#smc_mcr Verdicts on the third Social Media Cafe event

Updated: 21.01.08
Updated: 18.01.08.
These are the blogger’s verdicts on January’s Social Media Cafe.
As well as posting about the event, speaker Sam Easterby-Smith has used his blog Sam Scam to add soemthing more to the night by providing some very useful tips and links on his chosen mash-ups topic.
He says: “If you’re itching to lifestream there are plenty of other things in this space – Friendfeed has a very similar set of functionality and a pretty big userbase, if you’re more of a hacker there is an promising looking PHP application called Sweetcron which you can hoist on your server and tweak to meet your needs.”
Newbie Robin Wilson enjoyed his first visit to the event. On his blog The Opposite Direction he says
“Being new to the area and not knowing what to expect, I was really impressed with the organisation and turn out. My fav, was the chap talking about GPS technology. He introduced us to cool stuff being done by Blinn, Loki, Loopt and Gypsi. ”
Blogger Stephen Tuck shared his experiences of attempting to introduce Twitter into the workplace. His posting following the event rang very true with my own experience – and I’m sure a lot of others whose work often entails talking about social media in conservative organisations.
” I started using Twitter as an R&D excersise after being introduced to it by Euan Macintosh at the Socitm conference: Web2.0 what it is and why it Matters. It didn’t take long to build up a good network of social media web contacts who are only too willing to share information, advise and collaborate. I began to make the team aware of my use of this network by sharing some of the experiences and benefits I was having. Over the past few months there has been a steady stream of people engaging me in conversations about the nature of Twitter and how it can be used. Twitter is a funny beast that only reveals its benefits through engagement.”
Fellow founder and social media addict Martin Bryant analyses how Manchester’s group is doing things in a uniquely Manchester way at his blog 14 sandwiches.
“While London has a wide range of events supporting Social Media innovators, Manchester had very little until Social Media Cafe Manchester began. We’ve started a monthly event that can help nurture a local scene and we’ve done it in a uniquely Mancunian way. Now sub-groups are starting to form, beginning with a group interested in using Social Media with music. Given Manchester’s musical heritage it’s little surprise that we’re going down that route. Who knows what else will spring out of the event we affectionately call smc_mcr?”
Speaker Tim Difford reflected on his own presentation as well as offering some hopes for future events at his blog Greener Day.
“During the conversation I also suggested that the ‘always on; always available’ feel of tools like Twitter might actually be adding to the stress of the work-‘place’. In the same way that when people discovered that mobile phones and email meant they could contact anyone 24/7, it also meant that they themselves were contactable 24/7 by employers, clients and team-mates. Will Twitter heighten this overload?”
If you’ve posted on the event, feel free to drop me a line and receive a little link love.