Infinite Twitter Capabilities: What’s More?
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Do you remember which concept Twitter actually started with? That’s right, “What are you doing?” The rate at how quickly and dramatically the concept evolved into “micro-blogging” concept is the great example of how incontrollable social media can be. There is no point in trying to set any rules and standards as it already exists in numerous forms and its full potential is yet to be explored.
Yes, watching this evolution is enjoyable. How people discover new and new Twitter uses makes you wonder where it can bring us. So let’s see how Twitter can be used in various spheres of life and for multiple purposes and try to imagine what else it can evolve into.
Government 2.0
FoodSafety maintained by Food Safety Information Center “provides food safety information to educators, industry, researchers and the general public”.
Twitterfeed of U.S. Senate votes is another great example how US government 2.0 is implemented.
FCIC Pueblo is the Twitterfeed by Federal Citizen Information Center that provides the answers to questions about the Federal Government and everyday consumer issues. It alerts followers of scams, pitfalls, safety tips, etc.
Other Twitterfeeds supported by US government: USArmy, US Office of Personal Management, U.S. Joint Forces Command, Peace Corps, National Science Fdn, NASA
UK government: twitter channel for the Prime Minister’s Office
Ann Smarty
Ann Smarty is a guest blogging addict and the proud owner of MyBlogGuest.com which is a free community of guest bloggers. feel free to follow here on Twitter @SEOSmarty.com
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5 Reasons Why Google Should Fear (or Buy) Twitter
Ever since Google began to gain momentum in the early years of the 21st century (and then went public in 2004), people have assumed that Google is unstoppable. Although other search engines have fought and clawed in an attempt to take back share of the search market from Google, they have all failed (yes Yahoo and Microsoft, I’m talking about you).
Because of Google’s dominance over these other large corporations, it’s easy to see why most people would assume that no company could come up with enough money to come close to competing with Google.
However, over the last couple of months, one company has emerged that could present a real threat to Google. While many people could not grasp why they had been able to raise over fifty-five million dollars in funding, people within the tech industry were still obsessed with the concept of Twitter for over a year. However, it was only recently when everyone started to realize that Twitter could actually pose a direct threat to Google (hence their ability to raise so much venture capital).
Without further ado, here’s the list of five reasons why Google should fear (or more likely, buy) Twitter:
It’s Personalized: If Google is a vast library with only one librarian to guide you around (who can be hard of hearing depending on how complicated the information is that you are looking for), then Twitter is the same library but with all of your friends (and other individuals who you trust) standing around different areas of the library to point out the information that you should actually care about.
It’s Flexible: While it’s true that you can use Google on different platforms (such as your desktop or your mobile phone), Google can’t come close to offering the wide variety of flexible experiences that Twitter can. Whether you are using IceRocket Twitter Search to search and reply in real-time, Twitpic to share pictures with your followers, Tweetdeck to keep up with your stream of Twitter activity, Tweetie to use Twitter on the iPhone or BackTweets to monitor who is tweeting about your blog or web site, it’s easy to see that the ways to adapt Twitter to your own preferences are almost endless.
It Can Be Customized: Although it’s true that Google allows you to create a personalized homepage, Google simply can’t offer the same level of customization as Twitter. For example, Twitter has mentioned the possibility of serving local news to individuals who are interested in this topic. While this may not seem that significant, the reason that it’s a big deal is because Twitter is able to inject this topic (or any other topic for that matter) directly into your Twitter stream (which means that you don’t have to worry about anything except for absorbing the information).
It’s User Generated: This obviously ties in with the first point, but it’s an important point to note in itself. While Google is dependant upon it’s crawlers to go out and find the material for its index (which then must be organized by its algorithm), Twitter doesn’t have to worry about collecting a single drop of information. Instead, it let’s its extremely active participants collect and share all of this information on their own.
It’s Fresh: Although the first four reasons on this list are all important and should be enough to make Google pay close attention to Twitter (which they already are), the most direct threat to Google is because of Twitter’s ability to deliver fresh and relevant information the minute it becomes available.
In fact, it’s this exact reason why Twitter began to gain so much attention back in October of 2007. When wildfires broke out in California, many people turned to Twitter to get up to the date information about the progress of the wildfires. While a search of Google yielded a couple of news results and a bunch of information that was not relevant at the time (since people didn’t want to know about the history of wildfires, but what was happening at the moment), Twitter was giving people the exact, fresh information that they needed.
While Google has been doing their best to deliver relevant content that is fresh (by taking steps such as creating their Query Deserves Freshness model), so far Twitter has proved that once again, human contributions simply cannot be matched by an algorithm.
Please share your thoughts in the comments section below
Gerald Weber
I founded Search Engine Marketing Group in December 2005. More recently I co-founded viralcontentbuzz.com. which is the free platform that helps bloggers generate REAL "social buzz" on their best content.
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10 Twitter Commandments
This post is mostly assuming that those reading this have a pretty good idea about what twitter is all about. For anyone that is still not sure about Twitter and it’s purpose, Havi Brooks wrote a great post explaining the purpose of twitter in Twitter Demystified and Debunked
OK, now let’s get right to the meat and potatoes of this post.
For those of us who have been using twitter for awhile and are starting to get into the groove, I have assembled a list of 10 Twitter commandments to keep you on the right track and keep you from committing Twitter blasphemy.
- Thou shall not
pull a Guy Kawasakiact spammy. i.e Don’t send an auto reply DM asking me to check out your blog or download your crappy E-book. FAIL! Let me put it this way: Would you walk up to a stranger in a bar, pull up a bar stool, slam your business card down and say “I have a new E-book that just came out and you can get it at a reduced price if you join my mailing list!” Of course not, people would think you were insane. Networking online is no different than IRL. Just be genuine, add value to the community, and people will naturally want to know more about you. That’s the way it works online and IRL (same as it ever was).
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Gerald Weber
I founded Search Engine Marketing Group in December 2005. More recently I co-founded viralcontentbuzz.com. which is the free platform that helps bloggers generate REAL "social buzz" on their best content.
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5 Social Media Sites that you must explore
Social media being a fairly recent phenomenon, some marketers still have yet to dip their toes in the social media river. This post is intended to help newcomers get started in the social media world. There are many social sites out there; however, the following 5 should be a part of any social media marketing plan. The following is a synopsis of the author’s 5 favorite social media sites; an in-depth blog relating to each of these sites will follow.
Twitter: Follow Me!
is at the forefront of the current social media craze. If you do not already have a twitter account, you need to get one right now and you can do that here www.twitter.com. (Ok you can finish reading this post first).
Gerald Weber
I founded Search Engine Marketing Group in December 2005. More recently I co-founded viralcontentbuzz.com. which is the free platform that helps bloggers generate REAL "social buzz" on their best content.
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