For entrepreneurs, one of the best features of Twitter is it’s API. Twitter allows developers to tap into its stream of 1 billion monthly tweets to create new applications and websites. This Twitter API has spawned several unique applications and projects that have benefited internet users in a variety of ways. This API has also spawned several real time search engines, such as Sency, which tap into sources such as Twitter to offer real time results for internet users.

A result of this API is that Twitter’s real time data is syndicated across the web. So, even if you are a not a user of Twitter, you can get real time information from multiple places. So people whom have never signed up for a social networking site – can still see what is being said right now on the real time web. However, Facebook is very different.

When you visit Facebook.com – you can’t easily search other users status updates. And, since Facebook doesn’t give out its data via an API – other websites can’t leverage Facebook’s real time data to offer something for internet users. There are tons of Facebook apps, but those are there to benefit existing Facebook users. Since the Facebook API isn’t available to outside developers – if you aren’t a user of Facebook – you probably aren’t going to be able to learn much about what is going on at Facebook.

Facebook wants its users data to be shared with users’ friends, not the world. Web developers would jump at the opportunity to “run” with the Facebook stream of data to build exciting new websites and to improve existing websites. However, without an API – this hasn’t happened yet.

Twitter wants developers to run with external applications because if those applications grow, Twitter will be the glue that holds those applications together. This, in effect, ensures Twitter’s future. For example, there are hundreds of websites which Twitter has no ownership in, but which take advantage of Twitter’s free API. If those sites grow and receive 100 million visitors per month – that will benefit Twitter because it makes “Tweeting” even more important because now your Tweets will get distributed not only on Twitter, but also on the sites all over the web which are powered by Twitter. By empowering web developers, Twitter has an army of entrepreneurs out there baking in the Twitter feed to their properties. So, the question is – will Facebook ever play this game?

In October of 2009, Facebook announced Open Graph API which was a move in this direction. This API, which is net yet available, will allow other websites to develop a Facebook like page, powered by Facebook technology, without the page having to be on Facebook.com. This would empower websites to have the tools offered to Facebook users live on an external website controlled by an outside webmaster. While this will be something new for webmasters to tap into– it most certainly won’t offer anything close to what Twitter currently offers.

Over time, developers hope they will have more access from Facebook, and slowly, some more tools and functions may become available. At the same time, developers are being empowered by Twitter to run with great new products. Twitter is clearly leading the charge to fuel continued innovation for everyone to have access to throughout the mainstream web.

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(image: LoneWolfLibrarian)

Read more on this social media blog.

Facebook and Twitter are the two power houses of the Social Media Industry. Social Media has become a new medium within the Media family, its siblings being Radio, Television and Newspapers.

What Makes Up Social Media?

So, what makes up Social Media? Metaphorically, Social Media is the body that holds the various limbs that enables the Industry to grow, and allows you to reach outside of the box and communicate with the world. The “limbs” I am referring to are what we call Social Networks.

Social Networks are made up of sites that you are probably already familiar with, such as; YouTube, MySpace, Flickr, StumbleUpon, Mixx, Reddit, and many others that are not listed here, two of those being, Twitter and Facebook. Each social network enables a person to share content, whether it is photos, videos, music, news or conversation. A social network permits you to engage with other people via the Internet. So what is the heart of social media? You are. You are the very reason social media is alive, it is you who pumps the information out into the social networks and in return, it is you that keeps social media breathing.

What Is the Difference Between Twitter and Facebook?

Twitter was originally created for texting purposes via a cell phone which is where the 140 characters come into play, for texting on a cell phone; you are only allotted 160 characters. Twitter included your username and therefore left you with 140 characters to express whatever happens to be on your mind. Twitter is in real-time, meaning that you will receive information as soon as someone you’re following tweets.

Facebook is more complex. It was originally created for internal use at a University, but as its popularity ignited, Facebook as we know it today, was born. Facebook is not only a place you can socially engage through status updates that are longer than 140 characters, but it also offers socially inclined games, profiles and pages that initiate sharing in whatever form of media you choose.

