Twitter Stempra talk - Thursday 7 July 2011

The shortened URL for this blog post will be http://tinyurl.com/StempraTwitterTalk and I shall bung relevant stuff here after the talk.

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Well that was fun! As the event coincided with the Royal Society's black tie Summer Science soiree (is that what it's called?) there were a few rather well dressed people in the audience and on the panel (I can assure you I wasn't one of them ho ho).

Anyway I mentioned SearchHash during the talk, in response to @lulucrumble who was livetweeting it (thanks!, and in a fabulous frock too) and was trying to get the name. This is something created by @lesteph and @davebriggs in October 2010 I think and which I only discovered a month or two ago around the time of great wailing and gnashing of teeth when wthashtag (what the hashtag) and Twapperkeeper found themselves in difficulties with Twitter, who said "no more downloading of archives". Fortunately SearchHash does let you do this, but the search is cached for an hour or so, so you can't keep refreshing and hoping to add to it before you download - older tweets will fall off the bottom! So monitor it carefully.

I've also found that Twilert achieves a similar purpose but in a different way. You can set up an email alert that will send you updates containing 100 tweets (including RTs, don't think there's a way to get rid of them) and if it's a busy event with many tweets you can set it to send them every 15 minutes.
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The event is actually free, but I would encourage you to pay £15 and join Stempra cos it's cool. Foolishly I let my membership lapse (solely because I have to find a chequebook and a pen as I don't think it's PayPal-able) so I will be paying to attend myself ;)

Please note that although they've listed me as a Diabetes UK employee I'm not speaking about Diabetes UK stuff (I don't have anything to do with our Twitter account) and blethering more generally about the use of Twitter and possibly archiving (if they let me). I also work at UCL.

Twitter: A black hole for time OR a great tool for engaging?
Love it or loathe it, Twitter and other social media are here and demanding our attention. Join us as we consider the big questions:

• Is Twitter a torrent of irrelevant gubbins with a negligible signal-to-noise ratio...
• ... or an exciting fluid new medium that’s enabled you to engage a whole new audience?
• Do you have no idea, but would like to know more so you make a judgement call?
• Are Twitter-haters at a competitive disadvantage in the science communication job market?
• Anything else social media related that’s preying on your mind...

Kicking off the evening with their thoughts and opinions are:

• Jo Brodie (Diabetes UK {and UCL}) who’s been Tweeting for 3 years and curates the best of the bunch
• Henry Scowcroft (Cancer Research UK), blogs for Cancer Research UK and is part of the charity’s Internet & New Media department
• {and possibly someone else too...}

Come prepared with your anecdotes and experiences at the ready (Twitter virgins excepted).

Date: Thursday 7 July 2011
Time: 18:30 - 19:00 (registration from 17:30 and followed by refreshments in a nearby pub)
Venue: Society of Biology, Charles Darwin House, 12 Roger Street, WC1N 2JU
Directions: www.charlesdarwinhouse.co.uk
Cost: Free to Stempra members, £15 to non-members (which includes the membership fee)
To register: please email events@stempra.org.uk