Twitter: The Real-Time Answer Engine

The great thing about Twitter is that it has the potential to solve real time problems extremely quickly. With a host of people available online at a particular moment, you can use it to get help on a multitude of levels.

This real time capability has helped establish Twitter as a ‘help engine’ and the twittersphere is awash with stories of how Twitter has helped its users. Guy Kawasaki has had a laptop cable hand delivered by a fellow Twitter user - Matt Perez has used it to test different versions of a website on various mobile devices. It has even had more humanitarian benefits helping to prevent death threats at a school. It has even proven it’s worth through live tweeting at conferences, when a speaker became ill, and people rushed to help.

Many of us are now turning to Twitter as the first place to get an answer or help on a potential problem, its alot quicker than waiting for a reply on a message board. So, if you decide that the Twittersphere is the place you want to ask questions and get help, what are the services and sites you should be following on Twitter?

The rise and rise of Twitter | guardian.co.uk

In November 2008 a total of 40 articles appeared in British local and national newspapers that included the word "Twitter". Though a quarter of them were published by the Guardian, this paper's technology correspondent nonetheless found himself explaining to general readers that "Twitter, a mobile social network, has generated lots of buzz". The Daily Telegraph, quaintly, was still using the word to describe a way of talking.

4 Ways Companies Use Twitter for Business - ReadWriteWeb

Gartner released a report today that highlights the different ways that companies are adopting Twitter for business use. Although Twitter was originally intended for communication among individuals, a number of organizations have begun to actively participate on the platform. However, not all companies are using Twitter in the same way. Some are tweeting, some are just listening, and some really savvy companies are doing both.

Before any company employees start tweeting, it would be a good idea to remind them that the same rules that apply to other web participation (like blogging, for example) also apply to Twitter. "As Twitter is a public forum, employees should understand the limits of what is acceptable and desirable," says Jeffrey Mann, research vice president at Gartner. "If organizations have not defined a public Web participation policy, they should do so as quickly as possible."

Which reminds me I should check my Gartner subscribtion next monday and see if the report is part of the services I have access too. Sounds like an interesting Gartner report :-)

CoTweet™ - How business does Twitter

CoTweet powers brands on Twitter. Designed for businesses using Twitter to engage existing customers and attract new ones, CoTweet is a comprehensive Twitter business platform that supports both proactive marketing communication and response-driven customer support.

CoTweet allows multiple people to communicate through corporate Twitter accounts and stay in sync while doing so.

27 Twitter Applications Your Small Business Can Use Today | SMALL BUSINESS CEO

March 25th, 2009 at 6:30 am

27 Twitter Applications Your Small Business Can Use Today

twitter small business appsTwitter is growing in popularity by leaps and bounds lately.  It seams like everyone is talking about Twitter.  The neat thing is that everyone seems to use Twitter in their own unique way.  Hundreds of Twitter applications can be found on numerous sites that offer cool tools to help you manage the way you use Twitter.  If you use Twitter for marketing your small business, I sorted thru tons of apps to bring you the most helpful.  Feel free to suggest other Twitter apps, for business owners, below in the comments.

Twitter Toolbar - Downloading this free toolbar gives you instant access to Twitter.  You can use the toolbar to access online Twitter tools, check your Twitter stats, post your updates and more.  Versions are available for both Firefox and Internet Explorer.

Twitoria - This simple application lets you quickly find out which of your followers has not been actively tweeting.  Easily sort through your network of followers and purge the inactive users.

Monitter - Get a live streaming view at what Twitter users in your location are saying about you or your small business.  Simply insert keywords you would like to search for and the surrounding area you would liked monitored.

Bubble Tweet - This unique application lets you post a short video message that pops up on your Twitter profile in a bubble shaped player.  You can personally introduce yourself and/or your business to anyone who visits your profile.

Twitter Gallery - A collection of free backround themes for your Twitter account.  You can use the one click installation or manually install them yourself.  Lots of nice designs and colors to choose from.

Tweepler - Simplify the way you manage your Twitter followers.  Tweepler enables you to easily sort through new followers and accept them or ignore them on one simple screen.  They have made accepting followers easier by giving the Tweepler user the followers stats and last 3 tweets in one screen view.  This will save you time by eliminating the need to visit each individual follower’s profiles.

