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2010 is becoming the year of Internet laziness. Many have given up blogging (yes, not updating your blog in the last few months counts as giving up too) and have joined the ranks of the Twitterverse.

One simple tip will get you noticed above most Twitter users: Spend an extra 30 seconds before automatically retweeting.

I know we’re all in a hurry. We all want to be the first to broadcast or re-broadcast the latest and greatest. That’s why we camp outside the Apple Store to be among the first to have an iPad. Tweetmeme has given us an easy out from leaving meaningful blog comments – one simple click and we’ve retweeted.

Since everyone can do this just as easily, you won’t stand out! What’s the solution? Meaningful retweets.

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I recently ran a story about 10 Social Media Infographics that received over 1,100 retweets and was featured by Guy Kawasaki. It probably wouldn’t be a good use of my time to respond to every single person that retweeted. What’s interesting is that very few people took the time to make additional comments. Here are a couple that caught my eye:

@ManiKarthik

@SocialGrow

You’ll notice that I did not list the other 1,110+ retweets here, so clearly you can stand out…even without being the message originator!

Also, keep in mind that you the original content owner has a responsibility of keeping the initial message user friendly.

Try a retweet preview of your initial Twitter name, title, and shortlink and be sure to keep it around 120 characters to allow for ample retweet space.  Our friend Tim Nash goes into further explanation on the topic.

When I look at some of the folks on Twitter these days, I find it incredible that some of them have 50,000, 500,000, or even over a million followers. If you aren’t famous in your own right, why are all these people following you?

The typical answer: because you are following all of them back.

Luckily, the ways of Twitter are finally starting to wise-up — people are becoming more interested in effectiveness, as we see the use of influence-measurement tools (ie Klout, Twinfluence) and Lists (though these are often misused to purposely omit people from them, but we already knew social media is a lot like high school).

At least Twitter acknowledges that friend overload has become a problem, implementing strict guidelines to the amount of followers you can add daily.

So let’s ask the question: how many followers should people really have? I would argue that it should at least in part depend on an account’s age.

There will always be exceptions to the rule (i.e. celebrities, top name brands, and one of a kind accounts like @shitmydadsays), but how many followers should a typical user of the service actually accumulate over time? How many people should they attempt to follow back?

The Twitter Translation Community project is up and running! Now, thanks to your fellow Tweeple, you will soon be able to have Twitter in French, German, Italian, and Spanish, which are in addition to the currently implemented Japanese and English. The announcement for this project was made earlier this month on the Twitter blog.

Since this is a community deal, Twitter needs you to chip in and do your part. If you can fluently read and write in a second (or third or fourth) language, Twitter Wants You! It looks like the FIGS are taken, but there are definitely more tongues in the world than what they’re working on. To get involved for your language, let Twitter know you’re interested by filling out this language request/translator signup form. It’ll go into the project manager’s Google Doc of all the Tweeps signed up and they’ll let you know when they’re ready for you to join the game.

What are the benefits for the translators, you ask? The Glory! As an official Twitter translator, you will receive a fabulous badge of recognition on your public Twitter page and a level ranking. The rank you earn is based upon the amount of translations completed. The more challenges (translations) completed, the higher you will go – so soon, you, too, can pwn all of the Twitter world as a level 10! Each of the languages have a “Leading Translators” page, which displays the highest rank Twitter Translators for them.

Wait… hold the presses! What is this? Twitter says you can get ranked up to a Level 10, but we’re now seeing a bonus Level 11. Could this possibly be a pop culture reference to Spinal Tap’s Level 11? (see video below)

Thanks,  Twitter, for this cool addition. Just don’t forget to add my languages!

This a phrase that anyone working in customer service should be fully familiar with.  While frequently known, albeit infrequently implemented in the “real world,” the saying has taken on a new meaning with the dawn of a new era on the Internet.

Social media has give a voice to the masses; a refuge the customer dealing with bouts of anxiety due to lack of true service. That scares many companies, large and small, and for good reason.  The public, and very likely their target audience, now has access to uncensored reviews, testimonials, and all of the “good, bad, and the ugly” about all sorts of products and services.

Recently, I’ve been shopping around for Internet connection services.  Always one to be a picky shopper, I chatted with at least three members of Comcast’s online sales crew (based in the Philippines).  Incidentally, I also received three different quotes and related information regarding service packages. I had also spoken with (on the phone) AT&T – both their technical support and their customer service department.  The tech support was fantastic and solved the issue I was experiencing.  Their customer service department, however, only led in two frustrated hang-ups, after being transferred around between four phone representatives – without even being notified of it beforehand.

Twitter became the place I turned to in the midst of my frustration with online and phone customer service/sales with both AT&T and Comcast. Being on the Pacific coast, I mentioned @attjason in my Tweets twice and even asked a friend to do so, which she also did twice.  Between these four tweets mentioning the AT&T Twitter representative for the West Coast, one reply was received, one private message was sent, but nothing to really solve the problem.  The other AT&T  customer service folks on Twitter are @attcustomercare (Molly for the East Coast),  @attjohnathon (Johnathon for the Central USA), @attnatasha (Natasha for the Central USA), and @attsusan (Susan for the East Coast), for which I have no personal experience in dealing with.