Both social networks offer a different format to express oneself, although Twitter is more commonly known for sharing news links and is becoming a predominant resource for breaking news, people still make connections and utilize it to talk about the events of their day or to promote their business in a fast and for many, more convenient way. Which is why I compare it to a drive-thru, it is quick, easy and you always leave full.

Facebook is more like a sit down restaurant, a place where you get lost in its menu of choices, from applications, status updates, photos, games, videos, pages and many other tempting interactions. Therefore you need to sit down and dig in.

Whether you crave Twitter more or salivate over Facebook, we seem to be starved for these two social networks and for those who use them, you may tend to agree that you can’t help but eat them up everyday.

If you are new to Social Media and unsure which social networks to begin with, I would suggest sampling both Twitter and Facebook, for in their own ways, they will satisfy your social appetite.

Erin Ryan has a passion for Social Media and is currently working within the industry as a Social Media Specialist. Contact Erin on Twitter @4u2wear2

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Read more on this social media blog.

If you haven’t heard, Twitter hit 50 million tweets per day.

If you haven’t heard about it, you’re not paying attention to the social media blogosphere, because EVERYONE is talking about it, at least the big players. Below, you’ll see that there was definitely a headline of choice in declaring the news.

JUST IN CASE you didn’t hear, Twitter is averaging over 50 million tweets per day, something that is relatively unexpected considering recent negativity regarding the lack of growth of the network.

If this is any indication, Twitter is still the golden child and reports of its demise are greatly overstated.

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Read more about social media on this social media blog.

The debate has been raging for ages (at least in Internet time).

Facebook was once the “contender” against MySpace. That didn’t last too long, but soon Twitter emerged as a pseudo-social-network-competitor-thingy to Facebook and the competition heated up again.

Whether or not that competition is valid is arguable since:

1. Twitter incorporates the communication and sharing aspect of social networking but is in many ways easier defined as a microblogging news aggregation site, sort of.
2. Facebook has nearly 10 times more users, hundreds more features, and thousands more apps.
3. Twitter has a clear business model, but only a dozen people in the universe know exactly what that is, while Facebook has dozens of business models, but nobody in the universe knows exactly what they are.

Still, these and many other glaring differences do not take away from the human need to compare the two and argue about them since they are the biggest “buzz” in social media right now (sorry Google).

Here, you will find several pieces of content that take the argument in one direction or another. Some bring up MySpace, LinkedIn, or other social networks. Rather than rehash them, I’ll give them to you to decide what goes where. Why rehash when we have the power of “link and regurgitate”? After all, that’s the way of the Internet today.

Facebook vs Twitter Infographic

(via Flickr)

Articles that (attempt to) Answer the Question of “Twitter vs Facebook”

• Web Strategy Matrix: Google Buzz vs Facebook vs MySpace vs Twitter (Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang)
• Moving Pixels: Facebook vs Twitter (Pop Matters)
• Facebook vs. Twitter Clickthroughs: More Bang For Your Buck (htmlist)
• Twitter Versus Facebook, A Comparison Of The Top Users (AllFacebook)
• Sharing on Facebook vs. Sharing on Twitter (Digital Inspiration)
• Buzz vs. Facebook vs. Twitter and Us (The Relationship Economy)
• Fight: Facebook vs Google vs Twitter (iTWire)
• Web Faceoff: Twitter vs. Facebook (Mashable)
• Twitter vs. Facebook Analysis: What Users Want (Internet News)
• Twitter vs. Facebook – Battle of the Social Goliaths (Inventor Spot)
• Twitter versus Facebook: Should you Choose One? (Twitip)
• Facebook vs. Twitter: How will you stream your world? (CNet)
• Twitter vs. Facebook: Who Will Win in Real-time Search? (Mashable)
• Tools of choice: Twitter vs. Facebook (Social Media Today)
• The Coming Facebook-Twitter Collision (Business Week)

Twitter vs Facebook Cartoon

(via Hubspot)

Facebook vs Twitter on the iPhone

Another Facebook vs Twitter Infographic

(via TheNextWeb)

It doesn’t really matter. At the end of the day, it’s all a matter of preference. Most Twitter users use Facebook. Most very active Facebook users are on Twitter now or will be sometime this year. Whatever it takes to enjoy, share, learn, and engage, that’s what is important. Who will win in the end?

