This request came from Ad.ly, the in stream advertising company that is run and was started by a friend of mine Sean Rad. Sean was funded last year by a very well respected VC, Mark Suster of GRP. What I really like about what Sean is building is his focus on “streams” and not only Twitter. Obviously, Twitter is the webs strongest stream today, but many services are going to the stream model & this will be a huge opportunity.

This is the email that I received, a request to tweet this appropriately called out (Ad) for a total of $4.23. So, as a starving entrepreneur I decided to get my $4 bucks.

I clicked ‘Approve’ shortly after I got the email and this was the result…

For $4 bucks, I’d say it was totally worth the tweet. I do think it would be a pretty shady practice if that little “(Ad)” was not included in the tweet however.

Maybe the most interesting realization after the tweet was to see my friends/followers respond to the tweet. I had about 2 people tweet me to call me out for selling out my stream, 1 person who thought my account was jeopardized or hacked and then friends just curious about my tweeting ads. Friendly concern.

So, would I tweet more ads in the future? Possibly. I can tell you that I’ve turned a couple other tweet requests down, so I won’t be tweeting just anything (my stream is respected, I love you guys) so I’ll keep it pretty clean. However, I’m not apposed if I’ve used the services that are included in the sponsored tweets.

Twitters Solution

Twitter is executing a similar behavior by promoting tweets within Twitter searches. I’m still skeptical about how much people actually use Twitter to search, but like anything the search behavior on Twitter, will grow. Twitter posted on their blog this answer to the question about promoted tweets.

Q: What are you launching? What are Promoted Tweets?
A: We are launching the first phase of our Promoted Tweets platform with a handful of innovative advertising partners that include Best Buy, Bravo, Red Bull, Sony Pictures, Starbucks, and Virgin America—with more to come. Promoted Tweets are ordinary Tweets that businesses and organizations want to highlight to a wider group of users.

What this means is that when someone searches for “coffee”, Starbucks will have a tweet (like the one above) that regardless of timing of that tweet it will stay at the top of that search. The kicker here is that the Starbucks tweet will NOT be to the side like a Google ad, these tweets will be “in stream”, just like Ad.ly.

I do think, for the record, that there is plenty of space for third party in stream advertising regardless of Twitters entrance to the space.

Quick thoughts on big valuations from pre rev startups:

There are a lot of folks that don’t understand why Twitter or other startups like them can be valued at such enormous valuations while showing minimal or zero revenues. I respect your skepticism. It’s tough to understand why these early stage start ups have millions of users but aren’t profitable. Please understand that most of them could create revenues if they wanted to, but just turning on the revenue spout isn’t most important. Turning on the revenue spout when all the pieces are connected properly is critical. I’d like to use this analogy to explain this further.

If your connecting a hose to the spout/spigot and you turn on the water prior to ensuring you have the hose connected properly, you’re going to have a mess on your hands, everyone’s getting wet and the process of watering your grass and using the hose is a failure. However, if you ensure a proper connection from spout, to hose, to sprinkler, you’re going to have a great experience, the grass get’s water and growth occurs.

These companies have already proven that they know how to acquire users, the water is running, now it’s a matter of connecting the pieces properly before they turn it on so that the combination of water (users), hose (business model), and sprinkler (team) are all connected properly to maximize their revenue opportunities.

Excuse errors, first post from my iPhone. (Update: added photo)

Update: Twitter is reported to be profitable after making search agreements

Dear Associate,

Today we are excited to announce the launch of a new feature called Share on Twitter. You can access Share on Twitter from the Site Stripe and post to your Twitter account from Amazon detail pages in just two clicks.

The Share on Twitter feature is easy to use. Simply log in to your Amazon Associates account and then visit any detail page on Amazon.com. By clicking on the Share on Twitter button in the Site Stripe, a new window will open and an Amazon-generated message is pre populated in the ‘What are you doing?’ text area of your Twitter account (you may be asked to log in to your Twitter account). That message will include a shortened URL that already includes your Associates ID. You’ll have the option to edit this message or simply hit the ‘Update’ button to post to your Twitter account. When Twitter users click on the link in your post and make a qualifying sale, you’ll earn referral fees. That’s it.

