You’ll soon learn why I’m posting shorter, but more frequent posts…In the mean time, I wanted to share with you something I’ve been thinking quite a bit about these days.

Think about the generation or two before us. A significant portion of free time was spent consuming media. From print to broadcast, everyday people simply digested information and content presented to them. But then, everything changed. We were gifted with the ability to share what we think, feel, and experience, on demand. The democratization of information was finally upon us and we the people would ensure that our voices would be heard and felt. This was our time, quite literally as Time Magazine named “us” as the person of the year.

You control the Information Age. Welcome to your world…

There was and is something missing however. It takes a dedicated investment and orchestrated movement to control the information age. Without it, we’re contributing to social distortion, a regime governed by information overload that threatens social anarchy. Just because we have the ability to say something, doesn’t mean it matters to our greater society, nor does it resonate. Even in the face of this new democracy of social media, the majority of “the social” are merely consuming content – 68% of all socialites according to Forrester simply listen, never saying or producing anything.

And while it’s not the same as generations before us, I wonder if we’re moving towards an era of consumption again, just under a new facade.

In all honesty, the long form of content creation is under constant scrutiny and its value is continually questioned. Blogs are seemingly losing favor to the statusphere in the rise of a Web that promotes curation and micro-sized content without true context. Minimalist self-expression masquerades as a new information economy and I think we have yet to show what we’re capable of  contributing or truly changing.

You might disagree with me, but shortly after the iPad was released, I sold it. Why? Well, it wasn’t because I didn’t love it. I found myself thoroughly enjoying the ability to consume content in a very interactive manner that fooled me into thinking I was creating even though I was simply curating and sharing. To counter the sensation, I purchased a keyboard and a stand. They had me believing , but then I did the math. There’s more money in consumption than creation. And, that’s when I realized I was simply trying to justify it as a tool for consumption AND creation. Truth is that it’s a beautiful tool for content consumption and curation. But, I challenge you to create at least equal to you what you consume…or at least more than you do today.

Who are you?

What about you that some adore that we all need to experience?

What can you teach us?

I believe in order for the social economy to thrive, it must balance creation and consumption.

Additionally, we must invest in the social economy by demonstrating literacy and our ability to take what we learn and share our insights with those populating our coveted digital societies.

In the process we’ll find that the balance is refined to the delicate, yet invaluable ecology of learning and teaching.

What do you think? What are you observing?

This is your time…

Connect with Brian Solis on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook

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In October 2008, I documented months of research and analysis into a full directory of Twitter applications for communications and marketing professionals. In May 2009, I categorized the most applicable and qualified applications, and with the help of JESS3, we published The Twitterverse, a beta map of the Twitter universe that arranged relevant applications in a way that allowed us to see and navigate the landscape more efficiently and effectively.

While working on the official release of the Twitterverse, I was temporarily diverted, and thankfully so, to help good friend Laura Fitton (@pistachio) with the formation of OneForty.com – the first App Store for Twitter.  Enter “SOLIS140″ to gain access into the private Beta. I join Guy Kawasaki and Laura Rippy as advisors.

Like Summize before it was acquired and relaunched as Twitter Search, OneForty is Twitter’s missing piece. Similar to the App Store for Apple’s iPhone, OneForty is a marketplace for the Twitter community to discover and share tools and services that make Twitter valuable. It also offers a business platform for the over 20,000 Twitter developers to market their innovations. It brings order to the chapos with organized categories, tags and “essentials” to introduce new users to apps.

As of now, there are over 1,500 applications with descriptions, screenshots, links, reviews, live Twitter commentary, tags and more.

Laura Fitton is an expert in humanizing Twitter – she’s also an author of Twitter for Dummies along with Michael Gruen and Leslie Poston.

In OneForty, people find, rate, collect and share the best Twitter services. The ratings, reviews, screenshots and toolkits surface the best products that specifically match apps with interests. And, OneForty guides new Twitter users towards the most popular apps and a handful of “best apps” in nine essential types of Twitter services.  Visitors can browse and search by keywords, tags and categories.

My Other Ventures

MicroPR – A resource for bloggers, reporters, analysts, and event organizers to connect with qualified PR pros for help on Twitter by simply tweeting @micropr. PR should follow @micropr.

MicroJobs – Employers seeking candidates can tweet @microjobs with new opportunities. Individuals seeking employment, follow @microjobs

FriendFilter – A more effective and intelligent resource for determining whether or not to friend someone who follows you on Twitter.

Collecta – Real-time search of the social Web and officially your replacement for search.twitter.com.

PitchEngine – A complete solution for the creation, distribution, and hosting of social media releases and social media newsrooms.

BuzzGain – An online service for discovering and engaging with new influencers, the people who will help your business thrive in today’s social economy.

Connect with Brian Solis on:
Twitter, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Plaxo, Plurk, Identi.ca, BackType, Posterous, or Facebook

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It’s been an incredible week for stats, demographics, and authority trends related to Social Media this week.

The Social Web is our Industrial Revolution and our Renaissance period. It is at the very least completely transforming how we communicate with each other and how we also discover and share content.

Twitter, Facebook News Feeds, FriendFeed and other micro communities that define the Statusphere, are captivating and distracting our focus. But, while many argue that it’s decreasing productivity, I say it’s arousing a more active, engaging, and enlightened community of media literate information socialites.

While Twitter is stealing the spotlight with somewhere between 4-6 million passionate users and Facebook is taking over the networked world with 175 million nodes on the social graph, one thing is crystal clear, the statusphere is strengthened by the updates that inspire action, not those that reinforce the ME in Social Media – a.k.a. the narcisystem (coined by Chris Pirillo).

It’s in the way that you use it.

It’s the art of curation. Producing and posting updates that people find invigorating, insightful, entertaining, and enriching is how you build a meaningful foundation for which people to follow, admire, and trust you. You are a beacon for all that moves you.

Remember, the secret to attracting comments, likes or stimulating retweets is not governed by a formula, but instead by the intent and nature of sharing something worthy of response.

Jay Rosen calls this mindcasting. I would also add that this is key to community building.

It’s micro curation with macro education and collaboration served in Twitter time. It serves as a strong catalyst for valuable relationships in our personal and professional lives.

We’re living history as we not only document the transformation of media, but how information finds us.

We’re engaged at the point and place of introduction and bound by context and time. Striking content sparks curiosity and dictates our next move and subsequently the next moves and reactions of friends and friends of friends (FoFs). Some of us are smarter and humbled because of what we learn.

Hitwise released some very interesting information that reveals the emerging trends, activity, and true impact of injecting useful, interesting, and thought provoking updates into the micro social timeline.

The following numbers and charts surface the activity of where people go from Twitter.com. Note, that Twitter is one of the most dominant forces in referring traffic to blog posts, social profiles, news articles, and pictures and video on the Web.

The numbers indicate that Twitter is much more than a timeline for sharing and responding to useless or self-promotional content. Based on my own research using Bit.ly and Poprl, my numbers also corroborate the notion that Twitter can be a highly valuable source of personal and professional growth and a petri dish for growing invaluable relationships dictated solely by whom you follow.

Notice how Twitter users flock to interesting content wherever it’s hosted.

If you buy into the curation methodology, Twitter and other Statusphere networks represent the CPR and a new opportunity for the media industry disparately needs to engage a more discerning and constantly shifting audience.

As Steve Rubel so correctly observes, Twitter Search is poised to replace Google Blogsearch. His observation, HitWise numbers and an astute command of the obvious only reinforce the reality that The Blogosphere is Losing Authority to the Statusphere. Also Danny Sullivan documents how we search with the Twitter Search Engine.

Blogs will retain prominent influence as an online library of intellectual capital and social networks will also host compelling and relevant media assets and personalities. The Statusphere will serve as the bridge that connects people to content and the people behind the content, building relationships rooted context, interests, and passion.

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Source

Depending on which numbers you source or believe, all reports agree that the blogosphere continues to expand globally.

As the leading blog directory and search engine, Technorati maintains a coveted Authority Index which is considered amongst bloggers as the benchmark for measuring their rank and selling their position within the blogosphere. Authority is defined as the number of blogs linking to a website in the last six months. The higher the number, the greater the level of Authority a blog earns.

However, a disruptive trend is already at play. While blogs are increasing in quantity, their authority—as currently measured by Technorati—is collectively losing influence.

In its annual State of the Blogosphere last year, Technorati revealed that it had indexed 133 million blog records since 2002. In March 2008, Universal McCann published a report that indicated 184 million blogs worldwide were created, with 346 million people reading blogs globally.

Indeed, consumers, businesses, content publishers, and media channels are embracing blogs as a way of engaging existing and reaching new readers to build an ecosystem around relevant conversations. It’s the convergence of dialog and journalism, creating a new generation of interconnectedness between publisher and community.

Blogging is entrenched in the mainstream.

So why do I believe that blog authority is losing its authority?

It goes back to the definition of authority. Links from blogs are no longer the only measurable game in town. Potentially valuable linkbacks are increasingly shared in micro communities and social networks and its affecting detouring attention and time away from formal blog responses.

As the social Web and new services continue the migration and permeation into everything we do online, attention is not scalable. Many refer to this dilemma as attention scarcity or continuous partial attention (CPA) – an increasingly thinning state of focus. It’s affecting how and what we consume, when, and more importantly, how we react, participate and share. That “something” is forever vying for our attention and relentlessly pushing us to do more with less driven by the omnipresent fear of potentially missing what’s next.

We are learning to publish and react to content in “Twitter time” and I’d argue that many of us are spending less time blogging, commenting directly on blogs, or writing blogs in response to blog sources because of our active participation in micro communities.

With the popularity and pervasiveness of microblogging (a.k.a. micromedia) and activity streams and timelines, Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed and the like are competing for your attention and building a community around the statusphere – the state of publishing, reading, responding to, and sharing micro-sized updates.

This new genre of rapid-fire interaction is further distributing the proverbial conversation and is evolving online interaction beyond the host site through syndication to other relevant networks and communities.

In most cases attention for commenters at the source post are competing against the commenters within other communities. Those who might typically respond with a formal blog post may now chose to respond with a tweet or a status update.

Attention is engaged at the point of introduction, and for many of us, we’re presented with worthwhile content outside of our RSS readers or favorite bookmarks. Relevant and noteworthy updates are now curated by our peers and trusted or respected contacts in disparate communities that change based on our daily click paths.

Retweets (RT) and favorites in Twitter, Likes and comments in FriendFeed and Facebook, posting shortened links that connect friends and followers back to the source post, have changed our behavior and empowered our role in defining the evolution of the connectivity and dissemination of information.

Now, we have the ability to instantly interact with, respond, or promote blog content away from the source blog, but that shouldn’t make the original post any less valuable. In fact, while blog authority isn’t capitalizing on these new sources for linkbacks, link authority is still affected, no matter the source, and helps increase the visibility and weight of the host blog in search engines.

The immediacy of publishing, sparking dialog, and receiving responses only reinforces this behavior. And, it encourages participation without having to write a blog post tracking back to the originator of each discussion. So, posts are missing out on a trove of valuable linklove that would otherwise contribute to their authority

Think about it.

There are supposedly 133 million blogs created, with far less in real use today. There are reportedly 175 million users on Facebook and another four million (and growing) on Twitter. The online social populace is necessitating the need for a new generation of establishing and measuring authority in the blogosphere before current blog metrics inaccurately paint a grim picture that they’re influence is declining – again as measured today.

One blog post can spark a distributed response in the respective communities where someone chooses to RT, favorite, like, comment, or share. These byte-sized actions reverberate throughout the social graph, resulting in a formidable network effect of measurable movement and activity. It is this form of digital curation of relevant information that binds us contextually and sets the stage to introduce not only new content to new people, but also facilitates the forging of new friendships with the publisher in the process.

With the right tools, everything is measurable.

BackType tracks tweets associated with a source URL regardless of the shortener used to link back to it. twInfluence measures Twitter influencers, not just by followers, but also by reach, velocity, social capital and centralization. Retweetist tracks the most “retweeted” people, URLs, and also those who actively “RT” others. Tweetbacks, Disqus, and Chatcatcher are tracking related tweets and directly connecting and listing them as traditional trackbacks at originating blog posts.

FriendFeed already released APIs and with Facebook opening up the News Feed to developers, apps will emerge that can track blog posts by volume of likes and shared links.

At SXSW, Klout will debut a new service that helps bloggers and content publishers measure Link Authority and a conversation index by tracking the frequency of shared URLs tied to the weighted stature of those sharing them compared to other links shared during the same time frame. The service will eventually provide a foundation to compare source URLs ranked within the service over time.

The ideas are abundant.

Shortly before publishing this post, I contacted Richard Jalichandra, CEO of Technorati, and we discussed the future of blog authority in the era of micromedia. His response was positive and immediately revealed that the team is actively entrenched in the creation of a modified platform that embraces widespread, distributed linkbacks to blog posts in order to factor them into the overall authority for affected blogs. He also, on the spot, set up a briefing to review where they’re at in terms of development as well as new options to factor into the equation.

Widespread blog responses are dwindling in favor of micro responses.

Authority within the blogosphere demands a new foundation to measure rank and relevancy that is reflective of the real world behavior and interaction of those who are compelled to link back to the post and extend its visibility in new, engaging, and prominent communities.

Blog authority as measured by Technorati is declining. However, blog authority as measured by links is booming. It’s now more authoritative than ever before as bloggers can reach and resonate with new readers outside of their traditional ecosystem to cultivate a dispersed community bound by context, centralized links, and syndicated participation. Microblogging will only grow in importance and prevalence. It’s just a matter of embracing the inevitable and measuring the linklove in and out of the blogosphere.

Looking into the crystal ball, this discussion also begets the question, will we need a seperate Technorati channel for measuring authority for content publishers on Twitter, in addition to blog authority?

Feel free to share your ideas…

Update 1: At 11:00 a.m. PDT, BackTweets had tracked over 350 Twitter links to the original TechCrunch post, none of which are contributing to the overall authority index.

Update 2: Technorati published a blog post and a Tweet that explains new data-set modifications to blog links and authority, not including Twitter and other forms of micromedia linkbacks.

Update 3: I am meeting with Technorati within the next two weeks.

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Like is the new favorite, which was at the time, was the new bookmark. This small, but important feature will no less, reinforce relationships between friends and followers and those who produce, interact with, and share content.

Made popular by services such as FriendFeed, and now Facebook, the idea of liking an update is much bigger than merely bookmarking or favoriting (yes, it’s a new verb in the social web) updates from friends and contacts for later reference. The act of liking is quickly emerging as a simple, but complimentary gesture of acknowledgment and reciprocation to recognize the contribution of someone whom you follow.

