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I have finally given way to Twitter-mania and have jumped on the bandwagon. Though I have known about Twitter and its effectiveness in communication with one’s social network, I was/am not quite sure how will I use the service in my day-to-day life. Yes, I can post about the latest news as I come across them, I can send my friends and family messages in a single click, and I can send interesting links to all. But the  bigger question is who will be interested in what? My family is least concerned with my link on Google shares, my business contacts will ignore my fun/trivial messages and so on. This dilemma begs me to consider opening multiple accounts (I haven’t explored ‘groups’ yet) on Twitter with specific purposes and building a network accordingly. But I am also on Facebook, I am also on Linkedin, thank god I got out of Orkut, and now I am also on Twitter. I can safely say that at least an hour of mine goes away following updates on these before mentioned channels. Isn’t it too much or is it worth it? Well, the answer depends on who you are, what your purpose is, and how do you make use of the information. The way I define it is this:

1. Linkedin – Professional networking only. Try and remove all your friends from your network there and focus primarily on building business networks. This will not only seem professional but will also avoid creating a difficult situation (for e.g. if a person who is barely known to you asks for a recommendation, what do you do?).

2. Facebook – Friends only. Please, please avoid adding professional networks here. Remember, one posts various pictures and views that are sometimes frivolous, trivial, and perhaps just whacky. You do not want your next recruiter to read/view these. (Note: Sometimes there is a grey area – friends who are also business contacts. Feel free to add them to both Facebook and Linkedin – that is fine)

3. Twitter – Open an account only if you have anything meaningful to do with it. If you don’t have anything reasonable to say, please don’t post. You can follow all you like – you may want to follow a marketing guru who tweets about trends, a technological evangelist who tweets the next big thing, or a fitness freak who tweets healthy knowledge. But the space is clouded with folks who have nothing meaningful and are thus a waste in this era of increased productivity.

Well, in any case, if you want to follow me on twitter, click here or the icon above or the icon on the right. I will be posting whenever a new post is added to this blog. My other posts will be a part of a small controlled social experiment. Hopefully, I will see some specific results.

Here are a couple of interesting twitter links:

Iran and how Twitter broke the wall

Beautiful Twitter Icons for your website and blog

10 most extraordinary Twitter posts

* Icon at the top of the post has been taken from here

During my first semester here at Goizueta, I took a class on Statistics taught by Prof. Steve Stuk. Not only did I enjoy the class immensely, my interest in the subject was greatly enhanced. Prof. Stuk showed us numerous real world examples where statistical analysis is used and how it impacts our day to day lives. During the same time, my marketing teacher, Prof. Sundar Bharadwaj, referred me to a book – The Numerati by Stephen Baker – that talks about strides this new science is making in today’s context.

I recently finished reading the book and I have to say, I am greatly impressed. Stephen starts with asking everyone of us as to how much in our opinion do we leave a trail of data ‘explaining’ our tastes and behavior. Our clicks on the humble IE/Firefox/et all are getting captured and monitored by numerous numerati (number crunchers) to understand and gain information about us. He then goes on to mention how marketers are using the same data to provide us with targetted, contextual advertisement to get our business.

Then the author takes us on a journey – as a patient, blogger, lover, and even a terrorist. How the different companies and agencies are tracking information that we unconciously and willfully give to clearly identify us. Clearly many of the applications and systems designed are going to be for our own benefits. But an ethical question is also raised – Do we really want someone to process the information and join the dots to know a private ‘us’?

The digital age is changing the way businesses evaluate the needs of their customers. With the advent of Google and other data rich companies, a completely new discipline that intermixes core skills such as statistical analysis, anthropology, psychology, et cetra is taking birth. What this sector is creating and what impact will it have on our lives is the basic premise of the book. The book is organized very well and provides for an easy read.