Source: http://frugaldad.com

]]> http://socialwayne.com/2011/12/30/2011-tweets-in-review-infographic/feed/ 0 http://socialwayne.com/2011/06/03/the-who-why-and-how-of-twitter-infographic/ http://socialwayne.com/2011/06/03/the-who-why-and-how-of-twitter-infographic/#comments Fri, 03 Jun 2011 18:48:38 +0000 Wayne Sutton http://socialwayne.com/?p=5220
Via BuySellAds tip TheNextWeb

By now I’m sure you have read and at least heard about some of the tragic news from today. Also in the news at least on Twitter are tweets about music artist coming out about their sexuality and there’s always a debate about religion, race and politics. No matter what your opinion is or how strong you feel about what’s happening in today’s society I always caution clients, friends and family be careful what you say online, especially Twitter as it can and will be held against you. Here are seven post with proof if you don’t believe me.

1. Starting 10/10/2010, Twitter will begin transferring all of your tweets to the Library of Congress for archiving

2. US subpoenas Wikileaks tweets, and why this could affect you

3. Courtney Love Twitter defamation trial starts in Feb; Designer sez crazy tweets ruined her career

4. Man in Twitter bomb threat against airport loses appeal

5. Twitter-Jacking On Trial: Cardinals’ Manager Sues Twitter

6. Woman Sued for $50,000 Over a Tweet

7. DOJ subpoenas Twitter records of several WikiLeaks volunteers

While anonymity remains a goal for some and it still exist for some social networks and web apps the government and other social networks such as Twitter and Facebook are buying to be your online single point of interest as your online identity profile. Of course you can add Google to the mix but this all means it is becoming easier to find you and hold you accountable for your remarks online. This means blog comments, tweets, status updates, videos and more.

No longer can individuals hind behind the computer screen or smarthphone. What you say online is the same as if you said it to someone’s face or in other public media formats such as TV and radio. Therefore be careful what you say especially on Twitter because your tweets can and will be held against you.

Flowtown – Social Media Marketing Application

This had me thinking, as earlier today Twitter CEO was blogged about saying “Twitter lacks ‘clear long term vision” about the idea of Twitter launching premium features for brands, businesses and media outlets. Not just a mass delete Twitter Direct messages feature but other real-time monitoring, analytics, and spam filtering services. These features and more may be included in Twitter’s soon to be launch analytics product. In the mean time if you want to mass delete your Twitter direct messages, DMcleaner.com is a simple tool that gets the job done.

What tool do you use to mass delete your Twitter direct messages?

I just finished Kanye West day on Twitter and wanted to post the 24 songs and tweets that was scheduled throughout the day, with a few bonus tweets that didn’t make the cut.

1. Touch The Sky
“Now let’s go. Take ‘em back to the plan…Me and my momma hopped in the U-Haul van.” #TouchTheSky #kanyewest

2. Never let me down
“Now ****** can’t make it to ballots to choose leadership, But we can make it to Jacob and to the dealership” #kanyewest

3. Run This Town,
“I bought my whole family whips, no Volvos,Next time I’m in church, please no photos” #kanyewest http://goo.gl

4. Hey Mama
“Forrest Gump mama said, life is like a box of chocolates, My mama told me go to school, get your doctorate” #kanyewest

5. Runaway
“I’m so gifted at findin’ what I don’t like the most, So I think it’s time for us to have a toast” #runaaway #kanyewest

6. through the wire
“But I’m a champion, so I turned tragedy to triumph, Make music that’s fire, spit my soul through the wire” #kanyewest

7. Jesus walks
“I’m just trying to say the way school need teachers,The way Kathie Lee needed Regis that’s the way I need Jesus” #kanyewest

8. Last Call
“Now I could let these dream killers kill my self-esteem, Or use my arrogance as the steam to power my dreams” #kanyewest

“Ain’t nobody expect Kanye to end up on top, They expected that College Dropout to drop and then flop” #kanyewest

9. Bad News
“Didn’t you know, I was waitin on you, Waitin’ on a dream that’ll never come true” http://goo.gl/wEzsA #kanyewest

10. Homecoming
“Every interview I’m representing you making you proud, Reach for the stars so if you fall you land on a cloud” #kanyewest

11. Diamonds
“I thought my Jesus Piece was so harmless, “till I seen a picture of a shorty armless” #SierraLeone #kanyewest

12. Heard ‘Em Say
“They say people in your life are seasons, And anything that happen is for a reason” #HeardEmSay #kanyewest

13. Power
“I just needed time alone, with my own thoughts, Got treasures in my mind but couldnt open up my own vault” #kanyewest

14. Love Lockdown
“I’m not loving you, the way I wanted to, What I had to do, had to run from you” #LoveLockdown #kanyewest

15. Back Like that remix
“Second I walked in, the whole room got still, I don’t know how to put this but, I’m kind of a big deal” #kanyewest

16. Cack Music
“Cuz dreams of being ‘Hova went from bein a brokeman ta bein a dopeman, Ta bein a president look theres hope man” #kanyewest

17. Good life
“Whether you broke or rich you gotta get biz, Having’ money’s not everything, not having it is” #kanyewest

18. Lost in the World
“I’m lost in the World, I’m down on my mind, I’m new in the city, and I’m down for the night” #kanyewest #LostInTheWorld

19. SouthSide
“Dreaming of the day they push a phantom to the operas, Can’t wait till they say, “Yeah, ran up at the Oscars.” #kanyewest

20. Stronger
Bow in the presence of greatness, ’cause right now thou has forsaken us, You should be honored by my lateness” #kanyewest ”

21. swagger like us
“My swagger is Mick Jagger, Every time I breathe on a track, I asthma attack it, Why he so mad for? Why he gotta have it?” #kanyewest

22. Spaceships
“Lock yourself in a room doin’ five beats a day for three summers, That’s a different world like Kree Summers” #kanyewest

23. All of the lights
“Restraining order, Can’t see my daughter, Her mother, brother, grandmother hate me in that order” #allofthelights #kanyewest

24. Champion
“When it feel like living’s harder than dyin’, For me givin’ up’s way harder than trying’” @kanyewest #Champion

Also, here are few websites and tools I used to make the process easy to schedule tweets, count characters and find song lyrics.
1. CoTweet
2. Character Count
3. A-Z lyrics
4. Spotify (I’m early beta USA access) If you’re on spotify you can listen to the plan

What did you think about Kanye West day on Twitter?