FriendFeed

As Robert Scoble notes, FriendFeed is Facebook’s R&D; department. Recently, Facebook introduced the act of liking updates directly into the personal, and precious, News Feed a.k.a. the Statusphere.

New services and communities are also debuting based on the premise of liking. Likaholix, for example, builds a community around reciprocity and those who actively like relevant material.

Likaholix fuses bookmarking and the kindness of liking with influence. It creates a layer of “tastemakers” around those topics and fields in which users emerge as experts based on their consistent, themed contributions and activity within the network.

Liking is the epitome of the relationship-based culture powering the authenticity, ethics, and reciprocal interactions on the Social Web. It’s a powerful form of micro recognition, which serves as an approving, motivating, and uplifting nod from someone else.

Likes also offer a macro impact within social networks. The deed of liking an update resonates within and outside the social graph as those who follow your activity will now receive an introduction to something that caught your attention, thus amplifying the source post or update to span across the relevant net as well as the network of friends of friends (FoFs).

As the social Web and new services continue the migration and permeation into everything we do online, we’re endlessly faced with an increasingly thinning state of continuous partial attention (CPA). It’s affecting how and what we consume, when, and more importantly, how we react, participate and share. That “something” is forever vying for our attention and relentlessly pushing us to do more with less driven by the omnipresent fear of missing out on what’s next. However, the act of liking is a symbol for how we can still publicly appreciate updates and those behind them without carving out precious time to formally comment or bookmark them in external networks.

Source: Andreina

Likes are incredibly powerful as they facilitate the sharing of love in byte-sized actions that reverberate throughout social networks, resulting in a formidable network effect of movement or diversion. It is the digital curation of relevant content that binds us contextually. Liking sets the stage to introduce not only new content to new people, but also facilitates the forging of new friendships in the process.

How does this change how you discover and share updates and content?

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Twitter continues to inspire creativity and innovation among third-party developers. The latest useful solution is Twibs, a directory of businesses using Twitter to communicate with consumers, peers, and tastemakers.

Twitter is a conversation platform and it continues to fundamentally transform how people communicate with each other. Along with other socialized channels of online interaction, Twitter has also re-ignited the long-forgotten art of listening to and communicating with customers.

What started with forums and online reviews, then evolved to include blog comments, groups, social networks, and now micro communities, businesses are once again embracing the methodologies associated with excellent customer service – after all, the customer is always right. And, the customer is now potentially more influential than ever before.

Twibs is currently tracking roughly 4,500 brands on Twitter as well as associated promotions that they’re running within the popular micro community.

According to the founders, “Twibs was created by a small group of people with one purpose: Give twitter users a place to find businesses on twitter. We are big believers in the power of twitter to connect customers with businesses. We’re working on making it easy for consumers to find businesses, both local and national.”

Ways you can help:

- Add a new business
- Manage your own

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- Finding the Tweet Spot – Top Tips for Building Twitter Relationships
- Twitter Bowl 2009: And the Winners are…
- The Battle for Your Social Status
- How Dell Deals with Twitter
- Need a Dictionary for Twitter?
- Introducing MicroPR, A Resource for Journalists, Analysts, & Bloggers on Twitter
- Twitter Tools for Communication and Community Professionals
- Is Twitter a Viable Conversation Platform
- Is FriendFeed the Next Conversation Platform
- State of the Twittersphere

Twitter is an incredible medium for listening, learning, and sharing. And, for those in the media and communications industries, it’s also a rapid and immersive education in meaningful, two-way micro messaging that helps both parties walk away with a new form of value.

While there are no shortage of posts that offer tips and tricks to help you boost your Twitter followers, it is by no means a popularity contest. The surmounting ploys, friending races, theatrics, and contests to tempt those into following individuals can be fun, but short-sighted, when in fact the true technique for building relationships, regardless of volume, is the genuine act of earning and investing in them. It’s rooted in selflessness and rewarded with a rich stream of relevance and a network of valuable contacts that can also help you in the real world.

Twitter is a unique and vibrant community that thrives because of your participation and interaction. The Twitter culture evolves and matures though the greater collective of those who invest in the caliber and meaningful dynamic of the micro exchanges and relationships that we earn and forge everyday.

Our experience is defined by what we share, learn, and discover, what and who we follow and spotlight, and how we give back to those who help us and others.

Brevity speaks volumes.

So, to give back to the Twitter community and invest in building more mutually beneficial relationships, here are the top tips to pay back and pay it forward on Twitter:

- Twitter asks what you are doing. Instead answer the question, What do you think we are better off knowing right now? Other questions to consider…What/who inspires you? What just happened? What am I missing? What did you learn today? What’s out on the Web worth sharing on Twitter?

- Curate and share helpful and applicable content on the stream and apply relevance and/or context. Offer perspective. You are unique and your ideas, opinions, and experience can help or offer value to those who are learning.

- The public should feel included in almost everything you share.

- Think about your tweets in aggregate and assess the picture you’re painting through your last 20 updates. To get a picture of how you’re perceived, visit www.twitter.com/yourusername and take a moment to see your tweets through the eyes of a visitor.

- Build a brand theme that complements who you are and what you do.

- Consider establishing a username that people can connect with and remember. Many either use their name or are currently changing their ID to reflect their personal or corporate brand. The Twitter culture is much different than the culture associated with IM (where aliases are much more common).

- Earn a reputation and authority based on the niche you establish for yourself, reinforced by the tweets your post and share. Dan Schawbel has tips to help you do this more effectively.

- Engage with individuals in the public timeline around a given topic. But, draw a line between a public @message and a DM. Not everyone needs to follow your 1:1 dialog in the public timeline, especially as the volume increases everyday. Some things are just better left for the backchannel. If it’s an A and B conversation, your followers may “C” there way out of it.

- Try to thank or acknowledge, in some way, those who RT your updates or promote your outside activity. Personally, this is an area where I’m working on devoting more time. Everyone who takes the time out of their busy day to share something you posted deserves recognition.

- Ask questions and share the results. Twitter is a magnificent forum for sparking conversations that pull responses from your friends as well as from friends of friends. Most vanish without closure or results. Share highlights and observations.

- Pay it forward. This is important. About two months ago, I Tweeted, “Remember, Always Pay it Forward and Never Forget to Pay it Back…it’s how you got here and it defines where you’re going.”

- Don’t just follow the Twitterati. Find and follow everyone who can help you learn and improve your skills as well as the value of your overall network. I recommend using TweepSearch, which is the first search engine that allows anyone to search and discover relevant Twitter bios and location information using keywords. It’s ideal for learning more about those following any given username as well. Mr. Tweet is your personal networking assistant on Twitter. It helps you easily build meaningful relationships by looking through your network and tweets. Mr. Tweet will then suggest new and relevant tweeps and existing followers you should also follow.

- 120 is the new 140. Retweeting is one of the most valuable currencies in the Twitter economy. Leave room in your tweets to make it easier for someone to RT and also add a short reaction or endorsement. The magic number seems to hover around 120 characters.

- Listen AND respond to those who offer insight tied to keywords that are important to you, not just those who send messages in public with your @username. Follow conversations related to the keywords that are important to your ecosystem. Make new friends. Offer value and insight to those conversations related to your industry. Give back to those seeking guidance.

- Don’t share anything you wouldn’t want a co-worker, your boss, friends, or family to see.

- Learn from your tweets by analyzing the statistics associated with your activity. The criteria associated with defining Influence and authority on Twitter are still debatable. However, your numbers of associated followers, RTs, and unfollowers, are undeniable. Tools such as TwitterCounter provides an interactive chart that chronicles the quantity of Twitter followers for any given username. TwitterFriends is one of the most compelling analytical tools for identifying relevant conversationalists, revealing conversation patterns,
and visualizing material conversation networks, by Twitter ID. On the oth
er side of the equation, Qwitter is a humbling and instantaneous solution for honing your updates to better match what your friends and followers hope to see or not see. Qwitter will send an email to you when someone unfollows you and will link the action to the most recent tweet that you posted.

- Host or attend tweetups, conferences, events, etc., where your Twitter friends and contacts are participating. It’s important to remember, as it’s easy to forget, that relationships count online and in the real world. Investing in meaningful relationships requires in-person engagement over time.

- Share visuals that capture your attention or better help you tell a story, as long as it will appeal to your community. I use Twitpic and BrightKite.

- Respond to negative criticism as well as the accolades. There may be points worth considering to embrace and visualize a broader perspective. Those who respectfully push back, contribute to what we learn, while also push things forward. But, sometimes there’s also a point of diminishing return. Certain individuals are steadfast in their views and it’s their right to maintain an opposing viewpoint. Beware: Don’t feed the trolls.

- Be helpful.

- Make this about conversations, sharing, and learning. Tweetcasters and self-promoters are eventually tuned out.

- Ensure that your bio is representative of the brand you wish to convey. In addition to your bio, consider strategically branding your Twitter background as well. Here’s how…

- If you witness a series of RT’s regarding a post that sings to you, consider following the source.

- This one is a bit of a controversial subject. Do you follow everyone who follows you back? Some say yes, some say no. It’s a personal choice and a topic that usually ignites a passionate discussion. I treasure the tweets of those I follow and everyday, I follow new people whom I believe to add value to my Twitter stream. It’s important to listen to those you follow and regard and by amplifying the quantity of people simply to return the favor of a follow, makes it incredibly difficult to actually hear anyone. There are those who follow everyone and that may work for them. There are also those who create an alternative account to simply listen to those individuals whom they appreciate and respect. PeopleBrowsr is an incredible Twitter service that allows you to follow everyone back, but also create a column for “VIPs” to see only their tweets on your visual dashboard. In the end, do what’s right for you and your network of friends, followers, and mentors. This is something that I’m thinking about quite a bit these days.

- Relationships, whether they’re on Twitter, Facebook, or any other social network, are held to the same guiding and ethical principles of those we cherish in the real world. Think of them as investments where the ROI is intelligence, social capital, respect, trust, and friendship. Individuals on both sides must realize mutual benefits and advantages for cultivating short-term or long-term relationships. You are equally responsible for contributing ongoing value.

But don’t just take my word for it. Leave your tip in the comments section below…

Also, I took the conversation to Twitter and here are some of the highlights(I tried to include everyone, apologies in advance if I missed something):

Question: If you could share 1 tip to build new & more meaningful relationships on Twitter, what would it be?

Be Engaged @VirtueIMC

be yourself. it’s the only sustainable voice you’ve got. @alexknowshtml

business comes second. @spotcher

always (or at least most of the time) reply back to people when they @ reply you @pepstein

Adopt the Tit-for-Tat version of the Golden Rule. And always say “please” and “thank you.” @cheeky_geeky

don’t get hung up on the numbers, instead…focus on genuine connections. More isn’t always better. @promodiva

just think it goes back to what Doc Searls once said: “screw popularity, just make yourself useful” @triciabuck

Give support. @SavvyAuntie

Be honest. @justinmwhitaker

Make the effort to help followers and followees out (not just to the twelebs!) @seanfee80

Personally send a DM thanking every new person who follows you. @DixonTam

help people solve their problems. don’t just twisten (twitter listen) but also respond @healthworldweb

Take ur time; treat it like the adventure it is. Other people are so fascinating! Enjoy it! @ROICoaching

Make it a habit to respond to people not just to what they post @Taiwriter

Don’t try to be anything but yourself. @jtnt

Simple, just TALK to people. Isn’t that how you create relationships in person? @GlazrKenndyCopy

Follow people within your industry and also follow people with similar interests. @pliadesigns

I’d change the prompt question of Twitter to: “What has just captured your attention?” @barbaranixon

express all the different sides of your personality, don’t just twitter about one topic @woodlandalyssa

would say reach out specific requests & support via DMs, just do not auto DM as it feels careless, meaningless @PinkOliveFamily

It matters much more who you’re following than who is following you. (Don’t get me wrong – I love my followers!) @jfraga

Eagerly follow industry peers. No matter where you are in your career you can learn from others. Share ideas and opinions. @rachelakay

It is about engagement – from all sides… I call it the world’s largest cocktail party conversation for clients @VirtueIMC

Find a way to meet in person. Conference, events in your local area, while traveling. And make the effort to follow through. @sloane

Respond to direct questions/feedback. This might not build bigger followings but would build better links across the ‘brands’. @jenajean

engage, don’t just be a listener or a monologuist, engage, engage, engage. And don’t mass follow. Ugh! @tyamdm

Be genuine. You are what you are – be that same person on Twitter not someone you are trying to be. @keithdon

share relevant, new content. Engage in dialogue. @gogocomm

find interesting people and engage them. Ask them questions about themselves, their projects, be genuinely interested in them. @gingerw

Be real, be transparent, don’t sell, don’t fall into the follower ego thing. @davidfeldt

find out more about your followers and try to engage them in converstaions. like this one. @kmvictory

Be open minded. You never know who is going to be a valuable relationship until you start interacting, listening and learning. @aarond22

To never be afraid to put a bit of yourself and your real thoughts out there when Twittering,no matter how drastic or dynamic(: @themissingsock

Notice. Really notice. Whether you’re an A-lister with a huge blog/ gig. Or new-ish. Notice who’s supporting you & return love. @Ed

be yourself in all the glory 140 letters let you be… @dgourlay

Like any relationship building activity, I’d say “Listen, engage and converse” is extremely important – especially “Listen”. @zubintavaria

it might help if u actually “talked” 2 them instead of adding people like they’re poker chips.. Have at least 1 meaningful convo @MarcMeyer

answer the questions others are asking. @gbender26

Hottwiitertips says, “GET REAL.” to make twitter more meaningful. What does that mean anyway, “meaningful?” @jmacofearth

Stop calling your followers…”followers.” @jaculynn

Attend Tweet-Ups, without a doubt. Physical interaction is still the key to connecting. @andrewlockhart

share your connections @1day4me

Meeting people IRL is the best way to have meaningful twitter relationships. I’m excited to meet tweeps upcoming events. @khartline

Listen, react, converse, and be informative. Reply to others’ questions, and ask questions yourselves. @emd5005

Don’t feel obligated to follow everyone who knocks on your virtual door. Sometimes less is more. Take time to read profiles. @TobyDiva

focus on real-life relationships @Jesse

Be curious and talk to people. @JohnCannon

have real convo-tweets with people. Respond to replies always, and keep the convo going. It’s tough to do in 140 characters. @adenasf

Create an “inner circle” or a subset of your subscriptions that you interact with on a regular basis. Feed that stream! @BostonDave

