Posts Tagged ‘Twitter’
Web Strategy
Does Google have a Threat?
posted by Jason Fleck @ February 11th, 2009
Some say Twitter will take down Google and others say Google owns the NOW web. Who’s right? In my opinion, neither.
Google has all the info and Twitter has the speed, but ultimately they serve two very different purposes. When dealing with a search engine, such as Google, one has to remember that whenever he or she searches a topic, the top results are going to be from sites with the best optimization. Those results have nothing to do with relevancy in respect to time. Google’s bots might gather all the most recent blog posts or message-board posts in close to real time, but it’s still not as fast as Twitter. So in those regards, Google DOES NOT own the NOW web.
However, Twitter isn’t the ultimate solution either. Does Twitter have the masses of information Google has?
Nope.
Twitter does have the time relevancy and a slew of pertinent information, but it could never be Google. Plain and simple. Maybe someday, something will overtake Google, but that day isn’t today.
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Social Media
Tweetbacks: The future of blogging
posted by Jason Fleck @ January 13th, 2009
Blogging hasn’t changed much since it’s inception. Someone writes a post then readers comment on that post. Pretty simple. Tiered comments and buttons for social bookmarking have surfaced, but ultimately, blogging has been unchanged for the past ten years - until now.
Yesterday, Dan Zarrella (@danzarrella) released his new WordPress Plugin: TweetSuite. TweetSuite includes a variety of features and widgets (you can click the link above to see the entire list of features) with TweetBacks being the most important.
TweetBacks allows others to tweet or retweet your blog post. When someone does this, their tweet (picture and all) is then added below your post - comment style - and is also accompanied by a retweet this button. TweetSuite is an efficient way to increase exposure to your blog. With Twitter on the rise, TweetSuite will be a must for bloggers in 2009.
Stay tuned. I’ll let you know how I like it once it’s installed!
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Social Media
The Good (Internet) Samaritan
posted by McKenna @ January 12th, 2009
A recent Tweet from a frustrated mother whose 3-year-old wouldn’t sleep got me thinking: How does the Good Samaritan concept apply to the Internet?
This particular Tweeter, who goes by the name Thordora, got the cops called on her. Fortunately, there wasn’t much of a story beyond her Tweet – her daughter was safe and sound in her bed. But the story has sparked renewed interest in other stories like it, especially the sad tale of Abraham Briggs.
This brings up the question of anonymity, right to privacy and all that fun stuff when using the Web. But for many people, those concepts are hoity-toity ideas that have no bearing when a child’s (or anyone’s) life might be on the line.
A lot of people – especially mothers – have taken Thordora to task for writing that Tweet. One blogger on ParentDish said “she got what as coming to her.” She continues:
“There is such a thing as social responsibility over the Internet. People use the web to create a community. As with a real community, those in a virtual simulation care for and are concerned about all the members, even if they’ve never met. They’re also just as vigilant about protecting that community.”
So when do we use social media for the social good? Is that even important? If you had read this Tweet from Thordora, what would you have done?
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Social Media
Top 5 Must Have Blogging Tools
posted by Jason Fleck @ January 5th, 2009
People ask me all the time what programs or services I use when it comes to blogging. So, here are my top 5 favs (which are in no particular order).
5.) WordPress — When starting a blog, you need to choose a platform that’s customizable enough to meet your needs yet robust enough to stand up to the constant changes of the internet. WordPress works like a charm. Everything from its slew of features to it’s easy-to-use interface makes choosing WordPress a no-brainer. I’ve been using it for the past four years and still love it.
4.) Google Reader — Now that your blog is online, you must start posting content. Starting your own directory of blogs is a great way to start. I read probably close to 100 blogs a day and I find my best inspiration comes from what I read. Reading keeps your brain working at full capacity and always gives you new content to write. Google Reader makes reading your favorite blogs a breeze. No longer do you have to load individual web sites. Just add every RSS feed you want to follow into your Google Reader account and Google takes care of the rest!
3.) ScribeFire — This program allows you to write blog posts without actually logging into your blog site. It runs as a toolbar in your browser and creates a new window within your browser when you venture onto your website. Pretty freakin’ cool if you ask me. The only way to feel its full awesomeness is to try it out. Oh - and as a bonus you can advertise through them or earn a little extra revenue by allowing others to advertise on your blog.
2.) Twitter — Now that you’re posting content on a regular basis — ahem, and you are posting regularly, right? - I’m sure you’re beginning to wonder: - where are your readers? Since your blog is fairly new, you’re probably not receiving a lot of search engine traffic and that large number of page impressions you’ve noticed is probably from either yourself or your close friends. Getting an audience quickly is where Twitter reigns supreme. Start following people on Twitter who have similar interests to you and soon you’ll realize a lot of those people will follow you back. Use Twitter to update your followers on your latest blog posts and if you have memorable content, those followers will retweet your blog post to their followers and so on creating an exponential growth of visitors to your site.
1.) Google Analytics — The tracking service your web host provides is — at best - alright. You can typically get statistics like page impressions and unique visitors, but not much past that. Google Analytics takes statistic tracking where it belongs. It’s by far the best site tracking program I’ve found to date. It tracks all your visitors, breaks them down into geographic locations, tells you what time of day they visited, which pages were visited, where they came from, if their visit resulted in a conversion, and so on. The list continues and the best part of this service is that it’s FREE.
Are there any others that should of made the list or do you disagree with any of my choices? Let me know by commenting below.
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Social Media
…the future of breaking news
posted by Jason Fleck @ December 22nd, 2008
This past weekend, word of a Denver plane crash was first reported through a tweet sent by a software engineer before he managed to escape the burning wreckage. The tweet read:
Holy ******* **** I wasbjust in a plane crash!
No seriously, this is a true story.
Mike Wilson, otherwise known as 2drinksbehind in the Twitterverse, updated his followers through his Twitter stream, keeping them up-to-date on how the situation unfolded.
So long, news agencies.
Social media is evolving in the best way possible — people giving information to other people. Raw and unfiltered. Would you want an account from a reporter standing next to the wreckage on what he or she thinks happened or a report straight from someone experiencing the situation first hand?
Yeah, I thought so.
Just another reason why I use Twitter and social media to get my news.
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Recent News and Updates
Yammer vs. Twitter
posted by McKenna @ December 12th, 2008
A colleague and I recently argued over the best way to micro-blog. I had recently signed up for Yammer for work, but my friend claimed that Twitter was perfectly fine for both personal and professional use.
Then two coworkers looked at us like we were, well, pointlessly twittering and yammering. And I realized that our argument was relevant only if our coworkers – and our vendors, clients and bosses – knew what we were talking about.
In case you have been too busy updating your Facebook status working, Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows you to send and read other users’ updates (a.k.a., tweets), which are text-based posts limited to 140 characters. It encompasses a huge audience: Twitter had a fivefold increase in visitors during September 2008, increasing its users to 5 million.
On the other hand, there’s Yammer – Twitter for the workplace. The company launched in September 2008, and more than 70,000 people have already signed up for accounts. Proponents like Yammer because it generally contains less frivolous information than Twitter, and can help coworkers keep up with important, ever-changing conversations.
So, what do you think: Is Yammer better for the office? Or is Twitter OK? If you have these accounts, how often do you update them? Or is all of this a moot point because both systems are useless?
Let us know what you think.
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