A digital girl, the blog. By Julia Roy

How CoTweet Rawks My World

I discuss how CoTweet has really changed the whole way I'm able to use Twitter at the 140 Character Conference in NYC.

Digital Citizens of the World

You may have already seen the data heavy and awe inspiring Shift Happen (aka Did You Know 2.0) video released in 2007 by Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod dipicting the global progression of information technology.  Well, I came across a video today (below) that remixes the information presented in that video in such a way that triggered much deeper thought for me about the implications of the speed, spread and advancement of technology.  The rapid advancement of technology 's  is dramatically impacting the educational system, the development of the human race and the way we interact with each other.

Some quotes from the video that really stood out in my mind:

• For students starting a 4 year technical degree... half of what they learn in their first year of study will be outdated by their third year of study. 
• 1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met online. 
• The #1 ranked country in Broadband Internet penetration is Bermuda (United States is #19)
• Today the number of text messages sent and received everyday exceeds the total population of the planet.
• By 2013, a supercomputer will be built that exceeds the computational capabilities of the human brain. 
• The top 10 in-demand jobs in 2010 did not exist in 2004.

If the information presented here intrigues you as much as it intrigues me, you can join the discussions on the Shift Happens Wiki.

My #140conf Panel about "Twitter Celebrity"

Check out me @adventuregirl, @ijustine and @chrisbrogan on our "Twitter Celebrity" panel at the 140 Characters Conference where we discuss what it is like having so many followers, the implications of having a large following, some of the larger challenges we encounter and advice on how to grow a following on Twitter.

My AdweekMedia Connect Chat Archive

I just finished up hosting an hour live chat on AdweekMedia Connect, a social network for account managers, brand managers, planners and creatives. I answered questions about that current state and future of social media, social platforms and about my job at Undercurrent. You can read the questions and my responses in the archived chat thread below.

Let's Fix #followfriday Please

I remember when Follow Friday (aka #followfriday) first started making its way around Twitter in January by @micah (Thanks to the Twitterers today for helping me remember it was Micah Baldwin). I thought it was a great idea at the time, as it is often hard to understand where you need to go to find new valuable people to follow on Twitter. If I really enjoy following X Twitterer and X Twitterer suggests I follow Y&Z Twitterer, I just might listen and click through and check 'em out. 

It is no question that Follow Friday's popularity has exploded and just continues to grow, but my feelings toward it have changed. I have a very hard time understanding its value anymore. There are a few reasons for this. First of all, Twitter is growing rapidly and there is a lot more noise than there was even merely 5 months back when Follow Friday started. Secondly, now with Twitter auto follow friday bots from services like TwitterMass and TweetLater most of these "recommendation" tweets are just randomized spam.

As I see it, the #followfriday hashtag has spread so quickly because it's a great way to say "Hey everyone, these are some of my favorite people on Twitter!" But now with the Twitter community growing so fast, people's following is growing with it and we have to sift through the noise in order to find people of real value to follow. So now, simply listing your favorite Twitterers in tweet on Friday's, is not very helpful.

The solution? Well, I know that others on Twitter have been suggesting this development as well, but #followfriday needs to evolve in a way where on Friday everyone suggests a few people they like to follow and WHY. These can be multiple tweets, but the most important thing is including the context in which you are suggesting someone to follow.

If you want to understand where my frustration with #followfriday is coming from, check out my TweetDeck on Fridays. I should be flattered, but I just get annoyed because on Friday's I have a hard time seeing real @ conversations because of all the #followfriday tweets coming in. *sigh*

Paramount Star Trek Outreach FAIL

I have been mulling over whether or not I should blog about a disappointing experience I had with Paramount a few weeks back. But I think there is a lesson to be learned here about the right and wrong way to conduct social outreach, so I am going to lay out what happened.

Here's the story. Below is an email I received the evening of May 4th from interns at Paramount Field Marketing and Promotions department:

So I of course get REALLY REALLY FREAKIN' EXCITED and email everyone at the Undercurrent office, close friends and start Tweeting like crazy. Then I get a follow up email the next day: 

To say the least, I was so disappointed as were the friends and digerati's I contacted to go with me. Paramount's half-assed efforts to do something special for Twitter and Facebook-ers is best classified as a "Social Media" Outreach FAIL. 

1 Year of Photos Taken with My MacBook iSight

It was really fun to put together and post these videos.  To a certain extent, they are representative of the internet life I've been living. The first video is all the pictures taken at the Undercurrent office (about 900 photos) and the second video is every single picture that was stored in my Photo Booth library (over 1400 photos). Like whoa. ;)

Tweet Week Epsode 16

Show Notes

The ladies on The View interview Evan Williams and Biz Stone. Sell your Twitter name for cash with Tweexchange. What the Trend is a site that explains why Hot Trending Topics are on the trending topic list. @veronicaDLcruz needs your help to save her brother's life. (Also, Download Coldplay's new LIVE LeftRightLeftRightLeft performance for FREE)

And If you're interested in seeing 12 seconds of the air piano at the end of the video, I reposted to 12s:

Air Piano on 12seconds.tv

100 Interviews

I took part in the SXSW 100 Interviews project by Derek Overbey (@doverbey) and Morgan Brown (@morganb). You can watch my interview below where I talk PepsiCo, my charity: water auction and how I use Twitter and why I love the Twitter community so much.