Are Twitter Trends Meaningful?

How much value is there in a Twitter trending topic? Does it really represent what is on people's minds?

Since practically everyone on Twitter is both a publisher and a reader, we don't often think the distinction between the two is important. But it is - especially if you want to interpret the meaning of trending topics. And this is simply because trending topics directly measure publishers, not readers.

If you're not sold yet on why the distinction is important, take a quick sidebar to more traditional news sources. Would you consider the headlines of newspapers what is on people's minds? Would you consider them the 'trending topics' (on more of a daily pace)?

Not exactly. Rather, these are the stories that publishers 'think' the population will be interested in. So if publishers are good and do their research well, perhaps the headlines do line up with what is on people's minds. And of course, if what's on your mind is what you just read in the newspaper this morning, we may arrive at the same result - just with the publisher influencing the reader - not the other way around.

So back to Twitter.

Since everyone is a publisher, one might dismiss the notion that we aren't looking at real trends. However, there are two distinct distortions we should not forget about when looking at Twitter trends:

1. Whenever we tweet something, we tweet things that we think will be interesting to our followers. It is the same thing that newspaper publishers do. When we tweet too many things our followers are not interested in, we lose them. And we don't want to lose followers. If we are good, we may know what our followers want. So perhaps it is not a complete disconnect. But even good people will mess up. And how many are that good? We can't forget that the publisher chooses the topic, not the reader.

2. There is a large segment of the Twitter population that is very focused on gaining a large following, without much else driving their activity. How does one gain a large following? Tweet about interesting stuff. Don't know what is interesting? Check out the top 10 trends on Twitter. Tweet about that.

So now there is a segment of the Twitter population that has turned Twitter and it's top trends into an amplifier. One can no longer tell how interested people are in a particular topic because Twitter publishers have picked up the 'trends', tweeted about them and pushed them even higher on the charts.

On a gross scale, we often do get to find out what people are thinking about. But the top 10 trends will always be much higher on the scale than they deserve to be because of this phenomenon.

Are Twitter trends useful? Probably. Just keep in mind their limitations are very much like those of every media outlet that preceded Twitter. Trends are amplified through the 'Twitter amplifier' and they really represent what publishers are thinking about, not necessarily what readers were thinking about before their publisher tweeted the story.

Notes for BibleReader on iPhone - A First Look

I've been using Olive Tree's BibleReader for iPhone for almost a year now. I love the interface and am completely thrilled not to have to carry a few pounds of paper with me all the time.
The biggest complaint I've have with using an electronic form of the Bible is the inability to take notes in it. Our pastor regularly encourages us to mark up our Bible, underline important phrases, make reference to other parts of the Bible, etc. Sitting in church I had no way to comply with these suggestions - though I really wanted to.
So, I was super excited to have a chance to get an early look at the implementation for BibleReader notes by participating in the beta program for the feature. Now I too can mark up my Bible!

Overall I like the implementation. And though it is beta, it seems quite stable.

It's easy to add a note to any verse. Tap a verse number (or the '+' icon at the bottom of the page) and an edit window slides up in which you can type your notes. Tap Done and you're viewing the note. A Note icon appears at the start of the verse. Whenever the icon is tapped, the note slides into view. Tapping on the page makes the note slide away. Slick. This is consistent with how other notes work in the application. The difference is that these are notes created by the user rather than by a theologian (unless you, the user, happen to be a theologian).

By default, you get a speech bubble icon for your notes. You can change it to one of a few dozen other icons. Presumably if you come up with a standard for each icon, it could help you identify certain types of notes - say 'prayers', 'cross references', 'special word from the Lord', etc. I struggled at first trying to do this. But with a bit of creativity, I was able to come up with a mapping for myself that worked at least for this small set (i.e. speech bubble, direction sign and heart respectively). There are various forms of push pins, speech bubbles, paper pads, traffic signs, stars, etc. with many colors to choose from. Though there are many icons built in, it would be nice to have user-defined icons that convey meaning of user-defined categories.

I've got a couple of other things on my wish list (below). But the biggest drawback I've encountered is that my notes are trapped in my phone.
While I love having the Bible in my phone, it is not my only Bible. I also read a paper copy and an online copy. I would love to have my notes show up in the online Bible I am reading - something quite feasible. I would love to have them show up in my paper bible also - not so feasible unless you stretch the definition of paper to include a Kindle.
I asked the developer about getting notes off the phone and found out that in fact Olive Tree has plans to sync notes over the web. I wasn't able to get more details. But I'm hopeful. This will make a huge difference in the usefulness of the feature.

Here's the wish list I promised:
* Auto-tag a date to each note. I find myself repeatedly entering this manually (not the time, just the date).
* Add ability to search notes.
* Include a way of going to the verse text from viewing the note after selecting 'View Annotations' (kind of like a bookmark).
* Recognize scripture references in notes and make them tappable links (like the cross-references in built-in notes).
* Add ability to place note icons mid-verse.
* Add ability to indicate a note (even a blank one) by underlining or highlighting a section of text - not bounded by the beginning or end of a verse.

Looking over this list, you might think the feature falls short. But that's not the case. The implementation is simple and gets the job done. And it is more full-featured than other notes implementations I've seen. The only show-stopper is the inability to get notes off the phone. Solve this, and I'll be writing up a storm of notes in my iPhone BibleReader.