Twitter Business

Twitter in Plain English

2011-12-19T08:58:00.001-08:00

Found this on YouTube, love it and wanted to share

Is Twitter Dead?

2011-03-29T05:13:00.001-07:00

You tell me?

I don't use it nearly as much as I used to and yet in some countries it is more used and popular than Vacebook. Wonder why that is, maybe the 140 character limit, maybe since Facebook is getting to be a teenage wasteland...I dunno...you tell me your thoughts on this one.

Is Twitter Dead?

Where to find Homefront video game

2011-03-28T20:31:00.001-07:00

This was a great video on how to play the Homefront video game

in reference to:

"Where to find Homefront video game"
- Where to find Homefront video game - (view on Google Sidewiki)

Most people don't fully understand the power of social media. Do you?

2010-03-17T11:49:00.001-07:00

Are you actually using twitter for personal reasons or for branding your business and your online presence?

Are you using other social media outlets properly?

Are you aware of Digg's new platform?

The ever changing face of Facebook?

Do you stumble....or have no idea what that is?

Do you use online tools that are cutting edge or week?" (Last week)

What do you guys concentrate on to get noticed?

Let me know!

I love this article on twitter - How Twitter Can Increase Your Affiliate Checks

2009-08-08T09:10:00.001-07:00

Every now and then an article catches my eye. This is a really good article worth sharing.

Enjoy!

How Twitter Can Increase Your Affiliate Checks

Did you know you can increase your affiliate income by using the Web 2.0 tool named Twitter in your marketing and affiliate efforts?

I will come to the "how to make money" part shortly, but first I will tell you a little bit about the phenomenon Twitter, in case you haven't heard about it before or are unsure of exactly what's going on.

Imagine the coffee machine or lunch restaurant at your workplace. The place most people meet up and share both gossip and work discussions. Then you have an understanding of what twitter is about. It's a gathering point for a lot of people online. It's a dialog between people and as you will discover shortly it opens fantastic opportunities both socially and for business. And you don't need a website, blog or marketing funds. It's all free.

So how do you make money from Twitter? As you soon will see links are a big and natural part of the conversations going on in Twitter. People are also much more inclined to click your links in Twitter than for example in email marketing, links on websites or blogs. And it will also take you very little time to write your Twitter messages. I spend about a minute to write a twitter message.

So, I just told you why you can make money. Now let's look at the how...

Step 1, sign up to twitter. Go to twitter.com and create a new account. This will take you a couple of seconds.

Step 2, sign up to a bunch of twitters. You find Twitters in twitter. The process is very simple and you will understand it as soon as you have tried. The easiest way to find interesting Twitters are through people that are already authorities in your marketplace and other interest areas. Authors, bloggers and so on.

Twitters you may find interesting to follow: @gillberg, @colligan, @SoftwareGuide (this is an example of a business twitter with messages related to software).

My initial tests suggest you can get a ratio about one to 5, e.g. for every 5 people you follow one will follow you. And if you follow me, I will follow you ;-)

Step 3, after signing up and subscribing to a few Twitters it's time to set up your account. For people to sign up to follow you it's important that you have a short bio and if you have a website or blog, include a link too.

This should help you get a higher ratio of followers and the followers will also be more targeted. Say you are interested in affiliate marketing. If likeminded people see you in Twitter and check out your bio they are more likely to subscribe to your Twitter messages.

When setting up the account I recommend you use a picture of yourself. This will make you more trustworthy and human.

Step 4, listen to the communication. Twittering is pretty straight forward process, but it's good to get a feel for the general communication.

And finally, step 5 -- time to start twittering.

Some Twitter tips.

* Be personal. Tell people a little bit about yourself, this will make you more human and trustworthy.
* Use mystique to get the click. For example; Check this out: [link], Wow, this is cool: [link] and so on. I think you get the picture.
* When it's appropriate, interact with other Twitters using the reply button.
* Share valuable information, if you spam you will end up without anyone reading your posts pretty soon.
* Don't talk about yourself too much.
* Use tracking for your links. Use klikdeal (klikdeal.com) for example to set up your twitter links. This will pretty soon give you an overview of what is being clicked and what's not. Avoid tinyurl as this doesn't give you tracking capabilities.

Looking forward to see your Twitters and click your affiliate links. A big thanks goes out to Paul Colligan for introducing me to twitter.

About the guy who wrote it - Peter Gillberg is a Software Marketing veteran running the blog http://www.softwaremarketingsecrets.com/ you can hear his twitter at http://twitter.com/gillberg

Twitter in Plain English

2009-07-27T05:14:00.000-07:00

Good video about twitter.

How to Use Twitter for Internet Marketing

2009-07-05T09:28:00.000-07:00

Twitter is all over the place and if you have ever wondered how to use Twitter for internet marketing you are not alone. Twitter has taken the world by storm with the ability to keep tens of millions of people connected at anytime day or night 365 days a year. That kind of reach is powerful and as much fun as it is following your favorite people wherever they are going and knowing what they are doing at any given second, that power can translate into sales.

If you are running or thinking about getting involved in an online business then knowing how to use Twitter for internet marketing can make your business soar. The nature of Twitter is perfect for marketing your online business because of the speed at which you can get your message out to literally millions of people. Just like any social networking application Twitter gives you the ability to launch a viral marketing campaign right from your laptop or even PDA device. That is something never before seen in the world of marketing on or offline. This method of marketing has changed the way the entire globe does business.

Knowing how to use Twitter for internet marketing means knowing how and why viral marketing works. In a nutshell, the theory is you send a tweet out to your friend's list regarding something you are doing at that moment in your online business day. Then they will send a tweet out to their list and so on and son until pretty soon thousands of people are seeing your message. Out of those thousands of people you are pretty much guaranteed that a good portion of them will answer whatever call to action you presented in your tweet, like visit my website or something to that effect. Out of those people being called to action there is a good chance someone will buy your service or product, or in the case of affiliate marketing, visit your affiliates' sites.

One thing to keep in mind in how to use Twitter for internet marketing is that because of the viral character, you want to keep your message fresh and frequent. Viral marketing tends to die down on a per message basis so that is why you want to make your content interesting to keep people's attention. All in all it's one of the most effective means of conducting internet marketing.

About A .Causey

To get your message out directly in front of your prospects you will need to consider using Twitter for your marketing. We all know how popular Twitter has become and numbers don't lie. Her are 2 great resources to begin using Twitter the proper way. Twitter Turbo Generator!

What Is The Definition Of Twitter?

2009-07-01T06:27:00.001-07:00

With 4 to 5 million registered users, and close to 20 million page views per day, one would think that people know the answer to the question “what is the definition of Twitter?”

No.

The question “what is the definition of Twitter” is still shrouded in mystery. Many people know what Twitter is, but almost no one knows what Twitter really means. It is doubtful that even Twitter’s founder, Jack Dorsey, knows what Twitter means.

However, we can make intelligent guesses based on what we know right now, given Twitter’s amazing popularity which it has gained in such a short period of time.

The philosophy behind Twitter is that it intends to become the SMS of the internet. Given the popularity of cellular phone-based text messaging and the ever-growing impatience of internet users who have become somewhat spoiled by the digital speed by which information is conveyed these days, it would be fair to guess that Twitter wanted to create something that will force people to send messages like SMS and readers to read messages like SMS. What is the definition of Twitter? Well, “SMS for the internet” is pretty close.

These messages are supposed to be short, like a bird’s tweet – a fleeting chirp that is as fleeting as the wind.

A bird’s tweet.

Tweeter.

Twitter.

It comes as no surprise that Twitter messages are called “tweets” as well.

Is this the answer to the question “what is the definition of Twitter?” Perhaps. We will never know for certain. Perhaps there is no real answer to the said query. But it is, by far, the most plausible answer that we can come up with.

But what is the definition of Twitter in a marketer’s perspective? Alas, that is a question that is perfectly answerable with definitiveness.

Twitter is an amazing tool that can act like a mailing list. Amass a lot of followers, and you can follow up on them en masse whenever you have something to share or promote. Your read rate will be higher considering the shorter – and more readable – nature of your messages. And if your read rate is high, your conversion rate should follow suit.

Twitter is an amazing tool that can help you brand yourself or your business. Send messages conveying your thoughts so that your followers will get to know you better. Share every achievement that your business will receive so that your followers will know that your enterprise is a credible one.

Twitter is an amazing tool that can actually serve as your customer support system. Transform it into a real time FAQ, or even as a technical support service.

Given the fact that your Twitter following can be equal in value to your mailing list, you can likewise use the former as leverage for those big ticket joint ventures (JVs).

Much like how speculators buy and sell domains, you can buy and sell Twitter accounts. Currently, big companies are quickly realizing the marketing potentials of Twitter, and if you own the Twitter account name that they need, they may buy it from you for a high price.

What is the definition of Twitter?

For many marketers, it means one thing: a virtual gold mine!

About The Author
Samantha Milner is a well-known Internet Marketing expert and the author of 24 Hour Twitter Expert:

Head over to http://www(dot)24hourtwitterexpert.com to grab your FREE copy now!

Twitter Me This - 25 Twitter Resources You Don't Know, But Should Be Using

2009-06-28T07:09:00.000-07:00

Twitter is rapidly becoming one the most popular social networks on Earth! For the newcomer to the growing network, the website can be actually a little overwhelming. Even for some of the Twitter veterans, there are numerous too Twitter resources that can help you have a great micro-blogging experience.

Here are 25 great Twitter Resources You Don't Know, But Should Be Using!

1. TwitWall: Using TwitWall allows users to embed their favorite videos and widgets, upload your photos, mp3 music or podcasts. Just the kind of stuff to keep your followers following (fans cheering, or clients calling). If you can't Tweet it in 140 characters or less, Twitwall is the resource for you.

2. TwtTrip:Where will you go next? Share your travel plans with your tweeple! Connect with others who may be travelling to the same city, or even in the same airport.

3. Bubble Tweet: Say "Hello" To Your Followers With A BubbleTweet Video! This nifty website allows you to greet followers with a short video clip that you upload. With millions of people using Twitter each day, this one is relatively unknown, with only about 633 people currently using the service.

4. Tweet3: Whether you've got one Twitter account or manage multiple accounts (friends, business, another language - the reasons are plentiful). You can easily click between profiles and customize colors for each account. Tweet3 is utilizing Google's powerful charting and map APIs to bring you useful data about your Twitter accounts and URLs that you share between accounts.

5. TwTip: TwTip created a bot which fetches all new tweets and picks the best valuable tips for you. With its simple interface, users can easily find tweet tips in any subject, like Photoshop, Macintosh, health tips and recipe tips.

6. Twittrans: OK, I really couldn't think of a good use for this Twitter resource at the time of creating this post, but this website is an actual fast human translation of your tweets directly from your twitter account by sending (Reply message) to @twitrans with the source and target languages and the message to translate. Text will be translated by freelance translators around the world, translation service 24/7 in all major languages. Wow, it doesn't get any better than that. Now you just have to find a reason to use it!

7. TwtPoll: Twtpoll is an easy to use survey/ poll twitter app. Type in a 140 chars question, type in multiple choice answers, and share it in social networks, or embed it into your blog or website.

8. Tweetree: Tweetree puts your Twitter stream in a tree so you can see the posts people are replying to in context. In addition, the website pulls in some of your external content including twitpic photos, YouTube videos and more, so that you can see them right in your stream without having to click through every link your friends post to Twitter.

9. My Tweet Space: There are numerous websites available that can allow you to create a personalized background on Twitter. However, if you ever wanted to completely brand your Twitter Profile but don't know how, MyTweetSpace allows you to easily create your branded Twitter background.

10. Twilert: As if you already didn't get enough mail in your inbox, here's another inbox filler, but this tool can email you valuable information about you or your company. Twilert is a Twitter application that lets you receive regular email updates of tweets containing your brand, product, service, well any keyword you like really.

11. Split Tweet: Splitweet allows Twitter users to create a list of accounts and distribute their tweets, choosing their release in one or more of their accounts. Additionally, users can also follow your following tweets from all of your managed accounts in Splitweet.

12. Twistory: Users are able to add their Twitter backlog feed to their favorite calendar application and browser through their personal Twitter diary.

13. iTweet: iTweet 2 Web has a built-in auto-refresh, search and hashtags. Full follow, block, notifications features. With this app, users can view Tweeters bio, location, and URL inline with tweets.

14. Tweet Take: Tweetake allows you to back-up your followers, people you are following, favorite tweets, and tweets in general with just one click of your mouse.

