Capitalizing on the Paper.li Craze

Posted by Gabe on November 10, 2010 under Twitter | 8 Comments to Read

If you have been active on Twitter over the last few months you have probably noticed it. You have seen tweets like “The ‘My Paper Is Awesome’ Daily is Out. Top stories by @OpieTaylor @AuntBee @BarneyFife.”  Of course this is a fictitious example but you get the idea.  This is a service that converts tweets of people you follow, lists or hash tags into a newspaper type format (see paper.li). At first after taking a cursory look at it I thought it was kind of neat.  I didn’t know how it worked, but assumed people took an effort to select the “headlines” that they liked.  Since we were recognized by Mashable we have been featured in many of these posts as of late.  One of my followers even featured the same link for three straight days.  I started taking a closer look at these posts, and saw that in the media section our Twitter EBook (PDF) was also being featured almost every time.  Wow, I thought. People are really taking an interest in my stuff!

Then I started taking a closer look.  I didn’t go so far as to create a paper myself because as I learned, it’s automated.  To what degree, I’m actually not sure but I assume that it grabs tweets that happen to be in the creator’s list or hashtag’s timeline of when the paper is published and picks videos, pdfs, links to publish in an automated fashion.  (If a reader has a better explanation please add in the comments.)  Why I think this is true is because I had not tweeted the ebook link this morning and it was not showing up in the media links.  As soon as I did I found it in the next “paper”.

I won’t attempt to describe myself exactly how it works but I will offer a post written by someone else on the subject.

I am still deciphering in my mind what to think about all this.  Here I had been thanking people for including me when they never personally selected anything I wrote.  That I guess is part of the attraction to have a daily paper.  It’s kind of urging me to tweet videos and our ebook more often as I now know it has a better chance of showing up in someone’s paper.  I guess that’s good for me but I really don’t think this will work in the long run.  So many people are using it the novelty has now worn off.  I also I think that my followers will certainly get tired of me tweeting the same links over and over.

Regular readers of my blog will note that as of late I have not been writing about Twitter.  All these posts have gone “straight to DVD” or as in my case our ebook.  The reason why I didn’t do it this time is because I feel that within a few short months this Paper service will fade away.  Now that I know how it works I have less interest in other “papers”.  If I sent out a link every day that read, “Here’s a random sample of what my followers are saying” would you click on it each day?

So I guess I should be thankful for people at least including me in their lists to be eligible.  I think of this service as a sophisticated retweet.  Since I am pretty discerning as to what posts I retweet I will not be creating a paper.  But that doesn’t mean I will not send out a few extra links to take advantage of the craze while I can.  Would love to hear what you think of this new service.

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  • Amy Jussel, Shaping Youth said,

    Gabe, as always, your posts enlighten and inform. I too had no idea why/where my links were popping up and ASSUMED they were hand-selected for pertinence.

    I purposely have not created a paper, but DO appreciate the clumping of special interest categories into one ‘top of the news’ kind of blurb and have even subscribed to a couple of them (particularly colleagues I respect for having a discerning curation eye as I’m in dire need of ‘filters’ to combat the digital deluge sans interns/assistants)

    That said, I’m now going to have to view this with a much more discerning eye (and yes, probably tweet or blog about how it works, thanks to you!)

    Also wanted your opinion on the whole ‘FB like’ linkage and such de(volving) into the RT web (interesting insight from this blogger here: http://is.gd/hDUg4) as I’ve purposely not created a ‘page’ for yet another area to keep up with, and use my surname account for Shaping Youth…

    With the recent $1M fm Amex contributed to GirlsInc via ‘likes’ on FB for SmallBizSat yesterday, I guess I’m rethinking the biz strategy end of it, as I’ve grown weary of all the ‘vote’ or ‘like’ or click actionism, and purposely have NOT entered into any of the ‘poll’ style money grabs for nonprofit do-gooder entities, even though I know it’s lucrative and ‘the way it’s done’ now for CSR…but I have a disdain/distaste for spamming my friends or playing popularity poll games. Thoughts on either of these issues?

