Comments on: Using Twitter to Support Making Eco-Conscious Decisions

By: Trader Joe’s Wants You To Know Your Eggs :: Focus + Context

Trader Joe’s Wants You To Know Your Eggs :: Focus + Context — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 14:38:07 +0000

[...] written before about the need for access to information about environmental impact and sustainability at the point [...]

By: Dan

Dan — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 15:01:19 +0000

Thanks for the suggestions, Chris. I like the idea of using some combination of #username and #threadtopic for a completely out-of-the-box implementation of ‘channels’ by leveraging Twitter’s existing infrastructure.

By: Chris Messina

Chris Messina — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 14:29:00 +0000

Also consider the value of hashtags when using or subscribing to Twitter Search results (http://search.twitter.com). If you append #inagreenpickle to your tweet, anyone searching or subscribed to ‘inagreenpickle’ search results will be able to find or receive those updates without having to follow the @inagreenpickle user.

This also means more people can participate by emulating others without having to do any preliminary setup.

Finally, there’s a service that lets you turn a feed into text messages — so you could take the Twitter search results and get them via SMS.

By: Dan

Dan — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 21:25:04 +0000

@THD: Thanks for the feedback. Unfortunately, I am no longer working on the diabetes project, but if you drop me an email, I can put you in touch with a colleague of mine who is still working on it, and she can fill you in and point you to any relevant academic publications, etc.

@Chris: Excellent points. There is a huge difference between qualitative/subjective information and direct answers to targeted questions, and I think that there is a place for both. There may be a single right answer to “which fish is more sustainable” but it also may be nice to get people’s opinions on less clearly-defined questions, judgement calls, etc (though this tends to support the phenomenon confirmation bias). The Climate Counts approach is a very compelling one, and like Twitter, does an excellent job of leveraging an existing technology to provide curated answers to well-defined questions; I’ll update this post with descriptions of some of the other services I’ve since found out the Mobile Commons technology enables (which I definitely plan on using!).

By: chris m.

chris m. — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 17:00:13 +0000

Ah, the idea of the LazyTweet. Have you thought about tying a twitter-bot using GroupTweet into something like Yahoo Answers?

I think the issue is whether you want qualitative information from individuals or you want to establish a trusted source of information. Many non-profits exist to supply quality information, and that is what Climate Counts is doing through their mobile program (powered by Mobile Commons, my company).

I also think that non-profits, news sources, and brands do need to find better ways to join and participate in the conversation. Climate Counts database-driven approach is the beginning of always accessible point-of-purchase information.

I think the implementation issue with crowd-sourcing via twitter is lowering the noise ratio. It would probably make sense to use a hash-tag (#080808) in addition to group tweet so that you only post topical things to a given community.

Cheers,
-chris

By: THD

THD — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:04:43 +0000

Nice post. You refer to the diabetes project you are working on – any chance you will do a detailed post on that and any results you might have or implications for patients? Thanks!