15. Twitly: Twitly allows Twitter users to separate the people they follow into groups. Example groups include "chatty", "friends", "co-workers", "journalists" , "celebrities", and more. This makes finding and reading Tweets from the people that matter most to you much easier.

16. Tweenky: Tweenky is a web-based micro-blogging ("tweet") client that currently supports Twitter. The Tweenky main feature is the Integration with Twitter search (formerly Summarize) to allow users to find & track content as it flows through the "Twitterverse".

17. TwiZon: A combination between Twitter and Amazon, Twitzon lists all the tweets that reference Amazon deals so you can find out what's popular and hot right now from Twitter users.

18.Twitzu: If you are making plans to have a meet up, get together or party, you can blast the news out to your Twitter followers. Twitzu creates an event standard for Twitter. Using the site, Twitterers can create an event page for their meet up, party, get together etc. and send it out to their followers who can then RSVP with just a click.

19. Feed Tweeter: Feedtweeter is a little service that allows you to link Twitter to your other activities. Basically it's a system that keeps track of an RSS feed and processes any new items that appear.

20. Chirrup: is comment system which uses Twitter as a data store. People send Twitter replies to you about your site. Then, Chirrup fetches all of the replies from Twitter, and sorts them by URL so you can have a comment feed for each page in your site. You can put the comments wherever you want them, and style them however you please.

21. TwitterFone: TwitterFone is free service that lets you update your Twitter feed using your voice from any mobile or cell phone. You call it, speak your tweet, and hang up. A short while later, your tweet will be posted on Twitter.

22. My Tweet Map: Enter your Twitter name and password, and see the messages from those you follow pop up on a Google Map. You can also update your status right from this application.

23. Tweet Scan: Tweet Scan is a real-time search engine for Twitter posts. Just enter the term plus a user name (optional), and the system will scan Twitter to show you the results.

24. Twitdir: TwitDir enables you to find statistics of the Top 100 followers, Top 100 followed, Top 100 favoriters and Top 100 updaters. It also works as a search engine for Twitter users, which mean you can find any user information by searching the users name.

25. TwootBall: Where Twitter Meets NFL Football . Posting on Twootball is simple, to post something regarding the New York Jets, just add #jets to your tweet, and your message will appear immediately on Twootball. I guess this would have been a great resource during the Super Bowl, for all those trash talkers! Go Steelers!

Of course, there are a lot more Twitter resources out there, some may even be your favorite, but this list of unknowns should have you dancing for joy and thanking God you are on Twitter.

And now we invite you to find out more about the Twitter social network by visiting our blog at http://www.thefreelancesquad.com/blog and by following us on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/freelancesquad.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tamara_S_Johnson

Twitter ideas on monetization

2009-06-21T07:07:00.000-07:00

Guest Post:

Twitter Monetization: How to Make Money With Twitter

Everyone seems to like twitter these days which is a really cool way of staying in touch with your customers, friends & colleagues. Basically twitter has presented itself as a micro-blogging platform where a user can shout out anything they want to his ‘followers’ within the limit of 140 characters.

I have just started twittering since last month (*yes I’m pretty late starter!) because initially by looking at it for the very first time, I couldn’t find any ‘value’ that it has for my work & my social life. However after reading a convincing post by Aaron Wall, I thought of giving twitter a try. Since then onwards I have been using twitter all day long, just to keep track of some of the leading experts in the Internet & Search Marketing field as well as to have some ‘fun’ with my online buddies.

Anyway the whole point of doing this post is to highlight some of the key monetization elements that an individual can explore using twitter. I assume you have the basic knowledge of what twitter is and how it works, so I will directly deep into some ideas which can make you earn money from your twitter.

make money with Twitter

* Direct Advertisement - If a lot of people are following you in ‘twitter’ or in other words if you have a ‘wide reach’ to a large number of twitter users, you can probably look into direct advertisements for monetization.

* Recommendation – You can recommend a particular product or service on behalf of your advertisers & peruse your followers to take an ‘action’.
* Promotion – You can help your advertiser to promote a new product or service to your twitter followers.

It works pretty much like niche marketing because, say if you are an Internet Marketer, It is very likely that most of your followers in Twitter are also from the same area which is why they have ‘followed’ you in the first place.
# Affiliate Marketing – I was listening to Shoemoney’s podcast yesterday where he talked about how affiliate marketing can actually be blended within Twitter.

* Affiliate Links – If you are recommending a Product or a Service to your followers, you can always embed your affiliate link in your tweet. (e.g. Using a service like TinyUrl.com)
* Sales Pages – Instead of taking your followers to another website using your affiliate link, you might just want to promote your own product & services and sell them directly via your sales / landing page.

This is an area where every one can really look into. For instance say when one of your followers is asking for suggestion to choose a web host, you can always suggest him the best one from your experience but at the same time use your affiliate link which can earn you some quick cash.
# Paid Review– This is pretty much like the direct advertisement, however the only difference would be, instead of blindly suggesting a product or a service to someone, you can actually do some ‘paid reviews’.

* Product – You can do a paid review about a particular product (e.g. Internet Marketing software)
* Services – You can do a paid review about services that your advertiser offers. (E.g. SEO Services, Web Hosting Services etc.)
* People – You can also do a paid review about people. For instance, maybe you can review someone’s web design skills, or you may promote someone’s ‘twitter’ account for instance.

# Sponsored Contest– An advertiser may want to run a contest via a popular twitter user to get feedback about his product & services or just to create some brand awareness.

* Feedback – Example - “What New features would you like to see in Product X”?
* Brand Awareness– Example- “Describe product X in 140 Characters” or “Tell us why you like product X within 140 Characters”. The best answer can be given a cool prize sponsored by the advertiser.

# Sponsored Advertisements– There isn’t must difference between this & the direct advertisement. However when I was creating the mind map, this ‘branch’ did somehow pop in, so have decided to include it. I guess the main difference would be that all the tweets which are actually sponsored advertisements can get a predefined prefix which will help your followers to identify them as ads.

* Auto Ads – There can be a mechanism or a ‘new’ 3rd party service which can actually help you to distribute or Tweet the “Ads” when you are ‘not’ tweeting or say when you are idle. An ad interval can also be set so that your frequent sponsored ads don’t annoy your followers.
* Sponsored Actions– Well this might sound like a weird idea but, I feel that some aggressive marketers might like it. Example – “I Love #Google. Re-tweet this message and WIN yourself a GPhone”. Since a hash-tag is used, all the massages can be tracked using that and a lucky winner can actually be picked from the pool.

Some of you may think that all these ‘monetizing’ options can actually turn twitter into an ‘evil’ place and slowly reduce its value. But let’s face it, if you aren’t fully utilizing all the areas of twitter today, somebody else will – tomorrow. But of course you should set a ‘limit’ on how many ‘such tweets’’ you are going to do on a day, so that your followers still consider you as a valuable contact rather than a commercial junkie.

So that’s all folks, if you like my article, you are welcome to add me in your Twitter - @saadkamal. Happy Twittering!

How To Use Twitter And Social Media Marketing To Explode Your Online Profits

2009-06-11T16:23:00.000-07:00

t’s not surprising that social media has become so popular in so short a time. Not only is it a source of entertainment for most people, it is also the newest strategy for acquiring customers for businesses. And with hot new tools like Twitter, social media marketing has only become more progressive and popular!

What Is Twitter?

In case you’re not familiar with Twitter, it is a social media tool that allows people to know what their fellow twitterers (people using twitter) are doing at this very moment.

Are you getting ready for bed? Put that on Twitter! Are you buying a new couch or writing a report on the effects of social media marketing? Put that on Twitter! Are you throwing a birthday party for your golden retriever? Well, you can put that on Twitter as well. There are no boundaries as to what you can put on Twitter. In Twitter, even the most mundane updates about your life can be pretty liberating.

Sounds simple, right? Perhaps, it is this simplicity that has made Twitter quite a sensation on the Internet. There’s also something amusing about knowing what other people are doing and letting them know your own business as well. This combination of fun and simplicity is what ultimately appeals to Twitter fans.

Applying Twitter In Business

If you’re business-minded, then you probably already have more than a few ideas on how to make this social media marketing tool work for you. Having a Twitter account allows you to inform your clients and would-be clients the progress in your company. You’re not putting up an ad every week (because that tends to be annoying). However, you get the chance to share with them what’s happening to your company’s products, people, tools, etc. right now.

Twitter, unlike MySpace and Facebook, poses an advantage for new and advanced marketers. As an efficient social media marketing tool, Twitter allows you to build a giant list of followers. It allows your clients and subscribers to see what you’re doing right now. It gives them access to your immediate profile and permits you to share your ideas with other twitterers. All free of charge.

How Twitter Can Explode Your Profits

While many people have other purposes and values for the use of the free service, the marketer can use Twitter to jumpstart a list of followers that can grow into thousands.

If you’re someone who sells used cars, you can use Twitter to attract members who are interested in automobiles. When a new shipment comes in, you can use Twitter to announce that the latest Ford model has arrived. Or if you’re having a sale, you can use Twitter to let everybody know about it.

These followers are the next best thing to customers. If they haven’t bought anything from you yet, then you can rest assured that they will be buying something soon. As long as you keep providing them something nice to look forward to, they will always be enticed to purchase something from your company.

Think of it as fishing. You already have the fish interested in your bait. All you have to do is wait for the fish to bite. According to quantcast.com, Twitter reaches about 6.1 million U.S. people every month. This social media tool has also reached other countries and is hugely popular in Japan. In fact, there are other Twitter-like applications that have popped up due to its insane fame!

Despite the huge popularity of Twitter, it is not a disorganized system that doesn’t have any limits. For example, you can only send 1,000 updates, 100 API requests and send 250 direct messages each day. And while there is no limit to the people who can follow you, the same freedom doesn’t apply vice-versa.

The maximum number of people you can follow is limited to 2,000. In Twitter-speak, to follow means to receive Twitter updates. This limit will only be lifted if you manage to attract more than 2,000 followers to your account.

According to Twitter, this is done to prevent SPAM users from adding up into their system and to prevent abuse from all current members.

It’s not that difficult to attract more followers into your account. In the long run, this will only make your Twitter account more meaningful because of the effort you’ve put into it.

The beauty at this stage is that once you are at such a level, it’s easier to attract new followers into your account. The benefits from taking such steps are acquiring your own list of eager followers (in which you can pitch your own products and services); and more importantly, gaining new business contacts.

Other Social Media Marketing Methods

There are other methods of social media marketing available for your use. Twitter isn’t the only way to enhance your business and get a constant flow of leads.

Other methods you can explore include:

1) Blogs

2) Community forums

3) Social networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace, and LinkedIn.

4) Video-sharing sites such as Youtube, Metacafe, Google videos, Yahoo videos, and AOL videos.

5) Content sharing sites such as Squidoo, Hubpages, Wetpaint, Qassia, and Google Knol.

These days, you shouldn’t just limit yourself to one thing. With the Internet as vast as it is, you should use every opportunity to make new contacts and establish yourself. Besides, think of all the new things you can learn from interacting with other people online!

Leave comments on your choice blogs and participate in forum discussions that allow for signature files after every post. Make informative videos and upload them to video-sharing sites. Explode your list of contacts through social networking sites. Share your knowledge and be recognized as an authority by submitting your content to content-sharing sites.

Not only will these help you establish credibility, you probably won’t even have to worry or stress about making money in the future. Remember that social media marketing, like any other marketing methods, works if you work it! Now like many of our mentors say – get to work!
Jeremy Gislason

Jeremy Gislason is co-founder of the world's leading client and content management system, the professional's choice all-in-one "create and manage your own membership sites" e-commerce solution: http://www.memberspeed.com

100 Twitter Tools to Help You Achieve All Your Goals

2009-06-01T11:17:00.000-07:00

This is not my article but I had to share it. Credit goes to Social Blog. This is a GREAT blog and I highly recommend you check them out here.

Twitter has become an incredible tool not just for communication, but for improving your life. College students can use it to expand their social circle, promote their side business, keep their coursework organized, and more. Whether you want to achieve your Twitter goals, or just use it as a tool to achieve others, these twitter tools will help you get there.

Twitter Analysis

If your goal is to be popular and influential on Twitter, be sure to check out these tools that will tell you how you’re doing.

Twitter Grader: Learn your Twitter grade, your local Twitter Elite, and find new people to follow through Twitter Grader.

Twitterholic: Check out the top Twitter users and find out your Twitter stats on Twitterholic.

TweetStats: TweetStats offers a graphical analysis of your Twitter stats.

