Twitter for session info?

Subject: Twitter for session info?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 01 Jul 09 - 07:44 PM

I've just joined Twitter. Haven't found anything much to do with it yet, but it occurred to me that it might be a good way to announce times and places for sessions.

But there may be issues to think about before leaping in.

If I was going to do that I'd like to confine myself to those where I can actually visit and check out myself or else talk to their participants face to face, i.e. not far from Edinburgh.

I'd probably create a special account just for this. Would it be worth having another account to announce the birth and death of Twitter session-announcement accounts? Or is the follower/following mechanism already flexible enough to deal with that?

Subject: RE: Twitter for session info?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 04:06 AM

Rarely bother with it, but I've used twitter.com/davidfranks just to show the few mini-gigs I've done as an amateur. (Otherwise, can't really do much with this particular craze, and some have nicknamed it Myspace for Millionaires - as it suits those already famous from other media.)

Subject: RE: Twitter for session info?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 08:29 AM

I'm not just interested in saying where I'm playing.

I've added a sample to mine: www.twitter.com/JackCampin

I probably won't be at either of them.

Anybody else already doing that sort of thing?

Subject: RE: Twitter for session info?
From: Ernest
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 01:06 PM

Why not create a competiting service for musicians - you could call it diddler...

;0)
Ernest

Subject: RE: Twitter for session info?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 01:33 PM

it suits those already famous from other media

Or those with something to say that people want to know about.

I've added a few more.

Subject: RE: Twitter for session info?
From: Leadfingers
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 03:13 PM

The session seeker would have t0 know the Twitter I D of EVERYBODY who might be at the session !
Far better to put the ibfo on a site like Session.org !

Subject: RE: Twitter for session info?
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 03:45 PM

Twtter is SUCH an appropriate name for that particular 'social network' site

Subject: RE: Twitter for session info?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 03:53 PM

I think it is a great idea. I imagine the younger or more technically diverse crowd is already doing it..years ago they said that Finnish teens always knew where the crowd was forming via texting etc. mg

Subject: RE: Twitter for session info?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 06:19 PM

The session seeker would have t0 know the Twitter I D of EVERYBODY who might be at the session !

No - it's just to announce when it's happening. You only need to know the ID of the person doing the announcements (me, in this instance).

The good thing about Twitter is that you can know how timely the information is. There are far too many session calendars out there listing events that have stopped or moved. It's like the difference between a Yellow Pages listing and chalk on the pavement.

I looked in to the bluegrass session I was announcing for tonight - the place was so crowded I couldn't have got a spot to play in, even if I'd been carrying a sensible instrument (the idea of bluegrass oud is too off-the-wall even for me, and oud is what I'd just been playing elsewhere).

Subject: RE: Twitter for session info?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Jul 09 - 11:40 PM

You have to attract folk followers if you want to use twitter to send them news of folk events. Search for them and follow, or invite them to join by sending them an email through twitter (see the option in the "find people" tab) and perhaps they'll follow you back.

SRS

Subject: RE: Twitter for session info?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 05:24 AM

You can access a Twitter page without following - just open the link. If you just want to pick up the information, it doesn't matter which you do.

It would take ages to track down the Twitter IDs of everybody who might be interested - web forums like Mudcat and Footstompin, or the homepage on my website, are a better way to publicize the thing initially.

Subject: RE: Twitter for session info?
From: GUEST,PeterC
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 02:09 PM


You only need to know the ID of the person doing the announcements

Exactly, you can only find out about a new session by knowing that somebody is starting a new session.

Subject: RE: Twitter for session info?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 02:31 PM

I listed six, none of which I started and only one of which I'm a regular at.

You reminded me to add another one.

Subject: RE: Twitter for session info?
From: open mike
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 04:31 PM

we don't need no stinkin' twitter...
we gots mudcat!..


i keep getting invitations to go to linked in
i am so linked up , faced out, spaced in, i
can't see getting any more linked than i am!

then there is this site: http://www.folkjam.org/
(possibly only U.S.)

Subject: RE: Twitter for session info?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 06:06 PM

Folkjam is horrendously slow and clunky compared with Twitter.

Most of the screen area is ads.

It uses the same dropdown menu of countries that many other sites use, which lists the Heard and Macdonald Islands as an option (should you want to sing along with a herd of penguins) but not Scotland.

It doesn't seem to list anything within 113km of Edinburgh when you finally manage to navigate there.

I've posted session info like that on my Twitter page to Mudcat before. I can't edit it, and can only search for it by using Google. Nobody's ever sent me a PM to tell me of any changes I need to make. It's gathering dust, getting more and more untrustworthy and inaccurate with every month that passes.

Local, fast and personal is the way to go.

Subject: RE: Twitter for session info?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 03 Jul 09 - 06:50 PM

Okay, looking at Folkjam on a more sophisticated browser I see there are three regular session/singarounds listed near Edinburgh - they have also been listed on my website for a few years, but aren't on my Twitter page since they feature very little of the kinds of music I'm interested in. (The Folkjam listing is out of date - there's a fourth session in the same area for the other Friday of the month, which has been going for a few months now; follow links from my site to find out about it).

