Twitter’s Site Joins Location Craze and Burglars Celebrate!

I know that what I am about to say is not original but it really struck me that as Twitter announces that it is offering location based information on its site there is so little reported about the potential issues this may create.

I think it struck me because the Twitter site is usually the last place where the cool ideas are implemented. Location based mobile apps for Twitter are nothing new and with the increasing popularity of foursquare and others this craze seems to have some serious legs. This is all the more evident if the Twitter site is climbing on board.

Mashable reports on Twitter’s efforts with the following picture and quote which pretty much tells the story.

It’s a simple integration: with any tweet that has a location attached to it (mostly via apps that support it, such as Foursquare and Tweetie), a small location icon will appear at the end of the byline of that tweet. Clicking on it will bring up a Google Map showing the location where that tweet was sent.

I am admittedly not a fan of this kind of service but that means nothing because a lot of people are. The people who I think may be most enamored with this trend are those people who want to know where someone IS NOT rather than where they are. You know those folks that like to come by your place when it’s empty or less protected because of your absence.? Those nice people who like to take your belongings? You know them as burglars, thieves, robbers, home invaders etc etc.

As I started to look into this a little more and back in February KTVU.com ran a story (video here and it’s pretty interesting) about a web site developed to make the point that maybe a little restraint may be a good thing in this quest to tell everyone when you are not at your home. The site is called Please Rob Me

As more people reveal their whereabouts on social networks, a new site has sprung up to remind you that letting everyone know where you are — and, by extension, where you’re not — could leave you vulnerable to those with less-than-friendly intentions. The site’s name says it all: Please Rob Me.

Launched last week, Please Rob Me is exceptionally straightforward. Pretty much all it does is show posts that appear on Twitter from a location-sharing service, Foursquare. Please Rob Me puts these posts into a long, chronological list it refers to as “Recent Empty Homes.”

Please Rob Me assembles its list by taking information that Twitter makes freely available so that many Web sites can show tweets. But the point of Please Rob Me could be made with data that flows on dozens of other sites as well.

I’m not trying to rain on anyone’s “Hey, look where I am now!” parade. If someone wants to do this kind of thing, that’s fine. As of today, we live in a free country. But when a law professor from UC Hastings, Robin Feldman, finishes her explanation as to why a site like Please Rob me will not likely be considered an accessory to any crimes by saying

The victims to an extent are fools. They are publishing their information and they should be thinking about it.

I just had to wonder. What are your thoughts on this one? Is telling everyone where you are at all times always a good thing?

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Google Is Bing’s 4th Largest Referrer

Hitwise tweeted Bing’s largest referrers, or the upstream sites that drive traffic to Bing. It is here we learn that Google is Bing’s fourth largest referrer.
Here is a picture of the referrers to Bing as Hitwise published on their Tweet:

As you can see, the number one referrer is MSN, followed by Facebook, [...]

*** Read the full post by clicking on the headline above or, in Facebook, by clicking on the “View Original Post” link below. ***

Countdown: 203 Days Left Until Christmas Twitter Reaches 20 Billion Tweets

What will come first, Christmas or Twitter’s 20 billionth tweet?

Well, according to the GigaTweet counter, you can celebrate Twitter hitting the 20 billion mark, a few months before you can put up your Christmas tree.

Twitter has already passed the 10 billion tweet count and is rapidly chasing towards the big two-oh.

Of course, stuff like this only gets reported because a) it’s still novel, and b) it’s a light news day.

(via)

Twitter Engineer Deletes Tweet to Avoid Developer Backlash?

Twitter Engineer, Alex Payne, has inserted his foot in his mouth. Actually he inserted a big chirping bird in his mouth and ended up with a fail whale of backlash. This tweet started it:

That apparently caused all kinds of angst among Twitter developers, concerned that third-party apps–such as Seesmic and Twhirl–would become obsolete.

So much angst that Payne has apparently deleted the tweet! You’d think he of all people would know that deleting tweets just stirs things up more–and tweets never fully vanish from the web, as the above screenshot proves.

Payne also had to kiss and make up with those that flooded him with @replies:

Still, there’s one sure way to take the heat off any impending new features for the web interface. What’s that, you ask? Simple! Go ahead and launch the Twitter ads that are rumored to be imminent–that will give users something different to complain about.

