Birdfeed Looks To Attract Tweets As The Go-To Twitter Geolocation App Back in June, we wrote about Birdfeed, an iPhone Twitter application that finally brought the speed and simplicity to rival what many consider to be the top client, Tweetie. It’s a great app that offers a different look and feel from Tweetie (and especially now Tweetie 2), which some users prefer. And it’s about to gain a key feature which could further differentiate it: Geolocation. Now, to be clear, as we previewed last month, the upcoming version of Tweetie, 2.1, will also support Twitter’s new geolocation feature. So what’s so good about it? Currently, there isn’t any granular support to pick and choose how much or little detail of your location to show (what city you’re in versus what block you’re on, for example), but I suspect that may be something coming from Twitter’s end once geolocation launches. On tweets sent out with this geolocation data, you’ll see a hyperlinked location beneath the timestamp on the tweet’s landing page.
So Now Facebook Has Check-Ins — What About Twitter? At an event on Wednesday, Facebook unveiled Places, their new location element that allows users to check-in to venues. Obviously, this mimics the core feature of smaller startups like Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt, and dozens of others. The move of the big boys into this space was inevitable, but it is somewhat surprising that it has taken this long. It was almost exactly one year ago to the day that Twitter first announced their intentions to enter the location space. Of course, you could argue that Twitter doesn’t need any kind of check-in functionality because geotagged tweets are essentially that. And so many people who are using geolocation on Twitter are stuck simply tagging (or “checking-in to”) a set of coordinates. It’s the tie-in with actual places that right now appears to be the real future of monetizing geotagging actions in this space. Given the check-in hype, it shouldn’t be surprising that people are working on building check-in layers on top of Twitter.
How Twitter Can Help You Quit Smoking In this Sunday’s New York Times, reporter Brian Stelter outlines his using Twitter as a tool for weight loss by setting up a @brianstelter25 account for his progress and tweeting out his exercise plan and meals. “I knew that I could not diet alone; I needed the help of a cheering section.” He ended up losing 75 pounds. On my birthday this year, I decided that 15 years of smoking were enough and tossed cigarettes. The amount of support I received then and in the days afterward was overwhelming, and much like Stelter I would have felt like I’d let people down if I picked up a cigarette instead of my iPhone. I stuck to my guns and stuck on my nicotine patches, tweeting instead of smoking when in at-risk situations like parties with friends and passing by airport entrances. I could not quit alone, I needed the help of a cheering section. Why do people overeat, or smoke or drink in the first place? “Then she mentioned, casually, ‘By the way, I’ve lost 50 pounds along with you.”
Who Are The Most Listed Twitter Users? The Power of Twitter in Information Discovery It surprises me how many really smart people I meet still doubt the power of Twitter. It seems the urge to be a naysayer of Twitter is really strong for some. I think some of this stems from the early days of Twitter when it was presumed that it was a technology to tell people what you ate for lunch. Twitter never seemed to really take the offense in PR and marketing. Right now the most important role to hire in Twitter would be a seasoned marketing professional who could proactively change the conversation about Twitter and educate people about its significance as an information sharing tool. I’ve written extensively about Twitter’s use cases, but it’s biggest power is in information sharing. 1. When we found stuff we liked we “bookmarked” it so that we could come back to the website later. And the company that helped websites publish RSS? But this issue of “how to consistently find the good stuff” is such a hard problem. And because Delicious was bought by Yahoo! 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
Twitter's Suitors Talk in Billions Twitter Was Act One | Business One brisk December day, Dorsey, 34, is leaving Third Rail, an artisanal coffee shop he frequents in New York’s West Village. As he walks, he is unusually effusive. “I just had a meeting I’ve been wanting to have since I was 14,” he says gleefully, “with the taxi-and-limousine commissioner.” Their topic: “Technology in cabs. Making transactions faster and easier and more informational. I said, ‘Anything you guys need. His interest in New York City government goes surprisingly deep. By the time Dorsey was in high school he was writing rudimentary software programs that could be used to dispatch taxis, ambulances, or delivery couriers. Jim McKelvey, who owned the company (which archived documents onto CD-ROMs) and who today is Dorsey’s partner in Square, recalls that first meeting in 1992. McKelvey took Dorsey on as an intern and learned that this awkward teenager could swiftly master most computing tasks. Dorsey kept improving as a programmer. Dorsey had always kept a journal.
Top 7 Ways to Save Time on Twitter While many small businesses have started using Twitter in their marketing, finding the time to do it right can be a struggle. According to r March 03, 2011 While many small businesses have started using Twitter in their marketing, finding the time to do it right can be a struggle. Here are seven Twitter tricks from the pros that allow you to spend less time on the mechanics and more time engaging. 1. Using Twitter lists is a great way to keep up with what's happening in your industry and connect with relevant people in an efficient way. You can use a site like Listorious to search for other people's lists by topic. 2. When you're following more than a few hundred people, your main Twitter feed starts to become more like noise than a conversation, and you're likely to miss what key influencers are tweeting about... especially if you only have time to check in once or twice a day. A great way to cut through the clutter is to create your own microlists of key people to follow. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.