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Cold Turkey: Day 2

This is day 2 of my Cold Turkey experiment. For one week I will only get my news from Twitter.  No NPR, no RSS feeds, no newspapers, no website (unless directed to via Twitter), no podcasts and no e-mail subscriptions.

Sometimes its difficult to avoid the news. For example, while watching Tom Brady’s hair defeat the Ravens, I couldn’t help but see the news crawl with sports headline.  Not to mention the email from the boss saying “read this.”  However, with those exceptions, I kept to the rules.  It was painful.

What experiences did I long for during my first cold turkey business day?

  • I missed listening to sports guys relish the Pats OT win; however I did get to enjoy an episode of This American Life.  It’s commentary, not news!
  • I suffered trying to find decent news during my morning commute to the train; I missed checking out the top stories in the WSJ and scanning the paper for topics of interest.
  • I ultimately did turn to a WSJ twitter feed, but it hadn’t been updated since Friday. #newsfail
  • I missed checking the news apps (market news, Mashable & USA Today – say what you will about “McNews”, they have a great app) on my Moto Droid.
  • I want my Google reader back, I WANT MY RSS FEEDS.  I WANT THEM NOW!

Since I’m going “all twitter” I had only one response, find more twitter feeds to add and I did add a few:

  1. Bostonupdate – for local news
  2. Globebiz – for local business news
  3. WSJ – again, no weekend service, no tweets at 8:00 am

So, while day 1, was an annoyance, I felt myself wanting more on day 2.  I need to find a better way.  Hit me back with ideas.

Cold Turkey: Day 1

Today is the first day I’m going Cold Turkey.  For one week I will only get my news from Twitter.  No NPR, no RSS feeds, No newspapers, no website (unless directed to via Twitter), no podcasts and no e-mail subscriptions.

Here’s how the morning has gone so far…

  • Didn’t have to get the news paper out of the driveway for fear of catching the headlines.  +1 for Cold Turkey – didn’t have to go outside this morning, too cold!
  • Couldn’t read the regular blind date article in the Globe magazine (my 2nd favorite part of the Sunday Globe; top fave is Bruins news)
  • I found that the Boston Globe must have 100 twitter accounts associated with their paper.  Check them out here (notice the four tabs)
  • Not having much success finding a good twitter feed for NHL video game recaps, much easier to go to NHL.com  *sigh*
  • The wife is conspiring with the rest of twitterati to post fake news stories to throw me off the scent.

is your klout score accurate?

Recently Augie Ray pointed out that us twitterati can update our klout score on their website.  This caught my attention because I had noticed that my klout score has not changed since it first appeared in my Hootsuite profile.  Recently I’ve been more active after a period of lower activity.  It seemed that my score should have dropped and then raised accordingly.

So I went to klout.com and created an account.  Indeed after clicking a button my klout score jumped a full 20 points.  The site  says user klout scores are updated once a week. The important takeaway from this is that if you want your klout score to reflect your social usage (see how klout measures influence) you need to set up an account with klout.

So far I haven’t seen any clear indication on the klout website  that users need to maintain an account an account with klout in order to get accurate influence score, but my experience points in that direction.  Also, and I could only guess why this is, I’ve noticed a lot of people’s klout scores are not coming up in Hootsuite.

So what might klout’s strategy be?

I noticed that klout is asking for extra profile information.  Klout seems to be acting like KloutIn (clumsy reference to LinkedIn).  Notice the account profile setup routine lifted from LinkedIn.  It is interesting watching so many companies vying to be the “database of record” for social account management.  Measuring influence in social networking is a huge opportunity and if klout becomes the default standard, those that rely on it need understand what it means and be sure their scores are accurate.

So what is the impact of klout’s implementation.  Well, if you rely on klout influence score to help you win business, land speaking deals or just gain the respect of your peers – log in to klout and check your score.  The site provides some interesting data regarding your social experiences.  You can even get a “resume badge”!

Cold Turkey

As an experiment, I’m going to try and get all my news from a twitter feed for one week. 

So, what does that mean? It means:

  • No market info from my WSJ subscription
  • No info from e-mail subscriptions
  • No RSS feeds
  • I will ignore the dozen podcasts I listen to every week
  • No radio…no sports talk radio, no NPR news *shudder*
  • No TV newscasts (that’s an easy one)

Why the heck am I doing this?   If you don’t drive down new roads you never see new sights.  I expect I will overcome adversities and find new social avenues of getting information and news.  What will I lose?  I expect my fantasy hockey team is going to continue to slide towards the cellar.

The fun starts this Sunday, 10/17/10.

Source: http://xkcd.com/756/

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