rybomedia

My Columbia Twitter Revolution

Ryan — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 05:09:46 +0000

Several weeks ago at Social Media Club Columbia, SC, Dan Conover (@xarker) spoke about the potential for standardized Twitter hashtags for cities.

For example, Charlotte and Charleston have been trying to adopt localized hashtags for news, traffic, etc. For more on this, read this post. Thanks to search lists, Charleston natives can simply add “#chs” to their tweets to be seen by other . Here’s a wonderful example of it’s usefulness:

Obviously, one hashtag for an entire cities worth of tweeting can get crowded. That’s why the proposed plan adds includes tags for traffic, news, breaking stories, weather, the election, etc. Genius.

Well, I’m ready to do the same in Columbia. We have lots of people who use Twitter on a day-to-day basis, and our local news stations are getting into the game. I keep up with weather updates and breaking news throughout the day by following the Twitter accounts of local papers and TV stations. If we had standardized hashtags, it would be much, much easier.

So here’s my plan. I’ve tweeted with a few local Columbia people and I’ve decided to try and start something. Thanks for your help @cophotog, @mandiengram, @hollybounds! The “base hash” for this is #cae. This is the airport code for Columbia - just like Charlotte uses #clt and Charleston uses #chs.

#cae - A bit long, but #csc and #cola are already taken. Add this if you need the quick attention of other locals.
#caenews - Pretty self explanatory - used for local news.
#caebrk - Breaking news. Again, it’s longer but…oh well. :)
#caewthr - Weather updates and alerts.
#caetrfk - Columbia traffic updates.
#caefood - Local food tweets.
#caetech - Blogs, social sites, web contest, etc from Columbia.

Got any suggestions, additions, or proposed revisions? Leave me a comment below.

Now here’s the important part. I’m one person. I can’t do this alone. For this to catch on, I’m going to need lots of help. It’s going to take getting used to, but I think if it ever does take off it could serve very useful. Think about it - a live list of tweets to keep you constantly informed on traffic problems, breaking news, local food deals, and weather alerts. All for free.

Let’s face it - this is long overdue. People want news, and they want it right now wherever they are, right when it happens. The great thing is that it’s a collaborative effort. Everyone in Columbia (or Charlotte, or Charleston, or wherever you introduce these standardized hashtags) can contribute to a constantly updated stream of news and traffic updates.

Twitter Marketing Done Right - @HowiesIrmo

Ryan — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:45:10 +0000

Often, businesses and organizations are such a nuissance on Twitter. Let’s face it - we all get spammed by followers who only wish to promote their own business, sending out only formal updates with their advertisements. Every now and then, however, a business gets it right. Enter Hungry Howies Pizza in Irmo, SC.

HowiesIrmo is a pizza place - an unlikely type of business to get involved in social networking. However, if you’re a Columbia Twitter user (especially one active in link-sharing and everyday discussion on the site), chances are you’re familiar with Howies - you would probably even recognize the bright yellow logo. What’s different about this, compared to other businesses on Twitter, many of whose logo’s you may be familiar with? Howies is personal.

Howies engages in everyday discussion. They participate in Follow Friday, they help out my blog, they help me think of crazy Halloween costumes, and they help spread the word about Joupes. In short, Howies uses Twitter for casual conversation - having 2-sided conversations and creating a quirky and fun personality that’s always fun to interact with. And at the end of the day, their business is still advertised. I’ve been out to Irmo for some Hungry Howies pizza and cinnamon bread - have you?

To all the businesses out there - study HowiesIrmo. Be more personal, easily able to chat about things that aren’t your product. Have fun with other users. To all the South Carolina people - head out to Irmo. Tell them you’re there because of Twitter. Enjoy the pizza. I know I will as soon as I can find another date to go (and some time that I’m not studying!).

Listen to the (Google) Voice In Your Head

Ryan — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 19:06:49 +0000

It’s easy to get lost in all the buzz over Google’s latest babies - Voice and Wave. Both are generating a lot of attention among bloggers and tech-enthusiasts, even though each service is still only available by invitation.

I have been invited to use both, and for the past week or two I have been trying them out. Here are my thoughts about Google Voice: I love it.