Today, November 22 is Kanye West day on Twitter in honor of “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy” album being released I’m posting a Tweet every hour of the day (24 tweets) with a quote from one of Kanye’s songs with the hashtag #kanyewest. For example one tweet would look like this:”Whether you broke or rich you gotta get biz, Having’ money’s not everything, not having it is” #kanyewest. If you want to join/participate feel free to do the same or just post a tweet with the hashtag #kanyewest and try to keep it positive.

Summary of Kanye West Day on Twitter:
24 Tweets in 24 hours
Hashtag: #kanyewest
Tweet: Favorite Kanye West song or lyrics.
Theme: positive

Why Kanye West day on Twitter? I know some of you may be tired of hearing about Kanye West and you have your own opinion of him and his personality. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and who to follow or not to follow on Twitter. Everyone has their favorite music artist too. As for me, one of my favorite music artist is Kanye West. I may or may not agree with everything he has said or done but he’s an artist, he’s creative and we both use Twitter. Therefore why not.

What is your Kanye West song?
What do you think about his new album “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy?”

GEOChat covers all things location/geo related offline and online. The discussion also covers your favorite location-based applications such as Foursquare, whrrl, brightkite, Gowalla, TriOut, Facebook Places, SCVNGR, MyTown and more. Other topics includes privacy, API application mashups, offline marketing of location-based campaigns, and how does the entire GEO spaces affects businesses today.

If you have suggestions/questions/topics for #GEOChat please let me know in the comments. #GEOchat is held every Tuesday at 2:00 P.M. EST.

Here’s the #GEOChat Transcript from September 21, 2010

Yesterday kicked off the first #GEOChat about all things location on Twitter. It started at 2:00 P.M. EST and lasted to 3:00 P.M. During #GEOChat I asked four different questions and received a lot of great feedback from location-based fanboys/ladies and a few from existing location platforms such as Pegshot and TriOut. You can read a full archive of #GEOChat via the TriOut blog here: #GEOChat one Archive .

Below are the four questions I asked during #GEOChat:
1. Who’s using Facebook Places as their primary location-based service?
2. What is your number one concern about privacy using location-based apps & what apps has the best privacy features?
3. What will drive the success of location-based services in the future? Gaming or group buying or coupons and why?
4. What features not in your favorite location-based service you would like to see implemented?

There were a lot of great tweets/feedback from the #GEOChat participates and if I was location-based service, brand or an agency I would pay close attention to what users are saying about the location space. Here are a few highlighted tweets from #GEOChat.

Again, thank you to everyone who participated. Next week we’re going to cover a slew of new location-based apps, QR Codes and mobile coupons during #GEOChat.

Looking for more location-based conversations on Twitter? @LBSchat will be starting this Thursday at 9:00 P.M. and/or join us for #GEOChat two next Tuesday.

1. Like it? Tweet it! plugin

“Like it? Tweet it!” is a jQuery-powered JavaScript widget that enables visitors to your website or blog to write a tweet about the site directly in a box displayed in the corner of the website, with a link to the site already embedded in the input field.

2.BackTweets Plugin: Display the best tweets that link to your posts (ok, not that new)

3. Blackbird Pie: Create a generate static HTML of tweets for your posts

4. Add Twitter Anywhere

Embed a Tweet Box on your site and help your users share what matters to them.

Happy blogging and tweeting!

Twitter has been a on a roll since SXSW announcing @Anywhere, then hosting their first conference Chrip. Today’ Twitter/ @twittermedia released a new tool called “Blackbird Pie”. What’s the purpose behind Blackbird Pie? Accouding to the @twittermedia blog,  Tweets are the new quotes. and after listening to the community they wanted an easier way for users to embed Tweets.

Via Twitter’s Fresh-baked tweets for your posts blog post:

The origin of the script is both self- and user-centered. Mostly, we just think it’s a pain to take screen grabs of tweets. But of course we also think it’s a much better user experience to have @-mentions, hashtags and the account itself all linked and clickable.

So how does Blackbird Pie work? To give it a try just go to: http://media.twitter.com/blackbird-pie/ , then enter the url of a tweet, for example, url http://twitter.com/tzmartin/statuses/13373536266 then Blackbird will “bake” some code for you to embed on your website or blog post, in Twitter words.  Here’s the output of the http://twitter.com/tzmartin/statuses/13373536266 tweet using BlackBird Pie.

What are your thoughts on Blackbird Pie? Will you use it? Do you like the name?

When the iPad first launched two twitter apps that are highly used among iPhone users were available such as Twitterrific and Tweetdeck. Soon to follow was Twittelator and I have never used Tweetings before but now they have released an iPad version of their Twitter app as well. Here’s a list of my top 4 Twitter apps for the iPad.

Twitterrific

Tweetings

If you have an iPad what Twitter app are you using?

– Post From My iPad

Location:Market Plaza,Raleigh,United States

Join us this Saturday from 4:00 – 6:00 p.m. at the Atrium Lounge at the Hilton Los Angeles/Universal City to celebrate the 2010 Oscars. This year, Kodak will be sending some of our nation’s top bloggers to report live from the Red Carpet.

Then we’ll head over to City Walk for a great night out!

