John McCrory

In what may only be a sly little bit of linkbait, Joseph Jaffe calls for a ban on Twitter at conferences. It’s an issue that’s been bobbing around since the Great Keynote Meltdown at High Ed Web 2009 in October and danah boyd’s hard time at the Web 2.0 Expo last month. Jaffe complains that Twittering at conferences rips off the content that you paid for with your registration to share with your community of followers, akin to illegal file sharing. He also charges that the twittering has speakers under attack by abusive mobs of badge-wearing meeting attendees.

Jaffe’s trying to be provocative, and it’s cute, in a way. But he’s just plain wrong.

First, check out his video, then read a few reasons why he’s wrong:

Why Joseph Jaffe is wrong about Twitter at conferences

Twitter augments the live presentation with annotations. Backchannel participants often post links to sites, applications, studies, articles, or other things mentioned by the speaker. If a speaker mentions someone who’s not at the session, someone on the backchannel will let them know. All this creates a rich, connected record of the talk, through fairly easy, crowdsourced effort. It happens in realtime but is a handy reference later.

The Twitter stream can set up and improve the Q & A. Participants can submit questions via Twitter, and some basic ones can be answered by other participants on the backchannel.

The twitter backchannel is great marketing for the conference and for the associations sponsoring the conference. How many of the folks following along from home on Twitter will come to the conference next year? Jaffe’s baloney about stealing the content is a canard. Sharing the conference experience makes you a salesperson for the conference. And in the there’s no such thing as bad publicity department: I’ll bet Joseph Jaffe a bottle of Ardmore 30 year old Highland Single Malt that the High Ed Web conference in 2010 will have at least 10% more attendees than 2009 despite the down economy. And I’d chalk up its higher profile to the viral kerfuffle created by the back channel’s response to a terrible front channel.

The backchannel can be great publicity for the speaker, if s/he does well.

The twitter stream is another way the presenter can learn which parts of the talk resonated, and which fell flat. A lot of talks are given over and over again to different audiences. The best speakers refine them over time. Sometimes you can tell what works from the audience’s response in smiles, boos, laughs, or applause, but sometimes you have no idea what they are thinking. As a speaker, you can look back after a talk at the twitter stream and see which of your lines got quoted, which got questioned. It’s a more moment-to-moment record that post-talk survey cards provide (though they are useful, too.)

The Twitter backchannel is usually constructive and respectful, like most of the discussion at conferences. People are there to have fun and learn. The few examples of the backchannel “turning on” the speaker are the exception to the rule. Attendees who paid good money are not a mob, and they don’t act like one. Speakers always have to prove themselves, but they aren’t under attack.

When a speaker is truly outstanding, the backchannel quiets down. I’ve seen the twitterers close their laptops and go off the grid for a great, inspiring presentation. The audience knows when they need to just sit quietly and take in the experience of a great talk, and so do most of the twitterers on the backchannel.

All of that said, twittering at conferences needs to evolve, and backchannel participants will need to learn how to tweet appropriately.

Leave the backchannel in the back. The challenge danah boyd faced at ew2 was caused in large part by having the backchannel broadcast to the entire audience on giant TV screens behind her which she couldn’t see but everyone watching her could. I first saw this technique at the first Personal Democracy Forum in 2003 (?) and it was distracting and annoying. Participation in the backchannel should be voluntary. Don’t make me watch it when I’d rather just focus on the speakers. Plus, the speakers shouldn’t have to share the stage with the backchannel. I’d be happy to see this practice (which mainly happens at tech shows) banned at conferences. I agree with Jaffe that speakers shouldn’t have to monitor the backchannel while they talk. Instead, have an aide monitor it for the speaker and create places in the presentation for the aide to forward any important information or questions from the backchannel.

Bad behavior on the backchannel will be dealt with by the backchannel. Most people on Twitter are presenting themselves as who they really are, and not hiding behind anonymous handles. Their reputation will be affected by their tweets and they will be accountable for what they say. The backchannel will learn to police itself to stamp out really bad behavior. Over time, I expect twittering at conferences will be a self-healing system.

What do you think? Does Twitter enhance conferences? Or does Twitter destroy the experience of a professional meeting? Maybe he’s just stirring the pot a bit, but is Joseph Jaffe right or am I? Or are we both right?

Update 12/21/2009: Chris Pirillo phrases the issue as a question: Should Twitter Be Banned at Conferences?

You’ve heard social networking is the next big thing for businesses. It’s the future of communications, PR and marketing. If you don’t want to fall behind, experts say, you better get on Twitter, set up a Facebook fan page, create a YouTube channel. You gotta start pumping out updates, funny videos, and podcasts to get your message out to your customers. Content is king, baby.

I have three words for you: Shut up and listen.

