TechWire

Tag - Twitter

Twitter is going to be “not-free”

Twitter being the free service social media was founded on March 21st, 2006. As at now, it’s a free service with a user base of 319 million users around the world. Like many other social media companies, Twitter is purely being supported by advertising.

Even though Twitter is popular among users in countries like United States, India, and Japan, it has failed to generate sufficient profit with advertisements.

As per spokeswoman Brielle Villablanca “Twitter is conducting a survey to assess the interest in a new, more enhanced version of Tweetdeck”. Tweetdeck is a tool that helps users navigate the network. She also added that “we’re exploring several ways to make Tweetdeck even more valuable for professionals”.

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TweetupSL 4 – An evening of tweeps and tweets

It’s the most wonderful time of the year for tweeps, when TweetupSL arrives. This year’s edition took place at the Mercantile Cricket Association grounds last Saturday with hundreds of tweeps gathering for the much anticipated occasion. This was the first time TweetupSL took place outdoors giving a relaxed atmosphere for everyone to mingle about.

Soon after registration everyone got in to their dialog sponsored T shirts with the various #OMG #FTW #Epic #WTF hash tags. The event commenced with cutting the cake and a very entertaining flash Mob. Check it out below.(Video credits to Aqeel Dave)

There were numerous games for tweeps from musical chairs to balloon dancing to noodle racing. A quiz on TweetupSL history was held by the Readme team with scrumptious gifts for the winners courtesy of Coco Veranda.

The TweetupSL awards took place towards the end, with 39 tweeps receiving awards according to the tallied votes on tweetupsl.org.  The category winners for the awards are as follows.(drumroll)

Miss.Tweep of the year – @AyshMarQ

Mr.Tweep of the year – @dodan123

Twitterholic of the year – @GayanMW

Tech Tweep of the year – @gazly

Sportaholic  of the year – @takashiG

Twitter News Breaker  of the year – @rangaba

Instagramoholic of the year – @HalikAzeez

Most Helpful Tweep of the year – @AnfasJM

Most Controversial Tweep of the year – @NotJagath

Funniest Tweep  of the year – @Rathgamaya

Diplo Tweep of the year – @NisansaDds

Foodie Tweep of the year – @PhuckYou_

Hashtagoholic of the year – @nHiRanZ

Tweetup SL 4 Tweeps

During these various activities, tweeps were able to meetup with old buddies and also got to meet up their virtually acquired friends in real life.  ‘Cos in twitter its not just about keeping touch with your existing friends, its about making new connections with people who you can enjoy a conversation with. That’s what makes twitter qualitatively the number one social media in Sri Lanka.

Kudos to the organizing team for putting countless hours and immense effort into making TweetupSL 4, an event worth tweeting all week long.

Below are few moments captured at the event.

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Get Ready for TweetupSL 4!!

The 4th edition of TweetupSL where Sri Lankan tweeps, meet in flesh and blood will take place on the 7th of December at the MCA. For registration the tweeps needs a minimum of 500 tweets, 50 followers and should be at least 6 months from the creation of the account. Visit www.tweetupsl.org and register today.

The voting for the top tweeps is  available on the site, where you can enter the handles of your nominations. The categories are as shown below. We here that @PresRajapaksa is in the running for Mr. Tweep.

Vote - TweetupSL

All attendees would be contributing to the worthy cause ‘water with a difference’ through the Rs. 100 ticket. Also Needy Readers would be present, so bring your books for donation.

For updates on the event, follow @tweetupsl

#AskMR Twitter Q&A with the President

The second Q&A via the Presidents twitter account @PresRajapaksa was held yesterday evening (25th September) from New York. The first such twitter Q&A was held in June, where questions were answered by Pres. Sec. Mr. Lalith Weerthunga. On this occasion the President answered the questions while Mr. Weeratunga moderated the session.

Questions were requested to be UN related, although they came from a various range of topics. During the Q&A session(which got delayed due to another meeting of the President)  around 20 questions were answered. However in contrast to the previous twitter session, the questions weren’t retweeted, which meant it was a bit difficult to find which question was actually answered. At the end of the session, the social media team acknowledged this mistake, and promised to improve future sessions.

If you by any chance missed the session you can take a look at the twitter stream below.

#AskMR Twitter Q&A with President Rajapaksa

Twitter in Sri Lanka through the years

Twitter has always played a giant role in Sri Lanka’s social media scene. With only a handful of Sri Lankans a few years back, Twitter has now grown to tens of thousands of tweeps from all over the country tweeting their thoughts away.

At first were the geeks. Those who always try to keep up with the technology and test out new things. Along came the bloggers from both English and Sinhala blogospheres. It was a place for them to promote their content, meet fellow tweeps with common interests and discuss everything happening around.

Organizing committee of the first ever TweetupSL (Image source)

One of the earliest milestones of the Sri Lankan Twitter community was the first ever TweetupSL. A tweetup is in fact a gathering of tweeps. Friends you make in your twitter stream meeting in real life, face to face. The event took place in 2010 in Coco Veranda, one of the first Sri Lankan businesses to have a commendable presence on Twitter.

Some of the attendees at TweetupSL 2 (Image source)

Since then, two more TweetupSL happened in 2011 and 2012 respectively, each with far more success than the previous ones. The community has grown in leaps and bounds. More businesses joined Twitter and several big events were organized in the twittersphere. Mini tweetups, hashtag nights became a common occurrence. Not to forget all the lovers who first met on Twitter. 🙂

Twitter Q&A with the Secretary to the President

For those of you who missed it, the first Q&A via the Presidents twitter account was held on Wednesday. Even though the questions were answered through the official @PresRajapaksa account, it was actually the Secretary to the President, Mr Lalith Weeratunga who took up the questions.

The questions were submitted through the #AskLW hashtag in all three languages, and Mr. Weeratunga started right on schedule. Each question was retweeted and then answered, so that both questions and answers are visible in an orderly manner. Around 20 questions were answered in topics from political, to personal to paypal.

Even though there were questions unanswered (Understandably due to the busy schedule of Mr. Lalith Weeratunga), this is a good start to social media engagement from the government. And hopefully will be the first of many more such Q&As.  Also in a subsequent release, Mr Weeratunga has stated that more answers would be provided in the coming days via twitter.

You can check out the Q&A on twitter below. And to check on all the questions, just search for #Asklw.

Twitter feed Asklw

Maximize your Tweets – Infographic

Did you know that tweeting on specific days or limiting tweets to a certain number of characters can increase user engagement significantly? If your handling a brand twitter account, you might want to check the below infographic to #maximize your tweets. (Infographic by Buddy Media)
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