Something so heavy on features and with so little content isn't the way forward.

Subject: RE: Twitter for session info?
From: GUEST,Scott
Date: 04 Jul 09 - 03:54 PM

Jack,

Is is that the listings on folkjam are out of date, or is it that nobody in your local music community has posted the details of this new jam?

We've chatted in the past about folkjam's goal of lowering the bar to posting the details of local jams. Some folks like to spend the time building their own listings website - a wonderful thing - others just want to post jam details somewhere where they can keep the listing up to date as needed.


"Something so heavy on features and with so little content isn't the way forward."

I agree entirely that the uptake outside of the US has not been as strong as it has been within the US - listings in your area are sparse. So what's the top feature you recommend we remove from folkjam.org?

Scott
folkjam.org co-founder

Subject: RE: Twitter for session info?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 04 Jul 09 - 06:31 PM

There isn't any one feature I'd say you could easily live without - the maps are placed too centrally in the design and your advertisers presumably wouldn't want you to offer an ad-free version.   But the thing has grown to the point where it no longer works on some browsers (like the ancient one I'm typing this on, and at a guess all but the very latest mobile phones).

A graphics-free version (suitable for the blind, people using low-tech internet cafes when travelling, and people using cheaper mobile equipment on expensive tariffs) would presumably be a lot faster and more portable/accessible. But it would end up looking like Twitter anyway, so why reinvent it?

Subject: RE: Twitter for session info?
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 12:27 AM

Jack,

While this is not exactly what you were looking for, it sounds like our regionalised RSS feeds will do what you want.

Here's one for your area. Plain, simple, text only.

http://www.folkjam.org/feed/jam/geo/55.9501755/-3.1875359

There's more detail on how to get at these RSS feeds on http://www.folkjam.org/help/rss

One common use is for folks to embed listings on their own web site. Even though you already list the nearby jams on your personal page, the one thing you probably don't do is keep the next date of each session up to date. The RSS feed will do that. Here is an example from dulcimers.com where they got of the business of keeping the jams on their site up to date by using this service (free) from folkjam.org.


On the maps being very central to the design about a year ago my position was the same as yours and I designed the map out of the site's front page. Reviews with a smattering of regular and irregular users of the site on that change were very negative - Our "market research" (loosely applied term) said that the prominent map was a critical feature of the site.

So what browser do you use?

Scott

Subject: RE: Twitter for session info?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 04:54 AM

Yep, that RSS feed looks like the business. I'd guess there is some way of making it interwork with Twitter, too. (I'm too new to twittering to know how).

I've started hash-tagging my tweets, following a suggestion from somebody on Footstompin. I'll get more systematic about that when I know all the implications.

Maybe our attitudes to maps are to do with material culture. I'm expecting hardly anybody to travel to a session by car - that's the norm in British cities. So a map is secondary, something you can find for yourself on Google or Multimap if you want one. In a place where you're always going by car you'll want a map up-front.

Subject: RE: Twitter for session info?
From: Tootler
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 04:20 PM

I'm expecting hardly anybody to travel to a session by car - that's the norm in British cities.

That's not true round here. Many sessions/folk clubs are out of town or otherwise in locations where public transport is inadequate so a car becomes a necessity. It would be nice to go to my favourite sessions by public transport, but it simply isn't practical. Public transport on Teesside is rather poor.

Geoff

Subject: RE: Twitter for session info?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 06 Jul 09 - 04:34 PM

So what browser do you use?

I've used three different ones in the last ten minutes - Firefox 3 on MacOS Tiger, Safari ditto (last resort, I hate it), and iCab 2.9.9 on MacOS 9 (what I use most of the time, and for Mudcat in particular). I also use Internet Explorer on Windows 2000, at work, and have used things based on Windows 98 at internet cafes when travelling..

I have just discovered the mobile interface to Twitter: Mobile version of my page. That's more like it. Loads faster on this pre-G3 Mac than the full version of Twitter does on a recent Intel MacMini. If I just want an answer to "what's on tonight?", what more do I need?

Subject: RE: Twitter for session info?
From: MMario
Date: 02 Jul 10 - 10:15 AM

YOu have to be a registered user; and logged in.

Subject: RE: Twitter for session info?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 02 Jul 10 - 03:11 PM

No you don't.

Try this: http://m.twitter.com/JackCampin

Subject: RE: Twitter for session info?
From: Girl Friday
Date: 17 Oct 10 - 06:49 PM

You can have your tweets embedded on any website you have already. This gets the message across to many interested parties as look at the site.

Subject: RE: Twitter for session info?
From: GUEST,Desi C
Date: 04 Dec 10 - 10:15 AM

I use it regularly to Plug our folk club nights. good a wawy as any, thogh not sure it's brought us any newcomers. No extra account needed though. Good luck

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