For Comcast, I had mentioned @comcastcares (operated by Frank Eliason) twice.  I only received one reply from @comcastcares specifically, which had asked me to e-mail them … and I hate e-mailing.  I did receive one response from @comcastmelissa, whom also inquired into how she could help.

By this point, I was really frustrated with trying out all different avenues of contact both companies to get service.  Again, AT&T had great technical support (which I suspect is in Israel, based upon accent and the name of the young man that helped me), but just lost customer support on the phone. @Attjason did send me a DM (private message) apologizing for my poor experience and did offer to do what he could, which was considerate, as I’m admittedly not an easy customer to deal with (I expect working service, knowledgeable employees, and real discounts).

What I ended up doing was calling Comcast for once and for all.  It didn’t work out with the first person I spoke to, but I needed service.  So, I took a deep breath, called back, and got an undoubtedly American young man that was one smooth operator.  Within 5 minutes I had an appointment for next day installation, no deposit necessary, exactly what I wanted and nothing else.  Of course, the time slot for the appointment was coming to a close, so I was irritated.  @Comcastbonnie was really a trooper in dealing with me and my tweets.  She never lost her cool and quickly pinpointed the reason for the delay, solved it, and the Comcast technician arrived within about 20 minutes of her informing me that he was on his way. He was perfectly friendly, efficient, and, hey, my stuff is working so far.  That’s always good.

I am still a customer of both companies, albeit for different services.  The customer representatives on Twitter really have made a difference in my experience … I think I’ll contact them first the next time I want to order anything.  Why are they different, and better, than the majority of the e-chat and phone reps? Because this stuff is public.  If a customer is upset, they’re not afraid to let their friends/followers know about it – and oftentimes their followers will share their frustrations and retweet it.

While incidents of good customer service rarely make it on Twitter, and are even more sparsely re-tweeted, if a high standard is implemented and maintained, there will at least be a subliminal positive message floating around … and a positive corporate image never hurt anybody. Kudos to the companies savvy enough to put smart, efficient, and friendly customer support representatives on social networks.

Related posts:

• Social Support: Are Companies Teaching Customers To Yell At Their Friends? (web-strategist.com)
• Customer service in the age of the retweet (nevillehobson.com)
• Comcast joins the Conversation (movabletype.com)
• ComcastCares’s Eliason Shares Twitter Tips (blogs.wsj.com)
• Three Top Ways to Damage Your Brand With Social Media (socialmediatoday.com)

The following 10 Twitter ranking websites are being graded on a scale of 1-10 for:

• Overall site score
• Significance of their Twitter account scoring system
• Value of the information provided
• User interface design
• Traffic (unique visitors per month, based upon data from Compete)

Twitterank

Overall Site Ranking: 5
Reputation: 7
Information Quality: 6
User Interface: 3
Traffic: 9,430

On Twitterank, my current ranking is 21.92, which is in the 88.87 percentile, and has 33.33% confidence. Wtf? Exactly. So the rank itself is still unclear, but the percentile means that my account is “better” than 88% of other Twitter users… but, not to worry, the algorithm has only 33% confidence in the score. Which means it thinks there’s a 67% chance it’s wrong. Seems pointless.

Twitterholic

Overall Site Ranking: 7
Reputation: 9
Information Quality: 7
User Interface: 4
Traffic: 143,209

I’m ranked 33,106th according to followers, and 479th in my location (San Francisco). Alright, harsh, but not so bad. Taking a closer look, I see that the last time Twitterholic actually looked at my account was the end of May. Even after clicking the “Crawl My Stats!” button, nothing is updated. They seem to base the rankings solely upon the number of followers you have, which can be a factor if you’re up there, or can really not make a difference if none of your followers are active – or, uh, human.

BuzzOm

Overall Site Ranking: 6
Reputation: 7
Information Quality: 5
User Interface: 7
Traffic: 28,258

Apparently my “Twitin” score on BuzzOm is 54. Under the FAQ section, they describe the score as “a measure of your social activity in Twitter. These are calculated using simple behavioral model of the user. This has been tested among 2 lakhs users.” Huh? What is a “lakh user”? (This seems to be from an overuse of Google Translate, perhaps.) Thankfully it’s gone into more detail in the next question, and says it takes in consideration a user’s retweet, tweet efficiency, and influence scores. Where do I find those? Okay, this is vague and I’m just plain lost in how they come up with it.

Tweefight

Overall Site Ranking: 6
Reputation: 6
Information Quality: 3
User Interface: 9
Traffic: 1,280

Tweefight is actually kinda fun, and doesn’t give an official ‘score’. Tweefight compares you to another Twitter user and you go head to head to “fight” it out. I put myself up against @NowSourcing and lost. Putting myself up against my real ‘archenemy’ showed that I came out ahead. With Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) and Oprah (@oprah) head to head, see who comes out in first:

What is it basing the fight results on? “Tweerank,” which claims to be made up of any factor you can think of (i.e. a user’s involvement, followers, updates, etc). Who cares? It’s still fun.

