In late 2010 I became a huge fan of twitter. I have to admit, I was slow on the interactions and until I went to Phillip Bloom's Canon' filmmakers live in July 2010 and saw Anthony Quintano's presentation on how social media (twitter can help your business). That has all changed, and 9,000 tweets later I have met some amazing people via twitter and even hired some of them for projects. The new twitter web interface is amazing, I like it and I use that and tweetdeck to keep up with my friends, business colleagues and more.  Here is a new thing they are doing--embedding tweets and shortcuts.  Twitter has come a long way, but in my opinion now that I "get it" I am hooked. 

Below is one of the new features of the new twitter--you can embed tweets.

 

@TweetSmarter Useful #NewNewTwitter keyboard shortcutsyfrog.com/kfi9afnj

— Ultra Social (@UltraSocialUK) December 10, 2011

It's May 1st and I am back from my month long hiatus from Facebook! Then I thought about it, and nobody really cares. In this video I explain the three reasons why no one really cares if you leave the world's most popular social networking site.

We now know that twitter is a tool for  pity statements,  news updates, and sometimes useless information.  In the category of useless information enter Chad Johnson urghh, Ocho Cinco who wants to tweet during NFL games.  He has made is  point clear by stating "he ain't getting in no trouble, he is going to set his own rules." If we could all make our own rules in on our jobs, we might end up working for a bunch of monkeys. I have some advice for Ocho, listen to the Commish on that rule about no tweeting during games, but like every rule there may be a few exceptions.  You may tweet as much as you want on Oct. 11 and Nov. 8, when you play my beloved Baltimore Ravens.

Customer Service. All of us had to make one of those calls to a customer service department, and most likely its during a peak call time or when you really need to get someone immediately. You may be able to get an agent live if your lucky, but if you are like me you just press 0 until you get a live person. In the world of web many people are turning to sites like Twitter and placing issues on sites, such as Get Satisfaction which boasts on its site that " [its service] is a direct connection between people and companies that fosters problem-solving, promotes sharing, and builds up relationships. Look at this service problem on their site from a user that was upset at Adobe, it looks like the issue is resolved. When a Stanley Cup broadcast suddenly went black in late April, many Comcast subscribers went to Twitter to find out why. It was there — not on a phone system with multiple options — they discovered that a lightning storm in Atlanta had caused a power outage during the Philadelphia Flyers-Pittsburgh Penguins hockey playoff game, and that the transmission would be restored soon. According to a NY Times article, Omni Hotels has been monitoring Twitter to offer guests surprise perks. For example, Kevin Colón, 35, from Superior, Colo., twittered about his plans to watch the Final Four college basketball championships in April with friends at the Omni Interlocken Resort near Denver. The marketing people at Omni noticed the tweet and notified the hotel. When the group arrived they were escorted to a reserved table with a good view of the TV and offered a free round of beers. The benefits of posting customer service complaints online seem to be very good. My only concern is about the people who are not connected, what are companies doing for people who are not connected? Any benefits of just calling in to customer service?

Twitter the upstart social networking site for people to write pithy 140 character statements and inform people what are you doing has been going through an upswing as of late. Oprah recently joined twitter and Ashton Kutcher holds the record for 1 million followers. According to Nielson Research unique visitors to Twitter increased 1,382 percent year-over-year, from 475,000 unique visitors in February 2008 to 7 million in February 2009, making it the fastest growing site in the Member Communities category for the month. Zimbio and Facebook followed, growing 240 percent and 228 percent, respectively. Twitter wants your attention, to improve its retention. A recent study conducted by Nielsen Company revealed 60% of users fail to return after a month. I have to admit I joined Twitter and then stopped. I only came back because of the news and information I receive from the site from the likes of CNN, NYTimes and other tech tweets I also enjoy using Tweetie or my Mac and iPhone. But–and it’s a big but–did Nielsen fail to take into account that many Twitter users start off using the web site interface, then quickly migrate to a third-party application? I rarely log on to the site, only to follow someone, and I would fall into that category. That’s the suggestion Brendan O’Connell offered up. A quick look at Twitstat seems to back up his theory. Twitstat is tracking over 200 different Twitter applications and, as the chart below shows, only 27% of Twitter users are using the web interface: Is this just marketing hype? Who knows, but if I know one thing for sure: statistics are really left to interpretation. I am going to tweet this right now.