A train loving cat called Lilou decided to go on a solo mission to Dublin this week. To do this she hopped on a local train and eventually ended up at Pearse Street station in the city. The clever cat managed to evade ticket inspectors, but upon arriving in the city realised that she had nowhere to go. Meanwhile her owner realised that she had disappeared and became frantic. The lost looking cat came to the attention of staff at Pearse Street station – they were at a loss about what to do with her until a clever idea began to hatch.

Most of us these days are fans of social media and the staff at Pearse Street station were betting on this. They began tweeting about the discovered cat. It seemed like a long shot but it actually worked. To further help with the discovery of the owner they were able to use close circuit TV to find out where the cat had jumped on the train. This information along with a photo was all that was needed for their Tweets to be effective. Later that day they owner and cat were reunited. The staff even gave the cat a photo-ID travel pass so that she doesn’t need to bunk the trains in future.

This type of story is always nice to hear and it great to hear how social media continues to improve our lives. It is just so useful to be able to contact a lot of people quickly and share information. This will likely not be the only time that social media will be used to reunite people with pets. It has even been used to reunite missing people with their families and friends. With so much bad news in the world it is always great to hear a story like this one.

A report in the Guardian newspaper this week reports that one in ten web users in the UK now use Twitter. This might not be quite as impressive as the statistics for people joining FaceBook, but Twitter is showing impressive growth; not only in the UK but around the entire world. In fact there are now believed to be 93 million people around the world who use Twitter. It seems to be in Asia that the biggest increase in Twitter accounts is occurring. It should also be remembered that these figures don’t take into account all those people who regularly use Twitter from devices like Tweetdeck.

Twitter is a bit like Marmite; either you love it or hate it. Many people just don’t get and even some famous Twitterers have given up in frustration because they no longer understand what it is all about. How can any meaningful conversations occur when you are only allowed 140 characters? And what’s with all the links? It can sometimes seem like everyone on Twitter is trying to sell something. Despite all this though there is a lot of fun to be had when you get into it. Otherwise why would so many people spend so much time using it?

Personally I have a lot of time for Twitter. It feels a bit more on the edge than Twitter and I like the fact that so many people just don’t get it. In fact it is really pleasing when famous people try to boost their careers by using Twitter, make a mess of it, and then have to admit that they don’t really get it. There is probably no other social media outlet where so many public figures have announced they are no longer going to be using it.

Love them or hate them Google have been the number one search engine for years, they have become a brand in themselves and a huge household name.

With the current real time phenomenom, which is completley overated in my opinion in terms of search, Google have been getting into a panic because they think that if they do not stay on top of things they are going to lose out on valuable market share. So how have the search giants responded to this?

• Social Search
• Real Time Search
• Google Wave
• Tons of other products and services

We know that Google do a lot of lab testing, but to see things such as real time search be fed into the main index, sometimes even above the organic listings is absolutley mad! These real time results are in no way relevant to what I am looking for and it just looks like a whole lot of spam.

What really is real time? Why are Google in such a panic? If you are looking for a product or a service, real time results are not what you want to see, what you want to see is trusted sites that give you what you are looking for.

So you ask yourself why has real time communication grown so much? Well, it hasnt… What has happened is that more people are now online than ever before and these people just want to talk to each other, most users on sites such as Facebook and Twitter just want to talk to people and view their pictures etc.

Real time communication has been around since the dawn of the internet, does anyone not remember the old MSN Chat?

Now this was genuine real time communication, where you could talk about all of the lastest and greatest happenings on TV/news etc. MSN Chat was hugely popular/successful and well ahead of its time in my opinion. The best thing was that it was moderated by the community, the community got to decide who entered their rooms and room creators were awarded with gold hammers to moderate the room. (This was infact how I first got into SEO, optimising the chat rooms to appear on the first page of the category).

MSN Chat was a real time community like no other.. So why then did it end up shutting down? One of two reasons really:

• Rooms were getting spammed constantly by advertisers
• Because it was extremeley busy, a big reason for MSN chat shutting down was that it provided another opportunity for pedophiles to have access to underage prey through the chat rooms.

So now if we take a look a Twitter as example, have any of these problems been addressed? No!

Twitter are bombarded with spam after spam and because it relies on users there will ALWAYS be spam. I mean even http://twitter.com/twitblacklist shut down, simply because it was getting so bad and this was in July 2008.  This is why Facebook can avoid this merely because its you talking to people you know.

Real time communication has still got the same interest it always has had, the only reason more and more people are using these services is because there is now a heck of a lot more people online.

