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End User internet social networking

#140conf London – a melting pot for realtime communications

Today I’m with Jeff Pulver at his #140 conference at the O2 Indigo. Jeff originally (not that long ago actually so to use the word originally seems a little strange) started the #140conferences in February as a vehicle to capitalise on the Twitter revolution.

Very quickly the theme of the conference has moved on to real time communications, rather than Twitter specifically although Twitter is still mentioned in every other sentence by every speaker.

Sitting here listening to the talks what strikes me is the complete diversity of people appearing on the stage – ranging from international media stars (ie Stephen Fry) the Chief Marketing Officer of Kodak, a farmer, an off license owner, a teacher, and a policeman to name but a few. Big business is here and so is small business

I’m not going to dwell on specific talks, although Stephen Fry interestingly uses the example of the invention of the printing press to compare with what is happening now on the internet with Twitter. I’m sure he pinched it from me because that is what I use for my new starter induction talk at Timico 🙂

Notably Kodak also ran a competition to name a new camera on Twitter. It was a  fast way of running a focus group with a huge number of people.

The biggest take away for me so far is the use of the word “authenticity”.  There is so much rubbish out there on the internet (Twitter, Facebook, blogland, everywhere) that you have to really have something to say to make an impact. Just rehashing other people’s stuff isn’t good enough, although I am always grateful for “retweets”. 

Being ruthless I have on occasion “defriended” people who indulge in uninteresting status updates.  I’m sure people have done the same with me – you have to be able to take the rough with the smooth.

Trefor Davies

By Trefor Davies

Liver of life, father of four, CTO of trefor.net, writer, poet, philosopherontap.com

2 replies on “#140conf London – a melting pot for realtime communications”

Trefor, thank you for mentioning small business! I was on that panel with the farmer. (I think I’m the off license owner – the liquor store owner – you mention.) Where big corporate messages and celebrity news usually gets the attention, it’s gratifying to have small business catch someone’s attention.

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