In my continuing saga to understand everything about Twitter, I wanted to see how mainstream news is contributing. Twitter is a communication tool, so there is no surprise that mainstream media wants to capitalize on the service. I hardly watch TV for news unless there is a breaking story that I want to see video of. I get most of my fill of 'whats going on in the world' by going online. The online world moves much faster than the TV and Twitter moves much faster than my surfing habits. Here is a story from the Los Angeles Times discussing how Twitter beat mainstream news to breaking the story about the 5.4 earthquake in July. One of the first news tracking profiles I followed and set up mobile notifications of was called sfquake. between this and setting up Twitter Tracking on the word "earthquake" I am able to get information on earthquakes all over the world and specifically in the Bay Area. Mainstream news has been quick to get on the Twitter bandwagon. Some are moving slower than others but there are hundreds of news agencies that now post updates on breaking news. http://twitter.com/cnnbrk - CNN Breaking News has over 62,000 followers. This ...

Twitter started off as a place for geeks to communicate with others and send updates on what they were doing. Over the past year or so, Twitter really has become a professional platform for many people that work as freelancers or are deeply involved in the social media ecosphere. Twitter initially had one theme that was available and has always allowed people to upload their own images for the background. Now Twitter has 12 backgrounds available but the over achievers have taken their professional Twitter background to a new level. Here are some of the professional Twitter profiles of the people I follow. Darren Rowse Wayne Sutton Gary Vaynerchuk Dale Cruse Jake Marsh If you want to create a professional Twitter profile there are many ways to go about it. One of the easiest ways would be to grab the Twitter Photoshop Template and customize it. Dra Studios has another Twitter Template that has more of the 'cool' look. If you don't want to Photoshop the template and just want a better image to have in your background you can go to web distortion for a collection of 26 Twitter backgrounds. The Closet Entrepreneur has a great post about how to create a Twitter background from Powerpoint. Twitter Treats is ...

As the saying goes. "So much to do, so little time". Between the to-dos and the big tasks of the day, how do you keep track of everything? 11AM Meeting with Google, 3PM Call the CEO of Apple and somewhere in between pick up the dry cleaning, call your mom and drop the check off at the post office. We are all living a task based lifestyle. The real problem is how to manage all of these to-dos and get them done when they need to be. Since technology hasn't found a way to add a couple extra hours into the day (which would be ideal) we have to set up a system that reminds of of the little things that seem to get lost in the shuffle. I came across RTM or Remember the Milk about a year ago when it was all the buzz in Social Media. I didn't set up an account until today. Remember the Milk is a web based applicaiton that can be used from a computer, mobile email or my favorite Twitter. Just playing with the service for a few minutes I realized how easy it was to update, add and edit all the little ...

All bloggers for the most part want to get more traffic. It's great to have repeat readers and that following can carry you a long way, but getting new readers is where a blog can really grow. There are several blog directories that you can sign up for and a thousand ways to generate traffic but I have not found anything as impressive as BlogBurst. BlogBurst, a syndication service that places blogs on top-tier online destinations, is a product of Pluck Corporation, headquartered in Austin, Texas. I will review all of the different blog directories and services I use for my local Concord Ca. blog in time but BlogBurst needs special mention. Because of BlogBurst, my readership has increased beyond my expectations. I had one post featured in a national newspaper and from there I started getting traffic from all over the US. It didn't stop there. Once you become a hit, the hits keep coming. Over the past week, the Mayor of Concord blog has had it's blog headlines viewed over 9,000 times. For a small local blog that's really impressive. BlogBurst isn't my only traffic generator but it definatly helps. My traffic has increased and based on Google Analytics my site ...

Every office has a set of monkeys. I just got mine fom Think Geek

Thanksgiving is wonderful. Not much beats getting around the family and friends and stuffing yourself full of turkey and cranberry sauce. In the end, Thanksgiving is all about giving. I was going to just re-tweet this information since I found it from a person I was following but after digging in a bit with the TweetsGiving site and what Epic Change is all about, I felt it was worth writing something more substantial up in support of them. Epic Change believes that people's stories are assets that can be used as resources to improve their lives. We help people in need share their "epic" true stories in innovative, creative and profitable ways to help them acquire the financial resources they need to create positive "change" in their communities. I understand that many people think "We need schools and money for things in America.". Yes we do, but if that's where you would rather donate your money then there are many places you can do that. TweetsGiving is raising money for kids that really have nothing in comparison to us and all they need are 1000 bricks to build a new school. Tweetsgiving is a project of Epic Change that seeks to demonstrate the ...