Add as much value as possible in every reply and RT @JodiEchakowitz

always try to give more than you take. @getshust

join the conversation. Meaning don’t always be a watcher: share, discuss, react, repeat. @jacquelynmogol

2 Build meaningful relationships on Twitter, connect & engage. Don’t just push your info; interaction = trust; It’s addictive 2. @CathyWebSavvyPR

Tip #1-Read the tweets, bio, and any links to see who person is and begin convo on what you find. @3keyscoach

Be authentic: Do not self-censor and do not Be Safe. Numbers are meaningless. @AdRanchJason

Follow people who are unlike you, too. Different industries, different beliefs, different geos, etc @jaculynn

Actually read some of the Tweets from those you follow. I have 1200 followers, but I’d guess 20-30 read my Tweets. @chucklasker

Arrange for a tweetup or phone meeting with interesting tweeps. I’m meeting fab people this way. @3keyscoach

Be seen elsewhere. @MaryannM

do stuff for people: quid pro quo @scriber

introduce my network to people who can benefit from knowing them @ducttape

Add value to other peoples tweets, not only the ones that serve your agenda. Be a giver always. @MikeAbrams

Being honest, direct, and “real”. @MikeMathia

It will ALWAYS be: be yourself…in 140 characters or less, or more, or whatever — just always!!! @SteveRepetti

2-way comm, provide info to help others succeed @relth

i like connecting around specific subjects. as u tweet consistently about one thing you converse with people who do the same @rgujral

Go beyond just using Twitter @rloughery

Give helpful, honest and friendly replies. Many just post their own updates, toot their own horn, and don’t form relationships. @PluginPR

Be authentic: Do not self-censor and do not Be Safe. Numbers are meaningless. @Twensored

Answer questions and offer help because you TRULY want to serve — with no expectation of reciprocation. @baylan

reply to tweets that responate with you – take the next step beyond reading and act, respond, connect @dahawe

only follow the people who mean something to you, mix it up, RTs, Replies, Daily Garbage, Promotion of stuff you care about @ChrisSaad

Direct message about a shared personal interest or helpful info specific to that person’s twitter activity/profile. @katiewinchell
—
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—
Related Posts on PR 2.0:

- Twitter Bowl 2009: And the Winners are…
- The Battle for Your Social Status
- How Dell Deals with Twitter
- Need a Dictionary for Twitter?
- Introducing MicroPR, A Resource for Journalists, Analysts, & Bloggers on Twitter
- Twitter Tools for Communication and Community Professionals
- Is Twitter a Viable Conversation Platform
- Is FriendFeed the Next Conversation Platform
- State of the Twittersphere

Connect with Brian Solis on:
Twitter, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Plaxo, Plurk, Identi.ca, BackType, Posterous, or Facebook
—
Have you bought the book or the poster yet? (click below to purchase):

Recently, we discussed the evolution of Twitter and also FriendFeed as they mature into fully interactive conversation ecosystems.

In social media, you’ll most often hear references to the proverbial “conversation” that fuels the dynamic, two-way Web and earns those individuals and brands that invest in it wisely, increased social capital and authority.

Facebook issued a significant announcement that may solidify its platform as the primary dashboard for sharing, responding, and listening to those who comprise your social graph, regardless of network.

“We’re launching several new APIs for Facebook Platform today. These new interfaces open up access to the content and methods for sharing through several Facebook Applications — including Facebook Status, Notes, Links (what we used to call Posted Items), and Video. Specifically, your applications can now directly access all of a user’s status, links, and notes via new methods and FQL calls. Your application will have access to any status, notes, or links from the active user or their friends that are currently visible to the active user. In addition, we’re opening new APIs for you to post links, create notes, or upload videos for the current user, and we’ve made setting a user’s status easier. “

The status update is paramount to social networks. It is the purest and simplest gesture that invites related dialog and in turn, spreads the conversation from the individual social graph to the respective graphs of those who follow each respondent.

By opening up the API for Facebook Status, developers will create a statusphere (new term) not unlike the vibrant Twitterverse that has propelled Twitter not only into the spotlight, but also changed how millions of people, brands, and media properties communicate with others. When combined with Facebook Connect, other communities that foster and feature conversations based on the activity and shared updates of its community may need to think how Facebook’s new and “open” interaction model affects their culture and opportunity.

For those who aren’t yet familiar with Facebook Connect, it is a technical bridge that grants access to partner communities using your Facebook profile/identity. Not only can you log in using one ID, it also sends the associated activity from each respective network back to your activity feed within Facebook for review and commentary from those within your social graph and the corresponding network of your contacts.

Many speculate that Twitter.com as a destination, not Twitter itself, might suffer as a result of Facebook’s progression. Others believe that this spells doom and gloom.

Currently, most discussions on Twitter are fragmented, and while true to its original intent and design, users, and their respective habits and ensuing behavior, are thirsting for something more… After all, the most common complaint from those who truly engage in conversations on Twitter have begged Evan Williams and co. to facilitate threaded dialog directly within Twitter itself – not through a third party app. Facebook and FriendFeed believe this is future of micro communication and already offer threaded discussions.

Alas, Twitter’s greatest asset is also the very fuel for Facebook’s “open” News Feed – its passionate user base. However, Twitter’s unique and untainted culture will thrive and prosper – although its growth factor may be humbled a bit. Twitter’s not going anywhere any time soon though. It will continue to grow and transform interpersonal dialog, attracting hordes of new tweeters in the process. It’s not just a network, it’s becoming a way of life.

It’s not just about where you communicate it’s also about where your friends, associates as well as those whom inspire you interact.

But for Facebook, the release of an API for Status will also grow and incite activity within its already burgeoning network. And, it may represent more of a threat to FriendFeed – in essence, a rich community and associated ecosystem that represented what Facebook should have been all along.

Keep an eye out for interesting applications that initially mimic many applications currently available for Twitter. Facebook will certainly spark a more extensive and remarkable ecosystem with your “status” at the center of the experience.

Other notable dialog on the subject:

Fred Wilson
Nick O’Neill
Eric Eldon
Don Dodge
Marc Canter
Mike Butcher

Related Posts on PR 2.0:

- How Dell Deals with Twitter
- Need a Dictionary for Twitter?
- Introducing MicroPR, A Resource for Journalists, Analysts, & Bloggers on Twitter
- Twitter Tools for Communication and Community Professionals
- Is Twitter a Viable Conversation Platform
- Is FriendFeed the Next Conversation Platform
- State of the Twittersphere
- Facebook is the Hub for Your Personal Brand

Twitter has sparked its own ecosystem as it continues to rapidly emerge as a viable platform for online conversations, rivaling Facebook News Feeds for attention and interaction.

A group of helpful individuals launched Twictionary, a dictionary and/or translator, to help new tweeters and tweeps embrace and master the language powering the popular micro community and its underlying culture. Power Twitter users and those well versed in the language of the Twitterverse are also welcome to freely contribute their knowledge to help increase the value of the dictionary over time.

On another note, a very interesting post was published at 140characters, a word design collective led by @dom and @adamjackson, detailing the origins of Twitter, “How Twitter was Born.”

Related Posts on PR 2.0:

- Introducing the Twitter Bowl
- Introducing MicroPR, A Resource for Journalists, Analysts, & Bloggers on Twitter
- Twitter Tools for Communication and Community Professionals
- Is Twitter a Viable Conversation Platform
- Is FriendFeed the Next Conversation Platform
- State of the Twittersphere

Is 2009 the year you finally dive into the world wide web of blogging? Or, is it the year you switch blogging platforms or services? It is for me. In fact, I’m exploring the near-term migration of PR 2.0 from Blogger to WordPress (both self-hosted).

Make no mistake, even with the popularity of micro communities such as Twitter, aggregated streams/lifestreams such as Strands and FriendFeed, and tumblelogs (Tumblr), blogging is still one of the most effective and visible stages to spotlight your expertise, thoughts, advice, opinions, and insight (for you and your company.) It fuels discovery and it conveys adeptness and reinforces participation.

So how do you determine which solution to support?

For the rest of us who are overwhelmed with choices and recommendations, perhaps there’s guidance in the curated platforms that other top bloggers have embraced. We can assume that they have tried and tested multiple solutions, settling on a blog formula that allows them to customize and publish content efficiently and effectively. At the very least, our choices are narrowed into a palatable array for quicker dissemination.

To help, Pingdom released an interesting study that reveals the numbers behind the most popular blog platforms and the most linked-to bloggers using them.

Blog Software (Self-Hosted Blogs)

According to the study, Pingdom identified WordPress as the top choice among the most “popular” bloggers according to Technorati’s Top 100, powering 27 out of 100 blogs.

Movable Type was second with 12 out of 100.

Only 8 blogs use a custom-made blog platform.

Drupal, a general purpose CMS, boasts 4 blogs.

Blogging Services (Third-party service providing blog software and hosting)

While WordPress is the more popular solution among those who self-host their blogs, Movable Type’s Typepad excels to the top of the list for bloggers using services based on blog platforms (Typepad on Movable Type, WordPress on WordPress, Blogger on Google’s Blogspot, etc.)

It’s important to note that more than 1/3 of the top 100 bloggers use a blogging service.

Typepad powers 16 of the top 100 blogs.

AOL-owned Blogsmith (used by Weblogs, Inc.) drives 14 of the top 100.

WordPress.com is used by 5.

Blogger (Google) fuels 3.
—
Top Blogs and the Corresponding Platforms

Blog Name, Technorati Rank, Platform

In order to maximize the full opportunities and benefits that strategic blogging can yield, it is highly recommended that you use blog software or a service that you personally (or with the help of experts) customize to match the brand and the persona you wish to covey – from the design aesthetics to the URL – and everything in between.

—

As a follow up to my post, “Extra Extra, Read All About It! Newspapers Respond to the Social Web,” new research emerges that documents the looming exit of print newspapers as a primary source of national and international news.

According to the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, a new survey indicates that 40% of respondents claim the Internet as their primary source for national and international news, versus 24% in 2007. In comparison, 35%, up 1% from 2007, rely on newspapers and 70% count on television as their main source for news, down from 74% in 2007.

Perhaps the harbinger of things to come is embodied in the response from Americans under 30. A staggering 59% indicated that they get most of their news from the Internet, up from 34% in 2007. In the group, television tied with the Internet at 59%, but for broadcast TV, it’s a steep decline from 68% in 2007. As Dan Farber of CNET points out, these figures add up to more 100 percent because people have the ability to offer multiple answers.

Clearly, printed newspapers as well as television are under tremendous pressure to reinvent themselves in the social economy. It’s not just about the socialized mechanisms and channels to source and broadcast news however, a successful metamorphosis requires the creation of an active and enlivened community supported by a profitable business model.

As I’ve stated previously, through social networks, blogs, and micro communities, consumers have access to information literally as it happens. Their peers become sources for news and information, reinforced by social frequency and reverberation. Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, and other networks ARE emerging as trusted and oft referenced newsfeeds. And, they’re fueled by immediacy, brevity, and connectedness.

You can download the study as a PDF here.

UPDATE: TechCrunch reports that content sites brace for 50% revenue loss

HubSpot released a report based on the analysis of over 600,000 Twitter users who have utilized the company’s Twitter Grader app. The full study is free and available for download in PDF.

Here are the highlights:

- Twitter has about 4-5 million users, about 30% are relatively new or unengaged users

- Twitter is dominated by newer users – 70% of Twitter users joined in 2008

- An estimated 5-10 thousand new accounts are opened per day

- 35% of Twitter users have 10 or fewer followers

- 9% of Twitter users follow no one at all

- There is a strong correlation between the number of followers you have and the number of people you follow

- The average number of followers is 70

For a deeper analysis and interpretation of the numbers presented in the report, please visit Marshall Kirkpatrick’s post at ReadWriteWeb (notice the URL vs. the post title).

Since we’re on the subject of Twitter, I was updating my post, “Twitter Tools for Community and Communications Professionals,” when I stumbled across a couple of interesting graphs that visualize the top applications for Twitter in real time.

In the following charts, you’ll notice that the Web accounts for almost half of all Twitter interaction and that TwitterFeed represents a strong second position. But that’s where the similarities between the two graphs end, and interesting differences arise.

TweetScan:

Stats by Funkatron.com:

More conversations related to the top Twitter apps on flickr, believe it or not!

—
Related reading on PR 2.0:

- Introducing @MicroPR, A PR Resource for Journalists, Analysts and Bloggers on Twitter
- Twitter Tools for Community and Communications Professionals
- In the Social Web, We Are All Brand Managers
- The State of Social Media 2008
- The Social Revolution is Our Industrial Revolution
- The Essential Guide to Social Media
- The Social Media Manifesto
- PR 2.0: Putting the Public Back in Public Relations
– Introducing The Conversation Prism
—

Yes, the headline isn’t really breaking news to many of us. However, I received an interesting report this week that ties numbers to the tumultuous newspaper industry and its struggle to remain relevant, today and tomorrow. I wanted to share the numbers with you…

Every year, The Bivings Group, analyzes how and to what extent America’s largest newspapers are embracing the Web. With Social Media opening the flood gates for innovation in online content creation and distribution, newspapers are struggling to swim back upstream – even though the proverbial “upstream” no longer exists. Attaining previous stature is impossible without a self-inflicted renaissance. Something new and evolutionary is well overdue in order to sustain a loyal readership, reconnect with those who may have moved elsewhere, and also attract a new generation of readers.

Through social networks, blogs, and micro communities, consumers have access to information literally as it happens. Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, and other networks ARE emerging as trusted and oft referenced newsfeeds. And, they’re fueled by immediacy, brevity, and connectedness. Our diet for knowledge is now actively fed through portioned micro bytes, by the community, for the community. We are plugged into “the wire.”

Circulation is dramatically dropping. Layoffs are widespread. And, it’s all tied to the vanishing sources of revenue as Madison Ave. tries to play catch-up to the increasingly elusive “eyeballs” they wish to allure.

According to a recent article in Reuters, Print ad revenue is down 19.26 percent to $8.2 billion (Down 16.07 percent in Q2, down 14.38 percent in Q1). Online ad revenue down 3 percent to $749.8 million (Down 2.4 percent in Q2, up 7.2 percent in Q1). Combined is down 18.11 percent to $8.94 billion (Down 15.11 percent in Q2, Down 12.85 percent in Q1).

Newspapers are are experimenting with social tools to source and share information and also to create and cultivate an active community that connects the media property to various micro communities. Unfortunately, for many, experimentation through socialization doesn’t necessarily provide a newspaper bailout (#newspaperbailout) plan. Like in anything related to the Social Web, an outbound, community-focused champion or team of evangelists, in addition to a more social platform, is required to simply compete.

