Twitip

If you want to know what’s hot, what’s not, and what the freshest news seems to be, Twitter might be the place to be on the cutting edge. However, just how reliable is the news you see on Twitter?

Just like you can’t believe everything you read in the newspapers or magazines, or believe everything you see on television, Twitter has its good points and bad points when it comes to breaking news. Twitter is populated with journalists, writers, photographers, and a plethora of celebrities. Sometimes false rumors can make the rounds, such as the reported death of Jeff Goldbum back in July, and sometimes breaking news hits the nail on the head, as in the case of the Iranian election. (more…)

by Jimmy Jangles of The Optimus Prime Experiment – Follow him @jimmyjangles

So you have a twitter account and you think it’s a better read than Dan Brown’s new novel ‘The Lost Symbol’ but unlike Dan Brown’s 100 million plus loyal followers you have 33 and want 666. What do you do?

Applying this simple Angels and Demons Guide to Good Twitter etiquette will help you get and keep those followers you deserve! (more…)

We recently received notification about TweetPortal from Andrew McQuinn, who’s part of the new portal’s team.

Seems like a great “one stop” if you’re a news junkie and want to see all your legitimate news in one place.

My only (minor) gripe off the start is the blended AdWords sections in the content boxes. Having it before the “more ____” links looks too much like trickery to me, and I think that sites that are providing value to their users should be using less tactics like this. It’s a trust thing I guess. I realize that blended ads work in blogs and other sites with lengthy content, and I don’t begrudge them the right to earn a buck, but don’t be so clearly trying to garner clicks with AdSense – sell some real ads.

You can follow them @tweetportal, too.

Check it out and let us know what you think in the comments!

Welcome back from a US Bank Holiday, Labor Day! TwiTip took the 4-day weekend off, and we’re proud to present today’s post. It takes a closeup look at a really great thing happening on Twitter surrounding one man’s idea to blame his cancer for all the problems in his life. Read about how the story’s unfolded to mean so much more for many others fighting the battle.

By Neal Wiser (follow him @nealwiser) and Peter Marinari (follow him @krisis)(http://twitter.com/krisis).

First in a series of brief case studies about using Twitter for social good.

Sure, you can use Twitter to tell people about your literal and metaphorical dirty laundry (you really shouldn’t), or you can use Twitter to try to overthrow governments such as Iran and Moldavia (please be careful), but personally, I believe that one of the best uses for Twitter is to rally people around good causes.

And despite the annoyances that can sometimes result when people misuse and abuse Twitter, except for television there has probably never been a technology that can spread the news about events faster than Twitter. As a result, Twitter may just be the perfect platform for charitable causes and institutions.

Getting the Word Out

While some may argue that anything you do to raise awareness of your cause is a good thing, what you really want is to have people take a desired action and actively participate. Otherwise, your cause is just an idea, not a movement, and it’s movements that drive change. (more…)

By CarolAnn Bailey-Lloyd. Follow her @CarolAnnB.

What’s the buzz about “Web 2.0″?

While some individuals have strong opinions on what it actually encompasses, there’s much to learn about Web 2.0 technologies and tools that are, whether you know it or not, affecting your everyday surfing experience on the World Wide Web.

As the Internet continues to explode with the revolution of second-generation web services, web development, and design applications, we have arrived center stage of the culmination of today’s innovators, entrepreneurs, and visionaries who have transformed the way we travel the Internet highways and byways; and the spatial views that we encounter and in the ways we interact.

How?

Web 2.0 has triumphantly made its strong debut via online social networking communities and book marking sites like YouTube, Twitter, FaceBook, MySpace, Imeem, Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, WordPress, TypePad, Blogger, and Google Reader, among other progressive stars on the Information Highway. The Netopia of creative Weblogs, social networks, multimedia sharing sites, RSS feeders, and keyword tags has dynamically altered the way we retrieve and share information. (more…)

I was just having a discussion the other day on facebook about how people are using automatic posting tools so heavily these days. They post something on their blog, and a tool (er, “bot) automatically publishes that post to Twitter, which then is connected to their facebook and friendfeed accounts and is repeated there.