Twit This - Allow visitors to your blog or website to easily post Twitter messages about you or your business.  Post the TwitThis button to your website or blog pages with the instructions and coding provided on their site.

StockTwits - Follow and join into conversations with traders and investors.  An active community of investors are sharing their views on current market conditions and recent news happenings. You can quickly see what others are saying about investments in your portfolio.

HelloTxt - Update your status to several social networking sites in one simple step.  You can choose from over 35 social sites to post to including Twitter.

TwitterFox - This Firefox extension is one of my personal favorites.  You can post Twitter updates without visiting the Twitter site each time.  A small icon is added to the bottom of your Firefox status bar.  The icon opens to reveal your friend’s most current updates.  You can add your updates from that dialog box, even for multiple Twitter accounts.

Future Tweets - Do you have something to promote on Twitter tomorrow but are afraid of forgetting to do it?  With FutureTweets, you can schedule your tweet ahead of time for a specific date and time.  Even schedule reoccuring tweets to post daily, monthly, even yearly.

TwitPic - Share your favorite pictures on Twitter.  This would be a good way to introduce your new product to your network of followers.

twtQpon - Create exclusive coupons for your business services or products and share them with your Twitter followers.

Tweetburner - This site is designed to help you track your tweets.  With Tweetburner you can shorten URLs and track the clicks your tweets accumulate.

Tweetbeep - Just like Google Alerts, Tweetbeep tracks Twitter conversations that mention you, your business or your products and services.  Alerts are sent to you via email.

Twitter Counter - Proudly display the number of Twitter followers on your business blog or website.  Add the badge to your site and invite customers to follow you on Twitter.

Group Tweet - This app enables all employees within your company to post updates which can be privately viewed only by your group of approved members.

Twitter Safe - This free service protects your years of hard work building your community of followers.  This one click backup will restore your network of followers in the event that your list is compromised.

Twitxr - Post product pictures and updates from your mobile phone directly to Twitter.

Track This - This app enables tracking of any UPS, USPS, FedEx or DHL shipment.  Updates are sent to your Twitter account direct messages whenever your package changes location.

CoTweet - CoTweet lets your company manage one Twitter account while allowing several employees to contribute.  Each person maintains their own identity and their activity can be monitored.

Tweet Later - This one application contains several Twitter productivity tools.  You can track keywords, track replies, schedule tweets, send welcome direct messages, and much more.

Splitweet - Managing and updating multiple Twitter accounts is easily done from one screen.  Choose to send updates to one or all accounts in one step.  You can also follow your brand with notification when your company is mentioned on Twitter.

Twimailer - Sign up to receive more extensive email notifications when your account obtains new followers.  Instead of the generic Twitter email notification; the email contains the followers location, followers stats and their most recent tweets.  At the bottom of the email, you can choose to follow the individual without even visiting Twitter.

Digsby - Keep track of everything your followers are doing at all times.  The Digsby box display gives you a real time view into your Twitter account right from your browser.

HootSuite - Easily manage multiple Twitter profiles, pre-schedule tweets and measure your progress.  You can even add multiple editors to your business profile.

TwitterHawk - This marketing app helps you connect with consumers in your area and related to the keywords you choose.  TwitterHawk will send Twitter users your custom response when they tweet your keyword in locations that you specify.  Say you sell shoes and you want your response to reach anyone within a 20 mile radius of your business.  When someone 7 miles away tweets about shoes, your response will automatically be sent to that person.

Twitter Confirms Paid Pro Accounts On The Way

Twitter Confirms Paid Pro Accounts On The Way

Tags: Startups, Twitter

TwitterBranch.jpgMore revenue for Twitter on the way: The company confirms -- for the first time we've seen, at least -- age-old theories that they'll sell commercial accounts to power users or companies using Twitter.

In exchange for a fee, companies could get "more features" on Twitter, the WSJ reports. Twitter cofounder Biz Stone tells the WSJ that the company recently hired a product manager to help develop those accounts, but doesn't specify what the extra features will be or when the accounts will launch.

This makes perfect sense. There's a lot of stuff companies would pay Twitter for, such as a way to verify the company rep's legitimacy; to more analytics and information about who is reading their Twitter page; to better tracking features to see what people are saying about their company.