The Bivings Group examined the websites of the top 100 newspapers in the United States, as determined by circulation (via the Audit Bureau of Circulations). The research gauges how newspapers are responding to the threat and opportunity presented by the rise of online communities and networks as sources of news.

Key findings include:

Newspapers are experimenting with user generated content. The study found that 58 percent of newspapers allowed for user generated photos, while 18 percent accepted video and 15 percent articles. Overall, 58 percent of newspapers offered some form of user generated content in 2008 compared to 24 percent in 2007.

Research shows that the number of newspaper websites allowing users to comment on articles has more than doubled in the last year. Seventy five percent of newspapers now accept article comments in some form, compared to 33 percent in 2007.

Ten percent of newspapers had social networking tools, such as user profiles and the ability to “friend” other users, built into their sites in 2008. This compares to five percent of sites that included this feature in 2007. It is surprising that this number isn’t higher.

Seventy six percent of newspapers offered a Most Popular view of content in some form (Most Emailed, Most Blogged, Most Commented, etc.). This compares to 51 percent in 2007 and 33 percent in 2006.

Integration with external social bookmarking sites like Digg and del.icio.us has increased dramatically the last few years. Ninety-two percent of newspapers now include this option compared to only seven percent in 2006.

Every newspaper the study examined featured some sort of online advertising. Indeed, 100% of newspapers provided some form of contextual advertising, such as Google Adwords. Forty-three percent of newspaper websites used interstitial advertising.

Of the new features examined in this year’s study, we found that 57 percent of newspapers offer PDF editions, 20 percent offer chatting options, 96 percent provide local weather information, 40 percent utilize SMS alerts and 70 percent offer community event calendars.

The number of websites requiring registration to view most content (free or paid) has decreased from 2007. Now only 11 percent of websites require registration to view full articles, compared to 29 percent in 2007 and 23 in 2006.

All of the 100 newspapers in the study provide some type of RSS feed. In 2007 all but three newspapers offered RSS feeds.

The full study is available for download here.
—

Through brevity there’s clarity.

As marketers and communicators in the era of socialized media, we’re relearning how to summarize and illustrate what we represent so that we might briefly captivate the attention of those we wish to reach.

Twitter, FriendFeed, Plurk, Qik, Seesmic, 12seconds, Facebook News Feeds, and all other forms of micromedia communities prosper through a concise economy of language and forethought. It is the exchange of this richer dialog that flourishes through succinctness.

This introspective and empathetic form of micro messages inspires us to embrace and practice incisiveness and relevance outside of Twitter and micromedia, in the real world, to help people connect with what we do and why they should care.

Welcome to the art and science of the escalator pitch. It makes the elevator pitch seem like a luxury now.

As micro communities are anchored in a finite set of characters or time in which to communicate, the one key word to embody is relevance. Assume you have one shot at getting someone excited about what you’re doing, because, technically, you do.

The intrinsic worth of every second and character continues to gain incalculable value.

In the world of text-based micro communities, sharing important discoveries on the Web is emerging as an art in of itself. URLs are typically long and often exceed the 140 character limit most services employ. Short URL services are rapidly emerging to help us say more with less, especially when wrapping context around URLs we’re hoping to share. Every character counts.

I recently hosted a live survey on Twitter that generated pages of responses to one simple question, “What’s your favorite URL shortener and why.”

Let’s review the most popular services according to power users on Twitter.

Top Responses – In order of votes
1. TinyURL
2. Bit.ly
3. Is.gd
4. BUDURL
5. Tr.im

In the flood of replies, I was introduced to many new services as well as reminded of others I had not yet tested. As with the directory I created and maintain for sharing the vast ecosystem of Twitter Tools and Services, I will also host a listing of short URL services for those looking to explore options and analyze the differences to best match a particular service with their style of communication.

Note: Some shortened URLs, when used as a link within a blog post or Web page, will not count towards the authority or the ranking of its destination since it’s not directly pointing towards it. For example if I am writing a post about this directory, I will link to its native URL. If I’m sharing a link to the directory on Twitter, I’ll use a shortener to save room for supporting text and retweeting. Some offer 301 Permanent Redirect, which enables stats logs to show the actual URLs linking to you.

Bit.ly is one of the more sophisticated shorteners that introduces analytics and semantics into the URL sharing equation. Bit.ly remembers and presents the previous 15 links you’ve shortened when you visit the homepage by depositing a cookie in your browser. You can also register for an account and link it directly to Twitter. Every Bit.ly URL offers clickthrough analytics to review the volume of traffic and from where it was referred. Perhaps its most profound feature is that every URL is saved forever in a central repository and is packaged with a search interface for exploring user-qualified links associated with keywords.

Character Count: 20
Custom URL: Yes
Clickthrough Tracking: Yes
Bookmarklet: Yes

BudURL is aimed at small businesses and marketers to provide insight into the activity behind each URL shared in social networks, instant messages, email and ad campaigns, electronic newsletters, etc. The service not only shrinks URLs, but also provides a deeper level of analytics usually associated with Websites to garner intelligence associated with your outbound initiatives. BudURL also introduces SEO into the process to optimize your links as well as the keywords used to find your BudURL.

BudURL starts as a free service and ranges up to $49 per month for power users.

Character Count: 22
Custom URL: Yes
Clickthrough Tracking: Yes
Bookmarklet: Yes

cli.gs shortens your URLs and tracks the clicks they get. In order to review statistics, you need to register for an account. But doing so, provides you with a wealth of information regarding your URLs including traffic volume, referring sites, activity around the world, search engine sightings, and also mentioned in social networks. You can also shorten URLs and publish directly to Twitter from the service.

Character Count: 20
Custom URL: Yes
Clickthrough Tracking: Yes
Bookmarklet: Yes

Culld.us is a service of Cullect, which helps you find and share the relevant, important stories from your news and blog feeds. Every time a Culld.us link is clicked, that URLs ‘Important’ rank increase at Cullect.com.

Character Count: 24
Custom URL: No
Clickthrough Tracking: No
Bookmarklet: Yes

Is.gd is among the shortest, space conscious shorteners on the market weighing in at a mere 17 characters. It’s dead simple to use. Enter the URL and simply cut and paste the result wherever you’d like to use it. Also, adding a dash “-“ at the end of the URL will allow people to see content in a small preview window prior to clicking through

Character Count: 17
Custom URL: No
Clickthrough Tracking: No
Bookmarklet: Yes

Metamark is built and maintained by Ask Bjorn Hansen of Develooper LLC with help from Robert Spier. The service is simple, but highly reliable, which was their inspiration to “reinvent the wheel.” Metamark URLs expire after five years or two years after the last usage – whichever comes later.

Character Count: 19
Custom URL: No
Clickthrough Tracking: No
Bookmarklet: Yes

MooURL is the web’s “cutest” URL shortening service according to the company. As it produces your shorter URL it also automatically places it into your clipboard so that you can save a step when cutting and pasting. Like Metamark, MooURL was created to combat the frequent outages that many other shortening services experience. URL are also personalizable to share dedicated links featuring a keyword.

Character Count: 23
Custom URL: Yes
Clickthrough Tracking: No
Bookmarklet: Yes

Pitch.PE is developed by PitchEngine the DIY social media release creation and distribution service. This is ideal for PR and communications professionals as it’s a one-stop shop for creating and sharing content.

Character Count: n/a
Custom URL: n/a
Clickthrough Tracking: n/a
Bookmarklet: n/a

POPrl is a turnstile for shared links and by far one of the most comprehensive services on the list. While it’s character count is low, it is the back-end statistics and community that set POPrl apart. For example, I shared a link for an upcoming event and decided to visit the statistics page for it a couple of weeks later. Turns out that the link was accessed 271 times and when you click the stats link, you’re presented with a visually rich analytics dashboard that provides details and graphs for top referrers and US/Global visitor density, by location.

POPrl is also supported by the presentation of popular, upcoming, and all time top URLs, serving as a content discovery service. There is also a tab for organizing and reviewing the links/campaigns you’ve created.

Character Count: 20
Custom URL: No
Clickthrough Tracking: Yes
Bookmarklet: Yes

PR140 takes the long URL of your press release as posted anywhere on the Web and reduces it to about 22 Twitter-friendly characters, for example:
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl? ACCT=104&STORY;=/www/story/11-07-2008/0004920463&EDATE;=

Once passed that through http://www.pr140.com, the short URL and accompanying headline is produced: http://pr140.com/TTX

From there, you can then post it to Twitter:
http://pr140.com/TTX – Oh! What a Show! 2008 MTV Europe Music Awards Dazzle with Showstopping Performances

Journalists and other web watchers following you will hopefully see the release.

Snurl aka SnipeURL is a unique service compared to the other URL shorteners on the list. It might be best suited to businesses, marketing and communications pros, community managers and also content librarians and curators.

With Snurl, you can save URLs by using Snurl, Snipr, or Snipurl as the default prefix, it’s your choice. But, perhaps most interestingly, you can assign a security code to URLs for publicly and privately sharing with only those you wish to grant access. Like MooURL, snips are automatically copied to your clipboard, but can also add the headline of your content as well. The service provides the ability to create multiple snips at once for those who need to batch process content.

Not only does it provide the ability to manage your snips, you can also produce and publish an RSS feed for your latest or most popular snips. And for those content managers collecting and repurposing Web content, you can also produce a feed for exporting snips directly to Excel.
Integrated distribution options are also unique to Snurl. Not only can you directly Tweet shortened URLs, they can automatically route to other services including email, Google Bookrmarks, Reddit, Facebook, Myspace, WindowsLive, MyYahoo, DIGG, StumbleUpon, and Technorati.

Snurl is also a community for popular snips from around the Web to provide a crowd-sourced hub for interesting content.

Character Count: ~22
Custom URL: Yes
Clickthrough Tracking: No
Bookmarklet: Yes

By far the most popular shortening service, TinyURL offers a super simple solution for creating tiny URLs. It offers the ability to create custom URLs and also URLs with embedded previews.

With TinyURL, you can also make a
smaller URL that will work for any page on your site. Let’s say that you have a website with the homepage that is at:
http://www.my-internet-isp.com/~myusername< /span>

Entering that URL into TinyURL will create a URL such as:

http://tinyurl.com/3

You can then redirect someone to anywhere within your site by appending a slash and the pages filename to it. So if you have a page at http://www.my-internet-isp.com/~myusername/my-links-page.html, you can use the URL http://tinyurl.com/3/my-links-page.html . Going to this URL will forward the visitor to the specific page.

Character Count: 25
Custom URL: Yes
Clickthrough Tracking: No
Bookmarklet: Yes

Tr.im is among the few that offer the lowest character count. It is also a feature-rich service for businesses and marketing professionals. URLs are trimmed to paltry 17 characters, but also weighted with the ability to associate the URL with search tags.

Unlike other services, Tr.im doesn not require registration to create and track URLs and their performance. It leverages your existing Twitter or Identi.ca accounts. As such, your shortened URLs can also seamlessly publish to one or both services.
Tr.im tracks and presents statistics that measure URL visits: when they happened, the visitor’s location, the referring website, and, simply, the number of clicks that it received.

For Mac users, Tr.im also offers a widget for your dashboard.

http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/blogs_forums/trimit.html

Character Count: 17
Custom URL: Yes
Clickthrough Tracking: Yes
Bookmarklet: Yes

twurl.cc is an early alpha, but functional service that aims to deliver more than it offers today. Currently you can shorten URLs to about 19 characters, with customer URLs and stats promised in the near future. Twurl also offers a live list of the top links based on clicks.

Character Count: 19
Custom URL: No
Clickthrough Tracking: No
Bookmarklet: Yes

TweetBurner, twurl.nl, offers integrated shortening and distribution on Twitter and FriendFeed with lite back-end statistics.

The service also tracks and showcases the most popular links based on clicks within the last hour as well as those recently shared.

Character Count: 22
Custom URL: No
Clickthrough Tracking: Yes
Bookmarklet: Yes

Ucash.in is just that, a URL shortener where you can hopefully cash in based on the traffic generated on the links you share.

Ucash.in provides the ability to combine three important aspects, social bookmarking, a url service that converts long url links into shorter url links, and a service that turns your existing links and new links into $. The company is designed for bloggers, forum users, webmasters, business users, et al.

When your Ucash links are clicked, you derive revenue from a redirect that can be an interstitial or top frame type advertisement. The current Revenue Sharing Rate (RSR) is $1 US for every 4000 top banner ad impressions, and $1 US for every 2000 intermission ad impressions.

You can also save and share bookmarks with a personalized url: username.ucash.in

Character Count: 22
Custom URL: Yes
Clickthrough Tracking: Yes
Bookmarklet: Yes

URLZen is a simplified dashboard for creating short URLs and then monitoring clicks and referring domains. Each time a URL is generated, you’re also provided with a dedicated link to track stats – thus eliminated the requirement to create a user profile.

The service also provides integrated copy and sharing bookmarklets for your browser

Character Count: 21
Custom URL: No
Analytics: Yes
Bookmarklet: Yes

Zi.ma is a powerful and SEO optimized service but packaged in an incredibly friendly and easy to use interface.

Zi.ma offers the ability to create short URLs at 19 characters, but also offers a customization tool to create personalized/vanity addresses and also provides the ability to create secure links and also URLs with expiration dates. Like Snurl, Zi.ma also includes the ability to batch process shorter URLs.

The solution offers redirect statistics, such as visitors’ referrer domain, page, visitor’s IP (+ link to geographical information about each visitor), and the associated date. 301 Redirects ensure that your links get all the link love they deserve.

Character Count: 19
Custom URL: Yes
Analytics: Yes
Bookmarklet: Yes

—
Brand Managers and Developers: Many of these services offer APIs to integrate “branded” URL shortening capabilities into your site and services. It encourages your community to easily share content within their micro communities of choice, saving them time and energy from shortening your URLs.
—
For a deeper list of URL shorteners, please visit RateItAll.
—
Related posts on PR 2.0:
- Introducing @MicroPR, A PR Resource for Journalists, Analysts and Bloggers on Twitter
- Twitter Tools for Community and Communications Professionals
- In the Social Web, We Are All Brand Managers
- The State of Social Media 2008
- The Social Revolution is Our Industrial Revolution
- The Essential Guide to Social Media
- The Social Media Manifesto
- PR 2.0: Putting the Public Back in Public Relations
– Introducing The Conversation Prism
—

In the era of the Social Web, transparency, engagement, and a commitment to authentically connect people to your story are essential principles for practicing successful and meaningful Public Relations.