You Don’t Have to be Gullible to Work at the BBC, but it Helps!

The UK’s Guardian newspaper demonstrates that intelligence goes out the window, once someone gets drawn in to Twitter.

Apparently banks, politicians, and even journalists are falling for the "this you??" phishing scam. One unfortunate BBC correspondent is apparently blissfully unaware that he is a victim, as you can still find this tweet on his Twitter stream:

And you thought the Brits weren’t great lovers!

Anyway, so you don’t fall for the same scam, this video explains what to be on the look out for…

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Will Twitter Ads Be 140 Characters or Less?

Well folks it looks like the days of advertising free tweeting may finally be coming to an end. The rumors are flying around regarding the ad platform that Twitter has in the works and is testing. Everyone is “atwitter” with this change and for good reason. Of course, until there is more than what has already been released by Twitter itself any ideas / thoughts about what Twitter ads might look like are for the imagination.

MediaPost reports on how this whole thing really started to bubble to the surface.

Twitter plans to launch an advertising platform in about a month, according to Seth Goldstein. The chief executive officer and co-founder of socialmedia.com led a panel Monday focused on the next wave of interactive advertising at the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting 2010 in Carlsbad, Calif., that shed light on Twitter’s strategy.

Declining to confirm exactly when Twitter would release the platform, Anamitra Banerji, head of product management and monetization at Twitter, told MediaPost following the panel that “we are working on an ad platform, but it’s only in the test phase.”

So while Seth Goldstein picked up some pub for being the “unofficial” press release of sorts for this next phase of Twitter it is probably too early to speculate on when this will be less talk and more reality. In the meantime let’s see what people are or have been putting out there. The Washington Post reminded us of Robert Scoble’s idea of the SuperTweet he introduced back in November

Robert Scoble, for instance, suggests the idea of a SuperTweet with all sorts of metadata that pops up when part of the message is rolled over with your mouse. This data could include things such as the location of the Tweet and how many times it’s been retweeted, but it could also trigger a contextual ad triggered by certain keywords.

Other questions that need to be considered on how will these ads be paid for. Will there be an AdSense type platform for Twitter users to share in the wealth? Where will the ads appear if they are not in the stream? The list goes on and on.

What are your thoughts on Twitter ads? Are you looking forward to seeing them? Will they impact your Twitter experience? Do you have a particular format that might or might not work for you? Why not join in on the speculation and guessing. Your guess is as valid as the next guy’s right now.

Cup of Joe: Bonnie Raitt Knows the Secret to Social Media Marketing

The other day I was on Twitter and saw a tweet that really summed up social media marketing. OK, so I know that James is talking more about seo here, but truthfully, giving your audience something to talk about is at the heart of social media marketing. Bonnie Raitt knew this secret in 1991–way before our modern conception of social media existed!

When folks are talking about your content they are talking about your brand. When folks are talking about your content they are sharing your ideas. When folks are talking about your content they are linking to your site. When folks are talking about your content they are strengthening your brand by contributing to the dialog. When folks are talking about your content they are making you money.

Let’s Give them Something To Talk About!

OK, so we know that our content needs to further the dialog, but why is it that some content gets talked about and some just lays there like a dead fish? It’s because most people only like talking about certain things.

People like talking about:

• things that make them laugh.
• things that make them cry.
• things that make them angry.
• things that inspire them.
• things that make them think.

See those social media buttons below this post? Those buttons are useless without engaging content. Without engaging content that people want to talk about or share, those buttons are a waste of space. That’s why here at Marketing Pilgrim we work hard to create content that you want to share with your friends. So next time you are creating content ask yourself, will people talk about this? If not, then don’t expect it to do well in social media.

Until next time, start a conversation with your own content today!

2 Million Reasons Why Wikipedia Pages Will Continue to Outrank Yours on Google

Here’s a tweet that will likely ruffle the feathers of many in the seo community:

Yes, Google has apparently donated $2 million to the group that ensures a Wikipedia page shows up in Google for just about anything you search.

Now, let me ask you this. If Google handed one of your competitors $2 million, while said competitor’s web pages ranked on the first page, wouldn’t you smell a rat?

