All posts tagged twitter

Two years ago when I started using twitter I wasn’t impressed. The people came in dozens from there, even when the actual post was about Twitter itself. Later on I realized that many Twitter users do not send a proper referrer due to using some web apps or other tools instead of browsing the actual Twitter.com website.

Fast forward to the end of 2009 and I notice the opposite: Some posts or even blogs altogether get more traffic from Twitter than from any other source. What about Google, Digg, StumbleUpon and Delicious you might ask?

StumbleUpon discoveries
Today I almost forgot to write my Twitter Friday column. Why? I was so preoccupied with the new relaunched StumbleUpon version. To make it short: SU attempts to compete directly with Twitter and Google. This might sound ridiculous but they really do. Theoretically it would be possible: SU exists for several years and has collected tens of millions of web pages in its “index” together with millions of reviews with new sites being added very quickly. Isn’t this the ideal social search engine? Isn’t this the perfect way to determine which websites really do matter in real time? Sadly, no.

Now this is the Twitter column so I won’t compare the new StumbleUpon to Google. Let me explain though why

StumbleUpon is not Twitter and can’t compete with Twitter.

StumbleUpon does not allow business usage of its site. Yes, you can get banned solely for submitting your SEO company website to SU.

How do you use Twitter for business? This question has been answered manifold times. What tools do you use for business though? There aren’t that many business tools for Twitter it seems. You rather should ask:

Which tools enable professionals best to use Twitter for business?

This way you may find more useful tools and apps. Nonetheless there are some valuable specialized Twitter tools for business you should try. I compiled a list of both, Twitter tools for business and professional Twitter tools. Most of them are free but some advanced ones, especially in the CRM arena are not.

Twitter Account Suspended

While I have written several times already that Twitter or any other social site might ban you out of the blue it just happened to Rishi Lakhani aka @rishil, a well known SEO figure on social media. I even recommended following him on my SEO Twitter users list. Another SEO, @louisventer got banned alias suspended on Twitter due to “strange activity” for the same reason, he has retweeted the tweet that kills your account:

Many people still doubt that Twitter has value or that it will ever make money. A year ago the same people cried about Facebook growing but not being profitable. Btw, Google hasn’t been profitable from the start as well. Adwords and Adsense were introduced years after the search engine started. Now Google is the most powerful corporation on the Web, Facebook just turned profitable earlier than expected despite the recession and Twitter just has been valued at 1 billion dollars.

Twitter vs RSS

Lately a discussion about the RSS format flared up. Without RSS blogs and the whole infrastructure of the current Web would not be possible.

Some commentators argue that RSS is already a format of the past. A few of them add that Twitter replaces RSS for end users.

Does it really? There is some truth to it. This is just a subjective impression though. Statistics indicated already a year ago that RSS is not really popular. Fred Wilson or rather a commenter on his blog summed it up pretty well. In my own words: RSS is alive but not (yet) kicking.

The focus of this blog post is not to discuss whether RSS is dead, dying or alive and whether Twitter really replaces it. Today I will attempt to assess the ramifications of the current move from RSS to Twitter or if you prefer it the addition of Twitter to many people’s daily reading habits.

Teenagers

Teenagers is a Creative Commons image by Monica Arellano-Ongpin

One of the most discussed articles about Twitter recently was a New York Times piece about the Twitter usage of teenagers or rather the lack of it. Teens don’t tweet.

Only roughly 10% of teenagers below the age of 18 use Twitter and the whole Web seems surprised or rather disappointed.

Some commentators even point fingers at people marketing themselves on Twitter which scares off prospective teenage users. So what?

retweeted

Where’s the retweet? Can you see it?

The big news today: Twitter will finally accept retweets and make them part of the built in system or simply put the Twitter home page. At first I was moderately happy about this overdue move until I read the fine print.

In future Twitter will let people block your retweets.

New Twitter Homepage

Twitter just redesigned its homepage? You probably read about it but did you notice any changes? Probably not unless you don’t use Twitter at all.

The “revamped homepage” as some pundits put it can only be seen when you’re not logged in.

I already wondered what strange marketing tactic this is when StumbleUpon has done that, relaunching the site for outsiders but not the members. For weeks signed in Stumblers couldn’t see the new shiny homepage.

Twitter for Business Case Studies
This week Twitter has officially embraced business users by providing a set of guidelines for proper and profitable business use of its service. It’s called Twitter 101 for Business. Most of us marketers knew already that Twitter is business friendly in stark contrast to many other social sites that are either staunchly anti-business (Digg e.g.) or solely allowing it as an advertiser (StumbleUpon).

Upon reading the official Twitter 101 for Business I couldn’t find much that was new to me, with one exception, the Twitter for business case studies.

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