Personally, I don’t mind if people use bots to make updates on Twitter or other social networking sites IF (and only if) they’re also diving in to real communication in those locations as well.

Twitter’s great for 140 characters of communication. It’s a blink of the eyes, in all reality. But when you’re auto posting and nothing else, you wind up looking like a billboard more than a social networker. Rather than someone who’s looking to connect and communicate, you’re looking like a guy with a megaphone on the street corner… you know?

Anyway, in comes this email about a post titled An In-Depth Look at the 5% of Most Active Users that reports that almost a quarter of Twitter’s updates are done by bots (automatic posting tools).

Of the most active Twitter users updating more than 150 times/day, nearly all of them are bots operated by sources such as hotels offering deals, regional and national news services, regional weather services, the top news within Digg, games, anim services, tags within del.icio.us and financial aggregators. These very active bots account for one-quarter of all tweets.

There are lots of other interesting Twitter facts there on the Sysomos site, and I encourage you to check them out! They’ve asked that if you’re interested in discussing the article on Twitter that you use the hashtag #sysomossurvey or copy them @sysomos.

It’s the almost-weekly roundup list of links, tools, and Twitter culture once again! Check these out and let us know what you think in the comments.

• Twitter used for DoS Attacks in Iran (nytimes.com)
• Profiles.im – Tool to create a more detailed Twitter profile. Create your account, edit the information, and use your custom URL in your Twitter account profile for a great landing page that mimics your Twitter page. It even pulls your Twitter background, RSS feeds, and offers you much more than 140 characters to talk about yourself! Here’s mine (still in progress): Lara Kulpa
• Fixing the Twitter Reply Black Hole (blogherald.com)
• Mainstream Media Still Has Eyes Wide Shut (techcrunch.com) – Twitter search was “broken” by the news of the death of King of Pop Michael Jackson.
• 5 tools to measure Twitter success (lansner.freedomblogging.com)
• Twittering adds up to home sales (lansner.freedomblogging.com) – Great tips for real estate agents on Twitter.

By Thomas Baekdal. Follow him @baekdal.

Twitter Search is just amazing because it can give you real-time feedback about pretty much everything. That is, if you know how to look for it. Here is how:

Before we start I need to point out that both TweetDeck and Seesmic (my two favorite Twitter apps – with Seesmic being the #1) allows you to open special search panels, allowing you to “follow” a search term, instead of a person.

This is a great way to keep on top of things.

The Secrets…

1: Get up to speed with all the latest buzz

The primary way that I keep up-to-speed on social networking is to follow a social networking search. For instance, let say you want to get all the new links about social media, not including the many re-tweets that people make.

Simply search for:

“social web” OR “social media” OR “social news” -rt filter:links

(more…)

By Alexander Moya Barquero of Tecnovits. Follow him @twivits.

Twitter can be dangerous. That being said, Twitter is fun, useful, informative and overall entertaining; in this guest post I’d like to build upon my previous post 11 Useful Twitter Tools That Don’t Require Your Password and talk a little about security do’s and don’ts.

Twitter has become the place for events that are happening now, however with great technology, comes great responsibility. The following list contains a few basic measures we can take to ensure Twitter remains safe and fun:

(more…)

By Brett Weaver of SpotlightVT – Follow him @spotlightvt

I wanted to point out a brand new tool called TweetLister that was built specifically for marketing real estate on Twitter. I’ll also give you a quick one-two punch for using it to build a Twitter feed that any home seeker would be glad to subscribe to.

How it Works

You sign up for the free service using your existing Twitter credentials. TweetLister provides a form to collect all the usual property listing data such as address, square footage, number of rooms, etc. Most of the fields have drop-down menus with the most common choices which minimizes typing.

(more…)