Concurrently, the socialization of media is creating new communities and communications channels that are empowering journalists, bloggers, analysts, as well as everyday people, to actively and passionately contribute, share, and discover the stories around us. It’s changing the information ecosystem.

Media and communications professionals must stay connected and work together now more than ever to compete against the amplifying volume and frequency of information.

Stowe Boyd and I, in development with Christopher Peri, are contributing to the improvement of communications and relationships between media and PR.

PR + Media + Twitter = @MicroPR

If you don’t have time to read the entire post, here’s a quickstart guide:

• Journalists, bloggers, and analysts, send a tweet to @micropr (www.twitter.com/micropr) with what you need help with. The PR subscribers will read it and only those who can help will respond. Always start your message with @micropr.

• PR, follow @micropr to monitor the inbound reqests from the media and to determine how you can help. This is a listening and response service for you, not a broadcast channel. Do not send a message to @micropr unless you need the assistance of the PR community.

• If you want to refer to micropr on Twtter please use the hashtag, #micropr.

Remember, this is BETA, so if something goes wrong or if you have suggestions, please send me a message via @ or DM.

For those who wish to learn more about MicroPR, please continue…
—
PR

As PR professionals, we’re driven to proactively identify relevant editorial and publicity opportunities to link our respective companies to the stories currently in progress. Today, we most likely use a combination of direct editorial calendars and services such as MyEdCals.com, Profnet, HARO (HelpaReporterOut.com), Vocus, among maintaining day-to-day relations with our contacts to stay in sync.

Media

Journalists, analysts, and bloggers face constant deadlines and experience practically impossible tasks of managing expansive networks of PR representatives, experts, and spokespeople who represent particular industries.

Twitter

Twitter is nothing short of phenomenal and it only continues to experience incredible growth in both traffic and users – currently at six million registered people. It has created a dedicated, vibrant community that will fundamentally change and improve the communications channel between media and PR.

@MicroPR

Introducing MicroPR (@micropr on twitter) a new, free service on Twitter that advocates the shift from Public Relations’ traditional broadcast pitch methodology to one of listening and individual response.

Through Twitter, MicroPR connects journalists and bloggers to qualified, targeted PR professionals who can help you with the stories you’re currently writing.

How MicroPR Works

MicroPR is an automated, solution designed for simplicity.

For Bloggers, journalists, analysts, when you need help with a story:

1. Send a public message on twitter to @MicroPR.

2. Your tweet will automatically retweet from the MicroPR account to the PR and communications professionals monitoring the stream or the feed.

3. A knowledgeable PR person following the #MicroPR feed will see your individual request and respond directly via your preferred channel.

Basically, you’re inviting the community to help crowdsource elements of your story to streamline the process of story development, reducing research time and improving its quality and accuracy.

Tip: try to keep your request under 140 characters as the Twitter community may also retweet your request through their personal accounts.

Tip #2: Share @micropr with your entire editorial department and community. The process will only improve the more you use it.

For Public Relations Professionals, either follow MicroPR or subscribe to the RSS feed on Twitter. You can also run active searches for “@MicroPR” on Search.Twitter.com or TweetScan.

Examples for Journalist, Bloggers, Analysts:

- Writers looking for help with on story development can send a tweet, “@micropr Need startup recommendations for story on new micromedia tools. Reply via public tweet to @reportername” (112 characters).

- Journalists, analysts and bloggers can share that they do or do not want to be pitched via Twitter and other micromedia tools. They can also announce their specific preferences for contact.

- They could declare what sorts of microPR they want (or don’t want) to receive, and in what mode — @public messages or direct/private.

- A writer can share relevant beats @micropr beats = #social #web #networks #automotive #environment
#politics.

- Conference and awards organizers can call for speakers or submissions.

- Media can also block certain PR people who are doing it wrong.

- Other services could include scheduling calls and or meetings, etc.

Examples for PR and Marketing Professionals:

- This is mostly a tool for media to reach out to you, so please don’t abuse the @micropr channel.

- If you’re looking for strategic partners or information from the PR community, feel free to send a tweet to @micropr.

- Do not use MicroPR to proactively pitch media on Twitter. Stowe Boyd and I will be introducing TwitPitch shortly.

Tip: if you want to talk about MicroPR on Twitter and don’t wish for it to appear in the stream, use the Hash Tag, #MicroPR. For example, “I really love #MicroPR because it helps me build new relationships.”

M1cr0PR.com – A Wiki to Support the Refinement of @MicroPR

First, bookmark www.m1cr0pr.com.

M1cr0PR.com is a central resource for communications professionals to learn more about the principles, methodologies, and tools to enhance your relationships through brevity, fidelity, and clarity.

It is a community-powered wiki that features:
- A list of journalists, bloggers, and analysts on Twitter and their Twitter IDs
- A directory of Micromedia Tools for PR
- Links to helpful discussions on improving PR
- In the future, we’ll also feature an FAQ page (feel free to start one)

A Draft List of Media Currently on Twitter v2.0

Hopefully, this list triggered a Google Alert. This is your invitation to use @micropr to help you source information from the PR community without getting inundated with irrelevant pitches and responses.

Please note that this list is in the process of being updated and corrected over at www.m1cr0pr.com.

Adam Boulton, Sky News UK,
Allen Stern, CenterNetworks
Amanda Congdon, AmandaCongdon.com
Ana Marie Cox, Time.com
Anthony Ha, VentureBeat
Arthur Germain , Brand Telling
Bicyclemark, Citizen Reporter
Brent Terrazas, Brentter.com
Brian Morrissey, Adweek
C Kirkham, Times-Picayune
Carlo Longino, MobHappy
Caroline McCarthy, News.com
Chris Shipley
Chris Ziegler, Engadget
D Sarno, L.A. Times
Dan Farber, CNET
Dan Kaplan, VentureBeat
Dan Thomas, WSJ
Daniel Terdiman, Cnet
Darren Waters, BBC News
Dave Slusher, Evil Genius Chronicles
Dave Winer, Media Hacker
David Griner, Luckie.com
David Kirkpatric, Fortune
David Lidsky, Fast Company
David Wescott, Its Not A Lecture Blog
Dawn Foster, Fast Wonder
Dean Takahashi, Venture Beat
Doc Searls,
Dwight Silverman, Houston Chronicle
Dwight Silverman, Houston Chronicle
Dylan Tweeny, Wired.com
Elisabeth Lewin, PodcastingNews
Eric Schonfeld, TechCrunch
Eric Zeman, PhoneScoop
Etan Horowitz, Orlando Sentinel
Ginny Skal, NBC 17 Raleigh
Graeme Thickins, Tech~Surf~Blog
Harry McCracken, Technologizer
Heather Green, BusinessWeek
Henry Blodget, Silicon Alley Insider
Houston Chronicle, Houston Chronicle
Hugh MacLeod, Gaping Void
Jacqui Cheng, Ars Technica
Jason Calacanis, Mahalo
Jeff Pulver, Pulver Blog
Jemima Kiss, JemimaKiss.com + The Gaurdian
Jim Long, NBC
Jim Louderback, Revision3
Joel Johnson, BoingBoing
John Dickerson, Slate
John Dvorak, Dvorak Blog
John Markoff, NYT Bits Blog
John Paczkowski, AllThingsD
Jonathan Fingas, Electronista
Justin Beck, SF Chronicle
Justine Ezerik, Tasty Blog Snack
Kara Andrade, Maynard Institute
Kara Swisher, AllThingsD.com
Katie Fehrenbacher, Earth 2 Tech
Kevin Allison, Financial Times
Kristen Nicole, VentureBeat
Laura Lorek, My San Antonio Blog
Leo Laporte, Leoville.com
Lisa Picarille, Revenue Magazine
Liz Gannes, GigaOm
Loren Steffy, HoustonChronicle
Louis Gray, LouisGray.com
Marc Canter,
Mark Glaser, PBS
Mark Hopkins, Mashable
Mark Krynsky, Lifestream Blog
Marshall Kirkpatrick, Read Write Web
Mathew Ingram, MathewIngramBlog
Matt Buchanan, Gizmodo
MG Siegler, Paris Lemon + VentureBeat
Michael Banovsky, Banovsky Blog
Michael Singer, InformationWeek
Mike Arrington, TechCrunch
Mike Butcher, TechCrunch UK
Mike Cassidy, SJ MercNews
Molly Wood, CNET
Natali del Conte, CNET
Om Malik, GigaOM
Owen Thomas, Valleywag
Pete Cashmore, Mashable
Peter Ha, CrunchGear
Peter Rojas, Engadget
Rafe Needleman, Webware
Richard MacManus, ReadWriteWeb
Robert Hof, BusinessWeek
Robert Scoble, Fast Company
Robert W. Anderson, Expert Texture
Ryan Block
Saleem Kahn, tech journalist
Sam Whitmore, Media Survey
Sarah Lacy, BusinessWeek
Sarah Perez, Read Write Web
Saul Hansell, NY Times
Steve Baker, BusinessWeek
Steve Gillmor,
Steve Spaulding, How to Split an Atom
Stewart Alsop, StewartAlsop.com
Stowe Boyd, /Message
Tannette Elie, Milwaukee Journal
The Guy Report, ESPN &Playboy;
Tod Maffin, CBC
Tom Foremski, Silicon Valley Watcher
Tom Merritt, CNET
Tricia Dureyee, MoCoNews
Veronica Belmont, Revision3
Walt Mossberg, AllThingsD/WJS
Wayne Sutton, NBC 17 Raleigh

Warning to PR: Only contact reporters and bloggers using their preferred methods and channels. Do not send spam. Doing so will not only get you blacklisted, but will also get you blocked on Twitter.

Stowe says it best, “On Twitter, I will simply block people that abuse my willingness to have an open dialog about products with PR folks, or basically anyone else, for that matter.”

—
Special thanks to Brad Mays and Evan Solomon for their priceless participation and advice.
—
MicroPR on Twitter by Brian Solis http://documents.scribd.com/ScribdViewer.swf?document_id=8479271&access_key=key-9l2ymvujydd516lf0al&page=1&version=1&viewMode=list
—

Evan Williams at TechCrunch50

Kara Swisher has written a tremendous post on Facebook’s quiet attempt at acquiring Twitter. It inspired me to share my thoughts on the subject.

During the Web 2.0 Summit, John Batelle interviewed Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg, and if you listened closely enough, it was clear that Batelle was prodding Zuckerberg to validate the rumors that Facebook was exploring the possibility of acquiring Twitter.

With a teasing smile, Zuckerberg described Twitter an “elegant model” and professed that he was “ impressed by what they’ve done.”

Following the session, attendees poured into the hallways dissecting the dialogue to support or discount the prospect of such a bold acquisition.

Kara Swisher has confirmed the rumors, however, an acquisition is not imminent – at least not yet.

For the record, I had heard the rumors and was pretty confident that the discussions were taking place. What I couldn’t fathom was how Facebook would leverage Twitter’s unique model and culture as its community is radically more liberal and protective than that of Facebook. And, with Facebook Connect looming, it seems that Twitter, which is already appearing as an opt-in service in the Facebook News Feed, is only one of the many distributed communities that can collectively position Facebook as your central dashboard for managing the relationships that define your social graph and the information, content, and insight that defines, strengthens, and elevates it.

Mark Zuckerberg at F8 announcing Facebook Connect

For those who aren’t yet familiar with Facebook Connect, it is a technical bridge that links your Facebook profile with other online identities and associated activity back to Facebook. It enables seamless integration between Web sites, pages, communities, and networks and the Facebook identity system. For example, if you’re commenting on a blog hosted on the Moveable Type platform, you can now login with your Facebook details and not only will your comment and link to your Facebook profile appear on the blog, the activity of commenting is also linked back into your activity feed for your friends and colleagues to see. Digg will also allow Diggers to log on using their centralized Facebook ID and for each story they digg, the activity is documented back on their profile. Facebook Connect partners already number in the hundreds.

Did I mention that Twitter is one of the original Facebook Connect partners?

Twitter has grown by over 600% in one year. From a business perspective, I can understand why Facebook would consider engaging in negotiations. Twitter is currently reporting six million registered users and last month, the micro community experienced its greatest traffic to date – bolstered by the 2008 Election.

The deal was close to finalization, but (thankfully) fell apart for very valid reasons.

According to Kara Swisher’s post, Facebook was attempting to acquire Twitter for $500 million in a pure stock deal based on Facebook’s heavily disputed $15 billion valuation. Analysts peg the true estimate of Facebook’s market value closer to $5 billion, which would have positioned Twitter’s sale price at roughly $150 million – a number that investors, the board, and the company’s founders believe is far too low. Just for the record, Twitter’s investments total ~$20 million with a valuation of $98 million.

Twitter preferred a cash deal, perhaps with stock, and that’s understandable in this market. And there’s a pervasive sentiment that the company might just have a successful run at generating revenue while continuing to grow the community and redefine how its users communicate with each other in the process.

From Facebook’s perspective, the stock offer was a conservative approach that reflects the business state of Twitter. The company is not only generating $0 revenue, but its basically a substantial cost centert. Among salaries and other expenses with innovating and managing the service, Twitter pays for SMS fees associated with each text-based update. Facebook estimates that this could cost the company upwards of $75 million annually if Twitter was rolled out to its 120 million users.

While this deal might equal a Fail Whale for the moment, it potentially could have equated to a Fail Whale had it closed. I’m not privy to the integration strategies the companies discussed had the acquisition completed, but I can attest to the Twitter pushback that would have immediately surmounted. In simply tweeting Kara’s post this morning, I was confronted with an overwhelming sense of relief that the deal fell apart. This isn’t to say that Facebook won’t eventually acquire Twitter or perhaps one of its eco-dependent services that also enhance and centralize the distributed micromedia experience, something like FriendFeed perhaps.

When Facebook Connect rolls out Web-wide, the terms of any acquisition discussion will dramatically change as personal Facebook News Feeds will only increase in value as they connect disparate services from across the web, your updates and the updates of your friends, to a centralized social dashboard.

—

Twitter is nothing short of a phenomenon. At the very least, it connects people to each other through a rich and active exchange of ideas, thoughts, observations, and vision in one, highly conducive ecosystem (known as the Twitterverse). The social fibers that weave together this unique micromedia network is strengthened by the expertise, respect, trust, admiration, and commonalities. These fabrics bind the people who breathe life and personality into the global community as well as fueling the disparate micro communities that ultimately extend across the Long Tail.

Of all of the social tools and services that are pervasive throughout our digital society, only a select few communities can boast the pseudo fanatical conviction that Twitter‘s users unanimously possess.