Also, did you know that you can stay connected with Amazon Associates by following us on Twitter, becoming a fan on Facebook and joining our group on Linkedin?

Please tell us what you think of our new Share on Twitter feature using hashtag ‘#AMZNSOT’ on Twitter or contact us via the contact form. We want to hear from you!

Sincerely,

The Amazon Associates Program

Side note: In my opinion Amazon is a perfect acquirer for AdaptiveBlue who makes the in browser social tool GetGlue.com. It’s a perfect opportunity to immediately bring their customers all together and have probably the largest social network on the web. Yes, with the Glue technology implemented  correctly they could surpass FB and the social graph would all center around REAL PRODUCTS. The potential is ridiculous…this topic will get it’s own post in the future.

There is a new trend on the web and both startups and investors are taking note. Fred Wilson has called this trend, “taking the web offline”. Others call it the challenge of “local”. Companies like Loopt and Foursquare are taking this problem head on. As the only web nerd amongst my group of friends I love applications that are appealing to the non-techies (makes me feel normal). I really like the notion of using the web as a tool to improve life, not just keeping eyeballs and activity on the web, and I do think there’s serious lifestyle change and revenue potential in it. The key that makes this all possible is that the web is now mobile.

With the combination of smart phones with decent web browsers and the ability for developers to make applications on these machines, people can “check in”, connect with each other, and find reviews on the fly. I love seeing the Yelp stickers in bar windows because it tells me that the owners care what customers think and if that’s important to them than my experience at that venue is sure to be better. The web is moving away from just the office or home pc and moving into the actual establishment, into the venue, via our pockets. Because we now have the web in our pockets we can interact with a business via the web in real time.

Consider this: Prior to walking into my local pub, I “check in”, pub tender is monitoring Twitter or Foursquare, she see’s that I’m coming, she pours my drink without me even ordering it yet, it’s ready upon my arrival… yea I’d pay an extra couple bucks for that. Extreme example I know, but the information that venues can now access is awesome and will continue to increase. IMHO, they’ll definitely pay for it.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how and when this transformation will really pick up speed and I’m going to write about it a bit over the next week or so. I think that local is already big and going to increase in importance. Companies like Everyblock who was recently acquired by MSNBC bring you hyper local news, and other services make exploring your city and meeting people close to you easier than ever before.

What location based applications are you using? Everytime your iPhone or BB asks, can we use your location, how often do you say yes?

Over the past month or so I’ve had a similar feeling as I had back in April 2008. At the begging of April 08 I was evangelizing the use of Twitter. It wasn’t popular, it was “nerdy”, Ashton, Oprah, and Tila Tequila were not yet dominating the service but I saw value in it and I wanted my friends and colleagues to be early to the game. I got a lot of push back at the time but overtime people began to try it out. Now my entire family and my fiance’s entire family is on Twitter and they love it. I have tons of friends on Twitter and everyone finds it valuable and useful. Many of them have become evangelists for the service themselves, they love it, I might even say obsessed.

By no means am I taking credit for the growth of Twitter over the last year and a half but I do feel pretty good about the fact that I recognized it’s value early. I’m attempting to do that again.

I need you to join Foursquare. Even if you think it’s a waste of time or “nerdy”, I’m trying to help you avoid being late to the party…again. There are a few key reasons that lead me to believe Foursquare will be huge, at least huge enough for the non-internet person to benefit from. A few of those reason are the huge potential that is location based applications, it’s fun and non-internet people can see why they’d want to join it, and it helps cities work better.

The way Foursquare works is, you go to a venue (bar, restaurant, park, etc.) and check in. Once you’ve checked in Foursquare awards you points and tallies the amount of times that you’ve checked in there. You’ll receive more points at more popular places and if you’re the person who’s checked in at that venue the most you’ll become the mayor. Also, by checking in to multiple venues and checking in often you receive badges for your check ins. The competitive mood of the game works incredibly well for it’s distribution and is quickly addicting.

