Sharing the News About Nkwiry

Yesterday, I took a look at Brian Aspinall’s newest software release – he calls it nkwiry.  You can read the post here.

As I was taking the dog for a walk in the park, I started to think about just how people find out that there’s a new software title on the market.

OLD SCHOOL

It’s actually pretty sad, but if you think back just a few years ago, it would typically be a big company that would release a title.  There might be a news release.  They might put an advertisement on their website.  A magazine might get a complimentary copy and write a review and the curious subscribers might order a copy.  Or, it might be delivered to your favourite technology store and it appears on a shelf.  If you were lucky, the store might even feature your software.  It’s a tedious process, but if you reach the right people, it turns into sales.

NEW SCHOOL

This is where Jaimie and I started talking about nkwiry.

Here’s Brian, an author who develops a title; how does he get people to know about it and give it a try?  I know that when I was writing Doors for PCBoard, I had a high profile BBS that would make the software available and people might find out by dropping by there and then move the information to discussion boards.  Such a pattern doesn’t exist these days.  But, we do have social media.

Here’s what I saw happen today.

I wrote a blog post about it.  I have new post announcements sent out automatically via my Twitter account.  That’s where the numbers start to get interesting.  Now, the numbers only make sense if we live in a perfect world and every one of these numbers generate interest but it’s the best I can do.

So, I have 8,159 followers on Twitter.

But, it doesn’t stop there.  There are a few others who take my new blog post announcement and then share it themselves.

Let’s do a little math here.

• GBDataStream – 208
• nick_chater – 9,257
• dougpete – 8,159
• Marisa_C – 7,631

Just formal announcements on Twitter generate the potential of 25,255 announcements.  Of course, they aren’t unique but it’s still interesting to think that announcements have gone from 0 -> ~25,255 from 5:00-5:09am.

But it doesn’t stop there.  Those are just blanket announcement services.  There are people who are just trying it out from having read about it and then they share it to their networks.  Check how whose talking by doing a Twitter search.  Results here.

Doing a little math on the followers that I was able to find based on Twitter search.

• cyberjohn07 – 1,648
• MrCampbell2 – 179
• nobleknits2 – 531
• DavidFifeVP – 4,943
• mraspinall – 2,457
• avivaloca – 5,686
• shelpike – 189
• JPCelfIT – 23
• 4_teachers – 3,418

So, that generates another 19,074 people who potentially know.

Now, let’s not forget the people that are reading my blog.  That’s another 5,579.   I also pin the post to Pinterest where there are another 118 followers and Google Plus for another 1,161.  Oh, did I mention it also went on my Facebook wall where I have 480 friends.  That’s another potential 7,338 readers.

Again, we know that all these are potentials, but I have the potential total now sitting at 51,667.  I would think that’s a pretty interesting number for one day.  Just think about tomorrow when news about nkwiry hits the RSS readers, people try it in their class and blog/tweet about it or it shows up in your daily readings.

It’s not just that people are aware of the new product.  If you’ve been following the discussion, Brian has been adding features “on the fly”.  From my post, we’ve had a discussion about adding tags and he’s already implemented thumbnail pictures of the resource being bookmarked.  Within 24 hours of release, the product is evolving!

It’s kind of interesting to see OLD SCHOOL compared to NEW SCHOOL.  I hope that these potentials work into real people for Brian so that he feels the sense of accomplishment for the production of yet another classroom friendly and student respectful resource.

Don’t ever let anyone tell you that social media doesn’t work!  Help the cause, please share Brian’s works with your colleagues.  They’ll thank you.

Related articles

• Playing with nkwiry (dougpete.wordpress.com)

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