TwitRank.me

Overall Site Ranking: 7.5
Reputation: 7
Information Quality: 8
User Interface: 8
Traffic: minimal (not enough data)

Got a 7 out of 10 on TwitRank. Not much explanation, but considering they first display my amount of followers, how many folks I’m following, and how many total updates I have, these are likely the deciding factors. This gets me to thinking, what if a company, that knows nothing of social media, looks to hire an ‘expert’ and uses their Twitter account ranking as a deciding tool? Well, that means so many of these wannabe “social media experts” will be getting jobs, without knowing how to get the results for clients. Would that make them con artists, spammers, or just ignorant?

Twitter Score

Overall Site Ranking: 7.5
Reputation: 8
Information Quality: 8
User Interface: 9
Traffic: 9,971

On Twitter Score, there are two different ranks/scores listed. The Twitter Score they came up with for my account is 7.9 out of 10. My rank is 6,532 out of 78,825. No explanation provided for either number, but there is a nifty little graph of followers/friends available. Useful? Not without a shown method to how it calculates scores.

Twinfluence

Overall Site Ranking: 7
Reputation: 8
Information Quality: 8
User Interface: 6
Traffic: 32,134

Apparently my rank is 1,917 on Twinfluence out of all Twitter users, with a 99% score, and 100% “2nd order followers”. Like the scores, but let’s see if they have any semblance of accuracy. They calculate followers, plus second-degree followers, to come up with your ‘reach’. So apparently my ‘reach’ is to 100% of the Twitterverse, which means that if I Tweet something with great impact, that Tweet could potentially be seen by all Twitter users. They also somehow calculate the constant growth and the individual influence of your followers, so that apparently works into the score – though it doesn’t say which.

FollowCost

Overall Site Ranking: 7
Reputation: 5
Information Quality: 9
User Interface: 7
Traffic: 5,373

Let me stop laughing first at a few of my friends that are “nuclear” to follow. Okay. It is seemingly useless, but so much fun. FollowCost lets you know how annoying it will be to follow any given Twitter user, based upon the average amount of Tweets they make per day. Sean Combs (@iamdiddy) is one of the nuclear folk to follow.

If they update too much, the screen shakes (well, the browser screen) with a graphic that says “Nuclear Follow Cost,” meaning don’t follow this person unless you’re obsessed with them.

Retweetrank

Overall Site Ranking: 7
Reputation: 9
Information Quality: 7
User Interface: 4
Traffic: 20,427

Here we get to see the scores of our fellow Tweeple based upon how many mentions they’ve gotten from other Twitter users. This is the essence of the popularity contest. High numbers of followers do not necessarily turn out the activity and interactivity that you’re looking for. Retweetrank shows how much you’re being retweeted and publicly messaged, plus what percentile you’re in amongst other Twitterers (I scored a retweet rank of 8405).

The Winner

Twitter Grader

Overall Site Ranking: 8
Reputation: 9
Information Quality: 8
User Interface: 7
Traffic: 257,938

My current rank is 98.9 through the Twitter Grader system. When I first checked back in February, it was 63. The highest (about two weeks ago) was 99.7. They say the ranking is based upon the total number of your followers along with the ratio of how many you are following to how many are subscribed to your updates, the amount and pace of updates, and how engaged you are (i.e. conversations, mentioning other Tweeple and them mentioning you). Additionally, Twitter Grader ranks you amongst your peers, based upon your “grade” and location.

We’ll take a look at the features but first, let’s take a look at how to set it up for the benefit of first time users.

To place it on your Gmail sidebar, you need to go to your Gmail settings and to the gadgets tab. There you will see an input box for Google gadgets and there you need to put this link.

After this, refresh your Gmail page and this box should now be in your sidebar underneath your labels:

Now you need to sign in. Just click on the link provided and you will now be taken to a secure Twitter page where you will see the following message:

Click “allow” and Twitter will give the gadget access to your Twitter account. You may have to sign into Twitter or you may not, it will depend on your cookies and if your browser already has you signed in or not.

Now refresh the gadget using the second link provided and you should now see your Twitter account showing:

Now sending tweets is extremely straight-forward. Just write the tweet in the text box (a character count is provided) and then press “update”. Zap! Your tweet is instantly away to your feed. I was rather impressed at the app’s speed.

But this app can do a LOT more. Just click on your name inside the box and your email inbox will disappear to be replaced by a huge list of recent tweets as well as other features.

The first tab (home) shows you all the tweets from your followers with various options underneath. You can virtually run all your tweeting from Gmail and never have to go back to the Twitter website ever again. Or install a desktop client.

There’s one downside which I can see so far which is that it doesn’t automatically show new updates. You are notified there are new updates and you have to click on a button to make the app reload with the new ones. If you have lots of new updates constantly coming in, clicking this button can get tiresome. It would be nice if there was an auto-updating function which requires minimal user interaction.

As well as seeing all of your tweets inside Gmail, you also have other options which you can see along the top.

The “friends” one is interesting. Here, you can see and share tweets with the contacts in your Gmail address book.
According to Steve Rubel, this only works if your friends have the Twitter gadget installed as well. If they do, then you can share tweets with them using the “share” button in the options we just showed you and they will all appear under the “friends” tab. Tweets they share with you will also appear here. As Steve points out, this is pretty much the
Twitter version of Google Reader shared items. The only drawback, as I have said, is getting all your friends to install the gadget.