Here’s why it has so much potential.

1) Location

Location will be is huge for the same reason Twitter blew up; it’s ability to connect people and provide value to them. Twitter allows you to be connected with people regardless of their location, but imagine the benefit of knowing more accurately and more timely the things that are happening in your area, now. This works between friends on a personal level (where is Ryan, I want to hang out) and with businesses on a public level (where is Ryan, I want to know what he likes).

2) It’s fun

I’ve only been on Foursquare for a few months and I always make sure I can check in to the venues I’m going to. I don’t want to miss out on getting the points and raising the ranks in Chicago and amongst my friends on Fsq. I currently hold 4 mayorships, at my local bar, coffee shop, restaurant, and condo complex. I find myself defaulting to the places I’m the mayor because I want to keep the title. I became the mayor because I like going to these venues but it works backwards too. I really enjoy knowing what bars and restaurant my friends hit up even though I’m not with them and more than once I’ve used Foursquare to meetup with friends and it’ll only get better the more folks are on it.

3) Your life improves

Sorry to reference Fred Wilson again, but he recently wrote a post on Urban architecture and how services like Foursquare make cities easier to use. In short, this type of service makes your life easier. They’ve recently, and much more aggressively than Twitter, found a revenue opportunity.  They’ve launched Foursquare for business that will allow venues to provide deals to the mayors and advertise to the patrons. They may even be able to learn about their customers and what other venues they attend. Can you say partnerships?

Early this month Foursquare announced that they would be taking an initial stage of funding from Union Square Ventures & O’Reily Alpha Tech Ventures. I’m encourage that Foursquare will grow to build some amazing things with their $1.35mm that they’ve raised.

Even if you think the location thing is still ‘creepy’ or the extra effort to connect Foursquare to Twitter isn’t worth it, please signup. Whether you don’t have an iPhone or Blackberry, that’s not an excuse either, I use Foursquare through SMS and it’s great. If you don’t sign-up now you’ll be coming back to this blog post in 3 or 4 months saying dang, I wish I would have gotten on before the hype, now it’s so tough to be the mayor of your favorite joint. Trust me, don’t be late to the party.

Learning From Others

As I work on my “Lessons Learned” post after closing down SocialDreamium (post should be ready by Wednesday) there is one main lesson that sticks out above the rest. The one lesson that I couldn’t wait until Wednesday to post is the importance of learning from others experiences! As a first time company launcher I was green to so many pitfalls that I could potentially succumb to. What I attempted to do, and will continue to focus on, is learning from the mistakes of others.

“Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.”
- Otto von Bismarck

So, as I continue to focus on this, the next questions become, how do I know who to learn from? How do I access these individuals? And where can I converse with them in order to learn from their learnings?

Well there is this small tool on the world wide web called Twitter (come back from the earths core if you don’t know about it). Entrepreneurs, can finally be reached and because of the relative “new-ness” of Twitter they’re still accessible. Use this list below to reach out to people, ask questions, avoid future mistakes, and learn.

Entrepreneurs on Twitter

Name w/ blog link, rank change from blog order, @twitterhandle, position & company (twitter followers)