Twitter Friends: Carefully measure your Twitter conversations using Twitter Friends.

Twinfluence: Twinfluence will measure your Twitter influence based on reach, velocity, and social capital.

Tweetwasters: Find out how much time you and other users waste on Twitter.

Tweet-Rank: Learn about the quality of your tweets by finding out which ones won or lost followers.

Mr. Milestone: Get a tweet when you reach various milestones using this Twitter tool.

Retweetrank: Find out how many retweets you and other Twitter users have through this service.

Information Gathering

With these tools, you and gather information for market research, blog posts, and your own simple curiosity.

Tweetbeep: With Tweetbeep, you can set up alerts that will help you keep track of keywords on Twitter.

@myflightinfo: Use @myflightinfo to stay updated on your flight’s status.

Twitterverse: Check out archived timelines and tweets through Twitterverse.

Twitscoop: Twitscoop shares what’s hot on Twitter at any given moment.

Twitbuzz: Twitbuzz tracks the latest conversations as well as popular Twitter links.

StrawPoll: Use StrawPoll to make sharing your opinion as easy as sending an @reply.

Retweetist: This service ranks the hottest links being retweeted on Twitter.

Monitter: Get real time keyword monitoring on Twitter from Monitter.

TweetNews: TweetNews ranks stories based on the amount of related tweets.

TwitterBuzz: TwitterBuzz will tell you what’s being linked to the most on Twitter.

Tweetscan: Set up Tweetscan to make sure you don’t miss any @replies, and to get alerted of your search queries.

Network Building & Management

Find more relevant Twitter users with the help of these tools.

Twitter Local: With this service, you can see tweets from Twitter users in a specific location.

Twubble: Twubble will expand your Twitter bubble, picking out people you may like to follow.

MyCleenr: Sort your friends by their last tweets, and you can get rid of the inactive and useless accounts you’re following.

Follow Cost: This tool will tell you how much effort it takes to follow someone.

Tweepler: Use Tweepler to organize your tweeps based on whether you’re following them or not.

Just Tweet It: Find Tweeple, tools, Twitter bots and more through this directory.

TweetWheel: TweetWheel will help you discover which of your Twitter friends know each other.

SocialToo: SocialToo will help you keep track of all of the people who have followed or unfollowed you.

Twitoria: Reduce your clutter on Twitter by finding your friends that haven’t tweeted in a long time.

TwitDir: With TwitDir, you’ll be able to search for people, and exploring categories including top followers and updaters.

Who Should I Follow?: Using this site, you can get good recommendations for Tweeps to follow.

Nearbytweets: Learn about all of the Twitter users in a specific area with the help of Nearbytweets.

Twellow: Find Twitter users in a specific industry using this service.

Mr. Tweet: Mr. Tweet is a personal networking assistant for Twitter, helping you find relevant followers.

Qwitter: Qwitter will help you manage your network by sending an alert when a person unfollows you.

Twitter Management

Save your time and cull your Twitter list with the help of these tools.

Summize: Retrieve information on Twitter quickly to search Twitter in real time.

Tweet O’Clock: Trying to reach someone? Tweet O’Clock will help you find the best time to get their attention.

Just Signal: Set up a filter using Just Signal to get only the tweets that discuss the keywords you’d like to read about.

TweepSearch: Put your Twitter network to good use and search your followers for specific parameters.

Friend or Follow: Manage your Twitter contacts and find out who’s not following you back through Friend or Follow.

TwitResponse: TwitResponse makes it easy for you to schedule the delivery of your tweets ahead of time.

TwitterSnooze: Put the pause button on a particular user for a while with Twitter Snooze.

Twitterless: Get notified when someone stops following you with Twitterless.

Twilert: Track specific keywords to receive alerts for using Twilert.

Tweetdeck: Tweetdeck has a groups function that will help you more efficiently follow the people you really want to listen to.

Twalala: Put the mute button on certain people and topics for a while if you are receiving lots of updates you’re not really interested in.

Sharing Tools

Promote your business, share photos, and more using these Twitter tools.

Tweetburner: Use Tweetburner to share links, and you can track their usage.

Twitpic: Twitpic makes it easy to take mobile phone photos and share them using your Twitter account.

TwitterHawk: Get targeted marketing on Twitter through TwitterHawk.

Acamin: Acamin makes it easy to share files on Twitter with your followers.

Glue: Post links to books, movies, restaurants and more on Twitter through Glue.

Ping.fm: This service will update all of your social networks at once.

TweeTube: TweeTube makes it easy to share videos on Twitter.

twiggit: Use this automated service to share the articles you digg on Twitter.

Twisten.fm: Share what you’re listening to on Twitter through Twisten.fm.

Organization & Productivity

These Twitter tools will make your life a bit more streamlined.

Twittercal: Link your Twitter account and Google Calendar to easily keep up with your events and appointments.

Timer: Use Timer to get reminders about tasks through your Twitter account.

TwitterNotes: Organize your notes using Twitter with TwitterNotes.

Remember the Milk: Use Remember the Milk on Twitter to update your to do list.

Tweetake: Tweetake will back up your Twitter timeline for archiving and more.

Nozbe: Nozbe makes it easy to add and update your to do list on Twitter.

Toodledo: This popular to do list app integrates nicely with Twitter.

TrackThis: Send TrackThis your tracking number, and you’ll get Twitter messages every time there’s a change in location.

Joint Contact: Get project management productivity on Twitter using Joint Contact.

Tempo: This time tracking tool allows you to send in updates from Twitter.

Tweet Later: Tweet Later offers a great way to set up alerts, schedule tweets, send thank you DMs, and more.

OutTwit: OutTwit will make it easy for you to use Twitter inside of Outlook.

Jott: Jott makes it easy for you to tweet without ever having to type, transcribing your voice message to Twitter.

Life Tools

With these tools, you can work on relationships, life tracking, and more.

MyMileMarker: Keep track of your mileage with info sent via Twitter every time you fill up.

21Tweets: 21Tweets offers personal coaching on Twitter.

TwtTRIP: Organize your travel plans and find other Twitter travelers on your way with TwtTRIP.

Tweet Answers: Twitter Answers makes it easy to ask questions and get answers on Twitter.

Twtvite: Twtvite is a simple event organizer that will help you create a tweetup.

Vacatweet: Set up an autoresponder for your Twitter account with Vacatweet.

plusplusbot: Share when someone goes out of their way to help you, or otherwise make your feelings known using plusplusbot.

TrackDailyGoals: Use this site and the #dailygoals hashtag to keep track of your goals every day.

ConnectTweet: Put the voices of your group or business together through ConnectTweet.

Tweeteorology: Find tweets about the weather in any location through Tweeteorology.

DreamTweet: Keep a reminder of your dreams and nightmares, and follow the dreams of others through DreamTweet.

Business & Finance

Use these tools to improve your business and finances through Twitter.

Chipin: If you’re raising funds on Twitter, make use of Chipin to set a goal and let your supporters track the progress of the campaign.

Xpenser: You can Twitter your expenses to Xpenser and they will be recorded for you.

Twittertise: Schedule your tweets and track their clickthroughs with this app designed for Twitter advertising.

TwtQpon: Create simple Twitter coupons for your business with TwtQpon.

CheapTweet: Get all of the deals, sales, coupons and more being discussed on Twitter through CheapTweet.

Tipjoy: Like Chipin, Tipjoy offers a way to create social payments for your cause, content, or people.

SalesTwit: Get contact management for Twitter with the help of SalesTwit.

Tweet What You Spend: Track your cash in a really effective way using Tweet What You Spend.

StockTwits: StockTwits shares the investment discussions on Twitter in real time.

Health

Track your health using these Twitter tools.

Qwitter: Update Qwitter to shame yourself into quitting smoking.

TweetPlot: Use TweetPlot to chart your food and fitness statistics.

Tweetwhatyoueat: Keep a food diary to track what you’re eating every day using Tweetwhatyoueat.

gtFtr: Use the gtFtr tool to record your exercise activity on Twittr.

SugarStats: Track, monitor, and share your blood sugar through Twitter with SugarStats.

FoodFeed: This Twitter-based food log makes it easy for you to track what you’re eating.

Blogging

Bring your blog life and Twitter life together with these tools.

Add to Any: Get your posts shared on Twitter by using Add to Any on your WordPress blog.

TwitThis: Make use of this plugin to send Twitter messages about your blog post.

MyTwitter: Use the MyTwitter plugin to display your Twitter status on WordPress.

Twitpress: Twitpress will send out a Tweet every time you post a new blog entry.

TwitterCounter: With this plugin, you can display the number of followers you have on Twitter.

TwitterFeed: Announce your blog post on Twitter with a customized message using TwitterFeed.

Thanks to Kelly Sonora, OnlineBestColleges.com

Secret Twitter Tricks for Newbies & Pros

2009-05-21T06:55:00.000-07:00

1. Choose a client software

Most individuals install a client software program (a way to send and receive Twitter “tweets”) on their computer. Here are a few choices Twitter shows on their download page, along with other popular clients:

Digsby IM + Email + Social Networks

Twitteroo Fast Tweeting, a few nice settings

Twitbin Uses Firefox Browser - plugin

Spaz Mac/Windows/Linux

Snitter Mac/Windows (Linux in the works)

Twhirl Mac/Windows (Connects to multiple accounts - very popular)

TweetDeck Mac/Windows/Linux (my personal favorite)

Twitterrific Mac (Application that lets you read/post “tweets”)

————-
2. Twitter Shortcuts

Currently I subscribe to a few news groups. However, there has been an occasion where I just didn’t wish to receive any “tweets” (text messages) from Twitter for a short period of time on my cell phone. The following commands will allow you to take full control of Twitter from your cell phone.

Type the following commands into your SMS device (for the newbie, here is how you can use your cell phone to command Twitter in a pinch):

1. Text Twitter (with the phone number of 40404)

2. Enter the following commands as a txt message, and send the message with your command of choice.

OFF: turns phone notifications off, to silence direct messages too, send ‘off’ again
ON: turns phone notifications on

SLEEP: turns phone notifications off
WAKE: turns phone notifications on

FOLLOW username: turns on notifications for a specific individual
LEAVE username : turns off notifications for a specific individual

D username message: sends a private message to a specific individual, but they must be following you to receive it (D joesmith Hello World)
@username: sends a public message to a specific individual (@joesmith Hellow World)

WHOIS username: returns bio info for a Twitter member
GET username : returns the last update from a specific individual

FAVE username : marks the last update of a user as a favorite
TRACK word : returns updates from the Twitter community containing the tracked word
TRACKING: returns a list of words you’re tracking
UNTRACK word : stops tracking a word
UNTRACK all : stops tracking all words

INVITE 4155225678: invites a friend via SMS/text message to join Twitter **(use their phone number with no spaces or dashes)**

STATS: returns statistics with your number of “followers” and “following”

————
3. How to Backup Twitter

On July 24, 2008, Twitter lost many users following/followers. Twitter.com states “We’ve restored 99.6% of following/followers that disappeared. numbers & profile pics in sidebar may not be accurate until tomorrow afternoon 07:37 PM July 24, 2008 from web.”

I felt a large pit in my stomach, knowing I had lost many individuals I followed, and could not recall all of them to “search” their user name again. Many wonderful individuals were stumbled upon.

After much research on the Internet I located two choices.

If you do/don’t use MS Outlook, here is very good reason to use it. There is a plug-in tool called “OutTwit” which allows you to “tweet” with MS Outlook. The benefit of using MS Outlook for your tweeting needs out weighs the desire to not use MS Outlook. Here’s a quick explanation why. Outlook downloads the usernames you correspond with daily from Twitter.com (the same way e-mail works). This pulls the information from Twitter’s server to your hard drive. Now you have the usernames stored in MS Outlook that you correspond with, if Twitter happens to lose our information again.

The best I saved for last. The brilliant Twitter member vkoser, posted a wonderful step-by-step guide on how to download your “following” and “followers” directly from Twitter, and export them into an MS Excel file, for safe keeping. Thank you vkoser!

Great artice courtesy of this blog here

Powerful Twitter tools for traffic

2009-05-03T07:39:00.000-07:00

This is a great article I read the other day from an online friend, The Traffic Gur.

I had to share it with all of you. Before I post the article however, after you read it make sure you get over to his site and follow him, he really is great.

Here it is.