You can RSVP below or go here: http://preoscarstweetup.eventbrite.com/

A big thanks to @HiltonUniversal for hosting, and we hope to see you there!

via : http://tweetreach.com/

via http://socialmention.com

via http://wthashtag.com

Also there have been a few blog post blogging about the 28 Days of Diversity project, take a look below.

You can also keep up with the project on BlackWeb 2.0 as Angela Benton and team are cross posting the series on BlackWeb20.com .

If you blog about the project be sure to leave a comment with your link below or send a tweet to @WayneSutton so I can add it to the list. Thanks

TwellWishes is a Twitter app that allows Twitter users to send well wishes to their followers for occasions such as birthdays, anniversaries, promotions, or whatever you like.  And truthfully, people can use TwellWishes to wish somebody well for anything.  We’ve already seen people send virtual bottles of champagne and pints of beer just for fun.

TwellWishes also doubles as a reminder service so that no one’s birthday isever forgotten.  Every user has a link they can give out which allows people to add themselves to that user’s birthday list.  When a birthday rolls around, everybody who has that user’s birthday on their list will be reminded with one simple tweet.  Then, they can send a tweet to that person from the TwellWishes dashboard or they can send a virtual gift to that user such as a cake or a comfy pair of slippers.

Yahya proposed the idea after noticing there was no way to keep track of followers’ birthdays.  Facebook users get that information automatically, but on Twitter you only see birthdays in passing in your stream.  Furthermore, you usually end up with some kind of gift for your birthday, so we thought it’d be neat to open up a virtual gift store.  Users can send gifts with either credits or cash (via PayPal).  Everybody starts off with 100 gift credits to send at least one free gift.  When they run out of credits, they can easily purchase more.  Also, users can earn gift credits when they send gifts via PayPal.

We like to think of TwellWishes as great for anybody on Twitter who wants to have a bit of fun while discovering something simple and universal about their followers!

About the founders of  TwellWishes.

Tiffani Bell (@tiffani) is a twenty-something in pursuit of better living through software.

Tiffani is also the founder of Pencil You In (http://www.pencilyou.in/@pencilyouin) which allows beauticians to accept appointments online and via text message.  Tiffani has also appeared on the radio in Philadelphia (Technically Speaking Radio with JC Lamkin) to talk about Ruby and Ruby on Rails (she’s a huge fan) and the greater social/access implications of free and open source software. Tiffani graduated in May 2008 with a BSc in Computer Science from Howard University.

Yahya:

Navy veteran and entrepreneur, by design, Yahya is an idea guy. He has been in the real estate business for 8 years and serves as founder of sustainable development blog Aribra.com. He also serves as Director of Business Development for The Aribra Group, LLC, a real estate development consultancy. Yahya has built his career around his passion for people, the planet, technology and real estate. Along with partners, Yahya started TwellWishes, LLC, an application developer for the birthday reminder service TwellWishes. He currently resides in Augusta, GA. You can follow him on Twitter @YahyaHenry.

If you haven’t heard the news already, Bing is now a real-time Twitter search client. The announcment was made today from both Twitter and Microsoft’s new search saver Bing. An excerpt from Twitter:
Bing Goes The Dynamite!
We have a team focused on delivering value from a search and discovery perspective at Twitter and they’re just getting started. Twitter is earning a reputation for delivering real-time results to queries about things that are happening right now. Moreover, there are already tens of thousands of Twitter apps and more to come because people want the choice to consume and create tweets wherever and whenever they prefer. The folks over at Bing took a keen interest in Twitter and worked fast to establish a working relationship with us in line with our open approach.

An excerpt from Bing’s blog: bing is bringing twitter search to you
Search needs to keep up. Shortly after we launched Bing, we did an experiment with the team at Twitter, where we took a fairly small number of “celebrities” from Twitter and provided access to their tweets as part of the search result. Here is a great example.

We’re glad you asked that. Because today at Web 2.0 we announced that working with those clever birds over at Twitter, we now have access to the entire public Twitter feed and have a beta of Bing Twitter search for you to play with (in the US, for now).

Update Google joins the party
An excerpt Google’s blog: RT @google: Tweets and updates and search, oh my!
Given this new type of information and its value to search, we are very excited to announce that we have reached an agreement with Twitter to include their updates in our search results. We believe that our search results and user experience will greatly benefit from the inclusion of this up-to-the-minute data, and we look forward to having a product that showcases how tweets can make search better in the coming months. That way, the next time you search for something that can be aided by a real-time observation, say, snow conditions at your favorite ski resort, you’ll find tweets from other users who are there and sharing the latest and greatest information.

What are your thoughts on the new Bing/Twitter search deal? Will you actually go to bing.com/twitter to search for tweets?

Here are  the Details from Jason Keath.

Social Media History Trivia

• October 9th, 1pm EST
• Follow @jakrose for questions
• Random draw from the first 5 correct answers wins a ticket for each question
• 4 Questions

Good luck and thanks Jason for hosting.

This API will open all Twitoaster’s data and services (conversations threading and archiving, statistics, search…) to third party applications.

This could be a great news for many Twitter app developers, as they’ll find here a very easy way to integrate conversations and statistics in their applications.

Twitter: http://twitter.com/twitoaster
Site: http://twitoaster.com

Disclaimer:
I have no investment or relationship with the creators of this site.

Over the last few weekends I have attended and participated in two new / social media conferences. Both were educational, fun, included great speakers but also had a few “distraction” moments in some form of social engagements via Twitter or another similar tool. Regardless of the situation it seems that some people have forgotten that we are all human and have feelings too. In this era of using social media to have a “voice”, be heard or social change, sometimes we don’t need to be heard at the expense of individual feelings or in some cases people’s careers.