Update: For your benefit there have been a few add ons

*list ordered by follower count

1. Tim O’Reilly, +3 (@timoreilly) Founder / CEO of O’Reilly Media (525,728)
2. Jason Calacanis, +3 (@jasoncalacanis) CEO of Mahalo (68,583)
3. Chris Pirillo, +9 (@chrispirillo) Geek, Internet entrepreneur, hardware addict, et al (65,181)
4. Mark Cuban, +11 (@mcuban) Owner Dallas Mavericks; Founder Broadcast.com (59,888)
5. Jeff Pulver, +13 (@jeffpulver) VOIP entrepreneur (26,538)
6. Loic Le Meur, +20 (@loic) Founder / CEO Seesmic, Founder Le Web (26,499)
7. Dave McClure, +20  (@davemcclure) Serial entrepreneur now adviser (20,100)
8. Craig Newmark, +25 (@craignewmark) Craig from Craigslist (12,030)
9. Jason Fried, -6 (@jasonfried) 37signals co-founder Jason Fried (11,475)
10. David Heinemeier Hansson, -2 (@dhh) Co-founder 37signals (11,249)
11. Paul Stamatiou, +29 (@stammy) Founder / CEO @ Skribit (11,204)
12. Anil Dash, +25 (@anildash) Co-founder Six Apart (11,041)
13. Ross Mayfield, +7 (@ross) Co-founder / President of SocialText (10,970)
14. Joel Spolsky, -13 (@spolsky) Founder / CEO at Fog Creek Software (9,558)
15. Jason Shellen, +29 (@shellen) Founder / CEO at Plinky (7,555)
16. Dharmesh Shah, -6 (@dharmesh) Founder / CEO of HubSpot (7,102)
17. David Sifry, +6 (@dsifry) Founder / CEO at Technorati (6,713)
18. Caterina Fake, +18 (@caterina) Co-founder Flickr (6,595)
19. Andrew Chen, -3 (@anderw_chen) Serial entrepreneur (3,971)
20. Jonathan Schwartz, -13 (@SunCEOBlog) CEO at Sun (2,964)
21. Christopher Carfi, +9 (@ccarfi) Co-founder Cerado (2,820)
22. Eric Ries, +10 (@ericries) CTO and serial entrepreneur (2,639)
23. Ryan Kuder +0 (@ryankuder) Founder /Neighborsville.com (2,475)
24. Rahul Sood, +26 (@rahulsood) Founder VoodooPC (1,889)
25. Nivi Babak, -15 (@nivi) Entrepreneurs helping entrepreneurs succeed (1,637)
26. TheFunded, -3 (@thefunded) Various C-level executives at startups (1,582)
27. Ryan Graves -0 (@ryangraves) Founder / The Renliv Group (1,525)
28. Ross Kimbarovsky -0 (@rosskimbarovsky) CEO / crowdSPRING
29. Benjamin Yoskovitz, -7 (@byosko) Founder / CEO StandoutJobs (1,477)
30. Rajesh Setty, +1 (@upbeatnow) Serial entrepreneur (1,405)
31. Dan Bricklin, -7 (@danb) VisiCalc co-creater (1,365)
32. Steve Blank, -5 (@sgblank) Retired serial entrepreneur now professor of entrepreneurship (1,304)
33. Prasad Thammineni, +23 (@pixily_CEO) Serial entrepreneur and founder at Pixily (1,246)
34. Mark Pincus, +26 (@markpinc) Serial entrepreneur / recovering VC (1,224)
35. Gabor Cselle, +9 (@gabor) A blog about email and startups (1,175)
36. James Hong, +6 (@jhong) Founder Hot or Not (1,111)
37. Tony Wright, +8 (@webright) Founder / CEO RescueTime (1,024)
38. Jana Eggers, +28 (@jeggers) CEO of SPRD.net AG (879)
39. David Cancel, +25 (@dcancel) Co-founder & CTO at Lookery.com (823)
40. Sean Ellis, +7 (@seanellis) Serial CMO / VP Marketing (818)
41. Daniel Tunkelang, +18 (@dtunkelang) Chief Scientist at Endeca (769)
42. Naval Ravikant, -30 (@naval) Entrepreneurs helping entrepreneurs succeed (762)
43. Pito Salas, +27 (@pitosalas) Founder BlogBridge; former CTO eRoom (754)
44. Steve Barsh, +14 (@sbarsh) Serial enterpreneur / interim executive (561)
45. Barney Pell, +6 (@barneyp) CEO of Powerset (556)
46. Daniel Debow, -0 (@ddebow) CEO of Rypple
47. Laurent Feral-Pierssens, +34 (@lfp) Founder / CEO Silentale (532)
48. David Hauser, +30 (@dh) Co-founder ReturnPath; CEO Grasshopper (487)
49. Jonathan Mendez, -20 (@jonathanmendez) Serial entrepreneur, online ad expert (477)
50. Greg Reinacker, 0 (@gregr) Founder & CTO at NewsGator (477)
51. Joe Krauss, -13 (@jkraus) Entrepreneur (473)
52. Furqan Nazeeri, -13 (@altgate) Startups, venture capital & everything in between (428)
53. Jules Pieri, +24 (@julespieri) CEO at Daily Grommet (414)
54. Carson McComas, -36 (@carson) Entrepreneur (419)
55. Matt Blumberg, -13 (@mattblumberg) CEO @ ReturnPath (368)
56. Alan Meckler, +17 (@alanmeckler) CEO WebMediaBrands (351)
57. Dave Kellogg, -6 (@ramblingman) CEO of Mark Logic Corporation (349)
58. Various Entrepreneurs, +16 (@founding) Founder Institute (286)
59. Doug Levin, +13 (@dalev) Entrepreneur / former CEO at Black Duck Software (258)
60. Sim Simeonov, -4 (@simeons) Entrepreneur; recovering VC (248)
61. Andrew Payne, -3 (@payne92) Serial entrepreneur (240)
62. James Siminoff, -4 (@grid) Founder / CEO at PhoneTag (184)
63. Alain Raynaud, +3 (@alain94040) Founder FairSoftware (182)
64. Michael Gracie, (@michaelgracie) Serial COO / CTO (174)
65. Tom Keller, +15 (@tkeller) Founder & former CEO of Intense Debate (117)
66. Jay Jamison, +19 (@jeremiahjamison) Serial entrepreneur (100)
67. Bert Armijo, -12 (@barmijo) Co-founder & SVP at 3tera (81)
68. Charles Teague, +1 (@dragonstyle) Technologist-in-Residence at General Catalyst (59)
69. Jon Gillespie-Brown, +13 (@gillespiebrown) Serial entrepreneur (40)
70. Brian Shin, -2 (@briankshin) Founder / CEO at Visible Measures (14)