The rest of the tabs are fairly self-explanatory. I would like to, just for a moment, draw your attention to the “search” tab. Some of you may use Twitter search on a regular basis to track keywords and monitor trends. If so, you can now do that inside Gmail with this gadget with all the results being shown underneath.

For the Twitter newbies, @ is if you want to find posts addressed to a specific Twitter user and # is the hashtag to find specific words in a Tweet.

All in all, this is an amazing app which seamlessly blends Twitter in with your email. I can’t wait to see what new features the developer offers next.

(image credit: whendidyoujointwitter.com)

So if I’ve been on Twitter so long, you might be skeptical that I only have 5,000 updates and not even 5,000 followers. Other people are flying by in follower counts.  And that’s fine.  What you must understand is that I’m more concerned about reach and influence vs. just a follower number.

When we take a look back over the past year, some would even go so far to criticize my meager average of 8.5 Tweets per day:

(image credit: tweetstats)

Keep in mind that the average number of Tweets per day is actually 4.  Dan Zarrella might argue with me that I’m not reaching my full potential, as he suggests 22 Tweets per day is optimal.  Maybe he’s right.  Am I a Twitter slacker though? Hardly. (Funny, some might argue that being on Twitter so much makes you a slacker).

We manage several different Twitter accounts and advise on a significant client base.  So if you put all those together, I’m actually Tweeting more than is suggested

Even so, let’s just stick with the 8.5 Tweets per day number.  Some days I’ll even Tweet just a handful.  Why? I would prefer to make each Tweet count and be relevant, entertaining, and helpful to my followers.  They took the trouble of singling me out, so I’m here to provide that value.

A trend that is appearing is that fewer people read blogs (at least, it’s slowed down due to lifestreaming and microblogging) as well as expected RSS usage.  People are looking to their Twitter friends to point them in the right direction.  So, I dedicate my 5,000th Tweet and this further analysis to you, dear reader.  Hope it got you thinking.

How do you approach the whole follower/following/velocity vs. influence discussion? Would love to hear your thoughts.

POPrl, a popular url shortening service, has been hacked. This has rendered all links run through it to porn and other unintended sites.  Early morning yesterday, Twitterfeed, a popular RSS to Twitter service, tweeted that they were temporarily suspending Poprl from their service.  Get Satisfaction reports show that Twitterfeed has been in contact with Poprl and they have confirmed that their systems have been compromised.

The url shortener market is heating up as of late, with bit.ly recently being adopted as the default Twitter url shortener (a title previously held by TinyURL).  Bit.ly now leads the pack in url shortener usage, with TinyURL coming in second, and POPrl not even showing up on the chart (below). With this in mind, just how much is the POPrl hacking really affecting Twitter users? Only five Twitterers tweeted any concerns about shortned urls being lead to spam sites, and the folks actually posting the urls are apparently unaware that they are being redirected to a NSFW location.

image source

Will this affect POPrl’s credibilty as a service? Could potential publicity regarding this hack help or hurt them’? Or, is their traffic and usage level not high enough to even place this incident on the radar for most Internet-savvy folk?

Tweetjacking is unfortunately not an uncommon occurance. Anyone with a Twitter account and a simple knowledge of url shortening services can jack your tweet, tweaking it to lead to a completely different landing page than the original tweet had intended. The reality is that Twitter, its users, and associated services are being attacked by these pranksters, spammers, and hackers. We posted about Tweetjacking before, but that was just on a single user scale.  Seeing a system wide version is really scary.
 

By now if you weren’t at SXSW, you’re probably saying enough already.  And I agree.  Far too much Tweeting on the subject (to the point where iPhones nearly brought down the AT&T grid), on with the #followfriday goodness!

@CenterNetworks: Allen Stern and I took some time to record a video interview, mainly around a new project of his called CloudContacts – a business card management service:

@ScottAllen: Scott’s a social media consultant, published author, and we got to interview him on his latest project, the American Guitar Academy:

@tamar @nickcobb: – IRL would not have been complete without these guys.  We must have spent over an hour trying to find an Indian restaurant we heard was awesome.  And we found it – after they decided to close.  Somehow we got the guy (owner?) to keep the place open AND cook us food.  Good times had by all:

@tamar & @nickcobb

@tamar & @nowsourcing

Related articles by Zemanta

• SXSW needs more 3G power! (phonemag.com)
• CloudContacts adds camera phone support to put business cards in the cloud (venturebeat.com)
• Tweeting Works: AT&T; Boosts SXSW Network (gigaom.com)
• Certified in Social Media? (socialmediatoday.com)
• Report: Social Media Marketing Up During Recession (web-strategist.com)
• The Real Purpose of SXSWi (adamhcohen.com)

Welcome to – the TweetJack zone!

Seriously folks…imagine if you will taking a retweet fest hostage. What if that link was then retweeted by the likes of Guy Kawasaki (81k followers) one of the best established Twitter linchpins and broadcasters?

Or picture hijacking a tweet from CNN Breaking News (441k followers) – it will still be the same message, but an entirely different landing page.