Traffic Rank of Twitter in alexa ranking is now 54 and hope it will decrease more because Twitter is becoming more Popular now.Adding your Twitter profile link to other social Networking sites will brings you traffic such as facebook,Blogcatalog ,friendfeed,linkedin,mybloglog,plaxo and tumblr etc.., I listed some twitter tools which helps to enhance twitter more.

1.Twitterfeed is a service which will automatically twitter any post that you publish on your blog and you can get some followers and visitors from it.

2.Retweet is nothing but when you come across an interesting tweet and you want to republish it so that people who follow you can see it too.Add retweet button to your blog posts ,so if any visitor like your post ,they retweet it and their followers can see and you can get some traffic.

3.Twittercounter make visitors get attention which shows that how many people are following you in Twitter.Get the code from TwitterCounter.com and edit the username with your Twitter profile name and add it on your blog, website and in forum signatures.

4.Tweetbeep helps you to get Twitter alerts in e-mail with often updates when any conversations mention you and those who’s tweeting your site or blog.

5.Twitterholic shows the statistics and ranking of Twitter Users and it ranks the most popular twitter users based on the followers and you can check your ranking in twitterholic too.

6.Tweetlater helps you to Schedule Future-Dated Twitter Tweets.

7.TwitResponse is a auto-responder in which you can Setup unlimited messages to be delivered to your twitter page when you want.

8.Socialtoo will help you to keep track of all those Twitter users who followed or unfollowed you.

9.MrTweet is a personal networking assistant which will help you to find your relevant Twitter followers.

10.Whoshouldifollow will helps you to find other interesting people who are similar to those you already follow and then to follow them in twitter.

11.TweetManager helps to setup the Auto Follow, Send Message to Followers, Auto Reply, Auto Post and Tweet RSS Feeds.

12.TwitterKarma can manage your friends,followers and mutual friends and you can un-follow those twitter users who are not following you on twitter.

Article Source

Popularity of Twitter Applications in Youth

2009-05-03T06:36:00.000-07:00

With the passage of time, things have changed and improved. Like in computers character user interface was used but with the popularity of computer, graphic user interface was used. Graphic user interface became so popular because of its application, its user friendly environment and its appearance. Twitter applications are the examples of graphic user interface. Special applications are provided by The Twitter Secret. With these applications, usage of applications become easy and saves lots of time.

Twitter Applications have become very popular in youths. Main reason is these are very attractive and eye catchy. Applications are specifically designed according to youth's environment because maximum young people surf the net most especially social networking websites like twitter, facebook etc.

Twitter Applications are additional features that can be added to the twitter secret. By adding a twitter application to your profile, your public profile information will be shared through the application with its developer, with your friends who receive your updates on twitter.

There are various kinds of applications like computer application which is known as software in your compute. It includes word processing, spreadsheet, internet, browsing, and anti-virus and e-mail software. The entire buzz for the past year has been about social applications, interactive pieces of media that you can install on your Twitter.

Twitter is becoming popular day by day and now it's impossible to escape from twitter. With the usage of it, it's becoming popular and to increase its interactivity various twitter applications are launching in market. Applications like playing games, using stylish fonts in your account, sending flowers to your friend on his/her birthday and so on. The reason of popularity is also 140 microblogging systems which twitter uses. In microblogging, you can send short message to your friend and its character limit is only 140.

Many of twitter applications are written by harmless programming enthusiasts as a bit of fun, but many are also written purely for marketing purposes. Nowadays marketing has become 1st most step of any product. It is the kind of conveying and telling information about the product to the customers. If marketing strategy is good and attractive then no doubts customer will use the product at least for once. It's all about promoting your product to the user and nowadays the main medium of marketing is television and internet. These are the 2 mediums which is most popular and useful nowadays.

Using social networking site is really popular because you can contact to your old buddies through it. That's why people love it while using it. And they try various things on it. For example, if today I have launched twitter application - "make love relations". I assure you while seeing this application maximum user will add this application in your account and start using it. The main motive of any application is to increase popularity among users.

The main motive behind twitter application is to give the facility to the user, to enjoy the website while using it. Many of twitter applications are written by harmless programming enthusiasts as a bit of fun, but many are also written purely for marketing purposes.

About the Author
Pallavi is an executive of Wensil i Technologies.

Kutcher, CNN and Opera...what's the common denominator here?

2009-04-20T12:14:00.001-07:00

The Kutcher/CNN race to a million on top of Oprah showcasing the service on Friday, this probably came close to shutting their server's down :)

The week before the Kutcher/CNN race, Ashton Kutcherhad a huge spike to the tune of roughly 176,000 pageviews, according to online sources. Amazingly last week, they sky rocketed to a whopping 3.2 million!!

CNNbrk (his twitter nemesis) went from 61,000 pageviews to over 900,000.

Then there's Oprah, she did her first tweet last Friday and not overly surprisingly she got over 980,000. But hey it is OPRAH!

It seems celebrities are taking over the twitter world for now...hmmm..I think...naaah....no point changing my account to a fake name lol

Twitter is poised to pretty much blow up traffic wise this month and will likely finish up over 30 million UVs.

Okay this is not a twitter trick or tip....or is it.

Best

More things twitter, tools and tips

2009-04-18T08:18:00.000-07:00

Twitter has been around for a few years now and yet it seems to be taking off like a wild fire only now. Why that is, well to quote the poet "I am not know" ;) what I can tell you is that just from the reaction I have heard and seen it ask become obvious to me that most people see twitter as nothing more than a simple stay in touch tool. I say this from a poll I took from close friends and family members, please don't think I mean the greater populus.

But there is so much you can do with twitter. So much to do and so little time.

Having said that I am going to do a few things over the next few weeks. I am going to write an in depth article every three or four days on certain twitter things. If I repeat one or two please forgive me, after all I am doing this for you guys, my loyal twitter friends and even those of you who follow my blog via the hidden option....I know a few do ;)

Here we go.

Make your twitter profile stand out (above the rest)....I haven't done this myself but I have too much on the go at the moment.

To get started go to your Twitter home page and click on settings at the top.

First and foremost, if you have a web site or blog make sure you set the ‘More Info URL’. This link appears in your profile page and is a do-follow link. Because of Twitter's on going popularity it is seen as good quality and serves as a high quality backlink for you in the BIG G. (Google)

Now we move on to your One Line Bio. You only have 160 characters so make them count, write it as often as you want until it jumps at you, if you love it so will we!

Lastly you can set your Location. I want to know what part of the world you live in.

A final not here is the Protect my Updates section. This just means you grant permission to see who views and who doesn't

A picture says a thousand words. True enough but personally I always advise people to use their own pic. It adds a sense of humanity. For the most part if I see someone I want to follow and the pic is not of them I debate it. I have my reasons.....this is your personal call.

A lot of people argue the avatar, again I don't like it much but it will help you stand out from the rest of the crowd.

If you have profiles on similar sites like Facebook, StumbleUpon to name a few it is a very good idea to use the same pic. Not only does this keep you looking better, it's a hell of a good branding tool since people will become familiar with your face and it helps to build up trust online.

And the final tip for today's episode is TwitterTimer, this is a great tool as it will send you reminders. I love it.

Okay, long article...whew I need a coffee.

See you all in a day or so.

Cheers
Garret

Twitter: Response to two reader questions.

2009-04-17T15:40:00.000-07:00

That's why I blog, I love to help folks out.

Send me some love;)

Tweet Question 1:

What’s the Fail Whale?

When Twitter’s servers get overloaded, all of a sudden you see a picture of a bunch of birds trying to lift a whale out of the water. There is no way the birds will lift the whale, ergo the twitter servers are overloaded.

Grab a coffee, snack etc. It might be a while before you get back, maybe a few minutes to a few hours.

Tweet Question 2:

Twitter HT means Heard Through

If you found out about something through a Twitter user, and you want to let people know you heard it from them thus HT = you Heard it Through them. This is different than RT, because it most likely means you heard it in real life, not over Twitter.

That's it for the Q & A

Oh one more twrick ;)

Twitter Hash Tags (#) :

The point of this without going overboard is anytime someone uses the phrase #dog in their tweet, it will be much easier to find in search.twitter.com than if you just searched for dog, because the word Pdog associates with many things.

Happy Tweeting.

Please digg or stumble if you enjoyed this article.

Thanks

Today's twitter tricks.

2009-04-16T10:57:00.000-07:00

I have mentioned Twitterfeed, but I love it and want new reader's to love it also.

Basically it can take almost any blog and feed it into a Twitter account, so you see new items when you're on Twitter.

Blog-to-Twitter

Twitterfeed can make pretty much any blog into a Twitterbot.

You do need an openid for this service. Simply got to MyOpenId and register.

Twitterfeed is very particular about RSS formatting, but standard blog platforms (Wordpress, Blogger, Typepad, etc.) should generate code it can handle.

Next;

Facebook-to-Twitter

Yes, you can get Facebook updates in Twitter.

This one is personal for how many people you want viewing your tweets. I was using it but I don't anymore. You find it in your facebook settings.

Be warned however, it can cause issues.

If you twitter you NEED Chat catcher

2009-04-15T10:23:00.000-07:00

Blog comments happen everywhere...I was going through my comments and traffic sources when I came across this earlier today and had to share.

Chat Catcher supports Twitter, FriendFeed, and identi.ca, along with any type of blog, and all url-shortening services.

They actually translate short urls back to long urls, so you receive full search engine benefits.

The Chat Catcher process is simple...

1. Install the WordPress Plugin or Blog Script. You can also choose to go Scriptless

2. They will monitor social media services (like Twitter, FriendFeed, and identi.ca) for comments on your blog posts.

3. Captured comments are posted to your blog.

It's free and I love it. Check it out now.

Chat Catcher

Suffering from lack of web traffic?

2009-04-14T10:25:00.000-07:00

Web Traffic Juggernaut is a new site that says it guarantees more web visitors and online advertising with very little effort or cost. So I decided to put it to the test...

My first impression was the site looks professional and clean, with an attractive look and feel. It is easy to read and understand. Joining the site was easy and painless--they do offer 2 upgrade options but they are not required to gain the benefits.

The Members Area is very well laid out and intuitive--I could figure out what to do after only a few minutes and was able to get up & running in less than 5 minutes. Inside the site, you create links and ads--the links you simply enter any URL links you use into the generator and it transforms them into "Juggernaut" links. You create ads for anything you want to promote using the Juggernaut Ad Generator, which is very easy to use. You can create as many links and as many ads as you like. And they are organized in a logical way--links are displayed in the order you create them but also your 5 most recent links appear on the main page for quick reference. Also, since the link generator is the tool you'll use most, it is also right at the top of the main page when you login. Very smart!

After you've created at least 1 link and 1 ad you can start to generate traffic. Just use and promote the new Juggernaut link instead of the original source link you had. Every time the Juggernaut link is clicked, the page loads followed by a small ad window in the lower right corner. It displays 3 ads PLUS an image with your affiliate link that goes back to Juggernaut. So if anyone clicks the Juggernaut image they see the site, and if they signup they become your referral. It's a great viral feature because you can build referrals without even trying to just by using the site.

Now every time the ad window displays (your Juggernaut links get clicked) you earn credits that get YOUR ad displayed in the ad windows when other members' links get clicked. So the more clicks, the more times your ads get displayed.

And this works virally--meaning as you make referrals into Juggernaut (either by promoting it or just using it and visitors click the Juggernaut image on the ad window to join) you also earn ad credits on THEIR link clicks. And this works up to 5 levels deep. So you can create a massive amount of free ad views and web traffic by referring others to Juggernaut also.

I didn't get to test the full effect of a big downline yet (I just got the tool) but I can tell you the rest of the site works exactly as stated--my links got clicked, I earned credits, and my ads got displayed. Juggernaut even tracked my results so I know how many clicks and how many ad displays. That was an impressive unadvertised extra feature.

There is one more benefit and feature which might be the best of them all--downline emailing. You can email your downline with offers, promotions, or whatever you like, and here is where Juggernaut really shines. They took time to make the emailing often enough that it's valuable as a user, but no so often that it's a burden to your downline. But the best part about this feature (and actually the credit earning too) is that they use a unique dual-matrix technology that builds your downline in 2 ways. First is the typical way--you refer members, who then refer members, etc. But the 2nd matrix is a "forced matrix" that places all new members in a downline in sequential order. Without getting technical, what it means is that if you join and just stay a member (even if you don't do anything) your downline will grow automatically because new members will fill in your forced matrix. And you earn credits on them too. Now THAT's cool.

Overall I have to say I am impressed with Web Traffic Juggernaut. It is simple yet powerful, and delivers on its promises. Highly recommended to anyone who wants to increase traffic and advertising.