This list created by Furgan Nazeeri, much props.
http://www.altgate.com/blog/2009/06/entrepreneurs-on-twitter.html

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So, who else should we be following? Who has experience and advice that we can learn from? Please share in the comments!

image via antiguan

A few months back I was engaged in a conversation about how social media (blogs, twitter, facebook, etc.) can really be used to drive tangible changes for a business. As individuals we are able to connect with old friends, stay even more connected with co-workers, and track real time topics, but what do businesses really get out of it all? It’s all kind of fluff right?

Mike Walsh, the CEO of Leverage Software thinks not. Mike is is was an angel investor in Salesforce.com and his company believes that social media can make smart companies even smarter. His business has benefited from actively engaging in the social web and driving benefits out of “intangible” tools. This guest post from Mike gives 10 solid ways that businesses, not just individuals, can increase tangible results like member acquisition, retention, and even drive revenue using these social web tools.

I’ll hand it to Mike…

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Online communities can be incredibly powerful ways to allow association members to meet, share ideas, and connect with one another.

Here are the top 10 ways to begin using social networking and online communities at your organization.

1) Promote peer networking to members.

Networking builds relationships and advances careers. By using an online social network to promote peer networking, your association can provide a unique value to its members, adding an online component to a pre-existing “off-line” capability.

2) Unify members that are geographically diverse.

Since many members may not have the opportunity to connect face-to-face, online social networks enable you to connect members who are distributed across a number of cities in a meaningful way.

3) Increase attendance at conferences and other events.

Events are an excellent way to use online communities to encourage association members to connect with one another. Online communities can help extend the importance of your conferences because members can pre-arrange meetings before the event and follow up with one another easily after the event. In addition, an online community provides an exceptional outlet for idea sharing around event topics.

4) Drive membership renewals.