That was easy. Over the next few paragraphs, I’m going to try and convince you why you should, too. Before that, however, it’s probably good to do a quick overview. If you aren’t familiar with Voice, it’s essentially a service to manage your current phone system. No matter how many phone numbers you have (work, home, mobile, etc), Google Voice can help you manage them efficiently.

Can I have yo’ numba?

When you first sign up for Voice, you’ll have to pick your phone number. That’s right - Google Voice gives you a new number. Don’t worry, your old number will still work as Voice simply forwards calls to your phone. For me, picking a number was the fun part. Not only do you get to choose from a list of available numbers, but you can search for number or letter combinations for convenience.

As far as setting up, that’s about it. You’ll customize a few settings before getting started and then you land on your Voice page. Ah, the beauty. All of your Voicemails, Contacts, and SMS messages stored in one location, in an interface similar to Gmail.

You’ll want to take a look at neat features like setting up multiple voicemail greetings, receiving transcripts of voicemails by text-message and groups, which let you set up groups of people (i.e., “friends”, “coworkers”, etc) and manage which phone they are forwarded to, which greeting they hear, etc. If you don’t already, you will also want to start storing contacts online, too. Google Voice does this for you as well.

SMS Online

By far my favorite feature, however, is the ability to send and receive text messages online. First, it’s much, much easier to type on a computer keyboard than a BlackBerry keyboard. Second, all of my messages are saved online - forget trying to free space on your phone! If the really attractive girl texts me “yOu’RE soo kUtE :)!”, I can save it forever!*

But Rybo, won’t you get the message twice - once through Google Voice and once through your phone? Yes - unless you’re smart about it. If I’m at work, or have a lot of studying to do, I turn off SMS forwarding to my phone. That means all my text-messages come directly into my online Voice page and not to my phone. This way I can chat all day without having to go in and re-read 50 messages later. This gets addicting, trust me.

Call SEXE

Thanks to Google Voice, I have no problem posting my phone number on my blog. If you spam me, I can simply add you to my block list. If you’re a co-worker, I can forward your calls to my work phone. If you’re my mom, I can put a permanent Do Not Disturb sign. I had fun picking out this number. It’s half immature male, half wanting to invent some new pickup lines. You can call me at 803-386-SEXE.

* Disclaimer - The really attractive girl has never actually texted me anything like this. I use it for example only. Generally speaking, it’s more along the lines of “WHERE’D YOU GET THIS NUMBER?” or “my boyfriends a football player - STOP STARING”.

Akshun “Sinner’s Therapy” Sampler - Free mp3’s!

Ryan — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:13:59 +0000

A former co-worker and good friend of mine is releasing a new album in November. Kevin sent me and a few others the 4 track press sampler a few days ago and encouraged us to help spread the word and give the songs away to anyone who wanted a copy.

I’ve been a fan of Akshun (Kevin’s stage name) for years now and I’m still impressed. His first official release, Diamond District, was voted one of the best SC releases of the year. Since then, he has gone underground, releasing 2 mixtapes - “Speaks for Itself” and “Let’s Be Clear Vol. I” (with Dan Johns). For more on Dan Johns, see his website.

If you like good, lyrical music, check out the sample below. Feel free to download the mp3’s by right-clicking the mp3 link and selecting “Save Target As…”. If you like what you hear, stay up to date with Kevin at his Twitter, MySpace, and Magnum-Opus website for more information on the CD release.

Grizzly feat. Cajwell [mp3 link]
Download audio file (01-Grizzly-feat.-Cajwell.mp3)
Green Light feat. Lou Hall [mp3 link]
Download audio file (02-Green-Light-feat.-Lou-Hall.mp3)
I Don’t Need [mp3 link]
Download audio file (03-I-Don’t-Need-(The-Drama).mp3)
Breath Easy feat. Cajwell [mp3 link]
Download audio file (04-Breath Easy-feat.-Cajwell.mp3)

Whiplash

Ryan — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:47:05 +0000

This post was written by my good friend Jimmy Sawczuk. If you would like to write a guest post, let me know.

