As I wrote previously, I’ve spent time exploring the Twitterverse over recent weeks. Micro-blogging is an art form, I’ve decided, but more on that idea another time.

Today’s uh-huh moment comes from Twittercounter, a service that give you statistics on anyone’s twitter subscribers. Yours truly still hasn’t hit the big-time because unlike many of my peers, I maintain a tight, select, or if you like elite list of followers. So we’re talking hundreds, not thousands of fans following our every thought.

But yesterday’s technical glitch meant Twitter wiped more than a hundred of my subscribers away. Today, they’re apparently back and the list keeps growing. Here’s what’s interesting - Twitter is now in the business of predicting subscriber growth. I’m growing at an average rate of three people per day as this chart illustrates. Read the rest of this entry »

Ok, let’s be honest. Would you rather read a good story or a bad story? Do you like happy endings (non-Hollywood style), or the dramatic melancholy of an unresolved dissonance?

If you think about the new media meta-narrative, it strikes me that we’ve become fixated on the drama that’s affecting incumbent media. You’re familiar with the story: mainstream newspapers and TV are “losing” while new media like consumer-generated content and social networking is “winning.”

Just about every media debate I can think of – blogging vs. journalism, the future of advertising, digital rights management, mobile content – fits into this paradigm. Every conference, panel discussion or private meeting I’ve enjoyed over the past two years has roughly echoed this story. And it’s a fascinating story, even if it sometimes seems overplayed. It’s fascinating because it echoes other big underdog stories that capture our attention: David vs. Goliath, Vietnam vs. the United States, Maxine McKew vs. John Howard. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re one of my select, loyal readers you might have noticed that I’m tending not to write as frequently on this blog as times past.

My interest in the convergence of media, technology and marketing hasn’t changed. If anything, it’s deepened. What has changed is that my attention is increasingly divided between different forms of social media. And most of my social media time is currently soaked up by Twitter. If you want to follow my twitter musings, check me out at twitter.com/markhjones.