But do we need real time spam (which will always be there) among us when we search? No we do not, all people want Google to deliver is trusted sites, in the end this is what people are looking for when they perform a search on Google. By all means use sites such as Twitter to see posts or pages which are being talked about, but including nonsense, spammy and irrelevant personal conversations in the main index is not a good idea. Past experience and internet history has always shown that when you give users full power things start to slide.. Just look at the redundant MSN Chat and MySpace more recently.

Google go back to your roots and display highly relevant results of pages online, use busy social sites as a ranking factor but do not include conversations in the results.

There is so much hoo ha about Twitter killing Google and Twitter being the future search tool. Every single article that you read about Twitter is that they do things in real time, real time discussions and buzz, which is something that Google’s results do not really do and do not really cater for at the moment.

Google has responded with so many different methods, the most recent being feeding in Twitter results into the SERPs and having the option to bring in results that were updated in the last hour. But in my personal opinion twitter is a social site like any other site. There are some downsides to the service in my opinion, which are as follows.

Information
Information and news is all very well and good being in real time, but what if someone wants to find old archived information or read older stories, can they do that? No they simply cannot, because it’s all in real time and sites are actually never crawled and indexed, it is going to be very hard.

Products
Now this in my opinion is the main killer for Twitter and it’s something that Google are doing wrong too. Google are now trying to bring in more real time results and results which are current that people have just posted or talked about. Every non tech person (the mass user) I know uses either EBay, Google or Amazon to buy something, with Google probably being the first choice. They do this because one, it’s easy just type into the search and away you go. Two it’s relevant, Google have never let me down when I want to buy something, they deliver the most trusted sites to me. Now what could these product searches do instead? Search on Twitter and get conversations? No thanks, or create an account and ask your 0 followers to help you out? Or I know, grow your network communicate with people you do not know and ask them, but why? Why would anyone do that? People have busy lives and they do not have enough time to constantly update their tweets. What easier solution then to go to Google and type in what you are looking for, does it have to be real time. No, not at all, trusted products from trusted sites which have built that trust with hard work and clever advertising.

Now do not get me wrong twitter has a place in the market for news and stories, but Google is so much more than that, maybe they are beating Google on the news front and if Google want to jump on that bandwagon and fill their SERPs with real time STORIES then fine, maybe it would be a better way for them to earn revenue. I mean what a clever idea to fill the SERPs with ever changing info and letting the businesses (products), battle it out on the PPC side of things. But I can tell you they are going to lose a lot of users if they do as Google is not just an information engine. Twitter is a social site just like any other that we need to use in conjunction not against. MSN Messenger does exactly the same job for me but better, I talk to people I know in real time and can ask them anything I want. I do not think Twitter can ever overtake Google, but can be a useful tool to use if you have the time, which a lot of non tech people do not. I mean was MySpace not a Google killer? Was Digg Not? Wolfram Alpha, Cuil? Stumble? Twitter is a great real time news and information addition to Google; all this makes Google a better search engine.

Social media is hot today. There is no internet-savvy person who is oblivious on what social media means. When we hear the word social media, what words do we instantly associate with it? Do you think of social networking websites such as MySpace or Facebook? How about social bookmarking sites such as Digg and StumbleUpon? And who can forget about the status-updating and microblogging website called Twitter? All of them may be designed differently as well as serve different functions but they all have a common element for them to be regarded as a group.

Social media pertains to websites which has a community of people that shares information through the website. In this situation, the website acts as the medium to get the message across. That is why it is called social “media”.

With this in mind, social media have been utilized by people for various reasons. Mostly, it is used for businesses for it offers a targeted community which you can easily reach out to through messaging. Others have used it for its sheer power of promotion. There is a part of the community, however, that is called as social media addicts. These are people who stay at that particular website for the whole day and concentrate their promotion there.

This behavior is good and bad. It is good because it allows a user to penetrate the culture of a particular social media website in the beginning. This way, he can easily talk to its users regarding their needs. On the other hand, it is also bad. As Kristy Bolsinger said in her article entitled “Are All Your Eggs in One Social Media Basket?“, focusing all your time on one social media website alone will not help you as that website falls down in the future.

Well, we have seen social media sites rise and fall. There are some websites that have consistent traffic and revenue but there are also others which has a decreasing popularity as time passes by. What you need to do is to prevent facing problems in the future and spread your marketing scheme all throughout different websites.

Of course, this does not mean that you have to join every social media website you encounter. Managing 4-7 accounts will do. Besides, you will just create confusion for yourself by joining too many sites.