This brave new world of social networking, social media, web 2.0 and all this great internet stuff is transforming everything about how businesses, nonprofits, schools, and governments communicate with the public, but stop — go back to that word transforming. This change in communication is not just a new technology for doing what you’ve always done. It is not just the new tube through which to send your message. So put your megaphone down…

What? You can’t put your megaphone down because it’s missing? You lost your megaphone?! Oh, wait—I see it. Look out there. See it? See all those people? No, not the public but your customers, your members, your students and their parents, your employees, your constituents and citizens—all of them have the megaphone now. It’s not as big and loud as it used to be, but — ssh! Listen! They’re talking to each other. What are they talking about?

They’re talking about their favorite movies. Some song lyric they misheard. They’re talking about Afghanistan, President Obama, their cousin who was at Falluja. They’re talking about their favorite whiskey. They’re talking about their children and the funny things they said today. They’re talking about their grandmother who just died and their best friend who just lost to cancer at the young age of 37. They’re talking about how they beat cancer. They’re talking about Lady Gaga’s latest video and Susan Boyle’s new CD. They’re talking about Tiger Woods and and the future of journalism. They’re talking about what they had for lunch and how delicious it was and if you’re lucky it was at your restaurant. Woo Hoo! Social Media FTW!

Yes, sometimes they are talking about you. Are you ears burning? You better hope it’s good, because they could also be talking about how your service was terrible, how they got food poisoning from your blue plate special… and they’re talking about it with their friends (who trust them) and through the megaphone they’re also talking about it with a lot of your other customers.

So what are you going to do about it? Put out a press release? Here’s what to do: Go direct to them. But be careful.

It is tempting to jump right in and mix it up with them, but look at all the other stuff they are talking about. Do you really want to be in their face when they’re still mourning their best friend? When you go direct, you’d better be respectful. The world is watching.

So, apologize for the bad service (what does that cost you, really?). Then, do something about it. Back up the apology with action. Remember that if they care enough to complain about you, they care about you. So be grateful for the feedback. Who needs to hire mystery shoppers when you have real customers with megaphones 24/7/365?

That’s better. You can now go do your home work—read and follow Seth Godin, Chris Brogan and Julien Smith, Mitch Joel, Kristina Halvorson, Jay Rosen, Clay Shirky, Dan Zarella and that’s just for starters.

But before you go, and this is very important, keep in mind that:

Social Media is not an add-on

Now that I’m using this site more actively, it’s time for a redesign that can support the site’s expanding role as a hub for my work in marketing strategy, branding, and social media. My post about what screensize to design for helps to frame a lot of the points below. To make sure I get what I want, I’m starting with a few basic requirements:

• The site must have a landscape orientation, rather than a portrait one;
• Due to relatively short browser windows, the site ID won’t be a banner that takes up precious screen real estate. Instead, I’ll create a site ID/logo that is only a couple columns wide and allows some content to appear right at the top of the page;
• Go with the 960 grid
• Larger type that is easier to read
• Main blog column width of 500 pixels which will allow for most embedded content (videos, slideshows), and that with larger type will have an average of 9 to 11 words per line for good readability.

As I think of more requirements I will add them. If you were redesigning a site today, what would you start with?

A new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project suggests that contrary to earlier concerns about the effects of technology, the internet and mobile phones are decreasing, not increasing social isolation. The findings challenge the notion that technology pulls people away from social engagement.

Contrasting with results of a 2006 study [PDF] by Miller McPherson, Lynn Smith-Lovin and Matthew Brashears, Pew’s study “finds that Americans are not as isolated as has been previously reported.” Instead of increasing isolation, use of the internet and cellphones is associated with larger and more diverse social networks.

The study stops short of claiming a causal link between using social networking or cellphones and increased connections with other people, but the implication is clear that people using these technologies are more connected with others than those who do not use them.

I believe social networks are becoming popular precisely because they enable people to re-establish relationships that were ruptured simply because people moved away, a side effect of our wonderful mobility.

Listen to this audioblog on how technology is repairing the collateral damage of social mobility.

A TED talk by Stefana Broadbent released this week examines another way cellphones and social networking are helping people to maintain closeness by connecting us to our personal life while we are at work.

Implications for the Elderly

The study’s findings of social network membership by age are particularly stark, indicating (unsurprisingly) that fewer than 3% of Americans over age 65 are using social networking services such as Facebook, LinkedIn, or MySpace.

Social isolation and loneliness are huge issues for older persons. Anyone with a family member of advanced age can probably attest to the heartbreaking affects of loneliness on a loved one whose friends are no longer around. This isolation is a clear cause of increased rates of depression and suicide among the elderly.

If social media and cellphones can help to combat isolation, perhaps agencies working with the elderly need to encourage senior citizens to use them. Given that many seniors have profound antipathy to computers (and I don’t blame them!) smart phones are likely a better way to do that than a PC.