What would you pay for an account like this? We could see a lot of companies paying $10 or $20 a month for the service, even for simple tools. But we could also see many companies -- Comcast, JetBlue, Starbucks, etc. -- paying more than one hundred dollars per month for really good, insightful tools.

Update:

We were able to get in touch with Twitter cofounder Biz Stone, who affirmed that Twitter does plan to offer for-fee commercial features at some point. Key point: Companies and individuals will always be able to use Twitter for free; the for-sale features will be add-ons.

Stone, via email:

Commercial entities like Whole Foods, Starbucks, Mission Pie, 52 Teas, JetBlue, even the Korean taco truck guy are all on Twitter—users and businesses alike are finding value.

Our question is, how can we help? What can Twitter offer for a fee that will improve the experience? Will it be account verification? Will it be lightweight analytics? Will there be opportunities for introducing customers to businesses on Twitter.

So many questions. But the key is to understand that Twitter will remain free for all to use—individuals and companies alike. We are thinking about simple business products that enhance and encourage what is already happening.

Makes sense. And, like its unobtrusive text ads, a way to grow Twitter's revenues that -- if done right -- won't tick off its rapidly growing user base.

There's Twitter the company, and twitter the medium | Los Angeles Times

There's Twitter the company, and twitter the medium

9:47 PM, March 24, 2009
Twitcottage
Leo Laporte at the controls during a recent episode of This Week in Tech (TWiT). In the background is Digg founder Kevin Rose.  Credit: insidetwit / Flickr

Last year, Leo Laporte became a Twitter quitter.

The host of one of Silicon Valley’s most popular podcasts was none too excited that of all the names in the world, the burgeoning message service had picked one that hit piercingly close to home. The online broadcasting network that Laporte owns and runs a short walk from his house in Petaluma is called TWiT.tv, after his company’s flagship show, “This Week in Tech.”

The rise of Twitter has long been a favorite topic of conversation on TWiT, and with an audience of around 150,000, Laporte found himself in a strange pickle: The more he talked about Twitter on his show, the more followers he accrued — and the more publicity he gave his brand rival.

“I thought, jeez, I’m building value in this company that is ultimately vying for my trademark,” he said recently via phone. “So I left.”

But in spite of his absence, Laporte still became the most-followed user on the service, beating out front-runners like then-Sen. Barack Obama for the top spot, with more than 30,000 followers. Walking away from a megaphone that big just didn’t seem like good business. So he came back.

“They kind of have you,” said Laporte, who now has more than 100,000 followers on the service. “The same way that Facebook has you: because you have to go where the community is.”

Still, being in thrall to Twitter hasn’t stopped Laporte from joining a conversation that’s taking hold on the service’s fringes. As this group of Web subversives sees it, the once-tiny Twitter has grown like a magic beanstalk into a full-fledged communications medium — taking its place alongside Web pages, e-mail and maybe even television. And though the 30-person, San Francisco start-up is not exactly General Electric, digital trust-busters believe the same rules apply: One company shouldn’t have a monopoly ...

... on an entire medium — even if it invented it.

"Those of us who are participating are pumping value into this closed system and trusting that Twitter will do the right thing with it," said Laporte, referring to the tweets users pour into Twitter's databases every day by the million. 

People love the convenience and reach of social media systems like Twitter, he said.  "But what they ignore is that there’s a dark side to all of that, which is that these companies have a huge amount of control over what’s going on."

Dave Winer, a Berkeley-based entrepreneur and Web innovator, sounded a similar note on a recent podcast posted to his Scripting News blog.

“It’s a very dangerous network because it’s all centralized,” he said, “not only on a technological level, where it goes through one set of servers — but it also goes through one set of business interests that’s anything but transparent.”

Danger may sound a bit overzealous for a Web service that barely existed two years ago, but for a media landscape in the middle of a profound shift, two years can be the span between eras.

Twitter is becoming a major source for news, commerce and free expression and, as with a free press itself, defenders don’t want a few profit-motivated individuals making all the decisions about how it should evolve.

Like Facebook and YouTube before it, Twitter is now transitioning from a freely available, much-loved Web service to a well-funded business venture looking to cash in on the audience and cachet it built in its freewheeling early days.