Because they provide the opportunity for 24/7 peer networking, online communities can make an association more visible and more relevant to your members, making an association “top of mind” to individual members throughout the year.

5) Create “private places” for members to collaborate around new ideas or initiatives.

Advanced social networking tools provide for both “open” and “private” areas within an online community, so that officers, project leaders, and employees might have a space to collaborate with one another.

6) Encourage members to promote themselves to each other.

Many online communities thrive because certain key members of an association – in the online world, these are typically called “community evangelists” – have a mechanism with which they can contribute new ideas, connect with members, and drive their own professional status within an organization. An online community makes it easy for top contributors and influential thought leaders to shine.

7) Be the first to offer a unique social networking application for your industry.

Here is a surprising fact: many of the most successful association online communities thrive because its members do NOT spend a great deal of their time behind a computer. This is because these members are frequently neglected by many technology providers – and thus they have limited communication outlets to utilize. Use online communities to increase the value of what your association offers.

8 ) Use an online community to promote member retention.

In those areas where association members can turn to local organizations, competitive associations, and other venues to network with one another, an online community can be useful in preventing member attrition. Use your online community to encourage engagement among members and as a channel for promoting thought leadership from within your association and with key partners.

9) Develop new offerings to attract and retain valuable sponsors.

Because an online community provides a set of “online spaces” where its members can collaborate and connect, sponsors frequently find these highly used and very visible areas attractive for sponsorship opportunities. In addition, sponsors can review user-generated content to gain added insight into their own products and services.

10) Use social networking to learn more from your association members.

One of the strongest values that an online community can provide is that it offers a communication channel for real-time feedback and member insight – as members will frequently share ideas and suggestions for which aspects of the association are the most important to them. To ensure the greatest success, play an active role in your online communities and be open to what your members have to say.

See how some of your peers are benefiting by enabling a member community.

“Over 2,000 participants from around the globe are already connected and using ToyConnections to network with their peers, build valuable relationships, share ideas, and find new products and services that can help grow their businesses. ToyConnections is quickly becoming an indispensible tool for anyone who wants to keep the pulse of the toy industry.”

- Joan Wyche, Registration and Buyer Relations Manager, Toy Industry Association, Inc.

“HIMSS uses ‘HIMSS Connect,’ to enable members to share insights and knowledge throughout the year. HIMSS Connect is especially helpful to members prior to and during HIMSS’ large national conference and exhibition, which draws over 29,000 attendees. A member may call for a connection with other members who have recently undergone a major software implementation, to share implementation strategies and lessons learned. Others use the tool on site to learn about job opportunities and career trends in other areas of the country.”

- Vish Kalambur, MCP, PMP, Senior Director of Software Applications Development, HIMSS

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There are many “soft” example of how the social web has brought benefits to businesses, but have you experienced solid, tangible benefits? Have you found a strategic partner via Facebook that brought in revenue or have you closed a sale through Twitter? Share you story in the comments.

image  james looker

5 Twitter Safety Tips

• Never give out personal information via Tweets. When writing your profile information add your URL but be general with your location. I don’t like the iPhone generated latitude/longitude locations. Just use your city to stay safe. Email is usually safe enough but understand that if it’s on your Twitter profile, it’s in the public.
• Never give out your Twitter password. There are SO many applications that “need” your password, don’t give it to them. Twitter has even created a method for a 3rd party application to use your login credentials without getting to that data. Especially since this has come out no app should need your password. Any good application will now use this system below to verify the use of your Twitter login credentials.
  
• Just like anything else on the web, once you’ve posted it, it’s there for good. Make sure to be smart about sharing content. Especially pictures and other multi-media.
• Keep your profile information brief enough that your comfortable with any stranger knowing it. Unlike Facebook, anyone can follow you on Twitter, you have limited discretion on who follows you.
• If you ever plan to meet someone from Twitter offline (which I have done often and have found to be extremely valuable for networking) make sure you know about that person first. It helps to first have a phone conversation with that person and ask questions that only that person would know to make sure there’s no scamming being done.