There is nothing wrong with being a social media fanatic. Participating in social media websites must be done with strategy and care.

As the number of new users exploded on Twitter, the Suggested User list is also born. It was not until about a month ago when Twitter released a list of people whom people can follow on Twitter. Their reason is because new users have no one to follow and Twitter is useless if you do not follow anyone. After all, how can you tweet if no one is following you right? No one will read it rendering the website useless.

But then, the release of the suggested users list have raised some eyebrows. As said in the Twitter blog, a particular journalist of PBS named Mark Glaser have questioned the criteria Twitter is considering in choosing this people. In reply to this, Twitter has released an official post on its blog regarding the matter.

Some people may think that Twitter had just randomly chosen the people who are on the list. It may also trigger some questions when it comes to favorites or those who are popular in the industry. But Twitter do have a way of determining which profiles should be included in the list.

Well first, they look at the profile’s appearance. If it looks good and the user is active in the website then there is a higher chance that the staff will pick it. The number of followers along with the conversations are also considered. This will let them determine which accounts will be able to help a new user in Twittering along with providing an interesting profile that people will like to follow.

Other questions they consider are “is the account a good introduction to Twittering for a new user?”, “Does the person or organization running the account have a fairly wide or mainstream appeal?” and” If they are a celebrity or business, have we confirmed it’s really them?”

But one does not need to worry about the accounts posted. They are chosen based on interest and they have not paid Twitter to put them up there. It is just for Twitter’s goal of making their website useful to everyone even to newbies. As all Twitter users can relate to, Twitter really does take some time before you can figure out its power.

The good news is that you can ask Twitter to include your account if you qualified. So it is not really reserved to a few people. However, I think the tool will be more useful if users are categorized according to niches. That way, the following of people who are from a different niche can be prevented.

When I have been surfing the internet for the latest SEO news, I came across this unique list on how to rank in Twitter for a keyword entitled “5 Steps to Ranking #1 on Twitter“. But I’m wondering what does the author mean for ranking #1. Rank where? The Twitter directory? The search engine? or the top Twitter user list?

The author of the said article indicated five ways on how to ‘increase the ranking’ of a person. He cited the name, username, bio, account activity and number of followers. I agree with him that to be able to achieve maximum potential in Twitter, one must optimize a keyword in all these areas. But what he failed to point out is the different forms of search on Twitter.

Search on Twitter is not one-dimensional. It is not as direct as search engines. Twitter can be searched in various areas such as trends, hash tags, and directories. I think the author failed to point out in the area on which his tips will be more useful.

I also tried the effectiveness of Twitter in ranking in search engines. I have found out how personalities such as Britney Spears, TechCrunch and Kevin Rose have their Twitter profiles in the top 10 rankings when their name is searched.

I have also tried it on myself and yielded the same rankings.

With this, we can say that Twitter can contribute to ranking for certain brands. But how about keywords? I think this can be effective if you put keywords in your username or bio. With hashtag search, you will be associated with a particular term and you may build your credibility on a certain topic based on Twitter conversations. However, I have only tested the search engines on brand search and not on direct keyword search. As for directories, people can control the niche they are associated with because they can freely choose which categories should they belong to.

Kevin Rose is at it again. Some people have claimed that Twitter have beaten Digg to the ground. It was just this January when Matt Churchill said in his post “Twitter vs. Digg: Measuring Success” that Twitter has equaled Digg in popularity because of a whopping 974% surge in its users thiss year. This was further exemplified with Joe Wallace’s post “Twitter vs. Digg: Social Media Wars” that indicated Twitter had really topped Digg. But what did Kevin Rose do? Whine? Complain? Create another website that will beat Twitter? Hell no. But he did create a website that will help Twitter.

A common error among internet marketers is the search to break new grounds. If you are as lucky as the founder of Twitter or Google, then you may find yourself successful. But then, helping or contributing to what is already out there is a rather wise option to make. That is why we have to commend Kevin Rose for his efforts on this new targeted Twitter directory called WeFollow.

Unlike other directories, WeFollow has this unique feature of getting updated easily. Each entry along with categories are ranked based on the number of followers. All one needs to do is reply to WeFollow on Twitter with the following format:

@wefollow #category1 #category2 #category3

WeFollow have also limited the number of categories you can sign yourself into. I think this is to make sure that the people in each category are somehow targeted. Because anyone can sign themselves to a particular category, there is the danger of irrelevant sign-ups that only solicits followers. If you want to try signing to more than three categories like what @mattcutts did, you will find that only the last three categories were credited.