Us.

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Read more about Twitter and Facebook on this Social Media Blog.

6 months ago, Twitter changed its homepage so that there was a greater focus on their search engine.

At any time, anyone can go to Twitter and search through all of the updates from Twitter users. So, while initially your Tweets were scene by your Twitter followers, now people that don’t follow you and even people not using Twitter can view your Tweets when they utilize the Twitter search engine.

Twitter’s search results are also being syndicated to several web properties. In December of 09, Google implemented Twitter results onto the first page of their results pages. For select keywords, you’ll notice the Latest Results box scrolling which is powered by Twitter results along with other real time results. In addition to Google, Bing has announced a plan to bake in Twitter results into their search listings.

While Bing and Twitter are the most widely used websites to implement Twitter updates – a slew of real time search engines have launched in an effort to bring the real time web to internet users. Many of these real time search engines, such as Sency, use Twitter updates as the primary source of their results. Furthermore, many content sites have utilized tools and widgets to implement real time results onto their web properties. For instance, if you are on your favorite Yankees blog – you may see what people are saying right now about the Yankees scrolling down the left or right hand side of the webpage.

With Twitter offering its API of Tweets for free to small web publishers and entrepreneurs – we can expect to continue to see Twitter results syndicated across the web. One great thing about real time results is that they are fresh – a search today will reveal different results than a search next week. So, web publishers will benefit from implementing real time content as it will keep their sites current and make their sites stickier.

As more and more marketers realize the depth of this syndication, spam on Twitter is expected to increase. Twitter will block an account from its syndication, and when this happen, while your posts will go to your followers – they won’t go to Twitter.com and sites using the Twitter API. Furthermore, filtering technologies which Google seems to have implemented will try to prevent non-relevant Tweets from non-quality Twitter users from showing up. However, it seems the case that a majority of Tweets done today are syndicated to additional sources. If you do a search at Twitter for your user name, and you see your results showing up – that is a good indication that your updates are being syndicated across the web.

In closing, when you send out that Tweet today about what you are up too – don’t assume only your Twitter followers will see it. Because major search engines such as Google and Bing may display your results – and also – your favorite blog may end up displaying them as well.

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Read more about Twitter on this, one of many Social Media Blogs.

This map is pretty self explanatory: How states compare to the average U.S. Twitter Grade (as determined by Hubspot’s Twitter Grader).

(from Digg via CityPages, sourced from Hubspot and proudly displayed on this social media marketing blog)

It can be argued that those of us who tweet links to content on the web are the most annoying of Twitter users. That is the “category” that I fit in, so it makes sense that I would exclude my personal type from this list.

Otherwise, there are probably dozens of other types that are just as annoying.  This is, of course, a partial list, but we’ll be expanding the post once more annoying Twitter types come to light. In the meantime, here’s the first 14. Post any that we missed in the comments or tweet at us with your suggestions.

1. The FOREX Spammer

With as much money as people are apparently making on FOREX, it’s amazing that they have time to work their Twitter accounts.

2. The Linkjacker

When you post links to stories, you really should make sure that everyone can see what the story says rather than link to your own site and expect people to click through from your site to the source content. Just a thought.

3. The YELLLLLLERRRRRR

IF YOU TWEET, EMAIL, IM, OR DO ANY FORM OF COMMUNICATION IN ALL CAPS, IT MEANS THAT YOU’RE YELLING WHATEVER IT IS THAT YOU’RE TRYING TO SAY!!!!!! MAKE SURE THAT WHAT YOU YELL IS WORTH YELLING!!!!!!! PLEASE!!!!!!

4. The Twitter Gamer

Unlike many, I have nothing against the games on Twitter like SpyMaster, Mafia, Ninja, whatever. I actually play SpyMaster in the background. However, there’s more to Tweeting than posting your last gaming action. For those not in the game, it can get rather mundane if all you post is who you’ve assassinated, what weapons you’ve purchased, and how we can join your clan/family/ring/dojo.

5. The “Get 100 Followers a Day” Spammer

Have you ever noticed that most of the accounts that Tweet about being able to pick up hundreds of Twitter followers per day only have 84 followers?

