WebProNews

Tag: Activity Streams

  • Twitter Activity, Username Streams Roll Out For Some Users

    Back in August, Twitter announced some new features that aimed to help users “discover more.” These features included the “activity stream” and the “@username stream,” both designed to expand on the “@mentions” tab and allow users easier access to information regarding retweets, followers, favorited tweets and more.

    Those changes began to appear for some Twitter users late Tuesday, and continue to roll out to select profiles (including this writer’s profile early this morning). Yesterday, some users noticed that the new “@username” and “activity” tabs appeared on their home page – but only for a brief time, disappearing within minutes.

    But as of right now, at least for some users, the @mentions tab has been replaced with the @username and Activity tabs. First, let’s look at the @username tab:

    As you can see, by clicking @joshgwolf, Twitter now gives me “@mentions and more.” That “more” includes people who have followed me recently, people who have retweeted one of my tweets and people who have favorited one of my tweets.

    This stream is particularly useful because it takes some of the clunkiness out of notifications on Twitter. Instead of crowding your inbox with messages every time someone follows you, this stream provides all of that information for you.

    Next, we have the Activity stream:

    The activity stream lets you look at what’s going on with the people you follow. When you click on the tab, you’ll see tweets that were favorited by people you follow as well as who they just decided to follow themselves. This new view leads to interesting discoveries, like the fact that James Van Der Beek began following Patton Oswalt yesterday.

    The new additions to the Twitter interface make Twitter feel even more social. The Activity stream is reminiscent of looking at your Facebook feed, but it doesn’t feel derivative. The @username stream brings everything that happens to you into one, streamlined feed. It’s possible that these new features could help Twitter feel more personal, and put an emphasis on not only what you say, but what you do.

  • What It Means to Federate the Social Web

    What It Means to Federate the Social Web

    Have you heard about the concept of federating the social Web? If not, it is, essentially, the idea of expanding the social experience beyond a specific social network.

    According to Monica Wilkinson, the Engineering Director at Socialcast, the concept has emerged since users want to have the same type of experiences all over the Web.

    “No matter where you go, you want to bring your friends with you and have social contacts,” she said.

    For example, if a user checks in on Foursquare, it shows the activity on Twitter as well. It, ultimately, helps users connect with more people, which give them more information to help as they make decisions.

    As a business solution in this space, Socialcast connects people and applications together to meet business goals. It is an enterprise activity stream engine that helps to fulfill internal goals within a business. It also serves as a brand-monitoring tool.

    Socialcast also integrates into sites such as Microsoft’s SharePoint and Salesforce in order to bring employees together on projects and systems. The tracking aspect of the service gives businesses valuable insights and data about their goals.

    Because the idea of federating the social Web is still new, there are multiple possibilities. At this point, the communication is very unidirectional. Going back to the Foursquare/Twitter example from above, a user cannot respond on Twitter and have the comment appear on Foursquare.

    For this reason, Wilkinson believes a 2-way communication model is the next step. Socialcast is working in this direction and hopes to reach its goal to allow information to truly flow.

    How does the concept of federating the social Web benefit your business?