The mechanics of tweetjacking are dead simple, anyone can do it: select a message to retweet, switch the original link for the one you want to hijack visitors to – then submit.

“Seeing it as a retweet, you’re piggybacking on the original poster’s authority. Not only will people click those links, they’ll also retweet your stuff again and again without ever checking them – this makes it get viral within seconds.”

@TweetSpammer is not a “bad boy,” he’s just interested in using a borrowed ladder to success.

ReTweet Apathy

Want another scary bedtime story? How about the number of people just totally desensitized by retweets, just desperate to retweet anything. This reporter has seen out there a Twitter user that simply asked his following to retweet with no further explanation. The result? Plenty of retweets.

Remember folks…you are what you… tweet.

Many thanks to Ralph Tegtmeier aka Fantomaster for the discussion that lead to the joint writing of this post.  He’s got a killer blog and Twitter, though chances are you knew that already

Related posts:

• Guy Kawasaki says Twitter is Marketing Weapon in SES Webcast (searchenginewatch.com)
• How to Change the World: How to Get Retweeted (tsurch.com)

I’ve decided to go the local route this week and highlight some interesting Louisville people and places to follow on Twitter for this week’s #followfriday.  Here goes:

@wfm_louisville: Just started following Whole Foods Market – Louisville at the suggestion of @ruthsworld.  It’s just such an awesome store and has the best pickles in town – worth following for that alone

@louisvillesoup: I’ve met Mike before (part of the #10in10 series) and he’s just a really smart guy that understands the value of Twitter.  Which you wouldn’t necessarily expect from a CPA

@JasonFalls: have known Jason for a while now and he certainly isn’t one to disappoint.  He’s made some excellent strides in the past year, and look forward to getting together again soon.

@DavidFinch: also part of the #10in10 series and now working with Jason, David has a great eye for finding content.  He’s a great guy to follow for relavent info in biz/social media.

@ScottHack: maybe I’m biased to my #10in10 experiment crowd, well it’s my blog and I’m doing it, anyway.   Scott’s a cool guy that really was a good friend during the crazy ice storms here in town.  And he’s doing good work at the nexus of social media and real estate, and important and growing niche in this down economy.

Related posts:

• Week 7 – Louisville Soup (nowsourcing.com)
• Does Your Favorite Grocery Store Use Twitter? Should They? (laist.com)
• Week 5 – Meeting Scott Hack (nowsourcing.com)
• Twitter Marketing (morethanadvertising.com)
• Fighting Twitter Spam (With a Little Help From My Friends) (nowsourcing.com)

via Twitter

Twitter, Twitter, Twitter. At times, it seems there is little else to talk about in the social media world. With the ongoing influx of self-proclaimed experts (from every imaginable field) and those looking for another outlet for receiving and reciprocating votes on submissions from various social media sites, will we see an increased number of Twitter profiles with outlandish follower counts? If the endless friend requests filling my in-box in the past couple of weeks are any suggestion of this, then I’d say yes. From the looks of their profiles, and their recent activity, it’s safe to assume they have been ignoring the Tweeter band-wagon for some time, and have finally given in. They are late to a party that started a long time ago, but hasn’t yet reached its peak — and they are attempting to make up for lost time.

These migrators (or reluctant followers, no pun intended) to Twitter’s service are pretty easy to pinpoint. You should look for an exceptionally high follow count to follower account, along with an insignificant amount of updates. While we should all welcome new users to Twitter, and the content/interaction they bring, the site has enough fanboys and god-like entities already flooding the timeline without adding to the mix. Additionally, if you are using Twitter as a feed for your social media activity, maybe you should try FriendFeed instead. Either way, the answer to catching up with the Twitter craze isn’t following every semi-familiar avatar you recognize. Try focusing on getting to know those that follow you, follow people based on interests (not influence), and avoid the numbers game. Do this, and you’ll catch up in no time.

If you’d like another take, check out this guest post on TwitTip from @johnhaydon. His analysis is a bit more in depth and should provide a closer look at what’s really important when building your Twitter network.

@theGypsy: First on our band of merry people is Dave Harry.  Dave is a real stickler for qualitative research and often reports on search engine patents.  He’s been a busy guy, rolling out a new SEO handbook and the Huomah dojo.

@SilentJay74: Joe is a great guy that I’ve met in person and just a truly passionate social media user.  You may know him as a co-host of Social Blend.  Wherever you may know him, his from the heart Tweet this week really made my day:

@Ruudhein: Ruud is a great thinker that works over at Search Engine People.  Just a cool multi-dimensional guy (which really comes out when you go to his personal site).  He was nice enough to interview me this week as well.

@LeftTheBox: Samir has been a rising star in the realm of social media.  I’m pretty sure he first came on my radar with his Techipedia guest post last year.  He recently made the Junta42 list with his site, LeftTheBox, and I enjoy his thought provoking reads.

@missmcj: CJ is one smart lady.  You can tell from her latest post on how long tail search is rubbish.  And she’s Australian, so that’s pretty hard to beat

So who do you follow? And more importantly: why?