I’m sure we’ll hear a rant from Mahalo’s Jason Calacanis in 3..2..1….

Google Buzz Publishes Who You Email

Ah, Google Buzz. At last we see the chinks in your armor (well, aside from the fact that it looks a little useless)—the opt-out feature appears to automatically publish your contact list, which is compiled from the people you email and chat with the most.

As if it wasn’t annoying enough to be told you have dozens of new “Buzz” only to check and see the same message four times and twenty-odd retweets of an acquaintance’s old tweet, or to have to try to separate your work and your personal news.

Now, there are a few warnings: the standard light-gray-on-white text that states: “Your profile includes your name, photo, people you follow, and people who follow you.” Although it tells you you’re creating a public profile, it doesn’t clarify how they assign you people to follow. On a later page in the process, Buzz does specify that “You’re already set up to follow the people you email and chat with the most.”

As the Business Insider says:

A Google spokesperson tells us the followers lists are public by default so that people can quickly find new people to follow. Obviously, that’s a good thing for Google, which is hoping to get as many people using Google Buzz as soon as possible. It’s also meant to be helpful for users. And for those who are unconcerned with telling the world who they email most, it is. But for everyone else, it’s terrible.

It gets to a deeper problem with Google Buzz: It’s built on email, which is a very different Internet application than a social network.

I absolutely agree. Email is a whole different level of privacy than a social network—even with passwords and walled gardens, social networks are public, and far more public than email.

TBI has a solution: “We believe Google could and should simply make this feature ‘opt-in’ so that people know what they’re doing.” Agreed. Although Google has long been an opt-out only kind of guy, one of these days they’re going to have that turn around and hurt them. You know, kind of like what’s happened with Facebook . . . repeatedly.

Want to opt out of sharing your list? Read Write Web tells how in five easy steps:

1. Sign into your Google account via Gmail (or any other Google service)
2. Go to your Google profile here: http://google.com/profiles/me
3. Click the link at the top-right of the screen that reads “Edit Profile”
4. Here, you’ll see a checkbox that reads “Display the list of people I’m following and people following me.” To make this info private, just uncheck that box.
5. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click the “Save changes” button

Or you could opt out of Buzz entirely. After all, who’s really found it useful so far? (We can turn it off, can’t we, Google?)

What do you think? Will Google learn their lesson? Or are they already too big to beat down?

McTweets: Over 1 Billion Served

So what’s the deal? Is Twitter slowing down or speeding up? Reports of slowing of growth in visitors and accounts of Twitter has created a stir for some. Unfortunately for Twitter that is the price of a ‘hockey stick’ growth pattern which is associated with rapid mass appeal. It’s every business’ dream but goes up must come down at least a little. Trouble is, that kind of growth is unsustainable and then the non-thinking nay-sayers come out of the woodwork with their doomsday predictions about the future (full disclosure: I suspect I have fallen into this category at times. Guilty as charged.)

So what do you do when you see something as popular as Twitter being taken through the ringer on its growth? Measure something else that looks like growth! Royal Pingdom has done that by measuring the number of tweets per month rather than visitors or users and they have attached a magic number to it as well that always gets attention: 1 billion (please take time out to do your best Dr. Evil impersonation in honor of this milestone). Here’s the pretty picture for you and be sure to read the methodology for the research after.

Methodology: To be able to calculate the number of tweets per month, we tracked down a tweet from the first couple of minutes of each month. Using the sequence numbers of these tweets, we could then calculate the number of tweets for each month. Since finding old tweets is more or less impossible with Twitter’s own search engine, we used Google, then verified the tweet time stamp by looking at the tweet itself.

There are many different things that can be taken from this data. On one hand it can be looked at that while the number of users coming to Twitter as slowed the usage of the existing users is increasing. The implication is that they are getting value and using it more.

That might be true but let’s take a look at the dark side of this kind of research. If the user base is not growing at the rate as the number of tweets there may be another cause than just existing users tweeting more. What would that be? Twitter spam is on the rise! I think that this is the most likely cause of such an increase in tweets when the other growth metrics have slowed. If the complaints of Twitter users in general are any indication, I am putting my money on this horse.

Are you tweeting more or less? Do you think this growth in tweets is organic or spamtastic?

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