See it & join here:

webtrafficjuggernaut

More twitter Services for my friends

2009-04-14T07:29:00.000-07:00

Okay folks, this is gonna be a long one. Twitter Business proudly presents....drum roll...;) a new list of twitter services. Albeit I haven't tried them all yet so I am relying on everyone to please leave some comments as to how they work if you have used them.

Here they are:

Happy Tweeting.

Oh, if you love the list, okay like the list please reddit or stumble it etc. Thanks.

Garret

All Your Tweet
- This Twitter Dingus provides Analytics, Multiple Accounts, Automated RSS Feeds to your Twitter Account, and Future Tweets. It also has a built in URL Tracker, Dashboard overview, and a Twitter Client.

Caboose Twifter
- Find shared friends on Twitter

ChirpCity
- Find tweeters and tweets in your city!

DivVoted
- lets you vote for your favourite sites with Twitter. Great for showing off your latest designs, or checking out other peoples votes for inspiration.

Free Twitter Designer

- Now you can personalize your Twitter background like never before. The tool below will help you create Twitter backgrounds that have the same look and feel as those done by professional graphic designers.

FriendFeed Twitter Client
- You can send Tweets directly from Friend Feed with this script

FuelFrog
- Track your gas mileage by letting us know the distance you traveled on your last tank, the price you paid, and how much fuel you added to your car. FuelFrog will compile and trend information about your gas efficiency, the amount you spend, and more! In

Happy Tweets
- A measuring stick for how positive, or happy, a particular Tweep is.

Matt
- Multiple account twitter tweeting. Matt makes it easy to post to multiple Twitter accounts without having to log into each one every time.

Monitter
- Monitter is a twitter monitor that lets you “monitter” the twitter world for a set of 3 keywords and watch what people are saying.

Mr. Tweet
- Mr. Tweet helps you easily build meaningful relationships on Twitter by looking through your network and tweets.

Multimap Twitter Bot
- helps you to access the same maps, directions and local information that you find on multimap.com by simply sending direct messages via twitter.

My Tweeple

- Manage Your Twitter Following and Followers

Phweet
- A Phweet is a shortURL that makes it easy to conduct voice conversations and conference calls between Twitter friends.

plusplusbot
- Did someone go out of their way to help you? Is a web site being particularly slow and flaky? Make your feelings known with plusplusbot.

QuoteURL
- helps you group different Twitter updates from different people into a single page that has a permanent URL. So you can put it on your blog or send interesting conversations to friends.

Qwitter
- Qwitter is a social tool powered by Twitter that helps you quit smoking

Remember the Milk for Twitter
- Get reminders in your twitter stream from Remember the Milk

Retweet Timer
- Timer is a Twitter bot that helps you set an alarm for things you need to remember.

Snipt.org
- share code snippets on twitter… or anywhere!

StrawPoll
- Tiny polls in 140 characters or less… Go to StrawPoll and create a poll. Your Twitter contacts can participate in the poll by simply sending an @reply message.

Timer Bot
- Timer is a Twitter bot that helps you set an alarm for things you need to remember.

Tipr
- Tip calculator for Twitter. Check out how much you have to tip for a certain amount of money using your mobile phone.

TrackThis
- Follow TrackThis on Twitter and send this bot a Direct Message with your Airway Bill Number. You’ll be notified each time your package changes location. Works with FedEx, UPS, DHL and USPS.

Twanslate
- Follow twanslate and send a direct message with the text you want to get translated along with the language code of the target language (en for English, fr from French, etc.).

twAnswers

- twAnswers is a brand new question-answer type community for twitter. it has a feature which tries to guess the answer based on keywords in the question using yahoo and wiki answers.

Tweader
- Tweader is a new way to view twitter conversations. All you have to do now is enter the tweet’s ID and have it all done for you.

Tweepler
- Tweepler Is an easy, more enjoyable way of processing your New Twitter Followers.

Tweet Grid
- Create a Twitter Search Dashboard that updates in real time.

TweetAhead

- Use TweetAhead to auto-post a tweet at a specific time

Tweetake
- Back Up your Twitterings!

TweetAnswers
- TweetAnswers.com was created to help people find quick answers to their questions!

TweetBar
- Tweetbar puts your tweets into email, websites and forum signatures

TweetBeep
- TweetBeep is like Google Alerts for Twitter! Put in a keyword or website, and get emails when others tweet it!

TweetBrain
- A crowdsourcing service powered by the Twitter community. It enables you to get a best answer or a solution to your question rapidly.

Tweeterized
- We provide dynamic Twitter signature images that you can use on forums, websites, myspace profiles and more. The dynamic images display your profile image, last update as well as how long ago you did the update. We also have various backgrounds to choos

Tweetizen
- Tweetizen is a simple web-based tool designed to help you filter the daily influx of tweets, and easily find the ones that are relevant to you.

TweetLater
- Keep your Twitter stream ticking over with new tweets even when you’re not in front of your computer. Or, use it as your personal reminder system. PLUS… Send automated thank you notes to new followers, and automatically follow new followers, if you c

Tweetree
- Tweetree puts your Twitter stream in a tree so you can see the posts people are replying to in context. It also pulls in lots of external content like twitpic photos, youtube videos and more, so that you can see them right in your stream without having

TweetRemote
- TweetRemote recognizes your tweets based on hashtags and creates files containing formatted XML based on the type of content contained in the tweet. These files can then be automatically aggregated into a blog or other dynamic website.

TweeTube
- Share your favorite videos quickly with short URLs. We let you track the visits and comments from the people that follow you on Twitter.

Tweetwasters
- Find out how much time you waste on Twitter!

Twemes

- Twemes.com follows public Twitter.com tweets (messages) that have embedded tags that start with a # character. These are sometimes called hashtags but we like to use the term twemes.

Twiffid
- See what your Twitter friends are blogging about!

Twilert
- a Twitter application that lets you receive regular email updates of tweets containing your brand, product, service, well any keyword you like really.

Twit.icio.us
- Import links from a twitter timeline to your del.icio.us account.

Twitcrush
- Declare a Twitcrush on someone, see who has declared one on you!

TwitKu 2
- TwitKu.com a free social network mashup. See all of your social places in one space!

twitree
- a Twitter app that visualizes your friends in a recursive tree

Twitsay
- Give your Twitter account a voice! Get voice mail messages from your Twitter page.

TwitStamp
- allows you to use your current Twitter status anywhere - in the form of an image. This means you can post your status on blogs, forums, websites… wherever you want!

Twittad
- TwittAd was formed to give Twitter users and advertisers the opportunity to meet for product placement & website promotion on a Twitter user profile.

twitTangle
- a free service that helps you untangle the mess of having too many friends on twitter

Twitter Digest
- Twitter Digest lets you read Twitter updates in a more manageable fashion. Just pick the usernames you’d like to generate a digest for, and you will see all updates made by them during the past full day.

Twitter Spy

- You are spying on Twitter public timeline in real time.

Twitter100
- With Twitter100 you can see up to 100 of your followers at once!

TwitterBash
- A fun app that lets you post your favorite tweets to a database where they are rated by other users by popularity. You an also embed tweets that you like in a little HTML or javascript snippet.

TwitterBudgie
- TwitterBudgie is a FREE Parallel Universe service that completely solves every possible Twitter limitation on earth and allows you to send more than 140 characters, transmit images, automatically translate War and Peace into less than 140 characters and

Twittercal
- Free service that connects your Twitter account to your Google Calendar. Add events in a snap from your favorite Twitter client.

TwitterCounter
- Add a daily updating TwitterCounter to your blog so everybody can see how popular you are.

TwitteRel
- Insert a keyword (or more), find twitter users who tweeped this word, follow these twitters, make twitter more interesting for you

TwitterFeed
- Automatically post any rss feed to your Twitter account.

TwitterFriends
- Find out the hidden network of Twitter contacts that are really relevant for you.

TwitterIM

- Twitter via Windows Live Messenger or ICQ!

Twitterless
- Keep track of your followers, be notified when someone stops following you

TwitterMail
- When you give us your Twitter credentials we supply you with a TwitterMail email address. If you send an email to that address it will be posted to Twitter.com.

Twittermap
- Let people know where you are with Twittermap

TwitterSnooze
- Hit the snooze button on your “verbose” Twitter friends.

TwitterSoap
- Twittersoap is a mashup of Mobypicture and Twitter.

Twittertise
- Twittertise allows you to advertise on Twitter and track the success of branded communications with your customers.

Twittervision
- A real-time geographic visualization of posts to Twitter.

Twonvo
- Threads your twitter conversations

TwTask

- Create tasks directly from twitter

Twubble
- Twubble can help expand your Twitter bubble—it searches your friend graph and picks out people who you may like to follow.

Upside Down Writing
- Have you ever wanted to freak people out with some crazy text? Now you can do exactly that by writing your text upside down with our flip text generator!

How to Use Twitter for Marketing

2009-04-09T10:50:00.000-07:00

Twitter is a relatively new web 2.0 site that is starting to gain a lot of popularity. That means that a lot of people have heard of it but it is also quite common to run into people who haven't heard of it.. yet. Twitter.com is this social site that encourages users to post often about what they are currently doing.

A lot of people are using it to improve their marketing reach, by being an active twitterer they gain followers who are interested in what they got going on. This means people being exposed to their updates on a regular basis. For example, if you have hundreds of followers in Twitter and you decide to post an affiliate link, that means that hundreds of people have instantly been exposed to your offer. In this article I will discuss ways to maximize Twitter for your marketing, and also a big mistake to be aware of.

In order to have a fan base per say of followers in Twitter you must be able to keep their interest in you and what you are doing now. "What are you doing?" is the whole foundation of what Twitter is about in the first place. Make sure to post daily if not several times throughout the day updates about what you are doing. The magical thing behind this is that many of your contacts will be able to feel like they know you so much better, will trust you more, and feel much more comfortable about working with you. On the other hand, when you follow others you can learn about them and their possible needs.

The big mistake to watch out for is only posting affiliate links or offers on your Twitter page. This looks like Spam and many people will see you as just abusing Twitter for your own personal gain. Think of it this way, if you would not want to invite your friends or family to keep up with you via Twitter then you are going about it all wrong. As with anything you send out or provide, ninety percent should be content and ten percent (at most) advertising. So this concept is quite simple... constantly post throughout the day what you are doing.. it is usually very simple and only takes a few seconds to post! Secondly, if you write articles or provide content online, provide a link for those in your Twitter posts. You may post many things within one day, but the last thing you post for the day is usually the most important because it will be there the longest. This means that your last post for the day should very well contain a link that you want your followers to see before your start Twittering again the next day!

Another part of Twitter is contributing. As with any social site it should be a give and take relationship. Notice that give comes first... the more you give the more people will want to work with you and the more attention you will receive. Make sure to read and follow other users in Twitter. If you read something interesting or helpful then make sure to reply and say so, or even put a link for it on your Twitter so that you are directing others to more quality content. This can also be as simple as connecting with other users, if they know you are reading their Twitter page they will be much more likely to check out what you have going on too.

To get started in Twitter you should first invite contacts who aren't using Twitter and also find contacts who are already using Twitter so that you can start following them and also start getting people to follow you. Twitter has a nice invite and find feature that makes this incredibly easy. To grow your reach even more you can start following people who follow or are followed by the people who follow you.. or that you follow. You might need to read that sentence again.. but basically you can find other users to connect with that are already connected to other users.

Now for a big tip. If you really want to maximize the potential with Twitter, you should make sure to take advantage of any plug-ins or sites that support Twitter. Here are three, but I'm sure there will be many more in the future if not already. Squidoo allows you to input your Twitter account info into your Squidoo account and then it can automatically post updates to your Twitter account when you create or update Squidoo lenses. Facebook has an application called Twitter, it automatically updates your Facebook status when you make a Twitter post. The other tool is a free WordPress plug-in called TweetMyBlog that allows you to create a two-way connection from your blogs to Twitter. TweetMyBlog allows you to use a widget on your Wordpress blogs that will display your current Twitter feed.. that way all visitors to your blog can look at the widget and see a running feed of your latest Twitter posts. If they click on that they will be brought to your Twitter page. In addition, when you make a new post to your blog, TweetMyBlog will automatically make a post to your Twitter page with a link to your latest blog post. Imagine the extra exposure you can receive by using these tools that help people see more of what you are doing.

Lastly, have fun! Twitter is a social site... so interact and enjoy!