I think WeFollow is a nice directory especially for those who are starting out on Twitter. Let us face it. All of us want to follow people who are relevant in our field. For example, if you are a designer, wouldn’t you find it more interesting to carry a conversation with a fellow designer than a programmer? Of course, there will still be a connection but not as intense as that of the same niche. Also, this will also be useful for customer targetting. If people are sorted into categories of interests, then targeting them for marketing would be more worthwhile because of better conversions.

In the end, we have to thank Kevin Rose for WeFollow. As Danny Sullivan said in his discussion of WeFollow,

It’s not perfect, but it’s a great start and well worth visiting.

You may have been seeing a lot of Google vs. Twitter articles on the internet. There are these predictions that Twitter may overpower Google in the near future. And what better way for Twitter to up the game than by incorporating trends and search.

However, this seems to be just on testing stage. It was just recently when the Twitter Blog has announced that they will be incorporating search and trends. Twitter search is not really integrated in the website before. I guess they will be transferring the search feature from the subdomain search.twitter.com to the main website. But users have been seeing this trends tab appearing on the top bar. It seems that they are going to implement it.

But what does this have to say in the SEO world? Well, Twitter have always been associated with search. There is always the Google vs. Twitter wars. Some have been claiming that Twitter is slowly overpowering Google.

One instance is when Dave Winer did an experiment in his post entitled “Twitter *kills* Google in Real Time Search“. He tracks the news and he found out how quick Twitter updates compared to Twitter. The upper hand of Twitter, according to him, is the power of real time conversations. For example, in news, it will reach the Twitter community as soon as people talk about it. With Google, on the other hand, they need to wait for someone to write about it. Of course talking about a particular issue with your followers come first before crafting an article. And with the huge brands now having Twitter accounts, one can now count on the tweets for the latest news. As Patricia Skinner said in her article “The Changing Face of Search: Is Google Losing It’s Grip?”, Google may not be the best on the internet anymore. People do not need to depend on it anymore to get updates. They can go to social media websites and follow the experts and get the right information directly.

I think that this evolution comes from the increase use of the internet. People search but they also like to hang out at particular websites like forums. With the emergence of social media, people now have a place to talk about the things that are happening to them. They can also connect with brands and get the news directly. They get the links to the stories that matter most.

However, the only downside I find in this theory is the failure of consideration of countries who do not have constant internet access. Social media only work if you’re always online. This is the problem of Twitter. Here is how Dave Winer described it:

the Twitter result is scattered and disorganized. If you weren’t watching the event unfold in realtime you would not be able to piece together the story

With this, it is hard for non-constant internet users to use social media to track stories. They are not even as knowledgeable to use it because they hardly use the internet. And with that they can only depend on good old Google search.

A recent announcement in Adweek indicates a launch of a new Twitter directory with a twist – Tracking Twitter. It is a directory specializing on tracking different brands on the internet. Some brands such as Starbucks, Zappos and Jetblue sprung up their page. With the algorithm shift of Google from keywords to branding, I believed this directory will help people in more ways than one not only for the established brands but also for those planning to build one.

Electric Artist is a digital brand management firm and they created this website with the goal of providing a list of brand that people (especially their clients) can keep track of. The problem they have faced in the past is that their clients looking to build brand on Twitter does not know who to follow or who Twitter the most. This tool will help them there.

As Marc Shiller, the CEO, said,

“In doing that, we’re always asking the questions ‘Who has been using Twitter most effectively?’ and ‘Who’s feeds should I follow?’ and so we built a tool for our staff to follow Twitter feeds in different categories. So what we decided to do is just make it public because Twitter doesn’t really have a good directory.”

With Tracking Twitter now open to the public, related brand will not have to look far if they are looking for people to follow. The site contains all the names and stats they will need. However, the problem here is that the website is little in scope. It only covers particular brands in the media industry and not in others. I think this is needed if they’re looking to function as a full directory.

Also, it’s a bit self-indulgent. It’s all about what the Electric Artists know. It’s about the brands they are familiar with and they rank it according to what they think is best. It is not ranked based on what other people are thinking. It is ranked based on their own opinion. There are even some recommendations at the bottom of the page saying “Electric Artists Recommends”. Thing is, people in Twitter comes from all over the world. They are not focused only on a particular geographic location. Some brands may be familiar to some people while unknown to some.

But Electric Artists does have the authority in doing this so we cannot complain. But a diversification in its list will make this website better.