    Thanks again for the Paper.li insights…I haven’t even made it to updating to ‘the new’ Twitter (last tweep standing prolly) but hear it has much to offer and can ‘help’ rather than hinder. Any advice you have there, too, lemme know…

    Sorry to be a blog hog, but your advice is always so worthy! Hugs to the hounds (and your family as well) Best, Amy

  • Gabe said,

    Thanks for the thoughtful comments Amy.

    I will give that suggested blog post a read but I am a believer in using the FB ‘Like’ strategy, as evidenced by us newly introducing them to each of our blog posts. It gets you exposure in a way that you wouldn’t normally get and it’s easy to install. Sometimes it gets aggravating if the ‘Like’ component is down and you get a nasty message instead of the Like icon. That has only happened to me once so far.

    The reason I prefer ‘Like’ over ‘Vote’ is because I don’t ask anyone to like my posts. It is there and totally up to them. I was recently on the wrong end of a voting session where I had to ask for votes for an entire month. It was horrible and I know I lost a lot of followers and fans. Despite the fact that we won I will never do it again. It’s a great way for companies to turn us all into their own private little spammers.

    As far as the FB page goes, I would recommend for it. I only update the Kids Are Heroes page two or three times a day (checking for comments) but I don’t think anyone can afford to ignore that platform as there are far more FB users than Twitter. Sometimes you just have to go where the people are.

    And lastly, I’m not a big fan of the new Twitter, so I don’t think you are missing much unless you are not using something like Tweetdeck.

    Thanks for visiting and keep the questions coming!

  • Amy Jussel, Shaping Youth said,

    Appreciate the advice, Gabe…good point on the ‘like’ opt in unsolicited; guess I’ll add that to my WP theme overhaul underway. (& yep, suppose I need create a ‘public page’ on FB too I just have trouble keeping up as it is, teeny org issues. Maybe I’ll post for a FB intern to help/manage admin/do outreach initially? Any success w/that on your end?

  • Gabe said,

    I personally will update our FB and Twitter statuses as long as I can because it’s the only thing that remains personal and authentic. I have not sought out an intern to do it. Hopefully when we get to the point that I can no longer do it there will be someone else within the organization who can do it with the passion they hold for us. That would unlikely be an intern.

  • Amy Jussel, Shaping Youth said,

    Well, that’s for sure. I meant to ‘set it up’ not to update statuses and such. (didn’t make myself clear)

    Maybe it’s easier than I’m imagining? I just know that many folks that don’t admin their pages end up with spam up the wazoo, etc. and judging by our blog readership (filters set WAY high and some still sneaks through) the bots are gettin’ tricky.

    And you’re absolutely right on the intern front. No one can replace the passion, nor the curation. That’s part of the conundrum with ANY admin/virtual assistance. (tried to hire a hand to learn/decipher lists categorize info but had to toss it all, $ down the drain)

    Human, personal knowledge just may not translate/duplicate/automate. Which circles back to why I think the whole Paper.Li trend tanks compared to personal curation.

  • Gabe said,

    Facebook has a new feature that catches spam on a separate “wall” so I haven’t found that to be much of an issue. Even when that wasn’t there I would only get maybe one a week. That’s not bad with a site that has over 2500 fans.

    And I think you are spot on about why I have little regard for paper.li once I discovered articles weren’t hand picked. I don’t look at those tweets anymore even if I’m mentioned.

  • Amy Jussel, Shaping Youth said,

    oooh, good to know on the FB front. I’ll put it on my ‘to do’ list along w/the site overhaul by year’s end! Thanks for being my info-elf on all these social media goodies.

    I really trust your knowledge and like-minded parameters, so this is why the ‘personal credibility’ factor is HUGE when it comes to triage of one’s own ‘social graph’ on the web. Appreciate your wisdom and insights immensely, thanks again, Amy

  • Gabe said,

    It is my pleasure Amy and thanks for the kind words.

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