To all of the Twitterati out there, these numbers should not surprise you. According to Compete, Plurk had over 1.6 million visits in June. The percent change from May was 4561% You can go ahead and refer to the below graphic as to the reason for this surge. Things have actually been good lately, not to mention Twitter’s recent aquisition of Summize. Can’t wait to see Plurk’s July numbers. What’s your take on Plurk? Are you diggin the UI?
Just got done with the twebinar hosted by Chris Brogan. It was an interesting way to push information out regarding social media. For those in the know, it gave them insight as to how some of the movers and shapers of social media, marketing and media think in regards to how social media is changing the game. It also was presented in a way that if someone who had “heard” what social media was, but was not entirely sure what IT was, could, perhaps in laymans terms utilize or understand it.
The mashup was interesting in that we had video, we had twitter, we had live webcam, we had twitter aggregators and we had live participants and we had half participants who were following the tweets and not perhaps the video. Even more interesting were the ways that participants were communicating. The primary means being Twitter, but in the Twebinar format, they were talking with individuals that were in the video, they were talking with the moderator, Chris Brogan and they were talking with each other.
Now picture that happening in any other type of moderator, speaker, panel, discussion presentation where everyone was, for the most part, talking at once. In this format it worked. It was staccato like in its essence, but it worked.
With a couple of tweaks here and there. I can definitely see this becoming some type of workable app for future conferences. Perhaps embedding the Twitter app in the screen of the presentation so that everyone could tweet and everyone could read everyone elses tweets without having to possibly toggle betwen Summize and the actual presentation? Either way it worked. Good job to David Alston of Radian6 as well. The good news? This is a 3 part series. What are you waiting for?
With that being said we should not expect what is tweeted to be completely accurate all the time., or rather we should expect what we read coming off of twitter with a grain of salt. Someone got ahold of this parody website about Jared of Subway fame and tweeted it across the Twitterverse. 
To get the full story, go over to LouisGray. At the least, instead of tweeting what you hear, do some research on your on. If you or they had at least visited the site in question, a quick read would have told you that it was all bullshit. Here’s a blurb:
Jared was more than the public man we all came to know and love, he was veritably the private man with whom we all wished we could have split a bag of baked Lay’s. Like any onion, you start peeling the skin and you find another layer, another and another, each one as eye-wateringly sad as the one before it.
Buddy, we miss you and we always will.
Jared played him some mean table tennis (ping pong, if you prefer) and could beat even the best players in a best 3 out of 5 more often than not.
He had a retro Asteroids machine in his garage he used to challenge us to, but he had the high scores on it, and it seemed like, no matter how grand any of could aspire to become, once we returned, all the scores were once again reset to his own, as if by divine intervention.
Come on people…Between Twitter being down, or not showing replies, or just plain not working right, and now the spreading of erroneous information. I’m surprised Twitter isn’t melting before our eyes! With that being said, they are far from being a reliable and credible media source.
Ok so Twitter has been up as of late, so maybe the above cartoon is not as applicable. But something that is, are people’s opinions or their general “take” on Twitter. Want to see some of the more creative answers to the question, do you Twitter? Interesting insight to say the least.
-“Personally, I don’t see the need to follow anyone that closely nor for anyone to follow me that closely. Nor do I want it either way”
-“Marc, call me a troglodyte, but I see no allure to this.”
-“, I don’t give a twitter if someone is looking at olives on isle four third shelf up. 😉 ”
-“Big Brother, anyone?? ”
-“No, I am not interested in what you had for lunch, nor do I share such information with those following me.”
-“I’ve tried it. It could become a black hole that you never get out of. It can suck up your time.”
-“Maybe it will become the new texting once devices catch up with the tech.”
– It’s a question of establishing followers that I find the least attractive aspect of Twitter — if you don’t have followers, you can become sort of psychotic, always talking to yourself in a tiny room with no one to listen to your persistent updates. ”
-” It seems pointless and just another time waster and login you have to try and remember”
-“The internets biggest waste of time ever!”
-“If Twitter is as I understand it, I’m not clear on how it is that any user types anything other than “I’m typing on Twitter”.
-“Either I need enlightenment or Twitter users need lives. Maybe second lives?”
-“Seems voyeuristic or reminiscent of horror and stalker flicks!”
-“It’s a time suck”
-“God bless. to each his/her own, and other sundry platitudes to that effect. But for me, nope. ”
-“I don’t know if it will ever become mainstream. But it does remind me of the way my teenagers use text messaging now. ”
To each his own I guess. I find it interesting that there is such a strong negative opinion, but even more interesting is that some of them may have not ever used it, either. What is your opinion of Twitter? Obviously, even if you have not used it before, you seem to have one. Mad shout out to geek and poke btw.
This morning I decided to see how many cool Twitter applications were floating around. The key for me was how quick could I understand them and if that was the case, maybe the common person might be able to grasp them as well. There’s nothing worse than someone touting the next big thing, and it being so difficult to understand or implement that it ceases to be very cool.
Flotzam seemed to have a cool take on twitter. In this mash-up of Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, Digg and blogs, you can use this simple application to configure what you want to watch and the speed in which you see it. To Quote,” Want to view what your Twitter friends are doing? Want to see the photos your friends have posted on Facebook? Or maybe their photos on Flickr, too? Download now and have all of your photos, Tweets, Diggs, Facebook invites & pokes and feeds come to you”
Madtwitter was kinda of a cool desktop/systray app. Once configured it will stay at the bottom of your desktop (in the systray) showing itself when you receive new “twits”. Clicking on its icon will show the main window where you can write your “twits”.
How about a couple of cool Twitter search engines? I like this one Twittertroll and this one Twittersearch Here is a nice directory I’ve used quite a bit as well TwitDir. Here is a Digg combo called Twitigg
PicoBuzz is fun because it picks up on the latest buzzwords that have been tweeted. The voyeur meets Twitter. This next one should be on everyones list. It’s a black list of Twitter spammers called the Twitter Blacklist
So you’re on the go and not sure when you need to be somewhere to receive the package that is being sent via UPS or Fedex, well now you can track them using Twitter and @Trackthis, This one might be my fave.
Sales people unite! Salestwit seems to have potential, though it did lock up on me initially but that might be because its behind an SSL? But hey anything that can arm the sales person out there with ammo to close the deal, right?
twi8r translates text message shorthand to English and vice versa and let’s you post immediately to Twitter. Moby Picture lets you add postings to your Twitter and Flickr account from your mobile phone, email or from the web, including pictures! All postings to this platform are automatically also placed in your Twitter account with a tinyurl, directing to the posting photo. For Flickr you can automatically add tags as well.
Similarly, Snaptweet allows you to send your Flickr photos to Twitter. Now Tweeetwhatyoueat is like having your peeps check out what your eating and it also helps you manage what you eat. It’s your daily food diary It answers the question – what did you have to eat today?
This next one is a total time killer but hey sometimes when your’re doing nothing, it might be just what you need! Straw Poll Now fills that void.
This twiiter app is hilarious. Some if it I can agree with but essentially its suck search app. IN other words, search for things that suck. Ifsuck
Wanna twitter like a pirate? Aye Matey then ye will be wanting to check out Post Like a Pirate
Twitthis has a definite niche so you’ll want to add it to the list. When visitors to your website click on the TwitThis button or link, it takes the URL of the webpage and creates a shorter URL using TinyURL. Then visitors can send this shortened URL and a description of the web page to all of their friends on Twitter.
Feed your Innertwitter here. Take notes when you are anywhere with Twitternotes
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