mediaczar

Geek alert: if the title of this post isn’t a dead giveaway I should tell you — unless you’re interested in APIs and badly-put-together bits of code — this probably isn’t for you.

I’ve recently found myself using a service provided by Damon Clinkscale called DoesFollow. All it does is answer the simple question “does twitter user A follow twitter user B?” Apart from a frill which lets you reverse the order of your question (“does twitter user B follow twitter user A?”) that’s all it does. You can even interrogate it from the address bar like this: http://doesfollow.com/barackobama/mediaczar

While I was thinking about how useful a service this is, I was suddenly struck by a moment of clarity. A lot of the research I’ve been doing could be simplified by something like this.
Continue reading ‘A first stab at a perl script to create Twitter friend/follow matrices’

TwitterCounter, the service that tells you how many people followed a given Twitter user on a given date (among other things) has an API – so I thought I’d take a look at it to see whether I could create a quick automated table of rankings.

Here’s the simplest way to query the API:

[code]

http://twittercounter.com/api/?username=mediaczar&output=xml

[/code]

Just cut and paste that into the address bar of your browser for example. Fairly simple. Change the username and you’ll get the data for a different user. Here’s what you get back from the API — an XML file with lots of rich meaty data:
Continue reading ‘Counting Twitter followers’

Yahoo! Pipe for automating Marshall Kirkpatrick’s Social Media CheatSheet process

any way to ramp up your knowledge of these fields, fast, other than the “Google and wander” method?

He then outlines an almost perfect example of how to use social media to do this.

You should read his article before reading any further. It’s short and punchy and won’t take much time.

Read it? Good. Now you may have noticed in the comments section that the first commenter doubts that you can:

find one baker or candlestick maker that will go through all of that.

So I thought I’d see if I can automate the process. The short answer is that I can and I can’t. I can’t yet automate one or two really important bits and pieces, notably:

1. ranking delicious bookmarks by popularity, not recency
2. human editorial selection of bookmarks

Perhaps someone could help me with this.
But otherwise, I’ve published this Yahoo! Pipe, Automating Marshall Kirkpatrick’s Social Media Cheatsheet Process which automates 90% of the process, and may make it easier for the bakers and candlestickmakers.

All comments and — more importantly — suggestions and improvements gratefully received.

Monday, 12 Jan 2009 00:27: I’ve just added a bit to the pipe to list posts in descending order according to PostRank. Don’t know if this is useful

Yahoo! Pipe to pull Technorati API data for multiple blogs

The problem with the perl-based approach is that it’s a little inaccessible to people who aren’t comfortable using a command line environment. So I really wanted to make something that more people would feel comfortable using, and perhaps play around with.

So, with some help and kind words from Bob Briski, one of whose pipes I’d stumbled across and bookmarked during my research for this project, I decided to finish off the pipe and publish it so that others could use it, or (better still) improve upon it.
Continue reading ‘The Technorati Authority Yahoo! Pipe’

Sometimes (for instance when I’m doing the research for the blogger typology) you need to get a whole load of Technorati data for a whole load of blogs.

This research can (of course) be done by hand. And (of course) for a long list of blogs this would take a great deal of time. Handily, Technorati provides developers with an API that lets you automate those queries. An API (for those of you who don’t know) is an Application Programming Interface – a toolkit provided by a service or application (in this case by Technorati) that lets other computer applications ask it questions and use the answers for their own purposes. It may be helpful to think of APIs as being like the knobs on top of a Lego brick that let you stick other Lego on to it without in any way changing the nature of the brick itself. On the other hand it may not be so helpful after all.
Continue reading ‘A simple perl script to interrogate the Technorati API’

Since writing this post, three simpler, better ways of solving the problem have been submitted in the comments section. Feel free to read this post, but look to the comments for the solution!

If you already know about conditional formatting and navigated here via Google, please jump straight to the hack. If not, I hope the following introduction is useful. You might also like to check out the WikiHow introduction to conditional formatting in Excel. This post is actually concerned with an interesting hack that lets you reference the value of a cell itself when setting up formula-based conditional formatting rule.

Conditional Formatting

Excel’s conditional formatting feature is a boon to heavy spreadsheet users like me. It is a flexible and powerful tool that (among other things) lets me highlight data according to a set of rules so that I can easily spot the interesting bits in what would otherwise be an almost impossibly dense and meaningless cloud of numbers. Here’s an example; a table of the correlations between 32 different statements (taken from some ongoing work looking at a simple blogger typology.)