We ran into a problem at work last week that was, at the same time, a nightmare and exactly the kind of problem you want to have. The culprit was our latest Big Prize Giveaways promotion, and the problem was that our app had metaphorically gone from 0-60 in about two seconds, and it experienced the same thing your neck feels when it accelerates that fast: whiplash. This was my first experience with an app that was this big; even in my McJournal days, I rarely averaged more than 60,000 (well, take that number and divide by 10,000 and you have the real number) hits per day. So in the last week, I’ve learned a ton during our march to a million fans that I think can be useful to everyone, no matter how close your app is to that kind of scale.

This is the first rule in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, so it’s the first rule here: don’t panic. My first (extremely narcissistic) thought was “what? Something broke? Our server sucks!”, and my second (seriously overdramatic) thought was “I tried my best when I was writing it, how am I supposed to improve it now?” Most scaling problems are definitely manageable, and even though (for me) they’re not much fun and can be stressful, there are worse problems to have.
Have a plan. These types of problems aren’t quick fixes, you’ll need to know what you want to do, how you intend to do it, and when. Keep in mind that unless you shut down your app completely, the slowdowns will continue to affect you as you work through the problem, so having a plan is crucial so you avoid wasting time thrashing.

Use EXPLAIN liberally. You should do this to every query you run and make sure nothing jumps out at you. Many of my queries were non-indexed, meaning that while the query would be quick to run with only 50,000 contest entries, as the entries piled up and became more frequent and less distinct, even fast queries slowed down. And when your app is doing 50 queries per second, an increase of even 10 ms to a query will start to snowball and drag your app to a crawl. Point is, you should run EXPLAIN on your queries to ensure they’re doing what you expect them to.
Index intelligently. Our CTO, Jim Rubenstein (who was the one teaching me a lot of this stuff as we worked through these issues) mentioned that for each SELECT query you run, you should have an index defined. This is particularly true on high volume SELECT queries. Indexing costs a little when you insert and costs some extra hard drive space, but in a day and age with multi-terabyte sized hard drives, some extra INSERT work is easy to work around.
Better than even EXPLAINing and indexing, you should write your app so it uses the fewest database queries possible. This doesn’t just mean reducing database queries per page load (although that’s important too), it means using tools like memcached whenever possible to reduce the number of unnecessary or redundant queries to the database. memcached simply stores stuff in RAM as needed, and while the concept is simple, intelligently caching your data greatly reduces the number of database queries you have to make. Many of our sites at work use memcached, and we are looking into using a tool developed by Facebook called Scribe to do the same thing with INSERTing data that memcached does with SELECTs. When I first started work a few months ago, I had never used any real caching algorithms or practices in any of my projects, but now it’s one of my favorite problems to solve and one of the most fascinating.
Learn about configuring your web server to handle more traffic. Most web servers (including Apache) are configured by default to be able to run on a server that divides its resources among other software, like a database. If you have the flexibility to allow your server more space in RAM, more CPU cycles and more hard drive space, open ‘er up and let your server work harder. To do this in Apache, we had to alter the ServerLimit and MaxClients Apache directives, although it may vary for you depending on what version of Apache you have. Do some research on the web to find the ideal settings and set them appropriately.
When all else fails, throw hardware at the problem. Without going into the details of our configuration, we scaled our webserver (which is a beast of a server, by the way) to four webservers that are load-balanced. Since implementing this scheme, along with the earlier fixes, we have had few problems. Let me say though, that unless your app or site is huge, there’s probably more optimizations to be done before this option.

I think the most important piece of advice I can give you is to not panic. As Jim and I worked through this last week he noted that it’s a good problem to have, and that’s true. After all, if you’re getting slammed, it means people are finding compelling reasons to use your app, correct? Our president (who’s had a lot more experience than us) said also that with these kind of problems, you face growing pains but you fix them on the fly and you learn. I think it’s also true that until your app is on the web, there’s no telling how it’ll perform, and no matter how much you test, no matter how much you benchmark, stuff is bound to go wrong - it’s just a matter of coming back and making it better.

Thanks to Rybo for letting me post this! Hope you all found it enjoyable and informative. If you have any questions feel free to get in touch with me via Twitter, Facebook, or my blog. Thanks again, and I hope I see you somewhere on the interwebs soon.