How wide to design for? My data on viewport sizes show the quick answer is 960 pixels, but as you’ll see, you should pay as much attention to the height of your main content as the width.

You want the important content on your web pages to be visible to visitors without them having to scroll, right? Computer screens have grown bigger in recent years, making more screen real estate available. So how should you decide how big your web page should be?  Jakob Nielson recommended in 2006:

Optimize Web pages for 1024×768, but use a liquid layout that stretches well for any resolution, from 800×600 to 1280×1024.

Overall, Nielson’s suggestions seem sound, but screen resolution is the wrong measurement to go by. What matters is the viewport size. The viewport is the space inside the browser window in which a web page displays.

As you can see from the example below from a Macbook Pro laptop, the screen may be much larger than the browser window.

The viewport is just part of the browser window, which may also contain scrollbars, a status bar at the bottom, tabs, toolbars, a menu bar and title bar at the top, and possibly a sidebar, too.

Good data on viewport size is more difficult to obtain that data on screen resolution (which is reported on by most web stats software). Conducting my own research, I have collected viewport measurements several times, and here are my latest findings, from June 2009:

• Nearly all visitors have their browser maximized to fill their screen
• 33% of the available height of the screen is taken up by all those toolbars and tabs
• The most common screen resolution is 1280 x 800
• 85% of visitors have a viewport size of at least 990 x 540, which can comfortably accomodate a 960-pixel-wide based grid system.

Based on this research, my thoughts are:

In deciding what size to design for, it’s good to approach it as a question of tolerance. How many of your visitors can you tolerate forcing to scroll? 5%? 10%? The chart below illustrates what percentage of visitors can see a given viewport area.

Above the fold is cramped. Despite the increase in viewport width over the past few years, you still don’t have that much vertical space to work with. “Above the fold” means a height of no more than 500 to 600 pixels. That gives me second thoughts about having a page header use up so much real estate.

Change your orientation: web pages are viewed within a landscape orientation, not a portrait. You’re effectively working in a space that is like a movie screen (or HDTV) with a 16:9 aspect ratio.

Some features are more equal than others. I recommend a lower fault tolerance for certain page elements, such as a search box, or site ID. You want to make sure nearly everyone can see them. A lot of sites (including mine) put the search box in the upper right corner. If 1 out of 10 visitors can’t see it because their browser isn’t wide enough, I would say that is too many. The data on viewport size shows that 10% of visitors won’t see a right sidebar on a 960-wide design.

Update on December 17, 2009.

The folks at Google Labs have created a very cool “Browser Size” tool (see the comments below from Bruno Bowden) that visualizes a web page against their data on viewport size, so you can see what’s visible to visitors. The Google Code blog announced the project yesterday.

I’ll admit I was a bit taken aback at how similarly we had conceived the method to measure and analyze web page designs. But, it’s clear we came to the issue through similar routes. With my first post on the topic three years ago on the SIGIA-L mailing list gathering dust, it’s nice to see there are others out there who care at this level of detail when thinking about interface design.

Recently I was marveling to a colleague about how easy it was upgrading from an 8-year-old iMac to a new iMac. Just a few clicks and in less than one hour, my old computer, with all my configurations and settings, was up and running on my new computer. I didn’t have to learn anything new. I didn’t lose any of my data. The desktop looked the same (but bigger) I could continue to use my new computer just like it was my old computer.  It was much faster, had some nice new software, and wasn’t shutting down suddenly every few hours, but otherwise, it was as if I hadn’t upgraded at all. Furthermore, I hadn’t had to rely on any of the knowledge I’d accumulated in 25 years of experience with computers.

The same upgrade 8 years ago would not have been so seamless, especially if the previous machine had been 8 years old — from 1993. In fact, I had a circa 1992 Macintosh Centris at the time of that upgrade, and I remember cumbersomely transferring all my files on Zip disks… and then having to learn an entirely new operating system. Previous to that I had a 1989 Macintosh Plus, previous to which I had a mid-1980s Apple IIe. The files I created on the Mac Plus are on my current compuuer, but the files from the Apple IIe never made it to the Mac Plus.

The point of all this is to say that there has been a sea-change in usability. When I think about what makes Web 2.0 technologies different from what came before, the salient feature is actually the usability. The key is: You don’t need to be a computer person or a programmer to use Web 2.0 software. They are designed with average folks in mind, people who aren’t computer experts.

Driving from New York to New Hampshire today sans iPod, I was able to plug my iPhone into the car radio and run the Pandora for iPhone application and it was amazing. I basically had internet connectivity all the way via AT&T’s network, enabling me to have great tunes playing all the way and far superior to the offerings on the radio.

This is the beginning of a seamless “always there” web, when the cloud is with you wherever you are (which is a real cloud).

Incidentally, I got to listen to a bunch of different Pandora stations and have to recommend “Hammer and a Nail“as the most consistently good set of tunes.