5 Tips For Twittering Kids

• First, why are you tweeting, go sign-up for sports!
• Always tell your parents about any threats or negative Tweets and never ever arrange to meet someone offline.
• Only follow people that you know in real life.
• It may help to keep your Twitter feed private and “protect your updates”. This allows you grant permission to followers and gives you complete control over who views your Twitter feed.

• Pretend your parents are behind you on every Tweet!

Also, I’ve been thinking a lot about the affect of the celebrity attention on twitter. In San Francisco this weekend the topic of Twitter came up (surprise surprise) and a someone who wasn’t on Twitter yet said, “Is Twitter that celebrity thing?” My immediate reaction was, damn celebs, screwing up Twitter for the rest of us, but maybe it is a good thing. Let me know what you think and I hope the resources below help.

Twitter apps

Tonight I was doing a bunch of research on different Twitter apps and how they use Twitter data to track usage, contacts, and (lame) popularity. This isn’t a pretty post but here are the links to the many sites and a not on them.

BEST COMPILATION OF TWITTER APPS – http://twitter.pbwiki.com/Apps

http://tweetstats.com/ -   best collection of graphs from twitter usage. required username not password.

http://bradkellett.com/experiments/tweetdumpr/ -  allows you to dump/download your latest 3200 tweets. we could use this to get data from before sign-up

http://twitterholic.com/ryangraves/ -  popularity rankings in twitter along with friends follow etc by date

http://xefer.com/twitter/ryangraves -  very creative way of displaying time and date of tweets, also had a cool way of showing count of @replys and the convos that go along with them

http://twistory.net/ – syncs your tweets with your calendar so you can recall when you said something or when you found something [Twitter + History]

http://tweetbuzzer.com/ – real time stream tracking brands.

http://flotzam.com/ – an interesting streaming app (with open code) for youtube, twitter, facebook, rss content

http://twitteranalyzer.com/CelebrityRace.aspx – up to the minute info on followers added

http://www.twaitter.com/ & http://tweetlater.com – the 2 best twitter scheduling platforms

http://adcause.com/ – ad campaigns from $1 on Twitter

http://twtqpon.com/ – offer exclusive deals on Twitter with “Qpons”

http://monitter.com/ – livestream topic monitoring

http://www.twitbin.com/ – twitter from browser sidebar

Potential Competition

http://objectivemarketer.com/ – they talk a lot about using data in new/interesting ways

http://bx.businessweek.com/ – from Business Week, getting good traction

http://klout.net/ – tracks a users influence across the web (twitter)

http://www.twibs.com/ – business monitoring on Twitter

http://www.addresstwo.com/ – Twitter contact mgmt system

http://twitturly.com/ – what is being shared and RT’d a lot on Twitter

via vadirajcs

I’m pumped that now my Tweets feed directly to Facebook. All the friends that made fun of me for using Twitter are now commenting and joining in conversations around my Tweets and my blog posts that I share on Facebook via Twitter. This is a huge “crossing of the chasm” for Twitter because the “normal people” are now joining in on web based conversations at a rapidly increasing rate.

Sorry this post is so late, I’ve been thinking/working on it for a while. First, I’ll share why you should use Twitter for status updates, then show you how.

9 Reasons Why You Should Use Twitter for Status Updates

I have found multiple reason for using Twitter. I’ve use the service for almost a year and have been able to meet a ton of cool people using the service. I’ve used Twitter for personal and business cases. It’s a phenomenal communication platform that allows for extreme flexibility in communication. Here are my top 9 reasons why you should use Twitter to update your Facebook status.

1. Twitter allows for mobile status updates – Go to the ‘Devices’ tab under your Twitter account settings and give Twitter your mobile phone number. Then SMS or txt message ’40404′ your message. This will update Twitter and now also your Facebook status. Easy peasy!

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2. Stay involved in technology or turn into a grandparent early – Haven’t you ever gotten annoyed at your grandparents (or even parents) for not even caring about a new technology?  Well if you don’t continue to adapt and adopt new technologies, your going to be left in the dust. A huge difference between our generation and theirs is our ability to learn things quickly and continually adapt. Please don’t get old while you’re still young.

