Real time is not fast enough these days

Some of you may have seen my Tweet from a few weeks ago that said:

First it was about blogging what you've done, then Tweet & 4Sq what you're doing, now its Plancasting what you will be doing... what next?

This is in relation to the evolving change of the social web, from a reporting medium (such as this blog) to a real-time communication system (via Twitter streams) and then potentially onto a way of scheduling what you're going to be doing.

To try this out I've tried 'plancasting', a site where you say where you will be and when you will be there. The aim being that you can coordiate your activity with others. However not everyone is using these tools yet and to a certain extent the jury is still out on whether the future planning of your activity will gain mass adoption.
Also to be frank... it does kind of take the flexibility out of your plans when you've told all your followers (and therefore potentially everyone and also nobody at the same time) when and where you will be. But who knows... it could become the next big thing...

To perhaps quote the Sci-Fi writer William Gibson might be most apt: "The future has arrived, it’s just not evenly distributed yet"

When does social media become stalking?

I'm all in favour of real-time social media. Using Twitter and Foursquare tells my colleagues, clients and friends where I am, plus now Plancast tells everyone where I'm going to be in the future. It means I get more personal with contacts and also tells my wife where I am and therefore my likelihood that I'm going to be home to help with the domestic duties.

But hang on... where do you draw the line between following someone on social media and stalking them? And aren't I by constantly broadcasting my: location, thoughts and intentions just encouraging this?

Things are even getting a little to personal for my liking. For example you can now use the new Sleeping Time tool http://www.sleepingtime.org/ to find out the most likely time a person doesn't use Twitter and therefore when they sleep (and its assessment is about right!). What's next?

The issue of providing your status updates to Twitter and other geotagging and location-based social media was highlighted last month with the development of http://pleaserobme.com/. This site shows when people are away from their homes and therefore when they could be burgled. The developers claim it was doing a social good by 'Raising awareness about over-sharing', but it has subsequently closed due to a security backlash, however it did bring the subject of telling everyone where you are all the time to the fore.

Has social media gone too far and openned up our lives a little too much now?

Travel and Social Media - Part 2

It was over 3 weeks ago now that I attended to Tnooz Barcamp 2 following the Travel technology Show at Earls Court in London. It was then I promised in a short blog posting (written on the way home from that event) on the use of Social Media in the travel market.
This is that eventual article.

Now the main purpose of an company using social media must be to create a dialogue with customers (past, current and potential).

Top of all the social media use by travel companies must come blogs. The web log (hence 'blog) was meant as a living diary of things done, so it comes as no suprise that trabel and blogs go hand-in-hand. In fact blogs now contain thousands of travel commentaries and reports from travellers who provide open, eye-witness and contemporary review points.

I'll not try and list my own favourites, so here's travelblog's list of the Top 100 Travel Blogs this month:
http://travelblogsites.com/2010/03/03/travel-blog-top-100-march-03-2010/

Note:
Its therefore a little hard to understand why the Travel Social Nework 'Where are you Now?' (http://www.wayn.com/) isn't more popular than it is. However it seems that during 2009 new registrations to WAYN grew significantly and new registrations in the site reached nearly 10,000 in December.

And suprisingly some of the other social networks I would have expected to have been popular with travellers, such as Twitter and Flickr (the most popular photo sharing site, now owned by Yahoo). These two sites came comparatively low down the ranks of usage when compared to the giants of Facebook and video sharing YouTube in a recent Hotelworld survey;
http://www.tnooz.com/2010/02/23/news/twitter-way-down-list-of-social-media-sites-used-by-budget-travellers/

So what's next for Travel and Social Media? Well... I've a hunch its going to involve innovations such as real-time geolocation based services (e.g. foursquare.com, where you tell friends where you are right now) or even the new planning / event / location based service http://plancast.com/