This week’s #followfriday spotlight: @stuartcfoster, @amyvernon and #socialmediabeards: @Chrisbrogan, @MrBabyMan, @NowSourcing, @Msaleem, @Dan360man, @jasonfalls, @Mashable

It all started from some fun banter with Chris Brogan a while back when he chose to shave off his goatee:

And things just took off from there.  I suggested #socialmediabeards, and Stuart & Amy put out a fine looking post.  It didn’t reach Twitter trending topics, though there were 8 pages of mention on Twitter search at the time of writing this post.  We also created a site to continue the social media bearded fun.  Ah, come on, it’s Friday – have some fun!

The crisp Jerusalem air at the new JVP Media Center provided Thursday evening’s venue for the Israeli Twestival. Supporting the cause for water resource research and development were a few dozen caring Twitterers and friends.

With smooth sounds from a few different Israeli performers (such as Aaron Schner and Hamakor), we found ourselves looking up from Tweetdeck or Twhirl more than occasionally to have a verbal tweet session with followers, those we’re following, and even creating a few new Twitter friends from the region.

For those who found themselves a little stressed out from staring at the monitor a little too much, there was a fun meditation station. Grab a tangerine, and meditate on it. From seed to branch to flower to fruit… some people even ended with a blessing over the fruit from a tree. This booth was run by @yannaik for Jewish Climate Initiative.

A selection of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, and a white wine was offered. Soreq Winery, located in the western Judean Hills area, produces a fantastic Merlot. For more information about the winery, including tours of the vineyard, e-mail soreq@barak.net.il.

It’s often said Tel Aviv is a bubble… but Baabua (bubble in Hebrew) provided some great, bubblicious, activities for all at the Jerusalem Twestival. There were a few bins full of sudsy water and an over-sized handheld tool to twirl around and create huge bubbles (see above pics of @arielbeery), in addition to a bin where one stands on a dry platform in the middle and a hoola-hoop is drawn from the water below to encapitulate the person inside a human-sized bubble. You can find out more about Baabua by visiting their website – http://www.baabua.co.il/.

Of course, as the main point of the Twestival world wide was, the focus was water and conservation. The Jerusalem Twestival featured speakers and demonstrations by Magic-tec, which offers water saving plumbing devices that can nearly cut your faucet’s water out pour by half and more great water saving products. Amir Yechieli introduced the crowd of environmentally-focused Twitter addicts to a rainwater irrigation system that could save upwards of 300 liters of precious water per day! These and many more Israeli companies and organizations that are clean-tech focused are pioneers in creating a more sustainable planet for all.

Many of Israel’s up-and-coming bloggers made a cameo at the event as well. From @aryeha, to @greenprophet, and @power2b, all came together to celebrate H2O at Jerusalem’s Twestival, 2009. Gratitude to the organizers (@presentense and @charliekalech) and participants for a successful evening.

Luckily a couple of Friendfeed users have been hard at work dealing with that very issue and if you have a blog hosted on either Blogger or WordPress, then you are in luck.    The Blogger method is much easier as it is just a simple copy and paste.   The WordPress method has a bit more to it.    But nevertheless, both methods have so far been receiving glowing reviews and I will shortly be installing the WordPress version on my own blog to capture some of that Friendfeed magic for myself.

You can find the Blogger method here and it was designed by Pat Hawks.   He has scripts for both the old and the new Blogger templates and as I said, it’s a simple copy and paste.   Since I haven’t used Blogger since last year, I can’t personally endorse the script and say how good it is.   But he was linked to and praised by Louis Gray so that has to count for something.

Here’s what it apparently looks like.   Plain but functional but far as I’m concerned, functional is all that matters.

Now for the WordPress plugin.   It’s made by Glenn Slaven and it’s like any other WordPress plug-in.   You have to download it, unzip it and upload it to your blog domain.   After activating it, you have to enter your Friendfeed details and configure it.   You then have to go into your WordPress template, to the single page template, and place the <?php wp_ffcomments(); ?> inside the loop so that Friendfeed can match the page with the comments on Friendfeed.

Now here is what it’s supposed to look like :

What I like about it is that you can see the picture of the Friendfeed user, you can also see who “liked” the post and how many people commented on it.   So a lot of information there.

I haven’t been able to find any live blogs with the plug-in though. Glenn says that Corvida was his first live tester but that blog is currently down.   If anybody knows of a blog that is running these plug-ins, please post the link in the comments as I would really like to see the plug-ins in action.

Now what we need next is a way to export Twitter comments whenever you post a link to one of your blog posts on Twitter.    I wonder when someone will come up with that?

Written by Mark O’Neill

Publicity stunt? Yes. Original? Yes. The real story here was that it received lots of exposure.

Speaking of exposure, is a limited commercialization of Twitter such a bad thing for both the folks that make it (Obvious Corp) and the folks that use it (Us)? Don’t we want Biz, Ev, and all the other folks at Obvious to have a sound business venture? Otherwise, we’ll have to start complaining about Twitter going down all the time as its infrastructure struggles to scale with new and existing user adoption, not to mention all the mashups springing up tied into the Twitter API.

The Return of @Gapingvoid

Well said. You knew you couldn’t stay away

Are you Ready for a Challenge?!?

