A couple of weeks ago Kim Woodbridge wrote a very interesting post on environmentalists who use Twitter. She even built an opml file of all the blogs associated with those tweeters - a very useful resource for those who follow people who discuss sustainability issues online.
I found it interesting, then, that Ms. Woodbridge decided to make an opml file for the blogs, but she didn't do anything with the twitter feeds. After all, many folks use twitter for somewhat different discussions than they have on blogs.
I wrote about this a while back when I took the blended rss feeds of 5 social media guru blogs and their combined corresponding twitter feeds and ran each through a text cloud generator, and then compared the two clouds. The twitter cloud depicted a much more informal discussion about a broader range of topics. I thought it would be interesting to see if the green discussions on Twitter differed from those on blogs as well.
Rather than do another text cloud experiment, I decided to use Yahoo Pipes to crunch together most of the twitter feeds in Kim Woodbridge's list and then sort them by date so they'd create a useable RSS feed that portrayed an actual discussion taking place among "green tweeters."
Since I was looking for more of a discussion than a news feed, I didn't include the twitter feeds like BBC News or anything in which every single tweet starts with "New Blog Post." I also added a couple of people I thought made sense - Tim Hurst (@ecopolitologist) and Maria Surma Manka (@mariaenergia). I hope this starts a discussion on who belongs and who doesn't - I don't claim to be right on everything...
This remains a work in progress, since I'm still learning Pipes. I may have issues with the sorting, but it seems to be working OK for now, and I added the feed to my sidebar. Here's the pipe I made public on Yahoo Pipes, so feel free to take a look, offer suggestions on who else to include etc:
http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=TDWICNg73RGnwBuLyp1_DQ
Here's the current list of "Green Tweeters" - I'd love to see this grow...
Big Green Switch
Polizeros
Jetsongreen
Jejacquot
Greenskeptic
MariaEnergia
Sheagunther
Starfocus
CAGW
ChrisBaskind
Eco2020
Ecogeek
eleblog
globalwarming
marcalt
NikkiJade
GreenPrint
sustainablog
Wilderness
worldresources
ecopolitologist
UPDATE: just added:
ecochildsplay
michaeldestries
aidg
elaineishere
greensmith
jcolman
SpostareDuro
7 comments:
This is great, David. I just checked out the Yahoo Pipe you made and have already added some new green tweeters to follow.
Thanks. And congratulations on the new addition to the Wescott clan.
This is a really cool idea!
Just yesterday I was tweeting about issues my community is having with our new recycling bins. I'm working with Bethesda Green to improve recycling in our community. We installed new recycling bins, but people are still throwing bottles in the trash can next to the recycling bin! Got no response to
my Tweet, but perhaps this Green group would have come back at me with some suggestions! Would love to be added to this community, David!
If you're interested in local sustainability efforts, you may want to check out my post about what we're doing in Bethesda, Maryland:
http://tinyurl.com/3u7xr5
My tweets about the bins:
http://tinyurl.com/4a3cgv
http://tinyurl.com/4m4xlp
http://tinyurl.com/4ycn4x
This was on Digg a short while ago:
"Twenty Social-Eco-Media Gurus I Follow"
http://digg.com/environment/Twenty_Ecocentric_Social_Media_Folks_To_Follow
Hey David, Thanks for putting a great list together. It's hard to find green topics on Twitter. :)
Steph
Thanks everyone - I'll add you all and continue to build this...
David,
Thanks for the mention and the additional resources. I've been updating my list and opml based on your work. Using Yahoo pipes for the twitter feeds is a great idea and isn't something I would have thought of doing. I was hoping to comment here before my you saw my article today but you beat me to it. Thanks so much for the comments! The cloud idea isn't geeky at all - one of us should definitely continue on with the project.
Also, I was not aware of Chris Baskind's friendfeed room so thanks for pointing out that resource.
Good Job! :)
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