Happy Birthday, Twitter (and personal Twitter timeline)

Twitter turns 4 years old today. Hard to believe that this social network that has become so much a part of my online life has only been around for four years. For a bit of nostalgia, check out the video news report below, created in March 2007, when Twitter was just a year old.


(Via @scobleizer)

My personal Twitter timeline:

Sept. 30, 2007 – I create my personal Twitter account, @andrewcareaga, and announce it on this blog.

Dec. 22, 2007 – I create @MissouriSandT as what I then called a university “outpost” on Twitter. Today, our little outpost has 823 followers and is on 52 Twitter lists.

Feb. 27, 2008 – I ask, Should universities tweet? It’s funny now, two-plus years later, to look back at the question and the responses.

July 27, 2008 – I post my thousandth tweet and blog about it as though it were somehow meaningful.

Nov. 11, 2009 – I dive into the discussion on whether or not it’s OK for universities (or other organizations) to simply push news and other institutional information through their Twitter feeds. In other words, whether it’s OK to be a “robot” on Twitter instead of being a human. I come down firmly on the side of the borg.

March 18, 2010 – My post Twitter faves: all the rave marks the 84th post on this blog to be filed under the Twitter category. This post is No. 85.

Friday Five: FYI edition

Stuff every higher ed marketer ought to know about:

fyi-sm

  1. The American Marketing Association has issued its call for papers for the 2010 Symposium for the Marketing of Higher Education. This year’s symposium will be held Nov. 7-10 in San Diego. The AMA is looking for “proposals/papers that report on new and innovative strategies and tactics in higher education marketing. Popular topics include including image and brand building, buzz/viral marketing, marketing research, internal marketing, electronic marketing, new marketing channels, social media, Web 2.0 tools, emerging markets and trends, marketing organizational structure, marketing budgeting, web metrics, and marketing ROI.” Submissions are due April 9, and this year the AMA is even welcoming video submissions. (Hear that, Todd Sanders?)
  2. What do social media users want? According to research from online ad network Chikita (and as reported by Mashable), “Twitterers mostly consume news, MySpace users want games and entertainment, Facebookers are into both news and community and Digg’s audience has a mixed bag of interests.” Also, MySpacers “have no interest in news whatsoever.” (Hear that, news mogul Rupert Murdoch?)
  3. Virtual graffiti. No, that isn’t the name of a Led Zeppelin remix. It’s what’s happening, right now, on college campuses everywhere, thanks to mobile mapping apps like Foursquare. “Since Foursquare’s debut last year,” writes the New York Times’ Marc Parry, “students have diligently labeled, praised, and, in some cases, profaned college campuses. Take this note, easily Googled, that somebody calling himself Mock Redneck Jr. left at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte: The library has Free Wi-Fi, Barely Legal girls and a warm place to drop a deuce.'” Drop a what? (Via Mark Greenfield’s Delicious links.)
  4. The state of campus CMS. Good research results from a survey of content management systems as compiled by .eduguru’s Michael Fienen. Lots of data to sift through here.
  5. From the it-had-to-happen-eventually department: RandomDorm: ChatRoulette for the College Set, via @davewiner.