Marcus Hamaker is The Sleepy Geek

Last night I was out and started to receive large numbers of text messages. I couldn’t look at my phone all the time and I wasn’t sure what it was until we were on our way home. Strangely enough I started to received updates from Twitter. It was really late when we got home so off to bed I go leaving the investigation until this morning. Well sure enough when I login to Twitter I see a message saying “SMS Alert: Canadian SMS delivery is now enabled for Bell Mobility subscribers.” Well that’s great news but I am not with Bell! Their blog post regarding the deal can be read here: http://blog.twitter.com/2009/02/for-whom-bell-texts.html#links

It seems that their deal reached with Bell has opened up text messaging with Rogers as well and I can only assume if that happened it was a mistake that opened it up with Telus and Fido. So today I hope I am living the good life and we’ll see how long it lasts. They probably opened up all the texting because they don’t have a way to desciminate between different carriers… but I am sure they are working on that if costs are concerned :)

PS: Here is another perspective on the subject: http://mashable.com/2009/02/20/twitter-canada-sms-2/

I am finding it increasingly difficult to find direction in the 2.0 or Social Media world. I have been working on a blog for quite some time and still have a quite low readership, or a least much lower than I would like. My question remains “Where do I spend my time and how much time is needed to make an impact?”. There are parts of me that think it will be impossible to make inroads in the social media world without being laid off from my 9-5 job.

I do work hard at my day job but I have never let it spill over into my personal life unless there is some sort of special project that needs tending to. I have a wonderful family and after doing all the normal family things after getting home from work it is already 9:00pm. If I don’t want to get sick due to a lack of sleep, the most I can spend is a couple of hours a night in my home office writing articles or working on my site’s back end.

It simply doesn’t feel like enough! My main goal is to have enough readers and viewers to sustain quality content through their interaction. I would simply like to be available for people who need guidance or support with their technology needs. The problem is when you have a small amount of time available to invest in your own branding, building up an audience is very difficult.

So the original question remains. How much time is enough and where is that time best spent? Up until now I thought it best to concentrate on my blog posts or updating my website. I am not sure that is the best way to spend time anymore. There are hoards of people that are moving away from their personal blogs and spending time on Twitter or Friendfeed, most notably Robert Scoble. This definitely will get you noticed but it seems that you need to spend 10 hours a day for real recognition. If your main career is not fed through social media then you won’t have 10 hours a day, you might not even have 2.

As I write this article I continue to come up with new strategies for myself and then find ways to break them. The video/stream portion of my website is really what interests me because it is what gives me the instant feedback that I like. I wonder if you can really support a video stream and gain viewers simply by being active on twitter. For some reason I don’t think so.

I am starting to believe that there is no way to obtain my true goals by only spending 10-12 hours a week on my blog/stream.

I would really like to spark a discussion with this article, please comment away!

We’ve all been there: You’re at a party hosted by that one fabulous friend, and populated with the best of your mutual circle of friends. The atmosphere is almost carbonated with excitement; the guests’ personalities flawlessly compliment each other; and the conversations that abound are infused with intelligence, caustic wit, and a wide variety of knowledge that ensures the complete absence of any pregnant, awkward pauses. Then, it happens: someone appears who just doesn’t…fit.

via FOLLOW FAIL: The Top 10 Reasons I Will Not Follow You in Return on Twitter.

If you receive a direct message or a direct message email notification that redirects to what looks like Twitter.com—don’t sign in. Look closely at the URL because it could be a scam.

via Twitter Blog: Gone Phishing.

Very important to always look at the URL that you are signing into. Thanks to Twitter for posting this on their blog and linking to it on the top of all our home pages.

I have been searching around for Jaiku invitations on and off for a while and finally I came across a site that seems to be made for me :) If you want to try a twitter like site that is owned by Google then you should head over to http://jaikuinvites.com/ and get your invite.

In the world that we live in with twitter and other such micro-blogging services, I am really curious to see Google’s take on it. In my experience Google likes to keep things simple by offering a clean/clutter free space. This seems to be no different so far.

Once I am past the touchy feely part of the site I am curious how it will stand up to the main service, Twitter. They seem to have all the people on their site and Google isn’t helping matters much by keeping Jaiku closed for a long time, and now invite only.

But as mentioned above, you guys don’t have to worry about that because I found http://jaikuinvites.com/. Have fun and tell your friends about it. I am curious to know what everyone things. Send me a note, post a reply here and add me to your twitter and now Jaiku (both TheSleepyGeek).

If you are Canadian like I am then this sucks! I am sure that this is not the fault of Twitter but the fault of the wireless providers in Canada. To be completely honest they all are pretty bad up here. In a statement release on their site they explain the reason is due to cost.

Unexpected changes in our billing have forced us into a difficult situation with our Canadian SMS service. We can’t afford to support this service given our current arrangement with our providers (where costs have been doubling for the past several months.) As a result, effective today we are no longer delivering outbound SMS over our Canadian shortcode (21212).

The ability to update Twitter over SMS will still be supported over 21212. But we know that this is only part of the experience and we want to make Twitter work in the way folks want … regardless of where they live.

There is a realistic, scalable SMS solution for Canada (and the rest of the world.) We’re working on that and will post more details on the Twitter blog as we make progress.

I hope that they are successful at finding a better solution. Until then I actually will have to get on my computer to look at twitter. DOH!

Have fun, and Happy Tweeting!

• Bedtime, good night twit world! #

• Good morning twitter world. Today I am going to try and install OSX on a non-Mac. This is just for sport! #
• AAckkk, can’t get my wordpress to automatically update plurk.
  I just want to get my word out there as far as possible. #
• @Veronica Are ugly guys telling you that you are pretty again? Only you feel what you feel! #
• Listening to the Hip! Blow at High Dough, now Boots or Hearts. Come on all ye Cunucks! #
• Time to head home from work. Lots of things to do tonight before leaving on vacation on Saturday! #

I have been working with Mark Bockenstedt who has created a Plurk updater based on a similar updater used for Twitter. Mark used the Twitter updater as a base and then updated it with a PlurkAPI allowing him to send post information to Plurk.

This is a great idea in my opinion. People are starting to use Plurk more and more, if you want to get your word out there then this is another good way of letting the world know that you are working on something.

Mark put up this updater on his website on July 3rd and I didn’t notice it right away but when I installed it there was some trouble. It looks like there are some class definitions that are shared with other plug ins so I had class conflict errors. I left a comment on his blog post and he got back to me within minutes. We worked together to determine that there was another Twitter updater needing that class and then he told me how to fix it. About 10 changes to his files and it’s installed.

So now you can read about my posts on Plurk if you are not a Twitter fan.

Go check out this plug in if you are a WordPress blogger.

• Had a good evening last night with my dad and family. It was his b-day. Then went for a late night swim with my wife. Pool was an awesome 80 #
• Does anyone else feel like this is the @chrisbrogan network? Chris, how do you have so much time for twitter? Keep it up :) #
• @chrispirillo ummm, no… no she can’t :( #
• Getting a Tim Horton’s coffee. They are too good! #