Twitter on the acquisition trail and here’s why!

You will soon be able to tweet from @anywhere – Twitter’s announcement explained

Music and film fans will be well aware that this week is South By South West, one of the world’s biggest displays of independent film and music. The festival is also the home to one of the world’s largest conferences for emerging technology. South By South West Interactive has built up an enviable reputation for attracting the brightest stars in emerging technology and in the past has played host to the launch of digital stars including Spotify and Twitter.

This year Twitter’s CEO, Evan Williams, returned to SXSWi to announce the next step in Twitter’s quest for world domination, the Facebook baiting @anywhere.

@anywhere is Twitter’s new system of tweeting directly from any website and remaining permanently logged into Twitter wherever you are online, much like Facebook’s Connect service.

In Twitter’s own words:

“Imagine being able to follow a New York Times journalist directly from her byline, tweet about a video without leaving YouTube, and discover new Twitter accounts while visiting the Yahoo homepage”.

From what we know so far the service is closer to Twitter adapting to the ways we already use it than an entirely new direction for the service. Users have been tweeting links and adding their own comment since Twitter began, @anywhere will simply make it easier for us to do so and making content sharing a little easier.

Twitter are still playing their cards close to their chests on this one but we can expect all to be revealed on April 14^th at Chirp, Twitter’s very own conference, and then we’ll get an idea of the full extent of Twitter’s plans.

Twitter raises its game by rolling out hovercards

This week Twitter made the announcement that it is launching a new service called Hovercards. It is designed to get you to stay on the web version of Twitter.

The new function means that in your timeline you can hover over someone’s name or image and a bit more information will pop up. You will also be able to follow and unfollow directly from here.

Sending direct messages to people you follow will also be possible with Hovercards so you can interact without moving off the page. This service is being rolled out gradually and I haven’t received it yet. I think it could become a little bit annoying if things keep popping up all over the place as I am not a fan of that. The functionality reminds me of the services of Twitter management tool www.refollow.com.

A twitter app that shows you where and how hard it is snowing

Unless you have been hidden under a rock recently you can’t have failed to have heard that the UK has ground to a practical standstill following an attack of bad weather.

I live in Harrogate in the north of England and we have had the worst snow in 30 years. I was particularly proud to see our home town as the focus of the national news as the chaos continued last night.

Anyway, where there is a problem, there is a Twitter app. So here is a Twitter mashup by benmarsh" target="_blank">Ben Marsh which shows you where people are tweeting about UK snow and how bad it is coming down.

All you do is tweet the hashtag #uksnow and the first half of your postcode, and rate the snow that is falling out of ten and your tweet arrives on the map. Even better this is also available on the iPhone. This is a very useful app especially at this time of year but I doubt people will be using it in July – maybe we will have UK/US sun.

iPhone Twitter app for tweeting on your favourite shows

The makers behind TV Show Big Brother have launched a new Twitter app called Twemote for the iPhone which allows you to tag your tweets for your favourite TV shows. It also filters your tweets for TV programmes. It’s available on the iPhone to download for free now.

Both the website and the  iPhone Twitter app give you access to the latest TV programmes and you can join in the the conversation on a certain show. It’s pretty simple, when you find a programme you want to tweet about, you just select it and start tweeting. The Twitter app will automatically tag your tweets with the relevant hashtag to share them with other users. I think this could be a great way to find new friends with similar interests. I could see it working really well for people into niche shows.

I have to admit I did see an awful lot of people tweeting about the X-factor final last week, so I reckon this is a clever little idea and quite a useful Twitter app – so it gets the thumbs up from me and the Tweasier team.

2009 Twitter trending topics matrix

This week the Twitter blog revealed the most popular trending topics of 2009 and I thought it was worth sharing in a nice matrix. Some of the interesting things for me include no Manchester United but Chelsea and Liverpool FC, our friends at Tweetdeck seemed popular in 2009 and American Idol is still the number one TV show on Twitter. I am a little surprised the UK version (X-Factor) didn’t make it on here but maybe it will do it next year.

Manage Twitter Followers: Have A Spring Clean

Some easily get carried away with Twitter, following everyone under the sun thinking it will boost their profile in the popularity stakes. Actually, you’re not going to get anywhere doing that. If you have already been labelled a ‘mass Twitter follower’ isn’t it time you had a spring clean so you can properly manage Twitter followers? It will be worth it in the long run.

The thing is, if you don’t manage your Twitter followers properly on a regular basis, you could end up with a long list of people that you are following that has little or no relevance to what you’re all about.

