. (MIMA has vowed to find a bigger site next year though that won’t be easy — maybe the Convention Center?) This year’s attendance, I believe, was something north of 700. MIMA’s membership is now about 950, but the Summit’s attendees also included some non-members and invited speakers, of course.

So, how did the event go?  This was my first year attending (they have not given press passes to us lowly bloggers in the past), so I went courtesy of my employer, to do some serious working of the crowd.  My assessment: the hype didn’t quite meet the reality as far as the overall content, as quality conferences go. But this is an association, after all, not a professional conference producer. And don’t we all kinda forgive a certain percentage of marketing build-up most of the time?  Nonetheless, the logistics were handled quite well, and my hat’s off to the MIMA officers and their band of volunteers who pulled this thing off. (I’m sure they’ve worked out a lot of bugs over the several years they’ve sponsored this event.)

As with any event like this, I attend much more for the people, the networking, the connections, and that part was excellent. The chance to exchange notes and news with your peers, meet new folks in our amazing marketing and advertising community, and meet out-of-town speakers as well made the event very worthwhile. As they say, it’s what goes on in the hallways that matters, not in the meeting rooms. In the age of Conversational Marketing, this was indeed a blab fest of the highest order.

The highlight of the day for most everyone was surely the lunch speaker, Ze Frank. This guy is a polished, well coached and practiced speaker to large audiences (including the likes of the TED conference and other high-brow affairs), and he did not disappoint. The man is flat-out funny and entertaining. He’s a bona fide Internet celebrity since launching his first video (him dancing) several years ago, a video that went viral beyond all viral to that date. (He talked about getting a $30,000 bandwidth bill from his ISP after that experience.)  See more about the Ze Frank Show at this page of his archived links or visit his blog at www.ZeFrank.com. (By the way, if you want to be cool, you pronounce his first name “zay.”)

It’s a good thing Ze was so well received, because the earlier keynote, to open the event, was horrid. Note to planners: one hour is too long, and editors may write well, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they know how to speak. (I live-Twittered the event: here’s my archive page, which is six screen shots of my tweets, starting with the beginning of the event on top.)

So, what else did I pick up about the event, what was the overall buzz?  Well, there were those who said it wasn’t “interactive enough,” which is an interesting take for a gathering of interactive marketers. But it can be hard to have participatory discussions with such a large group (impossible?), even in the breakout sessions — some of which easily drew 150+ in packed rooms with many standing.  Choosing breakout sessions is always a challenge, and I missed some very good ones because, well, I had to make one choice each session. I’m sure many went away feeling the same.  There were just too many not-to-miss talks scheduled concurrently (not good planning on the part of MIMA) — six each in two particular sessions! Way too difficult to choose, and jumping from one to another, to catch two concurrent sessions you like, just never really works.

Funny thing was, two other breakout sessions had four choices each and were largely duds — none of the choices had much appeal to me at all.  So, I left feeling I missed what could have been some really good content.  Example: I just had to attend “Mobile…2009 and Beyond” (which was good), but missed the concurrent session with the Zappos guy talking about “Making the Customer Connection in 140 Characters or Less” (that would be Twitter). But I made up for it by chatting with him at the cocktail reception later.

I was only able to catch two other breakout sessions: one on ad exchanges vs. networks (by Google), which was only mildly interesting to anyone except a media buyer, and another called “Marketing Mix Challenge,” which had four panelists describe how they would spend “only” $500k on a fictitious consumer product launch. I heard criticism later from people on that one who just don’t relate to the large agency world, which thinks $500k is a small budget.

But, all in all, it was as successful an event as each individual made it to be. And I made it a good one — lots of great new connections with whom I look forward to following up.

MIMA Summit Packs The Depot is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

After vacations and business travel this summer, we carve out time on a Saturday morning for another Minnov8 Gang podcast with Episode 3.

In it we talk about several Minnesota startups and companies (including our own, with some admittedly self-serving comments!):

- PartnerUp Being Acquired by Deluxe Check

- Former HighJump CTO, Steve Kickert’s new company Riverock and his first product launch OnePlace

- Watching for new companies in stealth mode like BeWiki

- DoApp, Cullect, ComicTwit, Localtone Radio

- Social Media Breakfast, Twin Cities group

- Julio Ojeda-Zapata of the Pioneer Press (personal blog; TwinCities.com) is writing a book being released shortly, “twitter means business: how microblogging can help or hurt your business” (book jacket here)

- Minnesota Ultra-High_Speed Broadband Task Force (Minnov8 posts about this initiative here and here).

Thanks for listening!

Minnov8 Gang Podcast – Episode 3 is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.