When Twitter was first launched at SXSW in 2006, the early adopter community primarily used it to share information around events, new desktop / web applications and communicate with other geeks who “got it” at the time. Now fast forward three years, Twitter is still being used the same way but now that it’s the darling of spammers, gossip sites, news media and celebrities it seems people have forgotten that Twitter is still a communication tool that represents you as an person or brand. In other words how you behave or Tweet on Twitter can be seen as online version of you the person offline. To some this means if you’re a controversial person on Twitter we’re assuming you’re a controversial person offline or nice, or mean or crazy or sweet … you get the picture.

But regardless of how you are online or offline there have always been a few general people / courtesy life “rules” that you follow when interacting with others. These rules are priceless, they have not changed with time and they apply for Twitter, Facebook, blogs and anything else you want to throw in the social media space. The rules are for brands and people even if they’re using Twitter for personal reasons.The rules apply even if you have a disagreement with others or even if you don’t like someone or if you don’t agree with how someone is making a living. The rules are not just Twitter rules but life rules. All of us are guilty at some point of breaking these rules, my self included at some point. Also I believe if major corporations / brands tweeted like some of us have, we’ll have a lawyer on phone faster than someone could tweet “you lie” .

Nevertheless, the “new” Golden Rules of Twitter are:

• Tweet to people online like you want to be tweeted.
• Don’t Tweet anything online about a person that you wouldn’t want Tweeted about you or to you.
• Don’t Tweet and drink or Tweet while you’re drunk. (I’m a non-drinker) so I may be bias/
• Don’t Tweet when you’re mad or mad at someone. Take a break and count to 140 before you respond.
• If you can’t Tweet anything good about a person, don’t Tweet it at all.

Sounds familiar? It seems like between, town hall events or Twitter conversations we’re losing our respect for one another. I’m not sure when we as a society started to go down hill but personally I would like to see us it come back up. Does this mean you shouldn’t use your social media “voice” to express how you fill online? No, but there’s a proper way to handle every situation and handling it with a little dignity and respect for others is always better in the long hall.

In closing, are these rules new? Not really but it seems like a lot of people don’t remember them. What would you add to list?

Disclaimer: These rules have not been approved or endorsed by @Ev or @Biz and according to Twitter’s official terms of service, you own your Tweets.

PS: If you go there, I’ll close or delete the comments… it is my blog.

BTW: The best thing about blogs, they just keep going

The Pitch
Tweetiator.com alerts you in real time when people share links to your content on Twitter and lets you follow and message them

Link sharing analytics are easy to get if you are the sharer of a link (by using link shorteners like bit.ly, and a bunch of others) but until Tweetiator were not available to the site owner. This is a very useful marketing tool because when people share your content, they are much more likely to respond to offers, promotions, and surveys.

To use Tweetiator, you download a little JavaScript and you can watch and interact with the people sharing links to your content from the Tweetiator dashboard, get alerts via email, or download a .csv file.

Cost
After your thirty day free trial it’s just $4.95 a month.

Created by: NimbleSource @nimblesource

For more information see Tweetiator’s FAQ page:  http://www.tweetiator.com/help/faqs

In a nutshell if you have a Twitter landing page you should be using Tweetiator.

Tweetiator.com is now in private beta but I have a few invites for the readers of SocialWayne.  Just leave a comment along with your email address and if you’re one of the first few, you’re in luck.

If you would like for me to review your product or site email: pitches at socialwayne dot com . Disclaimer: I have no investment or relationship with the creators of this site. Thank you.

The first I found via TechCrunch blog post called StopAutoDM: A Movement to Stop Auto DM’s

The second is a new feature launched yesterday from SocialToo. SocialToo now offers a direct message spam filtering service and has officially declared war on Twitter spam. For more on SocialToo’s features you can read the initial blog post release here: SocialToo Extends War on Twitter Spam With One-Click DM Management or Louis Gray’s blog post recap here: SocialToo Extends Battle Against Twitter DM Spam With New Feature You can follow SocialToo on twitter as @Socialtoo

I think the score is now Spam 1, SocialToo 1. Do you use a service to block auto dms and Twitter spam?

A little over a year ago before Twitter “jumped the shark” I was ranked in the top 100 twitter users in the world according to Twitterholic.com. I cracked the top 100 around July 2008 and I think the highest I peeked was #85 soon after. This was back when the top 5 twitter users were, Kevin Rose, Leo Leparte, Barack Obama, Alex Brecht and Jason Calacanis. My buddy Robert Scoble was #6 just in case you’re wondering. During this time I was still getting those “twitter is a fad”, “twitter is stupid” looks while trying to show my former TV coworkers the value of twitter as a news source and a way to connect with the community. This was well before Rick Sanchez knew what Twitter was and any major business even thought about showing their Twitter name on a TV ad. There was no Ashton Kutcher, Shaq, Souljaboytellem, Oprah or MC Hammer. But Hammer would soon join Twitter and joining me as one of the few African-Americans on Twitter top 100 list not that it matters, such saying. Oh and there was no such thing as a suggested user list either.

I’ve always said it’s not about number of twitter followers you have from day one and you’ll often here various A-list tech celebrities say it’s not about the numbers too but at the same time, it’s because of the numbers that most people grade you by. When marketers talk about influence how are they judging you by? The number of people you’re able to reach online via Twitter, blogs, Facebook etc. So is it or is it not about the numbers? Hmm. Needless to say, while I don’t think much about how many followers I have people still say, “you’re the twitter guy” or they ask me how many followers I have as though 26,175 is a lot compared to the average Twitter user in 2009 which has about 100 to 500 followers. Another question I get asked a lot is how did I get so many followers and do I really “listen or engage with all of the 25,000 people I’m following. My answer to the first part usually goes something like this; I was an early adopter, I join Twitter in June of 2006, I created a lot content and shared a lot of information on twitter, I tweeted a lot and started planning Tweetups in 2007, blah, blah, blah. If you need more than that check out the videos below.

Interviewed about managing my twitter account at 12,000 followers 8 months ago from Kipp Bodnar.