Twitter is quickly gaining momentum, support and market inertia and is on direct path to mainstream awareness. Compete.com numbers show that roughly 2.5 million people visit Twitter.com each month, growing at about 250,000 – 500,000 users per month and up over 440% since this time last year. Just as a comparison Facebook receives about 41 million unique visitors per month.

Twitter is not only embraced and cherished by the people who rely on it for expression, insight, news, and communication, it is also the darling of the developer community. Almost every single day, a passionate developer, b2b or b2c application company, or tech enthusiast will develop a new tool, service, or solution to make Twitter a more personalized, professional, streamlined, effective, and/or fun experience.

If you live in the world of socialized marketing, communications, relationships, communities, research, service, digital anthropology, fundraising, publicity, product development, publishing, events, online reputation management (ORM) or simply seeking to increase your proficiency and efficiency on Twitter, there is surely no shortage of tools and applications that can help you.

I created this snapshot guide to help you extend the reach and the efficacy of Twitter for your personal brand as well as the brand you represent. This is the first part of a multi-part series. If you’d like me to review and include additional tools and services, please share them in the comments and I’ll integrate into the next rev.

As of March 2009, here are the top 10 apps for Twitter (Source, TweetStats):

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TWITTER TRENDS AND ANALYSIS

SocialToo is offers a suite of productivity solutions for Twitter, identi.ca, and Facebook. It’s most notable and unique feature is SocialSurverys, providing the ability to create elegant polls that can be shared across multiple networks (provides for automatic distribution through Twitter) and tracked in one central location for analysis. The service also offers a host of other social management tools such as Auto-Follow, Auto-UnFollow, Blacklisting, Direct Message to New Followers, Daily Stats via email.

Twitt(url)y is a service for tracking popular URLs people are sharing on Twitter as a way to identify trends, topics, and new and interesting tools and services. It’s basically Techmeme or Google News for Twitter, but for all popular links shared in a given day.

Retweetist is a community that showcases the most “retweeted” people, URLs, and also those who actively “RT” others – otherwise known as the retweetists. The service is extremely helpful as it leverages the wisdom of the community to curate content for your consumption. As a marketing professional it also spotlights the most retweeted users and those who RT them when you need to identify a micro network bound by topic or keyword.

TweetStats is a hub for Twitter trends and analysis. For instance, you can analyze your tweets and those of any username by hour, month, and timeline to determine a pattern of activity. Reply statistics and topic clouds also paint a picture of influence and key themes that portray interests. TweetStats is also a dashboard for observing current, emerging, and all time Twitter trends in real time.

MicroPlaza is a personalized meme tracker that tracks and aggregates the common links shared on Twitter by your friends en masse or by creating specific groups (tribes).

Favrd (pronounced Favored) is a service that channels the most “favorited” tweets on Twitter. You can search by keyword and also see who else has favorited a particular tweet in order to identify like-minded contacts.

TwitLinks aggregates the latest links from the worlds top tech twitter users.

Tweetmeme tracks the top memes aka threads aka discussion on Twitter based on the lin
ks people share.

Twist analyzes and presents trend comparisons and volume between keywords and tags.

TweetPad provides a visual representation of Twitter feeds and statistics with dynamic typography. You need to read the “about” section in order to get a real feel for its capabilities.

Plodt plots your professional or personal life, interests, activities, and moods on Twitter. Basically you can categorize your Tweets so that you can analyze them as an individual as well as compared to the community at large.

Twitscoop is a trendcasting service that aggregates the top topics on Twitter and presents them in a visually rich tag cloud. You can hover over each cloud to see a pop-up overview of the discussions around the topic or click through to dive deeper into the analytics of the conversation volume and duration and also participate directly. TwitScoop provides the ability to search keywords and usernames to analyze the dialogue and frequency behind them.

TwitterCounter provides an interactive chart that chronicles the quantity of Twitter followers for any given username. The results are viewable by week, month, and quarter and the service will also predict the future volume of followers based on the average growth/loss over time. The chart is embeddable as a widget on any profile, blog, or Web site.

TwitterFriends is one of the most compelling analytical tools for identifying relevant conversationalists, revealing conversation patterns, and visualizing material conversation networks, by Twitter ID. The services aims to map the “relevant net” for any given user, which is incredibly valuable to any communications or service professional identifying influential voices and associated social graphs. For example, stats list to whom you (or any username) reply most often and those who reply back. The system determines a Conversation Quotient (CQ) that attaches a metric to the volume of tweets that include @ replies. For reference, the average CQ is 25.4%. The reports also provide the size of the relevant net (those you reply to or receive replies more than once in the last 30 days) outgoing and incoming, number of fans, loyalty, Twitter Rank, ratio of outgoing/incoming contacts, the follow cost, the conversational rank (number of public conversations with users), number of replies, a Retweet Quotient, Link Quotient, among many others. Perhaps most intersting, is the visualization of the TwitGraph which displays the rank of any user across multiple axes, Twitter Rank, CQ, LQ, RQ, Follow Cost, Fans, @replies.

SocialWhoIs is to Twitter and FriendFeed what “Who Is” is to Web sites and IP addresses. It reveals who you should follow and why – based on relevance and not popularity. SocialWhoIs gives you a snapshot of any given user name with links to their assumed social network profiles, related keyworks/topics, as well as a “home base” link. You can also search tags to identify individuals worth following and potentially engaging.

COMMUNICATION SOLUTIONS

TweetDeck is a must for any community manager, marketer or researcher tracking important and relevant conversations on Twitter. It’s an Adobe Air desktop application that enables users to split their main feed (All Tweets) into topic or group specific columns allowing the tracking of a broader overview of tweets based on keywords or groups of people.

PeopleBrowsr, an attention-centered dashboard for managing your online relationships and communication in Twitter and across multiple social networks. At its foundation, PeopleBrowsr is a first of a kind meta-network for social networks that works with Mozilla FireFox 3, Safari 3.1 or Google Chrome – no download or plug-in required. It essentially turns your Web browser into a simple, visual social media dashboard. While there are many third-party tools for Twitter, PeopleBrowsr brings the best features from all of the popular add-on services into one solution – without requiring a download or a browser plug-in. More on PR 2.0.

CoTweet is a platform that helps companies listen to and communicate with customers and influencers on Twitter. Like Splitweet, businesses can manage multiple accounts in one dashboard. In addition to PeopleBrowsr, CoTweet is perhaps among the first dedicated Social CRM solutions designed specifically for businesses. It allows for multiple simultaneous users to monitor conversations related to the brand, assign action to other treammates on the community management team, schedule messages, and reply from different accounts – all from one window.

Splitweet is a multi-account management dashboard for corporate users and brand managers. Designed for power users, it provides seamless management, monitoring and communicating across several twitter accounts simultaneously – all from one place.

Power Twitter is a powerful plug-in for FireFox that moves many disparate services and capabilities into one central location – right in your browser. This is almost a complete Twitter experience for the general and even power use, one that Twitter itself should provide. First, Power Twitter provides an at-a-glance Twitter history view for every person in your timeline. Second, search functionality is built in, so that keywords and hashtags are immediately viewable without opening a seperate window. And, @replies functions as it should. It reveals not only those tweets that begin with @yourusername, but now also include every tweet with @yourusername, regardless of where it’s positioning in the message. Similar to TweetTree, content linked to in sites such as Flickr, YouTube, and TwitPic appear in the timeline – again saving you time from having to jump outside of Twitter. Overall, Power Twitter is a seamless experience. Install it, hit Twitter.com as you normally would, and you’ll notice the new and improved capabilities.

Gridjit is a social portal that lets you view your web universe in a more visually rich way. It becomes your hub for tracking conversations, interesting people and those they @ frequently, and also provides a central location to post and share.

Monitter is a dashboard for searching up to three keywords on Twitter and reviewing the results in three distinct columns. The search can be further honed by proximity to any particular location. The results are not only ideal for listening, but also displaying them for the community to read and enjoy. Brand managers can download a widget to automatically view the community discussion or present it on a corporate blog or Website. Individual searches are also available as RSS feeds for monitoring through the feed reader of your choice.

TweetGrid is also a listening dashboard for Twitter. It offers community managers and communications professionals the ability to simultaneously monitor keywords, brands, competitors, executives, etc. all within one window.

GroupTweet is similar to Yammer, except it’s within Twitter. Workgroups, extended networks, communities, and anyone who wants to broadcast and share private tweets to a specific group can do so for free using this unique and helpful service.

Tweet Later allows you to schedule tweets for a particular time and day. It also allows you to auto-follow those who follow your account and provides an auto-welcome feature to send a custom message to new followers via DM or in the public timeline.

Tweetbeep is the Google Alerts for Twitter and is a “listener’s” dream service. It allows you to monitor conversations that mention you, your brand, related or competitive products, as well as links to your website or blog, even if they use a shortened URL, such as tinyurl.com. You’re alerted as your keywords appear, reducing the need to manualy search for them.

Twilert is also an “alert” for Twitter that monitors Twitter for your keywords and sends them to you via email on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. Having these emails trip as keywords appear would be ideal for any brand manager.

TwitterFeed connects your blog to Twitter and automatically feeds posts into the timeline with each new update.

Twiffid shows the headlines of the Websites your Twitter friends have listed in their profiles to see what they’re linking to or blogging about.

TwitThis is really a potentially powerful and game-changing service, if it gets traction. If you’ve ever visited a site or blog and have seen or used the “share this” or “email this” feature, TwitThis is similar in concept. Essentially, it grabs the url of the page you’re on, compacts it into a TinyURL, and then allows you to add some thoughts to directly post to Twitter from the page you’re visiting.

Diigo.com offers one of the most feature-rich and robust social bookmarking / web annotation services on the web today. Via Diigo’s “Twitter-this” feature, you can easily share interesting websites or content on Twitter with a shortened URL – from the page you’re visiting. It also allows you to easily add highlights and sticky notes to any webpage, and then share the annotated page with your Twitter followers. They will just see an ordinary link in the twitter message; but when click the link, they can also see your highlights and sticky notes right on the page.

Tweetree is a new service that attempts to thread related conversations in Twitter. Considered an alternative for those who read and post updates through Twitter.com, Tweetree also allows people to share content directly in the timeline. By simply including a link from YouTube, Flickr, TwitPic, FriendFeed, Seesmic, Qik, Lala, or Blip.fm, Tweetree embeds the content inline for others to enjoy without leaving the service.

OutTwit might just be the tool that bridges Twitter to the enterprise. More people use Outlook in business than any other email client. Now you can update Twitter and tap into the stream directly from Outlook. If you’re a brand ma
nager, community manager, or communications professional, you can establish search criteria for keywords and channel the results into dedicated folders in Outlook. You can also categorize and archive tweets through a seamless folder creation and storing option.

TwitterMail allows you to update Twitter via email. Once you log in, the system provide you with a dedicated email account, such as yourusername@twittermail.com. When you send an email to that address, it will automatically post a tweet for you. The service also sends email directly to you as you receive @ replies, which is ideal for brand and community managers. TwitterMail provides the ability to read your timeline in email by addressing a message with “friends” in the subject line. The service will send the last 20 updates immediately. If 140 characters won’t work for your individual tweets, type the full context of what you’d like to share and TwitterMail will link the tweet back to the full posting for all to enjoy. And, through TwitterMail you can schedule tweets for publishing at a later date/time.

TWPLY is new service that tracks personal @replies and sends them to your designated email inbox. Seems simple enough and may be ideal for those high volume personal and corporate brands that need to actively monitor inbound tweets without having to stay connected directly to Twitter, Twitter Search, or a third-party service.

TWPLY is highly regarded as a spam app and raises questions as to the value of the service overall. On the heels of its rise and fall, we learn about Replies by Twitapps, a more elegant solution for receiving @replies on Twitter in your inbox. It delivers your updates on an hourly basis or when your replies reach a threshold of 25 tweets (whichever is first). Again, this is ideal for any brand manager, community manager, or communications professional, tracking important usernames on Twitter.

EasyTweets is a solution for pre-scheduling tweets. Brand managers and customer service and communications professionals can also manage multiple Twitter accounts, check replies, and track new followers from one central hub.

RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT

Whoshouldifollow.com makes it easy to find relevant, like-minded friends as well as friends of friends based on keyword and validated networks.

Twubble can help expand your Twitter network. It searches your friend graph and introduces and recommends new people who you may want to follow.

Twellow, a service of WebProNews, is an exceptional service for finding people who matter to your business or industry, by category. You can search keywords or browser through common categories to find the voices you deem as worthy following and/or connecting with on Twitter or other social networks. You can also claim your Twitter ID to further customize your individual profile with a short bio, extended bio, links to other profiles popular social networks such Facebook, LinkedIn, Delicious, Flickr, FriendFeed, etc.

Twitter Karma is an interesting and also very useful tool for visually identifying those whom you follow, who do or do not follow you, and the relationships that are mutual. In one dashboard, you can determine whom you should also follow as a token of reciprocity or a simple matter of missing an important new follower/s and also whom you can contact to also return the favor. It also makes it simple to individually check those to follow or unfollow and also provides the ability to bulk follow, unfollow and block.

Like Twitter Karma, FriendOrFollow provides a simple and quick solution to find out who you’re following that’s not following you and who’s following you that you’re not following back.

TweetWheel visually presents your social graph, who’s following you and who you are in turn following. It is a helpful solution for identifying who you may or may not need to follow, as well as view the friends you share in common.

Even though Twitter features a directory search engine by name and email address, TwitDir always seem to find everyone, even when Twitter misses a contact. I use TwitDir when I’m looking to discover whether a particular contact or someone I’m trying to connect with is using twitter. Alternatively, you can use Google or Yahoo search and type “PERSON NAME” (in quotes) and the word twitter (outside of the quotes) in the search box to find the username. See example.

Tweet Pro is a paid service that allows you to create a solid network based on keywords and interests. The software allows you to locate specific Twitter users to enable mass, but focused following to generate a highly targeted account for your business/brand.

DoesFollow is as simple as that. If you want to know if USERNAME follows USERNAME quickly and easily, this is your
service.

Tweet 2 Tweet

Tweet2Tweet provides you with the ability to view a history @replies between to Twitter users, which can be helpful for learning and understanding perspective and context.

Follow Cost estimates the potential attention (or annoyance) cost of following a particular individual or account. Here’s the result for @briansolis.

Qwitter will send an email to you when someone unfollows you and will link the action to the most recent tweet that you posted. Through a series of experimental tweets, Qwitter is a humbling and instantaneous solution for honing your updates to better match what your friends and followers hope to see or not see.