6. The Celeb Who Has 2 million People Following their 3 Tweets Per Month

I know. Everyone loves Oprah. You can’t say anything bad about her because she is perfection boxed up into human form. Still, what are her 2 million followers doing? She doesn’t talk to any of them. She rarely tweets at all (going on a month of inactivity).  It reminds me of the people who followed Forrest Gump on his runs across the country. They were there, waiting for him to say something magical, and it never came.

7. Porn Spammers

It’s the Internet. Porn is everywhere. Why would anyone go to Twitter to find it? Answer: they don’t.

8. The Repeater Tweeter

These are amongst my favorites. You see them in your stream – the people who have something so important to say that they have to say it over and over again in case you missed it 30 seconds before.

9. The Random Tweeter of the Utterly Mundane

I know Twitter in its purest form is supposed to be somewhat mundane, but some people take it way too far.

10. The MLM Spammer

Everyone has to make a living, and because Twitter is about networking it has become a natural fit for the MLM crowd. That doesn’t make it any less annoying.

11. The Quoter of Witty Wisdom

Some of the best quotes I’ve ever seen came from Twitter. I have been known to throw out some of my faves myself. Still, that shouldn’t be ALL that you tweet, should it?

12. The Super-Fan

Everyone idolizes someone whether they admit it or not. I feel bad and somewhat uncomfortable when I see those who are doing anything they can to get a reply from those they idolize. What will they do if they get a response?

13. The Account Named After A Twitter Action

That’s nice. What are you going to Tweet about? “Following @0boy back because he followed me!”,  “Following @soshable back because he followed me, too!”, etc.

14. The Tweeter of the Same Link 500 Different Ways

They have one link they’re pushing. It’s the only thing they will ever tweet about, so if you’re really, really interesting in everything pertaining to that link, please follow these people. You won’t be disappointed.

15. The White Teether

I never knew about this one until @bobf_vstpgh pointed them out to me. Once I did a search, I discovered that there seems to be a growing number of people Tweeting about white teeth! Who would have known?

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I know there are more of them out there. Let me know via comment here, @soshable or @0boy if you know of any other annoying Twitter user types.

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Read more about Twitter on this Social Media Blog.

On December 31, 2009, Andy Carvin from NPR asked people on Twitter and Facebook to sum up the year in one word. He then ran the results through Wordle to generate a word cloud.

As you can see, some found hope in 2009 while others found it to be exhausting. Many considered 2009 to be bittersweet, challenging, or tumultuous. If you look a little closer at some of the less-popular words, you’ll find interesting descriptions such as suckage, bizarro, craptacular, and autotuned.

One word and its plural stood out as the overwhelming favorite description amongst social networking users: Change.

Click the image to enlarge.

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Read more on this social media blog.

It seemed like a no-brainer to me, but I was talking to a friend who is, under normal circumstances, a much more prolific Twitter user and consultant than I am. He asked me for advice on helping his clients find relevant people to follow, what software we used for our clients, etc.

I mentioned lists as our primary method. The midday sun shone inside his brain as his smile crept up to each earlobe.

Just for kicks, I asked another well-respected Twitter user for their method. She offered free and paid applications and websites for finding niche tweeps. She mentioned a strategy I had never thought of which entailed finding high-profile people within a niche who do not follow a lot of users and follow those that they follow.

I mentioned using Twitter Lists to her and the sun rose once again.

So, here we are. If you are using Twitter for marketing or consulting with those who are wanting to use Twitter for marketing, don’t forget the lists. It’s by far the easiest way to find the right people in broad or narrow niches to follow.

Find someone, anyone, in the niche. See where they’re listed. Chances are they are on lists that are broken down by niche, geography, or a combination. Follow those people. See what lists they are on. In a very short time, you or your clients’ accounts will be following the right people.

Merry Christmas!

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Read more about Twitter marketing on this social media blog.
Image courtesy of Freelance Folder.

The doom and gloom crowd has been predicting Twitter’s demise for years.

• “Where is their revenue model?”
• “It goes down too much.”
• “Spam is taking over.”
• “WHERE IS THEIR REVENUE MODEL?”