Darren Olander is dedicated to teaching others how to create a success online through internet network marketing strategies. He is a site owner, article writer, coach & marketing consultant enjoying the benefits of working full time from home. Learn more about him at http://www.darrenolander.com

The Top 22 Twitter Applications, an online study.

2009-04-05T14:19:00.000-07:00

If you use twitter, and we all do it seems :)

These applications are a must have. Use em and luv em, believe me they can and will make your twitting life a lot easier. I hope you all enjoy and profit from them.

Best
Garret

1. Twitpic
2. Tweetdeck
3. Digsby
4. Twittercounter
5. Twitterfeed
6. Twitterholic
7. Twhirl
8. Twitturly
9. Twtpoll
10. Retweetist
11. Tweepler
12. Hellotxt
13. Twitdom
14. Tweetscan
15. Tweetburner
16. Tweetvisor
17. Twittervision
18. Twitterfall
19. Monitter
20. Twibs
21. Twistori
22. Twitbin

Improved Page Engine Rank and SEO For Beginners and The More Experienced

2009-03-04T06:18:00.000-08:00

Ever have problems with SEO?

Improved search engine rank is a term used by those with a confusion with SEO and page optimization and Google Page Rank - properly PageRank by the way. It is a trade marked term registered by Google, although the patent for the PageRank system of calculating and assigning it is assigned to Stanford University where Page developed the system, not Google.

What most people do not know is that the term PageRank originates from the name of one of the developers, Larry Page. Hence Page Rank. He teamed up later with Sergey Brin to form Google in 1998.

Enough of history: that is in the past! The present is that Google PageRank that I will henceforth refer to as Page Rank for fear of breaking copyright law, has been publicly stated by Google as being one of the predominant means of determining the listing of a website for a particular search term. This might not last for a lot longer, since there are whispers that Google are considering reducing the importance of Page Rank in view of the increasing relevance of social bookmarking and other social sites such as Del.icio.us and Digg.

Now there is Twitter run by Google, and more and more Twitter results are turning up in Google search results. Twitter is what is called a micro-blogging service that uses SMS and instant messaging, or the blog posts on the Twitter website. Facebook is also being used by more and more people, but a lot are college students and others trying to spy on and stalk ex lovers for what can only be assumed to be pretty nefarious reasons.

However, these uses of so called social networking sites are immaterial. It their existence that matters, and the association many of them have with major search engines that are producing so many search results somewhat less than useful when they should properly have been filtered out. The question is: Should Google and Yahoo be allowed to be associated with these sites and give them preference in search engine results by use of what can only be manipulation of the algorithms?

Perhaps Page Rank and Link Density will become less important than your registration and participation in these sites. That is why I have joined most of them. They are fun to participate in, but much of the content is very juvenile and amateurish and not what I would to find in a serious search. Blog postings are generally not useful content.

However, back to link density and Page Rank. It is highly unlikely that link density will ever be dropped by Google, but they might introduce some aspects of social bookmarking in to their algorithm. What this means is that if you want to improve your listing, you will have to be involved in Google related social sites, Twitter being the main one at the moment.

If you understand Twitter you will know what I mean when I state that Google might include, in addition to page rank and traditional SEO, the number of friends and comments, number of Twitter followers, photo uploads and frequency of updates. Keep an eye on Google activity and their acquisitions, since the more acquisitions of social sites Google make, and the more of their own they produce, then you can be pretty sure that at some time they will introduce elements of that into their algorithms.

So, get ahead of the race and get acquainted with Twitter. Google have made no changes yet, but the buzz is there, so don’t bet your boots that no changes will be made in that direction sometime in the future. My belief is that article submission will remain the one major means of attracting traffic and obtaining one-way links back to your selected web pages for the foreseeable future, but that elements of social bookmarking and other social networking sites will gradually creep into the algorithms.

It is as yet unknown how this will affect you in your quest for improved search engine rank, but there is nothing to lose by being ahead in the game, and you have just been given a clue as to how to do that. It might be a year away, perhaps less and perhaps more, but when the day comes, if it does, I at least will be prepared for it.

If you want to find out how to get your site listed on the search engines in 2 days, and improve your listing position dramatically, check out Pete’s website Improved Search Engine Rank where you will be shown screenshots of exactly how he does it.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Peter_Nisbet

My business is in town. I don't need a website.

2009-03-03T13:03:00.001-08:00

Every time I hear that I cringe!

The economy being what it is has everyone pretty much world wide in a panic, for various reason's.

Now, more than ever if you own a traditional brick and mortar business you need a website. You truly do need an internet presence.

Why?

Having a business is no small task, the more successful the business becomes the more tasks involved.

Let's take a look at some items.

You obviously employees, you can't run the place all alone.

* The internet is a 24 hour employee.

You need accountants and business advice, team's to make sure that you are all proper and legal.

* Once a website is up you can place all of the appropriate links in place to ensure your site is CanSpam compliant.

* There are payment processor's online, such as PayPal to handle all of you transactions, yes, even while you sleep.

These are a few examples. With a traditional business you need customer's and you need to out do your competition or at least keep up. So now you need a fairly large budget for marketing. Online however, you can get traffic to your site within minutes using traffic techniques like google adwords.

Side note: With google adwords I personally would recommend you keep your budget to a minimum of 3 or 4 dollars per day until you get the hang of it thus you don't "break the bank" so to speak.

Once you have mastered some traffic techniques stick with them and don't look for the BBD or Bigger Better Deal.

There are so many programs out there and unscrupulous marketers hoping to take your money to teach you the latest greatest thing, chances are it doesn't work nearly as well as it did a few months back....why else are there a gazillion sales letter web sites about it?

Bottom line is this:

An online presence will do any brick and mortar business a world of good and quite possibly a world of extra cash in your pocket.

If you don't have a lot of start up capital then at the very least get yourself a twitter account and get your name out there.

Twitter is free and incredibly powerful.

Follow me if you'd like.

My twitter id is garret35.

Final point, remember to be successful at anything you must first get educated. Learn from your mistakes and if you get to a point that you want to quit ... DON'T.

You're almost there.

Good luck

Can you Guess who this is?? You might be surprised

2009-03-01T21:08:00.001-08:00

Okay.....I am a little upset right now after a talk with a friend of mine via facebook tonight. So if I seem a bit off...I apologize. The topic of conversation was life and money problems.

My viewpoint is this "If you're alive you have money problems (somewhere) regardless of who you are, where you live and how much you make.

Broke!! Who hasn't been? Feeling like there is no silver lining at the end of that dark cloud?

Been there, done that and read the book....several times. It's one of my fav's lol ;), I am pretty sure I have it printed on a tie dye shirt hehe. Just kidding.

Anyway. There is an old saying that goes something like this " If you think you can or can't you are right". What's my point your probably thinking, my point is if you don't like your life then change it. The world doesn't owe you a thing. The universe is unfolding as it should, you wanna better life than get off your poor, poor pitiful me kick and do something about it.

It's too hard, my friend said. I wanted to literally smack him but I couldn't. The joy of facebook...lol...I did it cyber style. So here is ultimately a tale I told him and am now sharing with you.

Can you guess who this is? No cheating read it before scrolling down ;)

1. A few years ago, maybe 6 or 7 (I won't make this easy) this person was on welfare and raising a child alone.

2. Was financially broke beyond what most people hit.

3. Had a vision and turned it into a tidy sum of 1 Billion Dollars, you read that right.

4. Is now 41 and living the good life.

The answer is:

Before I reveal that I want to go back to number 3. Re-read that if you please.

3. Had a vision and turned it into a tidy sum of 1 Billion Dollars, you read that right.

This person had a vision, a thought, an idea that was most certainly scoffed at by some people. But this person chose to go their way and didn't listen to the nasty nay-sayers.

Thank God. Because if she had we wouldn't be enjoying her wonderful works of fantasy and fiction. You "may" have heard of Harry Potter.

J.K. Rowling.

Yes J.K. Rowling was on welfare a single mother and raising her child when she got a call that changed her life and ours forever. Her books were going to be published.

Imagine for a moment how empty her life would have continued to be had she not chosen to believe in herself. Now imagine how many times you had a great idea and didn't follow through because of nay-sayers!

If you believe it, you can achieve it.

Get out there and change your fortune. It may not be easy, but nothing worth having ever is.

Why are you still reading? Get out there :)

Garret

Garret W Belisle is a blogger offering a family friendly website which updates at least once daily. Be sure to sign up for the daily motivational tips. It's fresh and crisp..Please feel free to visit http://www.need-to-get-some.blogspot.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Garret_Belisle

400 in my downline already

2009-03-01T19:01:00.000-08:00

This is HUGE.

You missed Google, you missed Yahoo......will you miss this http://tinyurl.com/c7rfcj

Ever wonder how many followers don't tweet?

2009-02-28T20:33:00.000-08:00

Like most folks I use twitter for business.

I do not use it just to say I have a twitter account.

Now let me clarify, when I say business I don't simply mean peddling my website's and/or products..... I do use it for that but I also use it to network, get the latest buzz, pick up on the newest marketing strategies, etc.

Serious twitter's agree that this wonderful tool can be a massive boost to your website traffic and your bottom line.

If used properly.

So what is my point, my point is that although I was following a lot of people I really didn't take the time to look at the individual. My mistake and I freely admit it. We all learn in the beginning.

I wager I am not the first nor the last to do this.

I want to build relationship's. I love sending tweets and I love reading other folks tweets when I have the time.

To get rid of any non-twitting followers I have I simply went to Twitora to filter them out.

A slow process that will take a few days but when all is said and done I will follow like minded people and not ghosts.

So, if you ever want to know how many of your follower's are active or you simply need to clean out your follower list I highly recommend this service.

It's free and I love it.

You just might also.

Happy tweeting. Follow me if you'd like I am active daily, click here.

Garret

Using Twitter For Business

2009-02-28T18:16:00.000-08:00

Every now and then I scour the internet for various courses and articles. Sometimes I will even go over old techniques or newer techniques, just to keep myself fresh......you can never start thinking you know it all.

Here's one that reminded me of that;

Recently business has realised the potential use of Twitter as a tool for marketing products and services directly to new customers. If you and your business want to capitalise on Twitter's application for marketing, here's some advice on running your Twitter marketing campaign:

* Set up your Twitter account and profile using your company name. When it comes to filling in your profile details, make it keyword rich, so if a potential customer is searching for companies such as yours, they have a great chance of finding you on Twitter.

* Unless you run a REALLY informal company, you should aim to keep your 'Tweet' messages business-focused. Potential customers don't need to know what you had for lunch.

* Whenever you are writing 'Tweets' make your messages keyword rich, this way people using alerts and searches will be directed to your Tweets when searching for your product or services.

* Use updates judiciously otherwise you will just annoy your potential customers. Once or twice per hour is enough.

* Use an IM-style program like Twitterfox and Twhirl, it sits on your desktop, so it will be quicker and easier to manage than logging into the Twitter website every time you want to send a message.

* Tweetbeep is an alert service to let you know when people are tweeting about key phrases that relate to you and your business. This allows you to reply directly to them if they are looking for help or advice.

* Inform your newsletter subscribers, hot leads and CRM database that you are available to follow on Twitter. Encourage your customers to sign up to Twitter by publishing special Twitter only deals, after all, a Tweet takes no time at all but a newsletter plenty!

* Promote your Twitter account everywhere possible, your social networks, social bookmarking sites, on your company websites, in your emails, wherever you think customers will see it, the more followers that you have, the larger your potential audience/market becomes.

* Finally, plan your Twitter marketing campaign carefully to attract the right attention and create the right buzz. Don't just tweet for twitter's sake. Know what you're doing, plan out your strategy and implement it effectively. Used properly Twitter really works as a great marketing tool.

Twitter is a highly effective tool for business users to connect directly with their potential customers. If you need help attracting new customers through Twitter Marketing, email Nikki at nikki@nikkipilkington.com

And of course, you can 'follow' Nikki herself on Twitter by going to http://www.twitter.com/NikkiPilkington and clicking on 'follow'

We are LIVE!!

2009-02-27T08:52:00.001-08:00

Okay everyone.

Today we are LIVE!!!

Sit back and think about this, seriously....if

you could go back in time and get shares in

Microsoft or Google for literally pennies on

the dollar....would you?

If you said "No" you're either nuts or lying ;)

This is no different, it' in it's infancy.

An scary fact, nationally 75 million, yup

million text's re sent. This is huge business,

even info-commercials are getting people to

text there answers.

American Idol has people text.

Can I make a more valid point.

Even if you live outside of he USA or Canada

you can still sign up and MAKE money.

