clockwork s'Mart

Forgot to mention; a month of so ago I got interviewed by Jonathan Cutrell about my thoughts on Twitter – here’s what was said;

Freelance: Jonathan Cutrell

So here we go!

Why do you use twitter?

 Martin Newham

Twitter is naturally social beast by design; it allows a single individual the ability to talk to 1,000′s of people at the same time; and that’s the difference between MSM. AOL etc… of course it all depends if anyone is listening

Freelance: Jonathan Cutrell

Agreed. The last part is completely true, and I wonder if Twitter is so successful because it is so customizable as well; in other words, you follow who you want to follow, etc.

Martin Newham

Yes it’s not until you try a client like twittervision you realise how global twitter truly is..

Freelance: Jonathan Cutrell

And now is the first time I have looked at that. Wow!

Alright, well, Twitter has been called the "telegraph of Web 2.0". How has Twitter affected business as usual for you?

Martin Newham

Twitter is an excellent communications tools as we mentioned earlier, with "re-tweeting" the 140 characters between people information can be "broadcast" very quickly. This was evident when the news of Steve Job’s falsely reported heart attack hit Twitter, and apple shares dropped.

Freelance: Jonathan Cutrell

Very true.

What does it mean for your business to have more and more connectivity?

Martin Newham

Communication between team members is more important than ever now, previously we would all work in a office and we could talk face to face – but with the internet and home working teams have spread out not only across the continent but across the world. Tools such as Twitter allow the "chit-chat" to continue, is far less formal than an email and more convenient that some IM clients.

Freelance: Jonathan Cutrell

And how about communication between you and your clients?

Martin Newham

A lot of my current clients aren’t quite switched on enough for Twitter yet, but I’m trying to train them. Typically a 1-1 is required, so a phone is more useful or Skype VOIP of course

Freelance: Jonathan Cutrell

With the expansion of Twitter through applications and with the creation of sites such as JustTweetIt, how do you think social networking will influence business as usual in the future?

Martin Newham

Twitter expands on a global basis the best and oldest advertising technique; word of mouth – only its digital. I will expect to see more applications, and automated systems that you can subscribe to via Twitter; already RSS updates from sites are pushed into Twitter and people be notified of changes.

Perhaps in the future, for example; Companies will squirt encrypted data into Twitter that you can subscribe to and with an appropriate client the information can be retrieved. Whilst to everyone one else it garbled

Freelance: Jonathan Cutrell

What a fantastic idea!

Martin Newham

Ha-ha, just an idea

Freelance: Jonathan Cutrell

Well, obviously even beyond communication, people can expound on twitter at ground level;

Just as some have done with MySpace with embeddable stores, etc.

Speaking of MySpace, What social networking do you use, beyond twitter? (Blogs, Digg style sites, MySpace/Facebook, etc.)

Martin Newham

I’ve done a few guest posts on Styletime and one coming up on Graham’s site; I have my own blog but it’s more of a personal journal. I have a Facebook page and a Linkedin page obviously Twitter and Digg/stumble/design float to mention a few

Freelance: Jonathan Cutrell

Obviously we all have online "identities" that we probably have even forgotten about! Ha-ha. ok, so, what do you think microblogging’s biggest contribution has been to the social networking scene? We know that WordPress gave everyone the ability to blog, and MySpace gave people the ability to have friends across the world. What has Twitter done, and do you think it will last?

Martin Newham

You mentioned WP & MySpace etc, these are all static (to a certain extent) but Twitter is very dynamic and operates fast! It allows you to talk to large groups of people at the same time and yet have a conversation with a single person if you want to either through the Replies or Direct and private mail.

Freelance: Jonathan Cutrell

Can you give an example of a client or a path to a client that came to you as a result of twitter or another social network?

Martin Newham

Spoke to a friend over Skype regarding a website design for a aerobatic pilot, he didn’t have the skills to do it himself so he asked me and I built the site.

Freelance: Jonathan Cutrell

Interesting stuff.

More of that in the future I imagine.

Who is your favourite Twitterer?

or Tweeter?

Martin Newham

Oh they’re all great, and unique in their own ways — hahaha, I only follow people I find interesting

Freelance: Jonathan Cutrell

How do you receive your news? Like political issues, local issues, etc.

Martin Newham

Mornings and when I’m working at home I generally have BBC News 24 on TV, in the office it would be Twitter/MSM/Skype and an assortment of RSS/Websites

Freelance: Jonathan Cutrell

What is your forecast for Twitter and the microblogging world?

Martin Newham

Twitter is still quite unique and it has a good foothold in the market, I don’t see its imminent end any time soon. The future; maybe more integrated clients for phones, PS3 Xbox, TV’s Fridges – Twitter maybe an idea medium for your washing machine to say "Help! I’m flooding; but I’ve Tweeted a local plumber"

Freelance: Jonathan Cutrell

I really appreciate you doing this interview. First off, any links you’d like to promote? This will be put into an article, and I will send people to wherever you’d like.

Martin Newham

My twitter one is fine, people can find me there.. I would like to see the article once it’s finished

Freelance: Jonathan Cutrell

Yea definitely. It’s gonna mostly focus on the use of these different faculties.