Betty Draper outed!!!

Like many of us, I got caught up in the Mad Men on Twitter craze a few months ago. Now it seems like any character who was ever in a frame has a Twitter character.  The overexposure of Mad Men on Twitter caused me to unsubscribe to all of them.  Well, it turns out there was a little controversy---The fanjackers were fanjacked. For example, who did you follow- @bettydraper or betty_draper? Although betty_draper had a head start, @bettydraper has come on strong:

• betty_draper has 4036 friends/3000 followers and has tweeted 1304 times
•  @bettydraper has 3987 friends/2866 followers and 819 tweets. She even has a LinkedIn Profile.

Now here's where it gets really interesting.   The writer of the fabulous advertising blog, Ad broad, has been tweeting as @bettydraper. So a cloaked character (Ad Broad) is spoofing another character on Twitter (Betty Draper) who is fanjacking the TV character.  You can read all about it on ad broad, but I need an aspirin!

Vroom, Vroom-Fastest growing social net

Nielsen Online reported today that Twitter is the fastest growing social site. Twitter's traffic has grown by 343% in one year.  Current traffic is estimated at 2.3M, a huge increase from last year's 533K. And a lot more stable, too! CNET also has the analysis here.

Re-introducing Twitter

My friend, Aaron Strout, just celebrated his 10,000 Tweet by tweeting his top 10 Social Media lessons learned as he approached 10K.  Aaron provided some great advice that everyone can benefit from.  A few of his Twitter related tips include:

• Make sure you spend as much time commenting, responding and reading other people's content as you do creating your own.
• Every day I a point of calling out others blogs, Twitter updates or FF activity. Remember its all about them, not you!
• On Twitter be social. Talk about work AND social things. Too much of either can be a turn off.

Thinking about Aaron's tweets, I realized that although I blog about Twitter, I haven't been all that helpful in teaching people about how to use Twitter here. As we all know, although Twitter is very simple to learn and use, it can be difficult to master.  Since much has been written about how to Tweet, I have combed the Twitter ecosystem to find the best advice. I highly recommend each one of these great posts:

• A classic from Jeremiah Owyang, "How I use Twitter, and you?"
• Connie Bensen has written a compendium of  Twitter 101 instructions that includes, insights, tips, links and tools.
• Mark Goren provides quick Twitter thoughts I and II
• Jordan Levy has written a fantastic Flowgram which includes the famous Common Craft video, Twitter on Wikipedia, Chris Brogan's 50 ideas on using Twitter for business
• A list of 170 bookmarks of other instructional Twitter posts on Delicious.com 

 And finally, here is a deck that I presented to Seattle Podcamp, Twitter, What's it all about and why should I use it

Twitter- What's It All About And Why Should I Use It?

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: podcampseattle twitter)

Twitter shuffles the deck

Twitter founders, Jack and Ev have traded places. Twitter Chairman Evan Williams will now become CEO and CEO Jack Dorsey is now the Chairman. Now Ev will manage the day to day affairs at Twitter. The third founder, Biz Stone said, “We had two very strong leaders here and we really needed to choose one,”Board member Fred Wilson said,“We all think Ev is a better fit to lead the company from a product perspective, an operations perspective, and a business standpoint,” You can read the details in the NY Times bits column.

The news was announced on the Twitter blog today.  In the co-founder's characteristic minimalist styles, you can see their reactions in their tweets:

 

 

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Public Service Announcement - Twitter gets tough on Spam

I've written about spam on Twitter before yet follower Spam continues to annoy Twitter users.  As Twitter has grown in popularity, it has gotten more aggressive about combatting spam. In the past, the best defense against spammers was to block the spammer from viewing your updates. It was understood that Twitter tracked the blocks closely and the community's self-policing would be acted upon by Twitter. And it seemed to work fairly well as many of the spammers were removed.  Now TechCrunch reports that Twitter has taken an even more aggressive approach by introducing the Spam account.  By sending a reply @spam or direct message will get a spammer on the list.  I just started to follow the Spam account and suggest that you do as well. Let's get rid of Spam!

Crowdsourcing on Twitter

I've seen a lot of interest in Crowdsourcing on Twitter lately. We seem to crowdsource all the time.

As Laura Fitton said in Clive Thompson's great Ambient Awareness article, “I outsource my entire life,” she said. “I can solve any problem on Twitter in six minutes.” Many other people are relying on the twitterverse for its opinions and referrals. As an example, just the other day Ken Burbary asked,

Ken promptly received several answers to his request.  Chris Brogan asked Twitter forinnovative ideas on a social media project for Oreo. This happens all the time. Twitter is the ultimate crowdsourcing vehicle.  Several months ago, Zena Weist, discussed the concept in her blog and described the activity on Twitter as Community Sourcing, Community sourcing is taking crowd sourcing to the next level:
Outsourcing a task to a connected group/community for the benefit of that community.

There are a few great books on Crowdsourcing that I highly recommend and of course, each author is active on Twitter.


Mzinga Chairman Barry Libert, wrote We are Smarter than Me.
NYU Professor Clay Shirky, wrote Here Comes Everybody
and most recently, Jeff Howe of Wired wrote Crowdsourcing.


Have you read these books?  What did you think?  How do you use crowdsourcing?

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New Twitter Communities

As we all know, the Twitterverse is a great community where we can enhance our networking, strengthen relationships and crowdsource various questions/ problems among other things.  Recently, I've joined a few off-Twitter communities devoted to the Twitter network.

Twitterpated is a Ning community organized by A+ Networker, Vincent Wright,  whose goal is a separate discussion and networking group for My Linking Power Forum members who want to enhance their knowledge and reach on Twitter.com. Currently, there are 107 members.

The Birdhouse is another Ning community.  This one is organized by Tweetcrunch, a blog devoted to Twitter and Microblogging news. The Birdhouse is a place for developers and users who share the love of Micro blogging in any shape or form, from Twitter to Rejaw create groups, share new apps, ideas or suggestions, and get to know the people behind the tweet.  Brand new, there are currently15 members.

More established Twitter communities include Tweeple, a LinkedIn group devoted to Twitter.  Currently,  there are1600 members and 27 lively discussions posted.

On Facebook, Mark Carter created Twitter Strategies and Connections, For people actively using Twitter and people actively wondering HOW to use Twitter...Your forum to connect with like minded people so you can ask questions and share expertise and strategies (this includes everyone from new users to the "Twitter pros") that will make your Twitter experience more valuable! There are 697 members with some lively discussions, videos, and wall comments.

I enjoy participating in each of these communities as well as other social media communities.  A lot of interesting tips,tools and discussions that don't occur in 140 characters.  The net-net is a stronger community, whether on Twitter or not.  Hope to see you around.