Twitter Twerp Scan

Twerp Scan checks the number of followers of everyone on your contact list, the number of people they are following, and the ratio between those. If the person is following more than (n) people (can be customized), and has a Following-to-Followers ratio higher than 1:(m) (can be customized), you’ll be notified by a link. Even if you have no use for that, you might find Twerp Scan a helpfultool for keeping an eye on your growing list of friends and followers.

TweepSearch is the first search engine that allows anyone to search and discover relevant Twitter bios and location information using keywords. It’s ideal for learning more about those following any given username as well. For example, type @username and you can puruse through individual followers of @username and their corresponding Twitter bios.

Headup is a semantic desktop app that boosts and connects the social Web experience. When applied to Twitter, it places a Headup underline/icon next to user names, which when clicked, allows you to dive deeper into their online profile. Headup scours the Web and prepares an instant directory of social profiles and links to their persona and other online activity. Download Headup here.

Mr. Tweet is your personal networking assistant on Twitter. It helps you easily build meaningful relationships by looking through your network and tweets. Mr. Tweet will then suggest new and relevant tweeps and existing followers you should also follow. “He” also provides usage statistics that help you improve your engagement level on Twitter.

TwitterSnooze is a very welcome solution. There are many people that I follow whose tweets I usually enjoy reading. However, sometimes, those tweets can be obscure, irrelevant, loud, or unnecessarily narcissistic. Or, every now and then, a good friend will attend a conference, session, event or workshop that I don’t care to endure virtually. TwitterSnooze provides the ability to “snooze” certain friends for a pre-determined period of time. If you’re daring, you can also publicly tweet that you’re snoozing someone.

Twalala

Twalala adds a mute button to Twitter allowing you to focus your stream as necessary without completely unfollowing someone.

Developed by Brooks Bennet, TweetChat is a service that introduces the ability to focus on specific conversations or topics. Using a “room” metaphor, users simply type in a hashtag (#name or #id) or a keyword related to brand, news, topic, etc., to specifically identify and channel all tweets related to that conversation. You can read and respond directly from TweetChat.com, but requires login using your Twitter ID and password.

My Tweeple is a Twitter follower/following manager that provides a one-stop dashboard for who you’re following and who, in turn, is following you. The service allows you, with a single click, to follow, unfollow, or blog people (or tweeple).

Also see TwitterLocal below…

TWITTER SEARCH

Before Summize, now the official Twitter Search engine, Twemes and #hashtags provided the ability to index conversations based on keywords, groups, topics or tags also known as #hashtags. These Twitter memes can now be followed outside of the public timeline through a focused and dedicated stream.

Tweet Scan, like Summize (Twitter Search), is a search engine for Twitter. Both services provide the ability
to search keywords, company/product/competitors names, users, etc. The services also feature the hottest search trends at that particular moment. I have noticed that in some cases, one or the other, consistently provides results that the other missed. Note, by clicking “Replies” in Twitter, you’re only seeing tweets that start with @yourname. These search engines also track users as well as important and relevant keywords – as they appear.

PUBLIC RELATIONS

@MicroPR is the brainchild of Stowe Boyd and Brian Solis (with the help of Chris Peri.) It connects journalists, bloggers, analysts, and other influencers to PR. If you’re in PR, communications, blogger relations, community management, analyst relations, make sure to follow @microPR on Twitter. If you are a journalist, reporter, blogger, analyst, or anyone looking for the help of someone in PR, tweet @microPR with your request, and PR people will see the rebroadcast through the micropr account with your Twitter name.

TWITTER INFLUENCE AND RESONANCE

twInfluence allows you to measure Twitter influencers, not just by followers, but also by reach, velocity, social capital and centralization. It also publicly ranks the top 50 influencers in each category. This is an important tool for identifying the tastemakers that you don’t already know in the Twitterverse.

Twitority is a new service that that facilitates the search and sorting of keywords in Twitter by authority, or in less controversial terms, popularity. At the moment, authority is measured by followers, but perhaps, Twitority will eventually create an algorithm similar to Twinfluence in order to more accurately measure influence. Twitority is a simple, yet helpful service that will help brand managers, community managers, and communications and customer service professionals tier research and response strategies and programs. It’s also helpful to identify and measure potential opportunities and new trends based on the weighted discussions surrounding relevant topics. Searches can be sorted by any, little, or more authority.

xefer

xefer reviews your Twitter account and presents a rich visual analysis of your tweet volume, concentration as well as their resonance (measured by replies) by day, time, week and hour. Here are the results for @briansolis.

TwitterGrader measures the relative power and authority of a Twitter user by calculating the number of followers, the power of the network of followers, the pace of updates and the completeness of a user’s profile. Here’s the result for @briansolis

Retweetrank documents topical influence and audience interest. It measures the RT reach and frequency of anyone on Twitter by calculating the number of RT’s associated with a username. It then ranks the results based on the quantity of retweets and also provides an approximate perctentile representation of the rank as it compares to the general Twittersphere.

TWITTER MARKETING/ADVERTISING

Twittertise allows you to advertise on Twitter and track the success of branded communications with your customers. As a social marketer, you may also enjoy the ability to schedule and measure your communications on Twitter. The platform provides URL tracking technology to measure the effectiveness of your traffic driving ability on the platform.

Twittad is a micro ad network that connects advertisers to Twitter users to create opportunities for paid product placement and website promotion directly on a Twitter user profile (usually as a background image.

Magpie is an ad network for Twitter. It connects advertisers to related tastemakers/beacons on Twitter by keywords. The cost per ad is derived from the ratio of followers to the hotness of a particular topic. Then the ads are intermidently injected into an indivudals stream, according to the site, at one ad per five tweets.

Whatsyourtweetworth.com analyzes your account and network to recommend what your tweets might be worth through Twittad.

TWITTER STREAM MANAGEMENT

Twitterrific is an elegant and “lite” software application that lets you read and publish tweets from
the desktop, iPhone and iPod Touch.

Recently acquired by Seesmic, Twhirl is a social desktop dashboard that centrally manages activity, messaging, and updating for Twitter, FriendFeed, Identi.ca, and Seesmic. It is an Adobe Air application, which is a very thin desktop client, but still requires a download.

TwitterFox is a Firefox extension for Twitter. This extension adds a tiny icon on the status bar which notifies you when your friends update their tweets. Also it has a small text input field to update your tweets.

iTweet is similar to twhirl except that it’s an online dashboard that focuses specifically on Twitter. In many cases it’s what Twitter.com should be, as it is a centralized hub for managing your twitter communication, relationships and also learning more about the people you find intriguing. For example, you can click on a profile picture to instantly learn more about someone without leaving the stream. You can also RT, DM, favorite, reply, or delve deeper into their profile direclty from the timeline.

Ping.fm is a central distribution service for sending updates to multiple social networks, including Twitter, with one click. Supported services include Plurk, Identi.ca, Facebook, Pownce, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Brightkite, Jaiku, hi5, Kwippy, among other. Note of caution, broadcasting updates doesn’t replace the need to participate in each community that you wish to build and maintain valuable individual relationships.

Have multiple accounts on Twitter? Matt (Multiple Account Twitter Tweeting) provides a platform for broadcasting one update to multiple accounts. This is ideal for companies with a series of representative brands and employees that need to send orchestrated, general updates across all accounts simultaneously.

Feedalizr is an Adobe Air app that serves as a dashboard and an update center for Twitter, FriendFeed, Flickr, Pownce, and Facebook. If you’re managing multiple social accounts, Feedalizr provides a desktop-based hub for listening, sharing, filtering, researching trends specific to conversations within each network, and posting content to specific communities.

Hellotxt provides the ability to instantly update status as well as view the status of your contacts across multiple networks (Facebook, LinkedIn, hi5, Plaxo, Pownce, Plurk, FriendFeed, Identi.ca, BrightKites, etc.) – all from one dashboard.

FeedTweeter connects social services that offer RSS feeds to you Twitter account. For example, you can have your updates at Plurk, Flickr, Identi.ca, YouTube, Delicious, etc., feed Twitter with updates as they happen.

TwitterKeys

TwitterKeys enhances Twitter conversations by replacing words with UTF8 compatible images – thus saving precious character space.

GEOLOCATION + IMAGING

BrightKite is a location-based social network that connects directly to Twitter. You can share your location and also locate friends geographically from the Web or your mobile phone. The service also offers an easy and direct channel for uploading pictures and notes to BrightKite and also Twitter – perfect for those with camera phones!

Loopt is “perfecting the art of connecting people and places.” In essence, it’s an elegant location-based social network + compass designed for connecting you to other people and destinations via mobile phones. Loopt recently introduced the ability to share updates and location via Twitter to also extend the reach and allure of connecting with and discovering people, and also places, not yet participating in the Loopt network.

TwitterLocal is the ideal service for quickly finding active voices within a specific city, state, postal code as well as the vicinity, ranging from 1 mile to 20. Not only can you search those voices, you can instantly produce an RSS feed for each search criteria to monitor localized conversations through your feed reader. Here’s an example of the results for a search within 1 mile of San Francisco.

Twitpic provides a bridge from your camera phone to Twitter. Pictures can either post to the Twitter public timeline from phone via email or through the site.

SnapTweet links your flickr account to share updates seamlessly to Twitter.

EVENT MANAGEMENT

Twitzu is an event invitation management service for Twitter. You can create an event, broadcast it to followings and manage RSVPs.

CONFERENCE – LIVE TWEETING

LiveTwitting is a streamlined solution for livetweeting (covering) conferences. Today, people typically live tweet events in a rapid fire, spur of the moment style, creating a broken, but still somewhate effective flow. LiveTwitting provides an efficient and elegant solution to record, edit and repurpose the stream, and mark topics, segments, and speakers.

TWITTER MOBILE APPLICATIONS

Twittelator is a Twitter client for the iPhone. You can manage multiple user accounts, update your accounts, share pictures, a map of your current location, connect with other Tweeps, read tweets from your contacts, and direct message (DM), and reply all from one app.

Hahlo is a sophisticated Safari-based, fully-functional Twitter solution for the iPhone. Not only can you tweet and follow tweets in your timeline, but you can also search, find out who’s near you, send/view DMs, see who you’re following, who’s following you, your archive, etc. It actually is integrated and more useful than the capabilities available at Twitter.com.

Twitterfon is a fast, simple Twitter client for the iPhone and iPod Touch. It is focused on 80% of your tasks in Twitter such as viewing friends/replies/messages in the timeline and also sending/replying tweets.

Twinkle is a location-aware network for the iPhone and iPod Touch that helps you discover, connect, and send messages to the public timeline and also to people nearby. You can share photos and update your Twitter account from the phone.

Twitterberry

Twitterberry is a full-featured Twitter client to read and post updates from BlackBerry phones.

More to come…

There’s an incredible discussion circling the blogosphere aka The 250 aka The Echo Chamber regarding distributed conversations and the potential loss of control of our content.

Normally I don’t let myself get caught up in every popular meme cycle, but this is a informative and important conversation and personally I think it’s worth your time. And, it just so happens to be a natural extension to my recent post, “Ladies and Gentlemen, The Conversation Has Left the Building,” which explores how conversations are slowly migrating away from blogs and moving to micro social networks such as Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku, FriendFeed, and now, Shyftr (more on Shyftr later).

Whether we’re ready or not, conversations are fragmenting and quickly and increasingly becoming difficult for the content source to 1) host conversations and 2) engage commenters and stay connected to the discussion across networks – especially if they don’t know where the conversations are taking place.

When I publish this post, I may or may not see comments here at PR 2.0. What is at the core of the confusion and discontent among many content producers, is that responses will take place wherever someone discovers or shares the content. And, most of the time, we’ll miss out on these distributed conversations, which in my opinion, are what truly power the progression of ideas and insight. Furthermore, new micro networks and content aggregators are allowing for comments directly in the aggregated flow or stream, which don’t make it back to the original post. And, that’s exactly where we need innovation. New tools and services that connect those comments back to the source will help create a manageable universe where people orbit the point of origin instead of creating a series of disparate galaxies of conversations around the same idea. But, I guess that’s the evolution that we need to acknowledge, the point of origin is relative to the reader and where they discover the content, not necessarily where we publish it.

For example, this post will by syndicated partially or in some cases completely, in FriendFeed, Jaiku, Tumblr, Twitter, Social Media Today, Marcom Professional, WebProNews , Gooruze, Pownce, and any other network where I have either manually or explicitly agreed to have content reappear. In each of those communities, readers have the ability to comment and in order for me to remain visible and also nurture relationships, I have to monitor everything individually. As good friend Stowe Boyd says, “just go with the flow.” Indeed he’s right. Our desire to stay connected will require a fragmented, proactive process of tracking down and responding to feedback.

But, now there’s a new twist in all of this, which was sparked by the release of Shyftr a new feedreader and social network mashup. In theory, it helps readers stay on top of their favorite feeds and also serves as a central place to discover new blogs and comment on compelling posts directly from within the network and also “friend” like-minded people. What’s at issue however, is that Shyftr and sites like it are flipping control away from publishers and in turn, becoming the hosts for our content – without necessarily giving credit or traffic back in return.

Just in case I lost you, Shyftr, which stands for Share Your Feeds Together, repurposes feeds and creates a social network around your favorites and the favorites of others. You can find feeds by searching key words in the Shyftr network, read your own feeds, as well as see the feeds that other users follow by viewing their list of favorites – they can view your list too. Popular stories are also promoted and showcased within the community, which introduces people to find new and interesting stories and bloggers.

It all sounds great, except that it serves posts in their entirety and lets readers comment at Shyftr without the author’s knowledge or triggering an alert to let them know that they have an opportunity to respond. To the untrained eye, readers who have stumbled across the content within the network, may never have the benefit of introduction back to the source. If you enjoy the writing, you can click “Shyft It” and have the feed instantly added to your list of favorites, without having to ever visit the blog. In order to find the point of origin, you have to click the headline twice – once in the summary to read the post and the second to get back to the feed. Some people call this scraping content and feel that it is a form of stealing intellectual property in order to monetize it.
Subscribe to my feed: Either way, Shyftr and the new breed of aggregated content apps and the social networks that connect people around them are actually good for us. As they evolve, our personal brands will extend into new communities where we may have never connected with new readers otherwise. We can’t fight it, we can only go where the conversations take us. Yes, it forces us outside of our comfort zone – hosting content and public reaction in one place. But, your level of participation after you publish, defines the relationships you create and cultivate in the Social w
eb. This is after all, Social Media ,and it’s powered by the democratization of conte
nt – even if it’s yours.