After 2 years of defending Twitter, I’m starting to question whether or not I was wrong and they were all right.

Marketers, Spammers, and Bots, OH MY!

When Twitter first started making it’s mainstream push around a year ago, the percentage of tweets with links in them was very low. It was possible to get 10k clicks on links tweeted by “power users” with 20k followers and a lot of retweets.

Today, the situation is reversed. Thanks to the influx of marketers, spammers, and bots marketing, spamming, and botting, there are more tweets with links in them than not. Even a “power user” with a million followers has a hard time getting 2,000 clicks on links anymore and the retweets are down considerably or ignored completely.

Twitter’s influence on directing its users around the Internet has waned. Most do not trust links anymore after regular onslaughts of worms and malware have tainted us.

The spammers keep coming and regular users are growing wary. This is where the first Twitter Paradox comes in. Twitter wants to be open and encourage businesses to participate with the hopes of becoming an important method of communication and advertising, but they also want to keep the spammers out. These are two competing goals and thus far neither has been fully achieved. They may never be able to draw that line.

Technology that’s Slow to Upgrade

Twitter, as it has been well documented, was not built on a platform that is ideal for growth at the level they have experienced. Upgrading the systems and servers is a challenge and site performance has taken a beating since the site first started.

It was built for a limited group and thus has not been able to achieve true scalability even after 3 years. They have been able to embrace the “help” of applications and websites such as Tweetdeck and Hootsuite, but they are not directly associated with Twitter. In essence, they exist as fixes to a poorly conceived platform.

The Paradox here is that they would have to rebuild the entire platform from scratch to achieve true scalability and work as a standalone website rather than a hub for 3rd-party apps to flourish. Rebuilding the platform is costly, would diffuse the apps that have helped it to achieve the success it has seen so far, and would likely cause many to leave without gaining much other than a better running website. It’s a catch-22 decision that they cannot make – both choices lose.

The REAL Paradox – Make Money without Making Money

The beauty of Twitter is that it’s simple and free. Free of ads (for the most part), free of privacy issues (for the most part), and simple to use beyond belief. To make money, they will have to sacrifice something. Once they do, there will be an outcry from the blogosphere, the userbase, and mainstream media regardless of what the change is. That part is inevitable.

Twitter Advertising

If they start putting in more advertising regardless of how they do it, two things will happen:

1. Users won’t like it and will complain that the ads are too intrusive.
2. Advertisers won’t like it and will complain that the ads aren’t intrusive enough.

The results will be an angry userbase and unsatisfied advertisers (if you’re thinking Google adsense, please don’t tell me that’s a revenue model).

Selling Your Data

This is the most likely scenario for the magical, secret, VC-inducing revenue model that everyone from Google to Facebook wants. The “real-time web” and the data within there is a paradox of its own that companies are racing to control, but the data available on Twitter is a goldmine of behavioral marketing and search engine data-boosting firepower that everyone recognizes.

The problem is that once you start using the data, people will rebel and stop giving it. Regardless of how harmlessly the data is used, once people learn that their data (even though most is already public) is being used “against” them by businesses, they will fight it.

Keep in mind – it’s silly. People are willing to tweet intimate details about their lives to an open platform like Twitter, but once that data is collected and analyzed, they will hate it (even though it doesn’t make a difference and may actually improve their Internet experience).

Keep It Simple Stupid

In the end, Twitter will have to complicate things if they don’t make their money on ads or behavior targeting. They will have to make corporate accounts, premium accounts, premium features, donations, or any other forms of functionality changes that will complicate the site.

And thus, they will lose. The simplicity is what makes Twitter, and therefore cannot be changed. To do so would be suicide.

How Twitter May Not Fail

The one thing I’ve learned in my (2) years on Twitter is that they keep surprising me. They shouldn’t be as big as they are today, but they are. They should not be making the mainstream impact that they are. They shouldn’t be getting hefty valuations and a constant flow of cash, but they do.

They are much smarter than me, and they probably will succeed just because I don’t think they will. I hope they do. What else am I going to do while bored with my G1 waiting in line at the dry cleaners?

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Read more about Twitter on this Social Media Blog.