Continue reading ‘Referring to “this cell” using Excel conditional formatting’

OK – I’m not sure about the “thousands”, but Marshall Kirkpatrick’s article shows how you can use a combination of tools and tricks to get the most out of your RSS feeds – without getting swamped. Useful stuff!

read more | digg story

The story so far: In the last episode of Influence Mapping: The Maverick Cop Way, we discussed a simple process for organizing what you know about influencers. We discussed briefly the decision making unit model we were using, our (very broad) definition of “influencer”, and showed how we can score them quickly for the three key variables reach, authority, and “ease-of-use”. At the end of the process, we found ourselves with something like this:

Now we’re going to go a little further, and show how we can map the relationships between the various stakeholders. This is the second and final post, and it may introduce a lot more that’s new to you. But stick with it – it might be worth it.

What you’ll need before you start

You’re going to need UCINET, a programme that analyses matrices and networks. It comes along with another programme from the same publishers (Analytictech) called NetDraw that draws networks. You’re going to want both. UCINET costs $250 for a corporate license, but the first 30 days are free. NetDraw is a free download.

They only work on Windows, but I’ve not experienced any real problems running them on a Mac using Parallels.

1. Create a matrix

Take your list of influencers (as per the table above), and add in the four key players from the decision making unit; the initiator, the decision maker, the purchaser and the end user.

Paste them down the left hand side of your table, and along the top edge, as in the illustration below. Excel’s Edit > Paste Special > Transpose command is useful, not to say essential, when you’re doing this. At the end of the process, you should have something that looks like this.

The rows show the influencers, the columns show those being influenced, the targets.

Because we don’t think that an influencer can exert influence themselves we drop a line of zeroes down the diagonal. This is more to help us navigate than anything else. Don’t feel you have to do this.

2. Fill in the matrix

Go through the rows one by one, deciding if a given influencer has any effect on the targets (the column headings). So for example, we know that the initiator influences the decision maker, and so on. But knowledge of the end user may well influence the decision maker, too. So – for example – when I’m choosing my dad a computer, I take into account the fact that he’s not so au fait with technology, and that if he can’t use it, he’s going to call me to ask for tech support. So I’d better choose something that will limit these calls.

At the end of the process, you’ll end up with something like this (although probably much bigger). It can take quite a lot of time to go through this process – this may be one of those times when you want to work with a partner to bounce the ideas around.

Continue reading ‘Influence Mapping: The Maverick Cop Way (Part 2)’

You know the maverick cop? The one who breaks all the rules, has to surrender his gun and badge somewhere in Act II, but nevertheless somehow gets the job done? His approach to solving problems is crude but effective (usually it involves shaking people down, which isn’t something we get to do a lot in the communications business.)

I don’t know that maverick cops are into influence mapping. I don’t know how many people really are, but it’s a big part of my work life. These days it seems I’m always being asked, “Mat, who is the most influential x?”, or, “Mat, who influences the online discussion on y?” or, “Mat, what influences people’s purchase decision-making when it comes to z?” These are all interesting questions, and bear a lot of thought and research and planning.

However, time isn’t something we all have a lot of these days, so right now I’m going to share a very quick-and-dirty method I’ve been working on; the research equivalent of holding a pimp upside down over a balcony.

Before we start, what’s wrong with this approach?

It builds on what we know, or what we think we know. Using it successfully will require all those assets that the maverick cop has in spades: a sharp brain honed by experience, a deep knowledge of the streets (well, your market), and an underworld intelligence network of pimps and hookers (in our case these are more likely to be clients and colleagues, of course.)

Axel Foley aside, maverick cops don’t always do so well out of their jurisdiction. This approach isn’t going to expose surprises or new information so well. It’s all about organizing what you know.

If you are a rookie cop, you’d better stick by the book. That’s all I’m saying. Or someone will bust you down to traffic duty before you know what’s hit you.

And what’s so good about it?

Well, it’s fast, for one thing. And it’s a process – which is another. Now if you add into that the fact that – when you have more accurate data, you can go back and plug it into the model without breaking it, but only making it better – then you’re onto a winner.

Continue reading ‘Influence Mapping: The Maverick Cop Way (Part 1)’

Why would I want to do this?

I think it’s easier to scan along lines if you colour alternate rows, particularly when you print out your sheets. Gridlines are somehow a little disorienting. You may not find this, and you may prefer the big black borders approach. But if you don’t, read on.

What’s wrong with the way I do it?

Well, if you’re doing it by hand, you’re going to run into two problems.

• Depending on how many rows you want to shade, it can take a long time.
• When you delete or add cells, you can throw off the whole thing, and have to start again

These are sufficiently irritating that it’s worth sharing this approach.

More to the point, I wanted to test out some new screen capture software (

Alternate row shading in Excel