Interviewed about managing my twitter account at 25,000 2 months ago from Jeff Cohen.

Now fast forward to mid 2009 and it seems that I have hit a flat-line on my twitter followers. I’m no where near the top 100 like a year ago but according to Twitterholic I’m ranked number 1,828th. I guess that’s not bad out of 10,000,000 or so users. But why the flat-line or the stop in growth in followers? Here’s a couple of reason why, I think.

• I made promise in 2009 to blog more and focus less on twitter
• I don’t post as often as I used to, despite what some may say. (see my tweetstats )
• More twitter users joined and it has become to “noisy”
• I never was on the suggested user list
• I don’t live on the West Coast (ha, ha)
• I’m not a rapper, singer, actor and I stop working the media in 2008
• My content is still in the bubble tech world
• I don’t tweet about controversial topics such as religion, politics, sex, race and gossip
• I do more “listening” on twitter now than anything else with multiple accounts
• As someone who’s been on twitter since 2006, I’m tweet-out

So what am I going to do about it? My answer is, nothing. I’m still going to use Twitter for obvious reasons, plan tweetups and consult with business and individuals who need help understanding the value of the service along with their other “social media” needs. Now I’m going to sit back enjoy the rid and try to stay ahead of the “game” and focus on what could be the next big thing or how I can create the next big thing. Maybe one day I’ll look back a few years from now and call up Scoble and say, hey you remember when Twitter was ….

You fill in the blank. Do you remember when Twitter was….

So I just received an to upgrade email to the new shiny, Multi Column View, Tabbed Layout, Quick Search and more 2.0 version of HootSuite. My first reaction was great, I love new the features and upgrades. But to upgrade I had to send out a tweeet from all of my HootSuite accounts, something I didn’t want to do. Now do a search for hootsuite and you’ll see others upgrading and auto-tweeting away.

Here’s a look at some of the new Hootsuite 2.0 features.

Multi-column view

You can create groups

More features.

So far Hootsuite 2.0 looks like a winner in the space of web based professional Twitter clients. It will compete with CoTweet and the new Seesmic web twitter client. But I’m NOT a fan of having to send out a tweet from all of my Hootsuite accounts announcing that I have upgraded. I know it’s a free service and sending out a tweet is smart for marketing for the platform but it still should be optional. From the time I started this post to know over 1,828 upgrade tweets have been sent out meaning other users are upgrading.

Maybe I should do a song called. D.O.A.T. = Death of the auto tweet!

Questions:

Your thoughts on the auto-tweet to ugprade?

Do you like the new interface?

Will you switch from CoTweet, TweetGrid or Seesmic web and use Hoosuite 2.0?

Update:

beebow: @waynesutton hey @hootsuite_help informs me the tweet is only required for early upgrades… investigating further…

Update 2:
The auto tweet is only if you want to upgrade early. So if you want to wait and not send out an auto tweet, don’t upgrade.

101 Ways to Use Social Media

Social Media Relations

Social Media Stories

Five Steps for Social Media Success from http://multichannelmerchant.com

1. Have a purpose and be consistent
2. Spark conversation and engagement
3. Choose wisely
4. Integrate
5. Monitor and respond

Getting Started: Social Media Policies For Your Company from http://davefleet.com

1. Internal Policies
2. Blogging policy
3. Public Policies

Why Your Business Should Not Engage In Social Media – Yet! from http://restaurantcoachingsolutions.com
Two Major Social Media Execution Gaps

1. Social Media Is More About The Social But Your Business Culture Isn’t.
2. The Pieces Just Don’t Seem To Fit

As I was looking at the iPhone app, I asked about the ReTweet format. One of the development team members said they used (Via @twittername) and I said the twitter community prefers RT or ReTweet over Via because RT or ReTweet gives more value to the original tweetier vs the Via format. I mention how some people don’t really pay attention to the Via at the end of the tweet after they read the first part of the 140 characters. I closed my point saying that RT or ReTweet was the standard and should be included in the initial launch of the app because it’s one of the first items people look for or notice when they want to use an app for a ReTweet.

I must have done a good job pitching the ReTweet suggestion because a few hours later I received an email saying that RT has now been added to the application settings. Yeah! Although Via will be used first, at least we’ll have the option to change it to RT.

Was I correct or it’s really not that big of a deal?  Let me know what you think by taking the ReTweet poll below.

[polldaddy poll="1567594"]

When using a twitter application for the iPhone or desktop is the ReTweet format important to you? What other twitter application features are important to you?

The following list was created by Jeff Cohen, who blogs at DigitalPapercuts.com, and Kipp Bodnar, who blogs at DigitalCapitalism.com, and yes, it is completely coincidental that both blogs have digital as the first word. Since Twitter is still on the top of everyone’s mind, we thought it would be a good time to document 101 uses for Twitter. Since this list was meant to be both fun and educational, we want you to share it with your readers and indicate how you have used Twitter. There are certainly many other uses for Twitter, but we wanted to compile a list that could be created in under one hour. Please feel free to add your own uses in the comments.