If you don't have Telus who cares, you still

sin up and make money.

I hope you guys don't miss out on this.

HOT NEWS: FaceBook, MySpace & Bebo

Are Going MLM ... Show Me The Money!!

Check this out

http://tinyurl.com/c7rfcj

Sign up under me and let me know I have a huge

gift for you once I verify your subscription.

Cheers

Let's make some money!

Garret

A couple of twitter tricks

2009-02-25T07:17:00.000-08:00

Here is some useful information for those of use still uncomfortable with twitter.

I recently was asked to share some tips on how to get around in Twitter. So here are a few of them, baby steps folks ... baby steps

Cool Trick Number 1: Tweader

The more followers you get and the more conversations you have, it can almost become impossible to keep up with all of it. That is the beauty of Tweader, simply type in the url number of your tweet and it shows you the whole thread of conversation connected to that Tweet.

Side note: It took a few minutes to figure out how to get the url number, so here are the steps. Click on the time stamp of the tweet, ex. "Less than 5 seconds ago." When you do, it will open up a cool picture of a Tweet. Then look at the web address line and you'll see the url number at the end.

Cool Trick Number 2: Tweetdeck

I have alot of people I follow, I have seen people with ALOT more. However I am interested in the communities I do follow and what they are saying. I actually have a back up n my pc of all of my follower's and who I am following in specific groups so I don't lose anyone accidentally. Tweetdeck is my way to catch up what my Tweeps are saying. I set up several groups based on communities and watch for my replies there too. It really is useful.

Side note: It even catches some of the @replies that Twitter doesn't see. Especially when your name is mentioned in a list of several @'s.

Cool Trick Number 3: Budurl and Tweetburner

Ever wonder if anyone is really listening to you? Shorten your links with either of these tools and you can track how many people opened them. Cool, isn't it! Budurl is great because it will show you how many people are opening them in real time (10 second delay). Tweetburner is cool because you can see what the hottest links of the moment are on it as well. This is especially handy for business folk trying to track customer interest. It can be used as testing.

Side note: Using these tools, you'll get better at writing headlines that will pull traffic to your links because you can see how well you're doing.

Cool Trick Number 3: TweetGrid and Search.Twitter

Ever wonder what everyone is saying about certain topic(s) at the moment? These cool search sites will do the trick. Search.Twitter is the Twitter engine behind Election2008. TweetGrid allows you to track multiple topics in one window. Very helpful indeed.

Side note: Incredibly handy tools to find people when Twitter's people search is down or see who is responding to a particular topic or question posed by a rockstar Tweeter.

Cool Trick Number 4: TweetBeep

This is awesome, pure and simple. This wonderful add-on I call it will take the information you can find in TweetGrid and Search.Twitter and wrap it all up in a nice little email delivered to you hourly or daily. Very handy for keeping up with topics, products and companies you are following.

Side note: No more daily searches. These programs do the thinking for you!

Cool Trick Number 5: TweatLater

I find this one of my favorite and most useful tools for the twitter atmosphere. It tweet's messages I schedule in advance. It's great because sometimes I will send out a series or follow-ups, pardon the twit-pun.

A couple of other twitter tricks;

SnagIt: Be sure to make your own profile on your twitter home page. If you don't have a fancy dancy graphics program, not a problem? use SnagIt to make any jpg. SnagIt is an amazingly inexpensive tool, considering how powerful it is. You won't know how you lived without it.

Qwitter: Want to find out when people stop following you? Qwitter emails you when people drop you. Not for the person with easily hurt feelings, however!

Pingfm : Use it to broadcast your Tweets across all your social media with one click.

And finally another new discovery could end up in my top 5 list: FriendorFollow. Type in your name and find out who is not following you back.

11/16/08: Yet another new discovery: http://spy.appspot.com/ -- real time tracking of conversations on Twitter and beyond.

Follow me here

Off topic - THE FUNNIEST COMPLAINT LETTER EVER (By Mr Ashley Jenkins)

2009-02-24T15:32:00.000-08:00

Okay, this is a little long I admit but well worth the read.

If you've ever had a cell phone you will most definitely love this letter.

I wonder how long before someone notifies Vodafone Brand Development...?

This Truly is the rant to end all rants.

Mr Nick Read
Vodafone CEO
Vodafone House
The Connection
Newbury
Berkshire
RG14 2FN

21st February 2008

Account/Mobile Number
07********2

Dear Nick

I am writing to you today as I am a Vodafone customer who is completely at the end of his tether.

I need your help Nick.

I’ve started dreaming about you. I wonder what you look like; I wonder if you really are the savior of Vodafone. I want you to be Nick, but then I check my inclusive minutes and I realize you are not. I check my voicemail to see if Vodafone Business Relations have called me back but they haven’t Nick. They haven’t called me. It’s all been a dream and I want to die.

I loath writing Nick, it real gets to me, but on this occasion I have to. I have to write to you because the alternative is committing suicide, a suicide which you would be reading about in next months Mobile News magazine.

My suicide note would burn onto your minds retina like a overheated Nokia 6120, the words would jump from the page and into your soul, all constructed via T9 predictive text, and you wouldn’t be able to erase me Nick, the message would be there for good, in your cerebellums inbox.

You see, for 5 months now Nick, I have been in a communicational conundrum, a sort of Newbury Hell.

5 months ago I ordered 15 phone lines for my business. I already had 5 lines with you as I had been with Vodafone for as long as I can remember. I was a customer with you when Chris Gent walked through those pearly Banbury doors, all smartly dressed with nothing but hope in his heart and an Ericsson T29 in his pocket. Times were great then Nick, you even managed to send my bill on time. I loved those days.

Anyway, I digress.

I wanted a Sharer Plan; I needed on average 3000 minutes per user, so for 15 users I needed 45,000 minutes. I also needed them on 12 month commitments and free calls to 0870 numbers.

I was promised all this Nick, the world was my oyster. Vodafone was my Morrissey and I was a young Russell Brand, all gushing with enthusiasm and gusto, but with sexual tension replaced with 500 texts free every month.

We were flirting Nick, Vodafone and I were courting and there was nothing the world could do about it. You wanted longer commitment, but I couldn’t give it, you said 24 months, I said no, give me time, lets take it slow, lets not rush into this, I want to give you my heart but I’m unsure how Google Maps works on the Nokia N95.

We agreed on 12 months contracts.

Next up was the plan, now I’m no Shakespeare Nick, but I would proclaim to have a certain grasp on the English language, so when I uttered the words

‘I do not want 3000 minutes fixed per phone; I want the whole 45,000 minutes to be shared between the 15 users’

I stupidly assumed that Vodafone would understand this, but in hindsight, I now see that this was all too much for Hayleigh Hegar and Jenna Bird to comprehend.

I mean, they barely could grasp the concept of phoning people back, and as for e mail, well; this alien concept was lost on these two. I often sat back in my genuine simulated leather office chair and wonder if I was actually calling Vodafone, or was I being rerouted by some fickle finger of destiny through to a parallel universe, where anything you ask or request engenders the respondent to lie and say the complete opposite of what is actually going to happen, a sort of Alice in Wonderland rabbit hole, without the tea pots.

You see Nick, after the first months bill arrived, I couldn’t wait to open it. The morning it turned up I was like a little boy at Christmas, all exited and red faced. My wife even commented that my cheeks looked like the little Vodafone logo, you know, the one which look like a speech bubble. The irony only added to the moment Nick, it was heaven.

There it was, in a white cardboard box. It looked like a well organized letter bomb. I couldn’t hold it any longer. I wanted to see my savings, I wanted to open that letter bomb Nick and I wanted the savings to jump out of the page and blow up in my face like corporate Anthrax. I ripped the highly emissive carbon paper and there it was Nick, there it was…

I was overcharged £500 because I wasn’t on a sharer plan.

My heart sunk. I retreated to my simulated leather chair Nick and I began panicking. I began panicking Nick because I though, god, if Hayleigh Hegar and Jenna Bird have got this wrong, then there’s no hope. We are all doomed. Vodafone is going to become a massive corporate tennis ball, bouncing around the globalised courts of all 5 continents, stealing money from the pockets of honest paying punters while returning that money to the greedy shareholding ball boys and girls. I was livid Nick, and I don’t even like Tennis.

I immediately contacted my Vodafone team. Team 26, such a bold sounding group, it conjured up images of robotic men in black suits huddled around a control station, manfully directing proceedings like a mini FBI, but this wasn’t the FBI Nick, this was Vodafone’s Customer Service; a group of young bucks floating through life, unable to decide if they should find a real job, synchronize their Blackberry, or face the relentless realization that they have become a number within a number.

That number was 26.

Imagine growing up, and all the fervor and energy of a young child, all enthusiast and eager to learn. Think back Nick, think back to when you were a small child and your ambition was bursting out of you. Then fast forward 15 years. Imagine being part of a team called Team 26.

It would make you want to stick pineapples in your eyes.

I spoke with Hayley Hegar to raise my concerns, after some verbal altercations, I was escalated to a woman called Jenna Bird. I love the word ‘escalated’. You organization uses it so sporadically you feel you are being lifted from you feet and elevated to a different stratosphere.

In the space of 4 months, I have been escalated to no more that 7 people. I don’t think it gets much higher than this Nick, I’m walking on the moon, I’m walking on sunshine, I’m free as a bird Nick, I’m singing in the rain.

No, wait a minute, I’m not, and I’m actually walking on broken glass. I’m walking on broken glass Nick and there are shards of glass covering my bloody feet. I’m walking in sheer pain and I’m heading your way Nick. I’m heading your way and I have shards of glass and in my soles and they feel like 1,000,000 prepay simcards with no talk time.

Jenna Bird took 2 months to tell me everything I knew already. 2 months had gone on, and more money had been extracted manfully from my bank account.

Then, like the parting of the red sea, a miracle arrived in January, like a time delayed Christmas present from Jesus Chris. The marvelous, reclusive, evasive and sprightly Jenna Bird arranged a £2000 credit on my account. I nearly shit myself with surprise.

A breakthrough I thought. A breakthrough of such magnificent proportions it felt like I had won the lottery. Or had I?

I checked my ticket, yes, I had the first 5 numbers Nick, and it was looking good. Lancelot spun round like a spin dryer in a hedge fund, I waited Nick, I waited for the confirmation, all I needed was the number 1 Nick, here it comes Nick, here it comes.

Number 26.

I couldn’t believe it. Jenna Bird had escalated me to a man called Paul Bolton, and this is where it gets interesting Nick. My lottery win had all been a mirage. Smoke and mirrors awaited.

This is the exact timeline of events. Bearing in mind I had at this point been waiting 16 weeks for this to be resolved.

Jenna Bird escalated this on the 5th January to Paul Bolton. She arranged for a £2000 credit on my account to cover the January bill.

Paul Bolton was meant to call me by the 9th January. He didn’t.

I called Vodafone on Monday 12th and was told he would call me that week. He didn’t.

I eventually got hold of him on the 21st January. He apologized and said he would resolve my queries this week. He said he would phone me everyday to give me an update. He didn’t.

I phoned Monday 26th January, and was told that he had been in an accident, and wouldn’t be in work that week.

I was then escalated to a woman called Kim. She apologized and said that she would be dealing with this, but would need some time as she did not know anything about the case. I spent an hour on the phone to her explaining everything again. She told me she would resolve this and come back to me by the end of the week.

Guess what Nick, she didn’t.

I called again on February 2nd. She apologized again and told me that they didn’t do a sharer plan anywhere near what had been offered, but she might be able to pull off something special. She told me someone would be calling me later that day.

Nobody did.

I phoned her again on the 3rd February and again she apologized. Later that day a young lady from Vodafone sales called me, and wait for this Nick, she called me to offer me a standard sharer tariff of 48,000 minutes for £2300 a month.

After speaking to Hayleigh Hegar, Jenna Bird, Paul Bolton and Kim, and when they all knew my problem was the fact that I was promised 45,000 minutes for £990 per month, I then have to suffer the indignation of somebody calling me back and offering me the standard sharer plan which is on your website and has been there since I began this whole affair.

What a joke.

I immediately called Kim back, who immediately appeared on the defensive. She said she would look into this and come back to me.

She didn’t come back to me Nick.

I then phoned her on the 13th February. She said she would escalate the call to her manager, Yvonne Dunbar. Kim said the turnaround to be called back by a manager was 48 hours.

Yvonne didn’t call me. When I did ring and get to speak to her 1 week later, she told me that she had been, and I quote

‘In meetings and whatever’

I explained to her the whole situation. She said she would escalate the call to her manager, Shelaigh Coogan who would phone me back that day.

