Have Twitter capabilities always been in Sametime?
Category Sametime Twitter
As I look at Twitter and observe how people use it, I still go back and forth on whether I think this is CB radio, ie a flash in a pan. When I use it I find there are things I want that don't just exist in the product. For example, if somebody posts a Twitter message and I respond, I want to know they're there, they're on-line, that they're going to see the response, Twitter doesn't give me that, it's kind of a fire and forget it system, and for some people that is its beauty.
So I got to thinking, Sametime has had this ability since day one but it's hidden away and has never been used that way. I'm talking about Sametime status descriptions. Sametime has always had two key components to its presence information, the status type and the status description. The status type is what indicates if a user is available, idle, away, do not disturb etc. Status description is the descriptive text that accompanies that status type. For many people they never set this to anything different than the defaults, so they always appear as "I am available" or "I am away", but the great thing about status descriptions is anything can be there, so people that know this often have messages like "I am away, but if it's urgent call my cell" or "I am in a meeting, but if my wife goes into labour feel free to interrupt". Many companies already use Sametime bots to update status descriptions with meaningful information. Where Sametime fails in its comparison to Twitter is that you have to hover over people's names to see their status description, which is difficult if you were following lots of people.
So what would happen if we combined the fire and forget model of Twitter with Sametime status descriptions? Sametime already has a highly efficient engine for distributing these messages to all its users, users could think of their buddylist as the list of people they're following, and Sametime has the benefit of letting you know if the author of a message is on-line. You could argue it makes Twitter real-time.
So now entering stage Left is Epilio Jessie, a new free plug-in where we decided to try out this theory of using Sametime as a kind of enterprise twitter engine. Yes, Jessie is the name of my dog, but hear me out, Epilio Jessie and Jessie the dog share a lot of common traits. Jessie follows myself and others in the office around all day, paying attention to what they're doing and loyally paying attention, Epilio Jessie is the same, it follow the users on your buddylist, showing their changing status descriptions throughout the day. Like Jessie the dog, Epilio Jessie can be taught to ignore certain words and phrases, it wouldn't be much fun if you got told every time somebody changed their status to I am available. So Epilio Jessie has an option to allow you to configure messages you want to ignore. There are some features that Epilio Jessie doesn't do that Jessie the dog can, Epilio Jessie doesn't yet know how to search, but it's only a pup and not very old so still has lots to learn. Don't forget it's free so we can call it whatever we like, and we all decided that Jessie was as good a name as any
We're clearing up some final word wrapping issues, but we'll make the download available later this week. I'll blog when that happens.
As I look at Twitter and observe how people use it, I still go back and forth on whether I think this is CB radio, ie a flash in a pan. When I use it I find there are things I want that don't just exist in the product. For example, if somebody posts a Twitter message and I respond, I want to know they're there, they're on-line, that they're going to see the response, Twitter doesn't give me that, it's kind of a fire and forget it system, and for some people that is its beauty.
So I got to thinking, Sametime has had this ability since day one but it's hidden away and has never been used that way. I'm talking about Sametime status descriptions. Sametime has always had two key components to its presence information, the status type and the status description. The status type is what indicates if a user is available, idle, away, do not disturb etc. Status description is the descriptive text that accompanies that status type. For many people they never set this to anything different than the defaults, so they always appear as "I am available" or "I am away", but the great thing about status descriptions is anything can be there, so people that know this often have messages like "I am away, but if it's urgent call my cell" or "I am in a meeting, but if my wife goes into labour feel free to interrupt". Many companies already use Sametime bots to update status descriptions with meaningful information. Where Sametime fails in its comparison to Twitter is that you have to hover over people's names to see their status description, which is difficult if you were following lots of people.
So what would happen if we combined the fire and forget model of Twitter with Sametime status descriptions? Sametime already has a highly efficient engine for distributing these messages to all its users, users could think of their buddylist as the list of people they're following, and Sametime has the benefit of letting you know if the author of a message is on-line. You could argue it makes Twitter real-time.
So now entering stage Left is Epilio Jessie, a new free plug-in where we decided to try out this theory of using Sametime as a kind of enterprise twitter engine. Yes, Jessie is the name of my dog, but hear me out, Epilio Jessie and Jessie the dog share a lot of common traits. Jessie follows myself and others in the office around all day, paying attention to what they're doing and loyally paying attention, Epilio Jessie is the same, it follow the users on your buddylist, showing their changing status descriptions throughout the day. Like Jessie the dog, Epilio Jessie can be taught to ignore certain words and phrases, it wouldn't be much fun if you got told every time somebody changed their status to I am available. So Epilio Jessie has an option to allow you to configure messages you want to ignore. There are some features that Epilio Jessie doesn't do that Jessie the dog can, Epilio Jessie doesn't yet know how to search, but it's only a pup and not very old so still has lots to learn. Don't forget it's free so we can call it whatever we like, and we all decided that Jessie was as good a name as any
We're clearing up some final word wrapping issues, but we'll make the download available later this week. I'll blog when that happens.
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Comments
Posted by Henning Heinz At 04:09:26 AM On 04/13/2009 | - Website - |
Posted by Grammar Nazi At 06:29:40 AM On 04/13/2009 | - Website - |
Posted by Carl Tyler At 08:30:37 AM On 04/13/2009 | - Website - |
Posted by Garrett Wolthuis At 08:59:53 AM On 04/13/2009 | - Website - |
Posted by Carl Tyler At 09:40:08 AM On 04/13/2009 | - Website - |
-Tim E. Brown
Posted by Tim E. Brown At 09:52:37 AM On 04/13/2009 | - Website - |
My twitter message is 'too busy working to Twitter!'
Posted by Rob Ingram At 01:03:29 PM On 04/14/2009 | - Website - |
Posted by Carl Tyler At 03:53:29 PM On 04/14/2009 | - Website - |