I’m really grateful for everything you invest me and my friends at huber+co. You do a lot to lend us your trust and social capital. That’s awesome, and we’re so grateful.
But today, I need to ask you for your help. Willing to listen? Nice! 
Here’s the skinny. At huber+co, we’ve been working on a side project called TweetMyTime. A fair amount of people have told us that TweetMyTime a good idea because it uses social communication technology to solve a real world problem, and likewise, there’s really no barrier to adoption other than not already having a Twitter account. (Interestingly enough, we’ve noticed a ton of Columbus Marathon registrants have been signing up with Twitter accounts just to use TweetMyTime in the race. Go figure.)
The Bigger Picture Behind TweetMyTime
On Twitter, trending topics have always fascinated me. Twitter trends are simply really BIG topical conversations captured in a period of time. I wrote about how PodCamp Ohio trended a few months back, and an idea I had on the ingredients behind a trending topic from following that event.
The current system dictates that up until now, trends have always been organic conversations. That means that the topics show up on the side bar of your Twitter page or in TweetStats get there by pure chance. Right time. Right crowd. Right topic of conversation. Right volume of messages. All happenstance. For now.
Using our TweetMyTime app, we’re going to try to hack that system. (thanks for Trust Agents, Chris & Julien.)
Using a designated hash tag – #cbusmarathon – we are going to aggregate all of the related tweets. We figure that with numbers of Columbus Marathon registrants approaching 15,000 we need to about capture 10% (1500 runners) as TweetMyTime users. In the full 26.2 miles, there will be 6 check points where the timing chips from ChampionChip Minnesota will ping the system (and Twitter & Facebook) with each registrant’s race data. Give or take a few thousand, that’s about 7500 automated tweets over a 7 hour period.
Now consider that somewhere in the area of 50-60 thousand spectators will attend on October 18th, to follow and cheer on their friends and family who are running the race. They all have mobile phones, and most of them are at the very least, on Facebook. We also know that when you ReTweet from something like Seesmic, or TweetDeck or mobile apps like Tweetie, the RT automatically captures and republishes the related hash tag.
Our hope is that spectators will be using the application to follow the location and status of their runners, (way easier medium than using the legacy systems most chip companies provide) and at the same time, adding their own content to the conversation.
The goal? Engineer and produce a trending topic for at least a few minutes on the global network of Twitter. To my knowledge, that’s not yet been done. Kind of cool, huh?
So Will You Help Us?
If your down (and I hope you are), thank you! Here’s a five ideas on how you can help us gain some momentum for TweetMyTIme. If you have others, I’m all ears!
- Please talk about TweetMyTime to people you meet – especially in and around Columbus Ohio. Word of mouth is so powerful, and we have a chance to get Columbus some attention as an innovative city in social communication. That starts with generating a buzz. Disclosure: Nationwide isn’t paying us to do this. Although, if the BETA test works, we have some plans to market the concept to other races down the road .
- Are you running the Nationwide Better Health Columbus Marathon? Please, register for TweetMyTime. It’s free, and takes about 3 clicks and 60 seconds of your time. What do you have to loose, right?
- Feel free to write a blog post about TweetMyTime with your perspectives and ideas. We would love that. Ben & Sandy Blanquera posted about an article from Columbus Business First about TweetMyTime to their TechLife Columbus Blog (Thanks guys!)
- Follow TweetMyTime on Twitter so we can chat with you and keep you updated on what’s happening.
- Know any traditional media folks that would find this story to be interesting? Please, share this post with them. And if they are interested in learning more, please have them contact me directly. The press release from Nationwide is right down below.
You can probably tell I’m excited to be a part of this. I’m running the Columbus Marathon (first one!) and I’ll be using TweetMyTime to track my progress and share it with my friends. There’s going to be a few more posts coming up that will give you more of the inside story. You’ll hear from our illustrious Matt Hornsby on Friday, who is the brains behind developing the app. Also, if you’re running the race, we’ll be inviting you to join Team TweetMyTime so you can be a part of this test too (and you’ll get a free snazzy BETA TweetMyTime race jersey to sport when you’re logging the miles!). More on that later…
At any rate, thank you! Thanks for all of your support and you effort! I appreciate you and everything you do for me, and our team at huber+co!
P.S. Here’s the official press release from our partner, The Nationwide Better Health Columbus Marathon. Just so you know, the marathon is celebrating it’s the 30th Anniversary this year. That’s pretty cool for Columbus.
Join The Discussion!