Make no mistake, the conversation has already left the building. The question is, are you ready to follow it?

Feedback and engagement, wherever it thrives, are the true sources of inspiration for anyone who produces content. Embrace that you have this opportunity to meet people in new places. Just focus your time on where those conversations produce the best return on your investment of time and expertise.

UPDATE: Shyftr changes its policy and will no longer repost content in its entirety, “Shyftr provides full attribution to publishers, links back to their sites, and we do not remove advertisements nor alter the content in any RSS feed. With that in mind, we have decided to revise the format around our discussions. We will only display the title, author, and date of an item where discussions occur outside of the reader. We deeply respect content publishers, and it is not our intention to cause unease.”

Personally, I think that the discussions surrounding Shyftr gave us a glimpse of the potential dark side of RSS. But at the end of the day, I still believe that even though it was fragmenting the conversation, it did so in a way that also exposed us (content producers) to new audiences.

Other articles worth your time:

Blog Comments Still Matter - Sarah Perez, RWW
Era of Blogger’s Control is Over – Robert Scoble
Fine, I’ll Say It: Shyftr Crosses the Line – Tony Hung
Should Fractured Feed Reader Comments Raise Blog Owners’ Ire? – Louis Gray
Should Comments be Portable – Valeria Maltoni
The Broken Conversation – Todd Defren

Other relevant stories on PR 2.0:

The Value of Online Conversations
The Art of Listening and Engagement
The Social Media Manifesto
Conversational Marketing
Will the Real Social Media Expert Please Stand Up
PR 2.0 = The Evolution of PR, Nothing Less, Nothing More

Connect with me on Twitter, Jaiku, LinkedIn, Pownce, Plaxo, FriendFeed, or Facebook.

Warning! This post is about MicroMedia and the emerging market for Media Snacking, but it is not served as a “byte” sized snack. It is instead, a full meal, so I hope you brought your appetite.

The inspiration for this story comes from a meme circulating through the Web that discusses “snacks” and the market for “media snacking.” It was started by Forrester analyst Jeremiah Owyang when he publickly asked whether or not you respect media snackers. He then tagged Francine Hardaway, Chris Brogan, Shel Israel, Connie Benson, and Bill Claxton to continue the conversation.

Ultimately I was pinged by Todd Defren and I thought, rather than discuss whether or not I respect Media Snacking, it might be helpful to examine what it is and why it exists in order to ascertain its value and potential.

What’s a media snacker?

Basically it’s folks who consume small bits of information, data or entertainment when, where, and how they want. Some pin this specifically on the youth, because in a sense, they grew up much more “connected” than the generations before them.

But it’s not just about the youth.

This is about media in general and how it is carving new channels and creating new vehicles to facilitate conversations, relationships, and sharing by and for the people – across every generation and market demographic. In short, MicroMedia is being driven by the content curators, creators, consumers, and thought leaders who are defining the new social economy.

In case you haven’t heard, many edglings are already starting to show signs of Social Media fatigue with so many networks, content publishing tools, and voices vyring for and thus thinning their attention span. Their RSS readers are overflowing with posts, tools such as Twitter, microblogs, blogs, and Facebook are addictive and their respective communities are constantly calling for attention, participation, and updates. The list goes on and on.

There have been many debates as to whether the great attention economy will incite the inevitable attention crash.

But we persevere. We have to.

Every week, every day, there’s a new tool, network, or service and edglings flock to each of them, test, and then share their experience. Their reports and opinions determine whether or not the rest of the herd follows in their experiments.

People are always on the hunt for new information and will go to unfathomable depths in order to find and reach people.

Of course, as in every market, there are guides or trend setters whom people naturally follow and with enough momentum, the crowds increase in population as no one wants to get left behind. People naturally go where their peers, friends, and family go. But with every new, exciting service that gains momentum, individuals, whether they’re an early adopter or a mainstream user, are forced to create and maintain new and existing profiles across multiple networks simply to communicate with their contacts and maintain their relationships.

Is this an ominous sign for Social Media?

Hardly.

This represents a shift in media creation and consumption (sorry I don’t like that word) as many people are simply pulled in so many directions. Many just don’t have time to read and watch everything that’s pushed to them.

Enter MicroMedia, an emerging market category which seems to date back to 2000, but really didn’t start to take current shape until 2005 and 2006 with the rise of Web 2.0.

Regardless of terminology however, many of you are already experimenting with MicroMedia, whether you know it or not. Tools such as Twitter, Kyte.tv, Pownce, Tumblr, Jott, and even Facebook are all forms of MicroMedia which allow you to send and receive small “bite-sized” media morsels for easy chewing and digestion. Many praise the rise of MicroMedia as a step in the right direction for enhancing our media consumption as well as increasing our participation within dedicated communities

Jeremiah Owyang who has been discussing this topic quite a bit over the last several months describes it this way:

Quick audio or video messages published to a trusted social community. May be created and consumed using mobile technology, and often distributed using other social media tools.

After some thought, I amended it a bit:

There’s a shift taking place in how certain groups of people discover and share information, and if you’re in the world of publishing, marketing, or sales, you should probably pay attention. With every new channel that gains momentum, a new bridge can also be built between you, peers, and your customers to foster healthy and dynamic communities based on conversations and relationships.

The content published via MicroMedia goes by many names including, video, audio and blog snacking, media snacking, snack bytes, media bytes, snacks, etc.

Whatever we call it, it represents a new medium, one that places an emphasis on brevity and value in order to say more with less. And, it’s not just about us, those who blaze the trail by experimenting, documenting, and sharing our experiences with shiny new objects, it’s about the people dictating their preference for creating, receiving and sharing information in specific ways.

Text Example

Audio Example

Video Example
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhBodbI9oTE]

Steve Rubel wrote earlier this year that MicroMedia allowed him to do more with less. It freed him from the pressures of having to write daily posts, which in turn forced him to focus on sharing shorter, more frequent thoughts and discoveries across a myriad of dedicated social networks, including his blog and microblog aka his lifestream.

Sometimes however, less, is just well, less.

I participate in almost all forms of macro and micro media, production and consumption. As in almost everything, there is plenty of garbage out there. Just because we can produce things easily these days, doesn’t make them good. But, it’s my choice what I chose to share and to what I watch, read and listen; just like it’s the choice of everyone to determine when, where, and what they consume.

So in order to reach these increasingly discerning groups of people, you’ll need to understand their culture and where the participate and then reverse engineer the process from a position of sincerity and empathy.

I use a few different MicroMedia services for hosting my aggregated stream of macro content as well as media snacks. Jaiku and Tumblr provide an easy and seamless tool for creating a stream which presents all of my social activity through constant bite-sized formats. Whether it’s through my blog, microblog, various social networks, different people choose which format works for them, just like they can choose which social networks to cultivate friendships.

When enough individual voices pool together, the whisper becomes a roar, transcending MicroMedia into macro influence.

—

Resources

Excellent presentation: “The Economics of New Media”

Here’s a great video about media snacking, just look beyond all “youth”

I’ve created a list of MicroMedia tools designed to facilitate the creation, sharing and discovery of media snacks. Please help me populate the directory by sending an email to pr2point0 [at] gmail [dot] com or leave a comment. I’ll update the list to keep it tasty.

—

A Directory of MicroMedia Tools and Services

Text/Media:

Twitter
Pownce
3jam

Lifestreams and Microblogs:

Jaiku
Tumblr

Video:

Eyejot
Kyte.tv
Seesmic
Facebook Videoustream.tv – Live video streaming
Justin.tv - Live video streaming
Veodia – Live video streaming
Yourtrumanshow – Episodic video streaming
Magnify.net – Video curation, packing short videos are topics or themes through one channel

Mobile Voice:

Pinger
Jott
Utterz
Twittergram
Gabcast
Mysay

Social Networks:

Facebook – Think Newsfeed
Yahoo Mash – Think Newsfeed
iRover Networ
k for iPhones, friends, and short messages

—

Other voices carrying the meme forward:

Clay Newton, Connie Reece, Leo Hopkins, Deborah Schultz, Steven Hodson, Geoff Livingston, John Johnston, Cathleen Rittereiser, Mark Cahill, Kevin Dugan, Kami Huyse, Jane Quigley, Sarah Wurrey, Gaurav Mishra, Drew McLellan, Andrea Vascellari

—

Connect with me on Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce or Facebook.

—

There’s a new kid on the block and the edglings are a twitter over whether there’s room for another player in the presence application market. Pownce, the latest brain child from Digg founder, Kevin Rose, is off to a whirlwind start, with many asking whether or not it is already the “new” Twitter and Jaiku Killer.

While Twitter and Jaiku are the current leaders, we’re really still too early to predict winners and losers in a market that is far too young and uncultivated. After all, the masses have yet to embrace the new world of micro blogging (aka nano blogging), or general blogging for that matter. And, we can’t leave out Tumblr, which is a really more of a mini blog then a presence application, but either way, it falls into this category. So, there’s much work to do when it comes to educating people on the value, potential, and capabilities of the current players as well as how it benefits them and how they communicate within their social networks.

Pownce is a new service that like Twitter and Jaiku, allows you to communicate status with friends and also stay connected with those you choose to follow. In fact, it shares more in common with Jaiku and Tumblr than it does with Twitter. For example, like Jaiku and Tumblr, each message in Pownce is open for comments, which can spark threads related to specific topics. The slick Pownce user interface and the ability to select templates for each profile is very reminiscent of Tumblr. The main think I enjoy about Jaiku and Pownce is the ability to have conversations within the community. While Twitter seems to be more of a status broadcast, with direct messaging capability, Jaiku and Pownce bring the conversation to all friends or specific groups, opening up the post to threaded conversations.

Each application, also, already offers a Facebook plugin, so that people within the FB network can read your latest posts, while giving users the ability to broadcast from within the network.

But that’s where the similarities end and Pownce starts to step into its own spotlight. Lead programmer for Pownce, Leah Culver, also integrated peer-to-peer file sharing functionality, providing the ability to send files to friends much in the same way YouSendIt and Dropload bypass the need for FTP transfers. This is a very important feature and will prove more valuable over time for personal and professional use. Pownce also fuses evite-ish functionality into the mix, giving Powncers the ability to invite friends to events and track their responses in one place.

Its most interesting feature is the ability to create various groups of friends to customize how and where you share information. Powncers can broadcast messages to their entire list of friends or to specific groups, creating a more dynamic foundation for personalized communication. And, you can start to see the business, service and marketing aspects of this capability as well.

Pownce is primarily a Web app, but also offers a downloadable version for Mac or PC, using Adobe’s new Air (formerly Apollo), which extends Web services to the desktop.

With these integrated features, and a little imagination, one can see the potential for a holistic community that cater to the fundamental needs of people, conversations, sharing media and content, and extending social networks into the real world with event support.

Culver also mentioned that she designed the application with scalability in mind. It’s currently controlling growth by giving users a select amount of invites, which are tied to back end performance capabilities. Although there are still hiccups.

An interesting note about Pownce is that it is free, but also offers a $20 per year subscription option which removes ads and allows sharing of files up to 100MB.

But is Pownce a threat to Jaiku or Twitter? Is it a wolf in sheep’s clothing prepping to devour the competition? The answer is no.

While it is cool and unique, the market is too big for anyone to foolishly assume that one app will rule all. There are just too many possibilities for each of them to succeed as personal and business communications tools.

First off, Twitter and Jaiku are also mobile applications. You can send and receive updates easily from your mobile phone, the desktop, and through the Web.

Twitter, founded by Evan Williams of Odeo and Blogger fame, is simple and it’s beautiful that way. All it asks is, “What are you doing?” Its community is well established, loyal, and incredibly active. People thrive on reading and sharing information through the Web, mobile text, IM, etc. and do so at feverish paces. Messages (tweets) range from greetings, updates, interesting tidbits, as well as links, world and industry news, promotions and corporate communications. It’s not just a personal tool. Many businesses are participating in Twitter to provide updates to customers as well as answer their questions and hear their feedback.

Twitter’s main fault however, is its scalability. It servers are continuously stumbling causing frustration and angst among many users. The team only seems to be in a perpetual state of catch up as the community quickly continues to grow.

Twitter’s API also gives the community the ability to create applications in and around Twitter that extend its functionality, adoption, and its cool factor. Some examples include, Twittervision, TwitDir, TwitterGram, among many, many others. A full directory of applications is href="http://www.twittown.com/twitter-forge">here.

Source: TechCrunch

Jaiku on the other hand, is a more sophisticated conversation platform. It is a presence aggregator, or a presence hub if you will, that collects feeds from various social services you use, including Twitter, blogs, del.icio.us, YouTube, flickr, etc. Jaiku merges your various online personae through one social, integrated personal stream.

With Jaiku, readers can comment on individual posts to continue threaded conversations, which is better suited to those seeking more meaningful engagements.

Jaiku recently introduced channel, which gives users the ability to create and joins channels dedicated to specific conversations and topics. For example, Supernova 2007 created a conference channel so that attendees and participants could communicate thoughts, questions, updates, pictures, links, etc., through one common stream. This is a not only a killer feature controlling personal groups, but also an ideal tool for businesses and organizations looking to engage in dedicated conversations.

While there are similarities and differences among the current presence applications on the market, the truth is that they’re all built differently and serve different purposes. As the category is embrace by more people, the adoption will define which apps will succeed and in which segments they thrive. They’re supported by communities and communities are driven by people with like-minded interests and contacts. Truthfully, they can all co-exist. People will define how and where they participate, usually driven by where their peers decide to congregate.

This isn’t the last discussion we’ll have on the subject though. Expect to see new presence applications launch soon and in the future. I also expect a series of vertical applications launching to serve specific markets. For example, Greg Narain is introducing Lil’Grams, which allows parents to share anything about their baby with friends and family who sign up for the alerts. The possibilities are almost unlimited and can serve dedicated communities, much in the same way social networks cater to different demographics such as Dogster, Catster, Hamsterster. Vertical stream apps could also become important business, city/state, local, and hobby-oriented communication tools – almost like portable forums.

With Pownce on the scene many more to come, the question is often asked, where should you participate? Depending on who you are and what you do, the answer is go where the people that matter to you are participating. And if you’re a service or business professional trying to tap into these communities, participate in those that would welcome your participation.

For more on the subject:

Jeremiah tracks all Pownce reviews.

Robert Scoble interviews Jyri and Petteri of Jaiku.

Scobleizer on Twitter v Pownce.

My previous post on Twitter v Jaiku

UPDATE: TechCrunch reports that Pownce invites are on sale at ebay.

UPDATE 2: If you’d like an invite to Pownce, leave a comment or send an email.

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