The rules for this post are the following:

1. Please post this on your blog in its entirety
2. Bold or underline your uses for Twitter
3. Add the tag twitter101 to the post
4. Make sure you link back to both of the originating posts: Kipp’s and Jeff’s
5. Add a comment to this post if you like
6. Tweet your post with the hashtag #twitter101

101 Uses for Twitter
1. Answer the Question “What are you doing?”
2. Tell Your Friends Your Going To Jail
3. Alert Your Family That your Plane Has Crash Landed in The Husdon
4. Explain To The World What You’re Eating
5. Announce You’re Currently Peeing
6. Your Chair Can Tell The World You’re Farting
7. Plants Can Tweet You For More Water
8. Say Something That Gets You Fired
9. Gather A Group Of Friends For Drinks
10. Say Something That Gets A Job Offer Pulled
11. Say Something That Angers a Client
12. Complain about a Product or Service
13. Ask for Free Stuff
14. Obsess about Bacon
15. Tweet for Your Dog or Cat
16. Showcase an Endless Array of Self-Portraits
17. Meet People at a Concert
18. Share News
19. Report from a Natural Disaster
20. Pimp Your Blog Links
21. Pimp Your Mom
22. Ask for 1,000,000 Followers
23. Announce the Song You are Listening To
24. Tell People How Awesome Your Macbook Is
25. Wonder How This Twitter Thing Works
26. Gratuitous Cursing
27. Comment That You Are Sitting At Your Desk
28. Make Fun of People Who Use PCs
29. Complain about How Facebook is Ripping Off Twitter
30. Wondering if Anyone Uses MySpace Anymore
31. Ask Someone to Marry You
32. Report on Your Blind Date
33. Tell Everyone What You Thought About the Latest Blockbuster Movie
34. Spoil The Ending of a TV Show
35. Thank Someone for Great Customer Service
36. Complain About Bad Customer Service
37. Bemoan The Fact That Traditional Media Doesn’t Get It
38. Share Speaker’s Quotes from Conference
39. Make Fun of People Who Are Not at SXSW
40. Revel That You are Not at SXSW
41. Tell People How Wasted You Are
42. Talk about the Weather
43. Share Heartwarming Stories About Your Kids
44. Link to Photos of Your Vacation
45. Use a Location-Based Service to Tell Everyone about Your Latte, including a photo and a map
46. Post Cute Pictures of Your Pets
47. Meet Members of Your Local Community
48. Sell Stuff
49. Buy Stuff
50. Promote Events
51. Crowdsource Ideas for Things You Get Paid to Know
52. Hire A Freelancer
53. Report on Terrorist Activity
54. Name Drop People You’ve Only Met Online
55. Name Drop People You Are Having Lunch With
56. Send A Message To The President
57. Talk About Which Twitter Desktop App You’re Using
58. Talk About Snuggies
59. Use Stupid Shorthand such as: nom nom, lol, FTW, WTF, etc…
60. Try to Make Others Jealous of How Awesome your City is
61. Pimp The Latest Sci-Fi Trailer
62. Tracking Trends
63. Announce Your Plane has Landed: Wheels Down
64. Review Movies
65. Tell A Story
66. Make a Public Apology
67. Admit You Did Something Stupid
68. Ask for Computer Help
69. Complain about Battery Life
70. Pitch Your Startup to Scoble and Techcrunch
71. Make New Friends
72. Exclaim the Guy/Girl Across the Room is Hot!
73. Argue Politics
74. Wish Twitterville Good Morning
75. Tell your Followers to Have a Good Day
76. Tell the Twitterverse Goodnight
77. Share Quotes
78. Express Your Belief in a Higher Power
79. Avoid Sending E-mail
80. Learn
81. Listen
82. Ask for Help
83. Raise Money for a Charity
84. Share Stats of Social Media’s Growth
85. Auto-Pimp your New Twitter App
86. Auto-DM Welcome New Followers
87. Get a Date
88. Ask for Travel Recommendations
89. Share What You’re Reading Offline
90. Provide Traffic Updates
91. Talks Sports and Update Scores
92. Share Recipes
93. Tell Someone You’re Running Late
94. Find and Share Funny Videos
95. Talk to Your Boss
96. Train Surgeons
97. Make Yourself Look Smart
98. Change the World
99. Bash Microsoft
100. Express your Undying Love for Twitter
101. Retweet

*Twitter bird icon via @cheth

So after a quick count it seems I have done 75 of the #Twitter101. How many have you done?

1. idek.net @idek

idek.net is a url shortener, you have a long url, we have some short ones to spare. Sounds like a fair trade.
Created by: Adam Covati (@covati)
Location: Durham, NC

2. tweetgrid.com

Tweetgrid, creates a real time twitter search dashboard. Tweetgrid recently launched an iPhone version of their website:

Just go to http://tweetgrid.com/iphone/ on your iPhone.
Created by: Jazzy Chad @jazzychad
Location: Raleigh, NC

3. EasyTweets

EasyTweets is an online marketing tool to promote and grow your business by leveraging the power of microblogging.
Created by: Alexander Barbara @ayb
Location: Triangle, NC

Just launched is:
4. Get Encouraged</a>: @getencouraged

Send your encouraging quotes and thoughts to us and we’ll retweet them. Follow us and get a stream of encouragement all day long.

Created by: Rick Cecil & Abe Crystal of More Better Labs
Location: Research Triangle Park, NC

UPDATE: Let’s make that 5 twitter apps,

5. GeoTweeter for iPhone [iTunes link]

This cool iPhone app puts the ‘where’ into your tweets! Messages automatically include a ‘schmap.me’ link, showing followers your exact location with a configurable map icon: say more about places you visit with an optional photo and star rating.

Created by:Donald McMillan @donaldmcmillan of Schmap
Location: Carrboro, NC

As you can tell I’m proud of NC and the teams behind each site and speaking of startups this weekend in Raleigh, NC we’re having Triangle Startup Weekend. If you’re in the area come by and let’s launch another startup.

Do you know someone who created a twitter app? If so what state or city do they reside in?

1. Share information that people want: Example: how to information, social media topics, free items, etc.
2. Build valuable relationships with popular twitter users. A few tweets with some twitter A-listers can have you from 200 to 2,000 followers in no time.
3. Ask smart questions. If you’re new to twitter please don’t ask what is a hashtag without doing a Google search first. Ask questions that can create an engaging dialog that others may want to participate in.
4. Talk about twitter. Start a conversation about twitter, talk about how they plan to make money, your favorite twitter apps or even how you don’t like twitter while you’re on twitter.  A conversation will start, followers will come and you’ll be happy.