Shelaigh didn’t phone back. At this point I gave up.

So far, over 5 the months, you have overcharged me approximately £3500, my contracts are still 24 months and not 12 months, I’m still getting charged for 0870 numbers, and I am still nowhere near being on the sharer plan I was told I would be on. As I write this letter, my staff are making calls on the phones and are incurring charges we should not be.

I have written this letter out of sheer frustration Nick, and I have prepared a county court summons for the remaining line rental commitment, which total £18,674.

I will also be circulating this letter around the popular press, including all major UK television channels.

Nick, I remember you once saying that ‘to win in the marketplace you needed to create a brand that customers feel an emotional connection with; that employees want to do their best work for; and that is widely recognised as a leader for the quality of its products and services and the contribution it makes to society’.

You went on to say that you look at everything that passes your desk through several lenses: how it affects our customers and our employees, what the financial implications are. And importantly, you say that you use a corporate responsibility lens to decide if this would protect and build Vodafones reputation.

May I suggest you change your lenses Nick, I think the ones you have on are fucked.

Mr Jenkins

Proud to be a "boring" Canadian!

2009-02-24T12:14:00.000-08:00

NEWSWEEK

From the magazine issue dated Feb 16, 2009

The legendary editor of The New Republic, Michael Kinsley, once held a "Boring Headline Contest" and decided that the winner was "Worthwhile Canadian Initiative." Twenty-two years later, the magazine was rescued from its economic troubles by a Canadian media company, which should have taught us Americans to be a bit more humble. Now there is even more striking evidence of Canada's virtues. Guess which country, alone in the industrialized world, has not faced a single bank failure, calls for bailouts or government intervention in the financial or mortgage sectors. Yup, it's Canada. In 2008, the World Economic Forum ranked Canada's banking system the healthiest in the world. America's ranked 40th, Britain's 44th.

Canada has done more than survive this financial crisis. The country is positively thriving in it. Canadian banks are well capitalized and poised to take advantage of opportunities that American and European banks cannot seize. The Toronto Dominion Bank, for example, was the 15th-largest bank in North America one year ago. Now it is the fifth-largest. It hasn't grown in size; the others have all shrunk.

So what accounts for the genius of the Canadians? Common sense. Over the past 15 years, as the United States and Europe loosened regulations on their financial industries, the Canadians refused to follow suit, seeing the old rules as useful shock absorbers. Canadian banks are typically leveraged at 18 to 1-compared with U.S. banks at 26 to 1 and European banks at a frightening 61 to 1. Partly this reflects Canada's more risk-averse business culture, but it is also a product of old-fashioned rules on banking.

Canada has also been shielded from the worst aspects of this crisis because its housing prices have not fluctuated as wildly as those in the United States. Home prices are down 25 percent in the United States, but only half as much in Canada. Why? Well, the Canadian tax code does not provide the massive incentive for overconsumption that the U.S. code does: interest on your mortgage isn't deductible up north. In addition, home loans in the United States are "non-recourse," which basically means that if you go belly up on a bad mortgage, it's mostly the bank's problem. In Canada, it's yours.

Ah, but you've heard American politicians wax eloquent on the need for these expensive programs-interest deductibility alone costs the federal government $100 billion a year-because they allow the average Joe to fulfill the American Dream of owning a home. Sixty-eight percent of Americans own their own homes. And the rate of Canadian homeownership? It's 68.4 percent.

Canada has been remarkably responsible over the past decade or so. It has had 12 years of budget surpluses, and can now spend money to fuel a recovery from a strong position. The government has restructured the national pension system, placing it on a firm fiscal footing, unlike our own insolvent Social Security. Its health-care system is cheaper than America's by far (accounting for 9.7 percent of GDP, versus 15.2 percent here), and yet does better on all major indexes. Life expectancy in Canada is 81 years, versus 78 in the United States; "healthy life expectancy" is 72 years, versus 69.

American car companies have moved so many jobs to Canada to take advantage of lower health-care costs that since 2004, Ontario and not Michigan has been North America's largest car-producing region.

I could go on. The U.S. currently has a brain-dead immigration system. We issue a small number of work visas and green cards, turning away from our shores thousands of talented students who want to stay and work here. Canada, by contrast, has no limit on the number of skilled migrants who can move to the country. They can apply on their own for a Canadian Skilled Worker Visa, which allows them to become perfectly legal "permanent residents" in Canada-no need for a sponsoring employer, or even a job. Visas are awarded based on education level, work experience, age and language abilities. If a prospective immigrant earns 67 points out of 100 total (holding a Ph.D. is worth 25 points, for instance), he or she can become a full-time, legal resident of Canada.

Companies are noticing. In 2007 Microsoft, frustrated by its inability to hire foreign graduate students in the United States, decided to open a research center in Vancouver. The company's announcement noted that it would staff the center with "highly skilled people affected by immigration issues in the U.S." So the brightest Chinese and Indian software engineers are attracted to the United States, trained by American universities, then thrown out of the country and picked up by Canada-where most of them will work, innovate and pay taxes for the rest of their lives.

If President Obama is looking for smart government, there is much he, and all of us, could learn from our quiet-OK, sometimes boring-neighbor to the north. Meanwhile, in the councils of the financial world, Canada is pushing for new rules for financial institutions that would reflect its approach.

Source URL: 2009

This strikes me as, well, a worthwhile Canadian initiative.

181 Free Twitter Buttons, Badges, Widget and Counters to Help You Find Followers

2009-02-24T11:11:00.000-08:00

Thank you to Darren Rowse

in Finding Twitter Followers, Twitter Tools

One of the best ways to find new followers for your Twitter account is to leverage any other online profile that you might already have. If you have a website, blog or other social media account linking to your Twitter account is a great way to do this.

Doing it with an eye catching button, widget or counter can be even more effective. Of course there are some Official Twitter Badges available… but what if you want something a little different?

Below are some links to places where you can download 181 different free Twitter buttons, widgets, badges and counters to use on your site (actually there are over 181 when you consider the different sizes, colors, formats that are available on some of these options).

Randa Clay - Free Twitter Graphics

18 different Twitter buttons like this one.

Siah Design - Free Twitter Buttons

42 Twitter buttons - some of them animated

MilkAddict - Twitter button

2 simple round buttons.

31 Logos et boutons pour Twitter

31 great buttons. The blog might not be in English but the buttons are. Some great designs here.

TwitStamp

A little widget that shows your latest twits that comes in a variety of looks, sizes and formats.

TwitGif

The instructions are in Japanese but enter your Twitter account profile and it’ll produce a little widget that you can put in your sidebar with your latest tweets. It includes your avatar and scrolls through your latest tweets.

Twignature

Another Japanese creation that allows you to enter your account name and have a personalized twitter button with your account name on it. Lots of sizes and a few different styles to choose from.

Web Design by mt

10 Twitter Buttons for Free (German - I think)

Twitt-Twoo

WordPress plugin Widget for your blog’s sidebar. There’s another WP sidebar widget plugin here.

Twitter button Icon

Nice looking, high res button

Follow me on Twitter badges

36 colorful Twitter badges

TwitterCounter

A service that tracks your subscriber numbers and produces a twitter counter badge for you.

SayTweet

Not really a badge but you could probably use it as one. It allows you to upload an image and then have your latest tweets appear on it like this

TwitterCard

Another twitter widget

Note: I’ve removed the TwitterCard widget from this post as it seemed to be slowing the loading of this page down. Might be worth testing it before using it.

Of course the above collection of sources of free twitter buttons, badges and widgets just scratch the surface of what is available. If you know of others I’d love to see them linked to in comments below.

More great resources here

Can Twitter Be Useful For Business?

2009-02-24T10:26:00.000-08:00

If you have yet to hear about Twitter, I might ask you if you have been living in a cave and for how long. The micro-blogging platform that few knew about a year ago has now gone mainstream with over 6 million users - a number that is growing daily. Even major news outlets such as Fox News, CNN and others are using Twitter on a daily basis to get viewer reaction and create discussion around breaking stories and issues.

This leads me to question whether Twitter can be useful for business or is it simply an outlet to waste time and be counter-productive?

As a small business owner, I have found Twitter to be extremely beneficial for business. Sure there are times I have found it to be an incredible time-waster (depending on what it is keeping you from accomplishing such as actual work, spending time with family, etc.). However, in this post, I'd like to focus on how Twitter can be useful to businesses and will cover five functions it can serve. I will then invite comments from others on additional ways they have used Twitter for business.

1. Puts a Human Face On the Company

We already know that blogs are very useful tools to put a face or name to the company - in other words allow the company to become more personable. The problem with blogs is that they require one to actually write.

Twitter on the other hand is like blogging but has a 140 character limit for each entry you make. You can therefore "say" something without having to write up a lengthy post.

Furthermore you do not always have to say something that is important or of any real value. You can tweet (term used for adding entires to Twitter) things like, "currently at airport awaiting flight," or "enjoying a fine bottle of wine right now," or any other random aspect from your personal life. While tweets such as these may seem trivial, they show that you are a real person behind the corporate entity.

2. Community Outreach

Twitter is a great tool for reaching out to a community of people. I have seen it used to broadcast Amber alerts, bring attention to charitable causes (when Twitter users turned their avatars pink for Breast Cancer Awareness month), connect with people at specific events (i.e., conferences, parties, local gatherings, etc.), and discuss breaking news to name a few examples.

How can this be useful for business? Keeping in mind that you should work to build a community around your products and/or services anyway, Twitter is a great tool to help in this process. By setting up a Twitter profile for your company and then making sure you invite your active customers and prospects to follow you, you now have a direct connection to them.

And while newsletters, e-newsletters, and even blogs are effective ways to reach out to your community, Twitter offers a way to reach out by saying very little. Let's face facts - not every client is going to read through a lengthy newsletter or visit every blog post you put out. Short tweets on the other hand are very easy to read and can even call for more action such as inviting clients to read a post or bringing attention to a new product.

3. Product/Service Promotion

Once you have a decent amount of followers, announcing new products and/or services, upgrades or even promotionals becomes a breeze. Also consider that many Twitter users will use specific search queries to locate topics that interest them. Therefore by associating the right keywords along with your tweets, you can attract those that aren't even following you.

While product/service promotion can be an attractive use of Twitter, I caution you to make sure it is not the only thing you contribute. Just as in any web forum, blog commenting system or chat environment, if all you ever do is to "toot" your own horn, you may find yourself doing more harm than good.

Companies such as Southwest Air, M&Ms, and Comcast are just a few examples that are well-balanced in their use of Twitter for a variety of purposes, including product/service promotion.

4. Brand Management

With so many people using Twitter, there are bound to be occurrences where your company and/or products will be discussed. Twitter's search function can be an excellent resource for monitoring brand names - when and how they are being discussed.

Simply enter various search terms related to your company brand and product names and see results in real time. Better yet, save each search as an RSS feed and add to your reader. That way anytime someone begins talking about your company on Twitter, you will be notified via your RSS reader.

5. Polls/Surveys

This is one of the most useful functions of Twitter - the ability to gather feedback via polls, surveys or even by asking a simple question. As a small business owner I have utilized this function many times to locate tools used in my business, find a solution to a web site issue or even learning business sense from those more seasoned than myself.

Using polls and surveys on Twitter can also help you to gather useful intelligence on your products and services. Just be ready for criticism which if you make good use of, can be utilized to improve your product and/or service offerings.

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These are just a few ways businesses are using Twitter. I'm sure there are many other uses and would love to hear from other business owners either on how they are using Twitter for business or possibilities they have yet to explore. Please use the comments system below to share your ideas. Oh and finally if you would like to follow me on Twitter, I'm right here.

David Wallace is CEO and founder of SearchRank, an original search engine optimization and marketing firm based in Phoenix, Arizona. He is experienced in search engine optimization and marketing, pay per click and pay for inclusion management, directory submissions and web site design usability. David is a frequent contributor to various search engine related forums, an active editor of popular directories such as GoGuides.org, Joe Ant and Zeal and has had several articles published on industry related sites. Since 1997, David along with his company have helped hundreds of businesses both large and small increase their search engine visibility and customer acquisitions.

Welcome to Twitter Stuffs

2009-02-24T08:00:00.000-08:00

Right now I am replying to twitter emails, my usual morning has alot of this.

In a few days I will be doing some interesting ork, as this is a new blog, give me time to get set up ;)

In the meantime follow me on twitter .

garret35

Peace