The Follower Series - Part 2 - ‘Localized’ Following

We are back with Part 2 of The Followers Series, which explores some ideas around ‘Localized’ Following.

‘The Follower Series’ is a long term posting series that explores the emerging concept of ‘following’ on the web and the new types of web services that will spring up as a result.

If you missed Part 1 of the series, you can read it here ‘Redefining Follower’.

@follow™ is a real time following service that builds communities of followers around specific areas of interest. Areas of interest can be centered around an event, a topic, a publication, a person, a blog or any combination of these things mashed up together into what we call a ‘bundle’.

Bundles are alive, active and constantly updating in real time so that anyone interested in following a bundle can dip in and out of the real time stream.

One particular type of bundle and following request popped up this week by a large TV brand we are working with in the Northeastern US. Their request was the catalyst for this post on ‘localized’ following.

Here is the request:

“I want to follow a real time stream of every item posted online by all of the broadcast TV networks in Chicago”

In essence, they wish to set up a real time information bundle that a community of their employees can follow that is LOCAL to them. In this case, local at the city of Chicago level.

So, we set up a localized real time bundle using @follow™ to solve the request. You can see all of the Chicago broadcast TV network content streaming in as it is posted on the web…

We then let them take localization even further using the filter in order to track one specific local story as it unfolds and is being covered by all local tv broadcasters online. In this case, it is a bizarre Cemetery story that has a Michelle Obama slant to it…

So not only were we able to solve an actual real world process problem for this publishing brand (which is always a good feeling), we also had the chance to see the flexibility of the @follow™ service and how our guiding principles of following information in real time in a single view can be applied at the local level.

Tags: real time web
Posted under @follow, atfollow, real time web