Web Business by Ken Burbary

Help write a new book about Twitter

Lately, more and more people I know on Twitter are discussing the idea that it seems to have crossed, or is approaching, a threshold and has gone mainstream. What signs point to that? Celebrities, politicians and other well known non-marketing/PR types are joining in greater numbers.

For starters, a Twitter user doesn’t get any bigger than the President. President elect Obama joined the microblogging service back in March 2007, and rose up the charts to become the most followed user on Twitter with well over 100k followers. He used Twitter regularly during the campaign to communicate the campaign message of Hope and Change.

Other well known celebrities are diving into the microblogging pool.  Britney Spears joined Twitter. And then Gary Vaynerchuk criticized her for using it as another broadcast channel, not a platform to engage fans. NBA stars Deron Williams and Shaquille O’neal both joined Twitter.

In addition to people from all walks of life and business giving Twitter a try, there were 2 important book announcements this week. Twitter power users, Laura Fitton and Shel Israel announced recent deals to write Twitter books, details here and here.

The significance of these annoucements isn’t the topic, although it is an interesting one, but rather the way in which the content, stories and topics covered will be written and selected. The authors are community sourcing the writing. This gives everyone on Twitter the opportunity to submit ideas, content, tips, tools, etc… for the book.

Laura has taken it a step further, launching a Twitter for Dummies community to make this process even easier. The site allows members to:

• submit ideas
• vote on ideas
• set up your profile
• search ideas
• read tips by category
• invite friends

This is another great example of community sourcing at its finest, and one I believe we will more and more of in the future. If you’re on Twitter and have something to share, what are you waiting for? Click on over to the community and start contributing!

What the F**K is Social Media?

I found a fantastic presentation today on Slideshare. Then, immediately shared it with some colleagues on Twitter, and it took off from there. I encourage you to share it with anyone new to the social media/networking space, and anyone you know affiliated with marketing or branding.

Kudos to the excellent work by @mzkagan, the author.

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Twitter Bots usage steadily growing

I love Twitter. Why? Quite simply, because of the amazing community of helpful, knowledgeable, and diverse people around Twitter. I’ve already met many interesting individuals, both on and offline, because we all participate in the Twitter community. And Twitter keeps getting better through innovation from the community. There is a growing trend here, the use of Twitter bots.

What are Twitter Bots? They are special Twitter accounts that perform a special function and provides you with useful information. Twitter bots come in 2 basic flavors:

1) Push Bots - These bots don’t do anything fancy. Once you start to follow them, they broadcast messages to you. The most common uses of push bots to date have been by sports teams (for scoring updates) and weather forecasts.

2) Pull Bots – These bots are more sophisticated than push bots. You can interact with them by using Direct Message commands. The features of pull bots greatly exceed push bots. Pull bots operate as micro-applications behind the scenes, processing commands from a Twitter user, doing some work and then sending the result/data back to the original user via a Direct Message.

A simple example is the Timer bot. It’s Twitters version of a personal reminder service. Here’s how it works:

• Follow Timer bot
• Send a direct message to timer like this “d timer 45 call mom’

The timer bot will save your request, wait 45 minutes before sending a direct message reminder back to your Twitter account that says ‘call mom’

Here is a list of some of the more popular Twitter Bots. If you have others you find useful, add them to the comments and I will update the list.

• gCal - Add Google Calendar events
• HappyTwitDay - Send Happy Birthday Wishes
• WineTweets - Share what you’re drinking with other wine lovers on Twitter (check this out @garyvee)
• TweetBeep - Track topics in Twitter and have them emailed to you
• Tipr - Tells you the amount you should leave for a tip when dining out