Managing your Twitter followers can work in two ways – you can spring clean the people you’re following on Twitter, and you can also spring clean those who follow you if you wish.

Manage Twitter Followers That Follow You

If multiple people that you don’t like are following you on Twitter, you don’t have to have it that way. You can select ‘block’ from the Twitter settings next to that follower. It’s quite simple. If you have been pestered by someone you know and don’t like, or don’t really fancy someone who’s into rabbit shooting following your ‘I love rabbits’ profile, then you have the control to do what you want with your Twitter profile, so you can manage Twitter followers properly.

…And The Ones You Follow

On the other hand, it might be that you have had a crazy mass following session and ended up following 500 people. It can be difficult to follow this many people unless you use a Twitter client to group your followers. It just makes for more catching up on other people’s updates and not only that but you could look like a bit of a spammer if you don’t engage with them properly. This is especially true if you’re a brand trying to break into the social media market. Using Twitter can benefit you, but only if you do it right. Too many businesses have the preconception that if they follow hundreds of people then each one will follow them back. If only it was so easy. You have to work for your Twitter juice, it’s always quality over quantity, and it really does pay to have a spring clean every now and then so you can manage Twitter followers. If you think you’ve been a little bit too hasty with the number of people you’re following, its time to get the virtual duster out.

Customers turning to social networks to vent their fury at poor service

A new study has found that one in three (30%) people now vent their fury at bad customer service providers on social networks like Twitter and Facebook.

To be honest I have seen similar stuff on blogs when people are treated badly by faceless organisations. I have been known to have a bit of a rant myself on my blog. I know someone who was recently treated badly on the telephone by a customer services department and when the person came off the phone they tweeted their displeasure at the situation. They included a reference to the brand in the tweet and within 15 minutes, someone had contacted them directly from that company – which was quite impressive. So it goes to show that complaining on platforms like Twitter could help resolve your customer service problems.

The article goes on:

BT has its own Twitter feed where it contacts people who ‘tweet’ negative comments about any BT services.

A member of the BT customer service team will message the customer directly and try to resolve the problem. ASOS, the online retailer, also offers a similar social media service.

I think customer service through Twitter is now a must for any large organisation which sells directly to the consumer. So if you are sick of a supplier – let your Twitter followers know about it and you never know your problem might get resolved a whole lot quicker.

Two types of Twitter users finally identified – which one are you?

A new study on Twitter users has been revealed this week. The study was done by two professors Moro Naaman and Jeffrey Boase and it has identified that there is two types of Twitter users.

You can read the full article from The Miami Herald here. It states:

The majority, or 80 percent, were what they called `meformers” — Twitter users who sent out messages that revolved around themselves, updating others about their activities or sharing thoughts and feelings.

The other 20 percent are “informers” — people who were actually sharing information. Not surprisingly, the informers tended to have larger social networks and be more interactive.

The article also refers to the recent change to Twitter’s main question ‘What are you doing?’, if you didn’t know it has changed to “What’s happening?”

It adds:

“Although the meformers’ self focus might be characterized by some as self-indulgent, these messages may play an important role in helping others maintain relationships,” they wrote in their study.

I think this is quite interesting and very true, there are two distinct groups on Twitter but I am sure you could segment these users even further if you looked more closely.

The only downside to this study is that it was only looking at 3,000 tweets sent by 350 Twitter users. We tweeted yesterday about Twitter going through the 6 Billion tweet mark and according to the latest statistics there are more than 44 million Twitter users, so although it has prompted some interesting debate, I am sure there will be lots of other people with their own opinions on this.

Personally, I think I fall into the informers category as I try to shy away from being too focussed on myself. However, I read lots of streams from a variety of different types of users. I think some “informers” can actually share too much information but that is the topic for another post.

What do you think, do you fall into the "meformer” or “informer” category?

This Twitter business gets serious with paid for services

Twitter has announced today that it is launching a commercial paid for service next year. Many of us regular twitter users have been scratching our heads as we have watched businesses springing up everywhere offering different business-to-business client services and Twitter is now finally picking up the baton.

The Telegraph reports:

Businesses are under no obligation to sign up to a paid account, but doing so will provide them with a "special layer of access", including feedback and statistics, said Biz Stone. Many big name brands and companies have embraced Twitter as a way of communicating directly with consumers and engaging with customers. Personal accounts remain free.

"This takes advantage of some of the commercial use of Twitter we’ve seen from businesses like airlines and big box stores," said Stone. "We want to present to them a layer of features that allows them to become better at Twitter, show them some of the analytics."

Now the race really is on to see if these analytics/statistics are any better than some of the other services already on the market. I will be watching this area with interest.