It all started with an innocent little update:

nowsourcing Wondering if I’ll hit 800 followers by end of week. 24 to go! about 19 hours ago from web

Which turned into this:
danzarrella @nowsourcing i’m at 9 to go to 800, wanna race? about 19 hours agofrom web in reply to nowsourcing

So it was on. 24 vs 9 is quite a handicap, and Dan hit 800 first. But then, @MikeonTV came in and pulled an epic maneuver:
MikeonTV @nowsourcing @danzarrella Not so fast! *plays indiana jones music* about 18 hours ago from web in reply to nowsourcing

That’s right. Mike unfollowed Dan to bring @Danzarrella down to 799

Twitter Polling

Polldaddy has created a great way to send polls through Twitter. Ev tried one out this week:

(It was a resounding yes)

Company Twittering

Back to the main point. Twitter as a system needs to make money to stay a viable company. How about brands on Twitter though?

I’ve come across lots of brands: electronics, kosher food, airlines, museums even grocery stores! There has been mixed reception to such concepts, and at the same time I think they make sense. Either for a brand to tweet under their brand name or having key employees tweet under their names can both work. Twitter can most likely get a stream of revenue by placing ads in the public stream or for paid memberships, and the question is – will users stand for it?

Techcrunch did a survey to see if people would support a premium version and/or go for the occasional paid tweet in the timeline. What would you withstand to get your daily Twitter fix?

But the people who run Twitter have to eat and they have to pay their bills, just like everyone else. But ever since they started the micro-blogging platform a couple of years back, they haven’t made a single cent from it.

I mean, how could they? Where are their sources of revenue? They don’t sell advertising. They don’t have a premium service. So for the past couple of years, Twitter users have been getting a great service for zero cents. This is why I have often scorned people who have complained bitterly at Twitter downtimes – they have had no reason to complain because they are not paying for the service. If they were paying for Twitter then yes, by all means complain about the down-times. But if you’re getting a great service for free, then don’t grumble if it goes down for a while. Go and visit Digg and come back later. Or here’s a crazy idea – turn off the computer and go outside.

But could all that be about to change? Could Twitter be on the verge of putting adverts into the Twitter stream? If so, will this annoy users so much that they will turn their backs on the service? Will adverts dilute the Twitter experience? Will the world end and Daffy Duck rule the earth?

Due to a poll conducted by Techcrunch, the results so far seem to be narrowly divided between adverts and no adverts. But a third interesting idea has also frequently raised its head – a premium Twitter service. So there would be a free Twitter with adverts and a premium paid Twitter without adverts.

My own personal gut feeling is that having two Twitters would cause big problems from day one. A premium service would be like having first class and second class on a ship with the big egotistic snobbish guys and girls throwing out big bucks to have an exclusive Twitter all to themselves **cough** Robert Scoble **cough** while those that they see as the “riff-raff” get steered towards the “working class Twitter with adverts”. There would be an elitist “us versus them” attitude and I don’t think that would be very healthy at all.

Personally I would prefer one Twitter WITH sporadic adverts. If we have to read about the latest Walmart special “two-for-one” offer in between Tweets then so be it. But I don’t think having two Twitter communities – one paid, one not, is the way to go. People may detest adverts, they may call it spam. They may get into a hissy fit. But as I said, Twitter is a business and they need to start making money eventually. It’s Capitalism 101. If you don’t like it, find a communist country to move to. I hear North Korea is nice this time of year.

Written by Mark O’Neill

You know what happened? Jason Calacanis said “follow him.” (I took out my angst on the picture, can you tell?)

I really enjoyed refreshing every 3 seconds to see another dozen or so followers adding Mr. Modine, and some automatic bot adding them back (Twitter couldn’t even keep up, if you’ll note the sole icon down in the bottom).

It happens every day – but that’s how Twitter works.

“Last month Alex Iskold suggested that there are 3 basic types of Twitter users.

There are listeners, who pull in a lot of information but don’t send much out. Talkers, who push information out to a lot of users, but don’t take much in. And there are hubs, people who both follow and are followed.

“Think of Twitter as a large network for information dissemination,” wrote Iskold. “It typically starts with talkers, flows through the hubs and ends up at listeners.” ” – ReadWriteWeb on TwitterMeThis

And it is this flow of Twitter that sent one of my favorite follows packing. Hugh MacLeod writes “I liked Twitter. But I found it too easy” as his lame excuse for leaving all his adoring fans hanging. We’ll miss you!

gapingvoid : No, seriously. I’m leaving Twitter. Cheerio. [Big Kiss]

I guess it’s back to Google, Yahoo, TechCrunch, Flickr, Youtube, Web 2.0, and blogs for the tweeter formerly known as @gapingvoid.

#YIF: Why I Follow

So there’s this thing called hashtags for Twitter, in case you didn’t know about them. Basically people stick them in their tweets and the themes get aggregated by hashtag aggregators, like Hashtags.org.

There’s all kinds of hashtags, like for conferences (#sxsw tracked the live micro-blogging of the South by Southwest Interactive conference) and political debates. #yif is the hashtag for “why I follow,” and you can really do some data mining with the stuff people say.

jljohansen: @chrisbrogan The 3 people I talk with the most on Twitter are @ikepigott @dough and recently @swhitley Always good conversations. #yif

danieljohnsonjr: @scottsigler #yif bcuz w/ his twisted mind, better to know where he’s coming from & going to. Infected: April 1st!