Bit.ly is a URL shortner for use with services like Twitter where every letter counts. There are many URL Shorteners available online like TinyUrl but Bit.ly goes one step further. Besides having just the URL Shortener, you can also sign in and get detailed stats of all the URLs you have linked to. I wanted to test this out and see if Bit.ly was worth all the hype online. So I took a recent post from a blog and sent out an update on Twitter. After a few minutes I checked into my account and looked at the stats of the link. It was like looking at the lifecycle of my Tweet, watching as the link was clicked over time (2hrs). You can track all of your links using Bit.ly over a day or a year. As a marketing tool, this can help in many ways.

Your RSS readership is just as important as tracking your visitors with Google Analytics. I have all of my blogs pushing their RSS feeds through Feedburner. Now don't laugh, I am going to show what my average readership looks like and though it's not much compared to my website traffic, I have never done anything trying to increase the RSS subscriptions. I'll get to that later in this post. FeedBurner is the leading provider of media distribution and audience engagement services for blogs and RSS feeds. Our Web-based tools help bloggers, podcasters and commercial publishers promote, deliver and profit from their content on the Web. FeedBurner also offers the largest feed and blog advertising network that brings together an unprecedented caliber of content aggregated from the world’s most recognized media companies (e.g. Wall Street Journal Online, Wired News, Ziff Davis), A-list bloggers and blog networks and individual publishers from around the world. Now getting a good volume of traffic to your site is hard enough and there are many tips and trick to make that happen. The same is true about getting more readers to subscribe to your RSS feed. How To Boost Your Blog By Holding A Contest 10 Things to Do with Your ...

I follow a lot of people on Twitter. Other than the random update that amuses me, I really like to check the links to the sites and blogs they recommend. Twitturly let me identify just those Twitter updates with links and also shows how many times that link has been copied. Twitturly is a service for tracking what URLs people are talking about as they talk about them on Twitter.The easiest way to understand how Twitturly works is, if you are familiar with digg, then you already know essentially what we do. If you don't know what digg is, then here is a quick run-down: On Digg, and Twitturly, people "vote" for a URL. The more votes it gets the better it ranks. If it does well enough, it gets promoted to the home page and as the votes increase it gets displayed higher up the home page. Twitturly is different than Digg because instead of voting on our site, you vote by participating on Twitter. Each time that you send a link to your followers on Twitter, Twitturly takes a note of it and applies your vote to that URL.

In case I ever need to put my budget online and track my money with some Web2.0. Geezeo helps people make "Educated Financial Decisions." The team at Geezeo believes that cutting edge financial tools and services don't need to come with a high price tag. Geezeo is a free web-based personal finance application that makes it easy to track all your finances, see where all your money is going, set financial goals and learn from others. On Geezeo, members can create discussion groups with other users about specific financial topics...Starting this week, users will be able to provide feedback on financial products, such as student loans, credit cards or savings accounts...read more Geezeo has a Facebook feel to it and the most comprehensive all-around offerings, including online connections with most major banks, good investment and financial advice areas, money confessionals, well-traveled forums and mobile-delivery options....read more

I've mentioned JTV before in a post called Generation YOU. Justin.tv is a site that allows anyone with a computer and a webcam to stream their life online to everyone. It's called lifecasting and it one of the ways it became famous through iJustine or Justine Ezarik. Justin.tv has had it's share of controversy since they oppened the floodgates to the masses but nothing like the recent news of a man committing suicide while hundreds of people watched. A 19-year-old Florida teen's suicide broadcast Wednesday on Justin.tv was a result of an overdose of opiates and benzodiazepine, the Broward County Medical Examiner & Trauma Services Division said Friday. The Pembroke Pines teen was pronounced dead about 6 p.m. on Wednesday, coroner spokeswoman Sherri Baker said in a telephone interview. She said benzodiazepine is used for depression and insomnia. About 185 people were viewing the feed on the San Francisco-based live-streaming service. The teen had announced his pending suicide on a bodybuilding.com chat forum, which linked to the broadcast. He left an online suicide note. Viewers were seen egging him on. The suicide note To Whom It May Concern, I am going to leave this for whoever stumbles across my bookmarks later on. I hate myself and I ...

Jealous Brother is one of those websites that can become addicting. Where else can you definitively pick a side Pro or Con on any person, place or thing? Sure you can write a blog post about one or the other or even leave a comment on someone elses post stating your opinion but how much more fun is it to choose a side and pit yourself up against people that feel the exact opposite as you? A LOT! I guess you could say that JealousBrother.com has been working its way to the surface for over twenty years now. Growing up the youngest of three I have obviously had plenty of things to be jealous over, such as my siblings getting to drive before me, getting to stay out later, and of course getting new clothes while I received hand me downs. Fueled by jealousy, my older brother and I have been competing over anything and everything for as long as I can remember. It wasn’t until both my brother and I became homeowners that the competition reached all time highs. He had a better push mower than me so I got a used riding mower. Not to be out done he acquired ...