A few example tweets:

waynesutton: Sharing: 100 Superb WordPress Themes For Free! http://bit.ly/KUtXk – http://bkite.com/05VEM

about an hour ago

Fri Mar 27 17:49:40 +0000 2009

UTKevDawg: Thanks a lot! I think I will be using one of these themes. I have been looking for a while and have seen at least 3-4 I can use

about an hour ago

Fri Mar 27 17:58:29 +0000 2009

Ms_Krista: you read my mind on that tweet, Wayne. Good one, thanks!

about an hour ago

Fri Mar 27 18:01:13 +0000 2009

mmoss7: great post on the wordpress themes

about an hour ago

Fri Mar 27 18:18:26 +0000 2009

Please note: I’m not saying this works all the time,  just a few observations and don’t forget to keep blogging!

The King of Bad Boy & MTV ‘s Making the Band super producer Sean aka Diddy Combs is officially taking over or at least trying to take over twitter. In recent weeks Diddy has been pimping his twitter profile (@iamDiddy) more than Donnie’s 1st album and although I didn’t see the show, I heard he was on Ellen talking about twitter like he was the cofounder … only Diddy.

The other day I saw a tweet by Diddy saying he was live and it went to his Mogulus live stream url http://www.mogulus.com/ptwittytvlive Take a look at Diddy on Mogulus, it was short lived..

Diddy was forced to switch to Mogulus after high traffic volume shut down his feed at Ustream.TV. Surprisingly, while Diddy was broadcasting on Mogulus, the Ustream.TV team contacted him and asked him to come back to Ustream.tv because they worked things out. Ok, Diddy… I wish I had that problem. Either way, the next day Diddy was all set with a custom Ustream.TV design, without the normal Ustream.TV chat but a tweetgrid.com widget. Ustream.TV show url: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/ptwittytv

Why tweetgrid, instead of the live chat? Simple: @iamDiddy is all about the tweets and followers. He even said on the Mogulus live stream that he wasn’t responding to the chat but only tweets. On top of that, guess what the #1 trending word was on search.twitter.com Friday? Diddy.

So can the man who has the #1 show on MTV now have the #1 show on twitter and Ustream.TV? Only time will tell. Also check out: P Diddy Becomes the Newest Celeb to Use Ustream.tv on Mashable.com.

• What are your thoughts on P.Twitty.TV?
• Is Diddy over doing it or is he showing the rest of the music industry how to use social media to survive?
• What music artist would you like to see use social media like Diddy?
• Did Mogulus miss an opportunity to work with Diddy while he was using their service?

What sparked this recent discussion of changing my twitter avatar? Well, I submitted my caricature to have on my badge for SXSW and it was rejected. Then I posted a tweet about it and decided to run a twtpoll and ask my twitter friends “Should I ditch my cartoon avatar for a real live picture?” , the results 148 yes to 108 no.

Plus one of my twitter Raleigh friends @DiMambro has been trying to get me to change it for a while , saying it’s time for something new but I’ve been disagreeing with him for about a year now. So today March 9, 2009 is officially #noiconday, and I’ve have a few friends joining me as well, changing their twitter profile icons to real life photos. Check out these twitter pictures while they last because tomorrow we’re all going back to our icons.

I wonder does @Chrispirillo gets asked to change his twitter icon?

Either way at #SXSW on my badge you’ll see the same photo I’m using today and tomorrow I’m going back to my caricature on twitter. To justify my reasoning for keeping the caricature take a look at my new portal site: http://wayne-sutton.com and read these comments from the twtpoll.

@davidjagger: You are your brand, not something that might look like you. Do people do biz with your avatar or you? Your answer, is answer to question.

@therab: my wife was just saying the cartoon avatar looks just like you. i say have fun w/ ur brand. social media should = fun. people see u in video

@mclgreenville: keep it. I looks exactly like you. Goes perfectly w. your personality. I wish I had one.

I do want to say thanks for all the positive feedback from everyone on twitter about the picture .

vhanna26: I like the new avatar.

about 4 hours ago

Mon Mar 09 08:36:03 +0000 2009

Jubril: I bet you are going to get alot of people know in airport and such places knowing your face.

about 7 hours ago

Mon Mar 09 06:28:10 +0000 2009

AlexaMorales: You are handsomer in the pic than the avatar!

about 7 hours ago

Mon Mar 09 05:48:06 +0000 2009

thesoulcoach: ahh what a cutie

about 8 hours ago

Mon Mar 09 05:06:38 +0000 2009

Deltavogue: LOL! that is hilarious!

about 8 hours ago

Mon Mar 09 04:31:18 +0000 2009

iFroggy: Maybe I should change the frog for a day, in a show of solidarity with you.

about 9 hours ago

Mon Mar 09 04:11:55 +0000 2009

CarolRiddickRDU: Lookin' good. Love the pic. BTW, you & @martinbrossman did a great twitter 101 class, thx, I learned alot…see? I'm here!

about 9 hours ago

Mon Mar 09 04:10:03 +0000 2009

blackgirlchi: wow…you're actually kinda cute…

about 9 hours ago

Mon Mar 09 04:05:29 +0000 2009

jbrotherlove: snazzy. now you look like you're on your way to church.

about 9 hours ago

Mon Mar 09 04:03:20 +0000 2009

DonaldPayne: Having a real face to connect with makes since.

about 9 hours ago

Mon Mar 09 04:02:59 +0000 2009

maryhavlicek: I think your real-life picture makes you look younger.

about 9 hours ago

Mon Mar 09 04:02:28 +0000 2009

AjaniSandridge: WHOAAAA..he's alive!!!!!

about 9 hours ago

Mon Mar 09 04:02:07 +0000 2009

Tcsavory: nope i say have what you want on twitter, as long as it's respectful, no vote for me on that topic

about 9 hours ago

Mon Mar 09 04:02:07 +0000 2009

BiffyB: I love the cartoon, Wayne. You do take a good picture though

about 9 hours ago

Mon Mar 09 04:01:48 +0000 2009

steven_sanders: I like your real avatar better than the cartoon!

about 9 hours ago

Mon Mar 09 04:01:40 +0000 2009

tyme: HAHA Look at you! Made me do a double take. You look professional. Nicely done.

about 9 hours ago

Mon Mar 09 04:01:30 +0000 2009

waynesutton: Starting now: No cartoon avatar day on twitter, you voted for change & now you're getting it… for 1 day see – http://twtpoll.com/r/9ac068

about 9 hours ago

Mon Mar 09 04:00:05 +0000 2009

I’m not sure how twitter will choose the featured users but the search is an along waited feature. What else would you like to see twitter change or add to their main site? Do you have the search feature yet?