BarbaraKB: @CathleenRitt #yif Admits to “getting nothing done,” shares hair stories, does stand-up comedy while practicing financial wizardy in NYC.

To me, this is revolutionary. What other social tools encourage people to not only publicly state why they like you, but also track those responses for all the world to analyze?

Nowhere else but Twitter do you get an open book test on being popular.

#YUT: Why You Twitter

sonnygill@nowsourcing Never mocked, was just skeptical on its usefulness…boy was I wrong. Able to connect & converse w/industry leaders, how great.18 minutes ago from web in reply to nowsourcing

MarkLaymon @nowsourcing your obsessive talking about it made me follow it more, in doing so I have found it as an easy way to follow the smm industry 23 minutes ago from web in reply to nowsourcing

kdpaine @nowsourcing the iowa caucuses 24 minutes ago from web in reply to nowsourcing

TheNanny612 @nowsourcing The people, the conversation, the humor, great questions with helpful and inspiring answers. It is like IM on speed… love it!26 minutes ago from twhirlin reply to nowsourcing

bdthomas @nowsourcing I started out loving twitter, now I mock it. Regardless, I’m still addicted. 27 minutes ago from twitterrific in reply to nowsourcing

BarbaraKB @nowsourcing never knocked it. been an addict for a year now. may need to delete like @gapingvoid… 28 minutes ago from web in reply to nowsourcing

SilentJay74 @nowsourcing you talking to me? 29 minutes ago from web in reply to nowsourcing

gideonshalwick @mayobrains – gutsy survey, but i love it! @jtunkelo and i have been talking about the virtues of twitter for the last year! http://web20marketinglive.com 1 minute ago from im in reply to mayobrains

melaniephung @mayobrains I still have no earthly idea. There’s something about the constant updates that just sucks me in. half a minute ago from web in reply to mayobrains

hyperlinked @mayobrains Although I didn’t mock, I didn’t see the point. Did it: My friends joined, I met new people, got recent news updates. 3 minutes ago from twitterrific in reply to mayobrains

UtahSEOpro @mayobrains the fact that everyone else uses Twitter too. if it had a lower user-base then i couldn’t communicate as pervasively 2 minutes ago from TwitterFox in reply to mayobrains

What outrageously great things have you seen on Twitter this week?

Photo by Jef Bettens

You have worked very hard to develop a brand that conveys not just what you do, but for whom you want to do it. Your brand is you, it’s personal, it’s your special baby.

Then, just as you become popular – they take all your hard work, and make it their own.

They Stole Your Content

As if spam comments weren’t bad enough, now some people see fit to just outright steal your content by scraping your RSS feed and republishing it.

@QueenofSpain fought back by asking Are You Reading This on BlogNetNews.com?

Well, it turns out BlogNetNews really is trying to run an honorable site.

“It is alleged that BNN does not link back to your blog. This is, bluntly, FALSE. It does link back. If you click on the title of your post, it redirects to your site. If you click on the name of your blog, it brings you to another BNN page that shows blurbs of your blog’s most current posts. Click on one and it takes you to your blog.” – Nolanotes

There are ways of preventing content theft:

pchere Stop RSS Feed Scraping with AntiLeech WordPress Plugin http://tinyurl.com/38anns 11:24 PM March 27, 2008 from twitterfeed
.

They Hijacked Your Profile

There’s a new kind of identity thief in town – are your profile doors locked and secure?

samharrelson I’m a MySpace spammer: http://tinyurl.com/yrpxyt 07:40 PM January 28, 2008 from twitterrific
.

mayobrains @samharrelson It’s really unfortunate that it is so hard to control one’s image on those sites, especially where it’s so imperative for pros 07:46 PM January 28, 2008 from web in reply to samharrelson

samharrelson @mayobrains No doubt. Personality hijacking (in a prof sense) should be criminal when it comes to social networks. 07:48 PM January 28, 2008 from twitterrific in reply to mayobrains

They Snatched Your Domain

From an earlier interview with Todd Mintz:

To most domainers, domains are “online real estate” and domaining is the practice of investing in “online real estate” with the expectation of earning a nice ROI. Now, there are rules that honest domainers must follow and one such rule is not to violate somebody’s trademark in any domain that is registered.

Deliberate cybersquatting is clearly wrong…however, the great majority of domain purchasers don’t know much about trademark rules nor do they know the penalties for violating them. Instances like the one involving The Simpsons Movie occur mostly out of ignorance and such people, even if their intent was to profit from their actions, must be separated from the “professional rogues” in the industry.

There are literally hundreds upon thousands of people who have been victim to domain theft in one form or another. Just last year Wiki.com was caught in a mix up, and in three years “cybersquatting” has increased almost 50%.

The only way you can prevent this from happening to you is by keeping up with all the new tricks they’re using to steal your domain.

Why?!

If you haven’t taken the time to develop your brand yet, realize this simple fact – something is only worth being stolen if it is valuable. Your brand holds an immeasurable amount of potential.

Go ahead – build a brand worth stealing!