3. Twitter’s community is creative and powerful - I’ve learned so much from my Twitter followers. I actively engaged them by asking questions, asking advice, and reengaging with them. I’d like to think I’ve helped as many folks who have helped me. Whether your trying to figure out what movie to watch, what restaurant to eat at, or what the weather is, your Twitter community can be an extremely powerful resource.

4. Travel updates – When I was in China, I was able to send an SMS message to 40404, Twitters number (after I setup the new number in my Twitter profile under ‘Devices’) with “d Mollstar I love you.” and it would send a direct text to my fiance with no charge at all. Using the internet instead of standard text messaging I was able to stay in touch at a fraction of the cost. Another example is my buddy Allen Burt, my partner in LibraryforLaos.org, has been able to keep his friends and family informed of his travels through the South Pacific over the last few months using Twitter.

5. Status updates are the new diary – Who has time to diary these days? Now with short updates on a semi-regular basis you can have a track record of the joy in your life. One sad but powerful story is of  @martin, a well know entrepreneur and networker throughout the tech world. He was an adventurer to the fullest extent and recorded some of his last joys via Twitter. He was taking flying courses at the Santa Monica airport and shared his last great experience before his plane later crashed. His joy and adventure  was shared and saved through Twitter.

6. Get your Google juice going! - It’s more and more important to control what people find when searching your name on Google. Every recruiter now days is going to perform this search on your name, so get a head start in controlling what they find. I recommend blogging too, but that’s for another conversation. Twitter actually has very good Google juice so you can influence what is found by being an active and powerful Twitter user.

7. Learn, share, network, create opportunities – With Twitter growing at a faster pace than even Facebook itself, it is becoming more and more likely that your next job, sale, or even romantic relationship will come from Twitter.  I know this sounds absurd but I know you’ve probably met or encountered people on Facebook that you hadn’t yet met. Then you may have met them and maybe you dated? This will happen more and more from Twitter as it’s popularity increases. I  know it sounds Match.com-ish creepy but just wait and see. Create opportunities from this growing crowd of intelligent and plugged in people.

8. Shaq and Britney do it - Well maybe this isn’t that good of an argument.

9. Twitter is the new filter to good online content – You used to read the newspaper, now you read Google news or maybe even Digg.com if your web hip, but more and more Twitter becomes my source of good news. Think about it, if you get to choose exactly who you follow you have a 100% personalized filter of the type of people you want sending information your way. If they suck, drop’em, if they’re awesome, tell others to follow them (see #followfriday). Twitter is the new content filter than no algorithm can beat.

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7 Steps to Connecting Twitter & Facebook

1. Log into Facebook and search “Twitter” in the search bar (top right)

*don’t let TwitterSync fool you, it’s not what you want.

2. Select the first option, the window below with show and then click, “View Application”

3. I’m sure you’ve done this before, just add the application.

*(Same process as adding iLike, WhereI’veBeen, etc.) You’re giving the Twitter application the right to interact with Facebook and input information into your Twitter profile. Make sure you have a secure Twitter password. Using the same password as you use on Facebook is fine.

4. How do you want Twitter to interact w/ Facebook? I recommend publishing to your Newsfeed but keeping email notification off.

5. Give Facebook your Twitter login information.

6. Allow Twitter to update your Facebook status (I’ll explain why in a minute)

7. Allow Status updates without notification –> Authorize Twitter

*This is the final approval process. Make sure to click the box “Allow Twitter to update my status…”

Now you’re done! Twitter will do the rest for you! No more logging into Facebook for status updates.

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I hope this helps you all in connecting two great technologies, not for technologies sake, but for the purpose of making your life easier and improving communication between friends…after all, that’s the point of all this anyway, right? Please don’t hesitate to ask questions about how to set things up, usually the community is pretty helpful in helping one another but I’ll chime in if need be. :)