Will you stop using search.twitter.com when the search feature is on your profile?

Early June 2008, I saw @rickmahn ‘s twitter background and created one similar to his matching my current wayne-sutton.com site.

Next @Problogger had his twitter background created and I sent a tweet to @Mashable & @TechCrunch saying who was going to blog about this new trend first Mashable or TechCrunch? Mashable beat TechCrunch to the post and the post was published on June 30th, 2008 by @AdamOstrow. The post was called “Make Twitter Your Social Aggregator: Create An Extended Profile”

In the comments of the post I left the url of the photoshop document for tweeple to create their own custom twitter background. Since then it has been downloaded over 1,160 times. You can download it here too.

It was noted in the comments that @Philcampbell had create his twitter background before @rickmahn’s either way one of the two were one of the first.

From there http://www.twitterimage.com/ was launched by @hughbriss who created backgrounds for social media rock stars @chrisbrogan @kbodnar32 @chrispirillo and the rest is almost history, twitter extended backgrounds was here to stay.

If you’re looking to customize your twitter background or event make some money off your twitter profile take a look at the list below.

Free backgrounds

http://www.twitbacks.com
http://www.twitterbacks.com
http://tweetbacks.com
http://www.quickbacks.com
http://www.ministryspaces.com
http://mytweetspace.com
http://www.twitterbackgroundimages.com

Paid Background:
http://tweetpages.com
http://www.twitterimage.com

Make Money from your twitter background:

http://www.twittad.com

Twitter background galleries

http://www.twittergallery.com
http://www.customtwit.com
http://twitterbackgroundsgallery.com

Other twitter background blog post:
The 10 Best Twitter Background Designs & Themes
Pimp my Twitter – Twitter backgrounds and design
Create A Twitter Background Using PowerPoint
Enforce Your Brand On Twitter: Use A Custom Background

What twitter user do think has the best twitter extended background?
Do you know other twitter background sites?

Twitter started being just a low key “microblogging” social network that only a few serious geeks used to share urls and information about what’s happening in the technology community. In the beginning a lot of the links and conversations were around Engadget, Gizmodo and TUAW. How do I know; I was number 847 to sign-up for twitter.

Now everyone one from mommy bloggers, to main stream journalist, to marketing companies and just about your everyday internet user has a twitter account (almost). Dell just announced that by using twitter they have generated $1 million in revenue and you can best believe others are trying to do the same.

So to my point, “why I owe twitter money and you do too”. For me it’s simple, I evaluate the value of my network and brand now before a year ago. I ask myself “How many people knew Wayne Sutton before twitter?” Think about it for a second, how are you using twitter in your day to day lives? Especially if you’re a blogger and using twitter to post to your twitter profile for traffic or if you’re using twitter for ideas to write blog post.

Even though twitter is just a “tool” that allows conversations and relationships to grow for the world to see, think about how often you use the tool and what the tool was used for in 2008 (earthquakes, fire, politics, etc). I was recently asked on twitter about the site Tweetwasters that’s measures how much time you have spent on twitter by @jtobin and in a blog post from Microblink. Tweetwasters says I’ve wasted 6.57 days on twitter.

My response was, ”For what twitter has done for me it’s worth every second. #lovemyfollowers “ view my tweet here.

In terms of what kind of business model twitter releases in 2009, I’m not sure but below are a few that I think they will implement and if I have to pay for a monthly subscription for twitter, show me the checkout button because I’m buying.

My top five people who I think owe twitter money.

1. @BarackObama – used twitter (and social media) to become President
2. CNN & @Ricksanchezcnn – we all know how the news media industry is doing, Rick has a show call has a new show called “join the conversation”, congrats
3. @GaryVee – I love this man, built a great following and used twitter to promote his http://winelibrary.com TV shows
4. @zappos – Used to twitter for marketing and customer relationship building
5. Anyone who’s selling a twitter iPhone app or using twitter api for a 3rd party site & selling ads on it.
6. About to add @hubspot to the list too, using twitter for marketing, (good job guys)

My predictions on how twitter will make money:

1. Top right ad above profile information
2. Inline ads between tweets, with option to remove if you’re a subscriber
3. Corporate network twitter accounts via company name, or email (like yammer)
4. Sponsored tweets and allow others to create a sponsored tweet monetization system (magpie)
5. Paid background features: Allow css and html custom backgrounds
6. Paid group & tweet features: more than 140 characters or video/image posting (like pownce)
7. A paid follow service, if you want follow more than 500, 1,000 or 2,000 friends
8. Custom search data information sold to news/media or marketing companies
9. Paid API features.

I’m not sure if twitter will use any of these methods to make money but if their business model works in 2009, I might be writing a blog post called “why twitter owes us money for promoting their site”, encouraging others to sign up and now they are making millions. Only time will tell.

I’m @WayneSutton on twitter, a social media strategist & technology evangelist with 11,525 followers. If you’re looking to use twitter or social media for your business contact me.

Who are your top two or five people who I think owe twitter money also?

Do you feel that you owe twitter money too? Let me know in the comments.