A few weeks ago, Twitter created a page of several dozen suggested users to help newcomers decide whom to follow. If you weren’t sure how to proceed, you can follow CNN, Lance Armstrong or Britney Spears. Being recommended by Twitter, it was quickly discovered, translated into tens or hundreds of thousands of new followers, and anointed accounts have since shot to the top of the Twitter hierarchy. The giant, instant audiences Twitter bestowed on these select users are thought to be so valuable that Web businessman Jason Calacanis offered Twitter $250,000 for a two-year ride on the list.

As visibility and influence gets funneled upward to the companies, celebrities and politicians that already have plenty of both, Twitter risks inviting a comparison to the overinflated economy — it’s creating a bubble at the top, and potentially alienating regular users who labored to build their audiences over months or years.

Well-known tech figures like Laporte and Winer don’t exactly represent the voiceless online rabble, but neither are they the types of guys you want leading a charge against you.

Winer recently wrote a post called “Why it's time to break out of Twitter,” where he said of the service’s management, “we need to get that power out of their hands.” Laporte told me, “I’m more interested in seeing if we can go beyond Twitter — a more open system would be a better system.”

Both critics have installed their own smaller, open-source micro-messaging systems outside of Twitter’s domain. Laporte calls his the Twit Army.

The software they’re using was developed by Evan Prodromou, a developer in Montreal. Prodromou is the force behind Laconica — an open-source, Twitter-like system that anyone can install; hundreds of administrators already have, creating a dispersed, decentralized network of Twitter clones that can all talk to one another.

Prodromou compares the state of micro-messaging to the early days of consumer e-mail. In the early 1990s, the e-mail world was dominated by proprietary dial-up entities like CompuServe, MCI and Prodigy. But because those systems were competitive, they didn’t connect to one another, and you could send messages only to people inside your own service.

“I couldn’t send you e-mail and you couldn’t send me e-mail,” Prodromou explained. “We were on these separate islands. Making the change to an open standard for Internet e-mail has meant e-mail has become ubiquitous. I think that’s where we’re at now with microblogging.”

A distributed, networked messaging landscape would have the same advantages as the Web itself: no oligarchy with a final say about what’s good, and a redundant structure so one part can fail without the whole thing crashing down.

On the other hand, said Twitter creator Jack Dorsey in an e-mail, “with any new technology, early and strict guidance is needed to foster it.” And certainly, without the control Dorsey and his co-founders had over the growth and development of Twitter, the system wouldn’t exist to fight over.

But maybe that’s an academic argument. Twitter is on the radar now, big time, and its competitors and critics are homing in. If those banging on the gate have their way, micro-blogging will splinter into a thousand pieces, like  websites and blogs already have, and Twitter may find itself starting with a lowercase “t.”

-- David Sarno [follow]

Twitter is gevaarlijk volgens tech-goeroes, schrijft Bright

Twitter is gevaarlijk

Tech-goeroes luiden de noodklok: het bedrijf Twitter heeft een gevaarlijk monopolie op het medium Twitter.

Twitter is zó succesvol dat het een zelfstandig medium is geworden, gelijkwaardig aan e-mail en websites. Dat is niet alleen maar leuk en aardig voor het bedrijf Twitter, want critici beginnen zich te roeren. Grootheden uit het tech-wereldje als Leo Laporte en Dave Winer stellen dat Twitter-het-bedrijf een ongezonde monopoliepositie heeft op Twitter-het-medium. Ze pleiten voor een meer 'open' systeem waarbij meerdere aanbieders met elkaar kunnen concurreren.

Er zit wat in: e-mailaanbieders waren vroeger ook niet compatibel; pas na enig gebakkelei en geonderhandel werd e-mail een universele standaard. Het bedrijf wil waarschijnlijk eerst cashen voor het zoiets radicaals uitvoert - ze zijn nog maar net begonnen met mogelijke verdienmodellen...

Gebruik sinds een paa dagen ook Yammer, dat doen we dan vooral met collega's.

" Yammer is a private social network for your company: each user gets a profile displaying their photo, title, expertise, background, what they are working on, etc."

Eens zien hoe dat gaat, kan 'gekoppeld' worden met Twitter, maar als parallel universum is het wel zo handig, naast Twitter.