Twitter Newsletter 2010 – Edition #2

(BE SURE TO CHECK OUT THE LOCATATION DATA Option in your account settings.) ok now read on..

Hi there,

Last month I restarted this monthly Twitter email update. If you’ve been around for a while, then you might remember getting my emails. If you signed up and requested this update more recently, welcome! A lot happens every month at Twitter so we want to keep you in the know. As always, you’re invited to visit http://twitter.com — to come see what’s new.

New Front Page
We’ve discovered over the years that Twitter is a work in progress. At first, the idea of tweeting only appealed to a few but then it caught on in a big way. Now Twitter is an incredibly rich and expanding information network. Our design team has changed the front page to reflect this metamorphosis and will continue to adjust accordingly.

Official Twitter Conference
We’re hosting our first official Twitter developer conference this month. It’s called Chirp. The event will take place in San Francisco over two days. The first day is April 14th at the Palace of Fine Arts. On April 15th, we’ll be gathering at Fort Mason right along the bay. We’re looking forward to meeting in person. For info, tickets, or to watch online, visit the Chirp web site.

Fighting Spam
Our Chief Scientist Abdur recently published a short piece titled, “State of Twitter Spam.” In it, he explained how the definition of spam is different when compared to the common email variety. Spam is inevitable on a popular system but we fight it aggressively. Less than 1% of tweets per day are spam and we work diligently to reduce that percentage.

Location, Location, Location
We added a new feature to the Twitter web site that allows you to attach location data to individual tweets. This feature may not appeal to everyone so it requires that you activate it first in your Account Settings. You can choose to share an exact location or a general location such as neighborhood or town. This additional context is potentially very powerful.

Thanks,
Biz Stone, Co-founder (@Biz)
Twitter, Inc.

Twitter Newsletter 2010 – Edition #1

For those who do not get the Twitter newsletter, here is what I got today and wanted to share:

Hi there,
In the early days of Twitter, I used to send out short updates just to keep everyone in the loop since so much was happening. It’s been a while, but you signed up for short, monthly updates from Twitter so we thought it was time to start sharing more information. We’ve had quite a year. If you haven’t visited in a while, we’d like to invite you to come have a look at http://twitter.com — we’ve been busy!
Growing Up
In the course of a year, registered Twitter accounts have grown more than 1,500% and our team has grown 500%. Recently, we hired our 140th employee! His name is Aaron and he’s an engineer focused on building internal tools to help promote productivity, communication, and support within our company. We celebrated with a little dance party.
Features of Note
Some features of note that we released over the course of a year include the ability to create lists, quickly spread information with a retweet button, and an easier way to activate your mobile phone to work with Twitter over SMS. We also built a new mobile web site that looks and works much better on smart phones.
Feeling Inspired
By working together during critical times when others needed help, sharing important information that otherwise might not make the news, and inventing new and interesting ways to use Twitter, you’ve shown us that Twitter is more than a triumph of technology — it is a triumph of humanity. Projects like Fledgling and Hope140 were inspired by you.
Chirp!
While there may only be 140 full-time employees working at the Twitter offices, there are thousands of dedicated platform developers who have now created more than 70,000 registered Twitter applications creating variety and utility for all of us. We’ll be gathering this spring at Chirp, our first ever official Twitter developer conference.
Thanks,
Biz Stone, Co-founder (@Biz)
Twitter, Inc.

Goog 411 : Say it and find it

Have you heard about Google new phone directory service?
I just got a call for my listing and they wanted me to update/ confirm my listing with them.
So I did.

Watch the video to learn about this new free service from Google
1-8000goog-411

You don’t need a computer, an Internet connection, or even the keypad on your phone or mobile device. GOOG-411 is voice-activated, so you can access it from any phone (mobile or land line), in any location, at any time. For free. (*)

Dial (1-800) GOOG-411. Say where. Say what you’re looking for. GOOG-411 will connect you with the business you choose.

If you are calling from a mobile device, GOOG-411 can even send you a text message with more details and a map. Simply say “Text message” or “Map it.”

7 New Features in Google Analytics

Sent to me this morning:

Hello Google Analytics users,

Google recently added powerful new features to Google Analytics account. With these seven new features you’ll be able to get quicker insights, create deeper customizations, do more advanced analysis and track more mobile marketing!

Read on to learn more and then sign in to your account to try these features.

Analytics Intelligence with Custom Alerts
Using an algorithmic driven Intelligence engine, Analytics Intelligence monitors data patterns over daily, weekly and monthly periods. Significant changes in data trends and insights you may not have noticed are surfaced directly in your account. You can also create your own Custom Alerts that monitor your selection of dimensions and metrics that can be sent by email or displayed in the Intelligence reports.

Expanded Goals and New Engagement Goals
You can now track even more conversions by creating up to 20 goals per profile. Measure user engagement and branding success on your site with Time on Site and Pages per Visit goals. Set up your first Engagement goal in minutes.

Expanded Mobile Reporting
Google Analytics has expanded support for mobile websites and tracking for iPhone and Android mobile applications tracking. Adding server side code to your PHP, JSP, PERL, or ASPX mobile websites enables you to track non-Java-Script enabled phones. For mobile application developers, access the SDK and technical implementation details here. You’ll also be able to see breakout data on mobile devices and carriers in the new Mobile reports in the Visitors section.

Unique Visitors Metric
Include the Unique Visitors metric in your Custom Report or Advanced Segments to see how many actual visitors (unique cookies) visit your website. You can select Unique Visitors as a metric against any dimensions in Google Analytics.

Advanced Analysis Features
Dive deeper into your data with Pivoting, Secondary Dimensions, and Advanced Table Filtering. These combined features enable you to perform in-depth, on the fly data analysis within your account.

Share Advanced Segments and Custom Report Templates
Share the URL link for an Advanced Segment or Custom Report with anyone who has an Analytics account. Sharing the link will automatically import the pre-formatted template into the person’s account. Also available now is the ability to share or hide your Advanced Segments and Custom Reports by profile.

Multiple Custom Variables
Custom variables provide the power and flexibility to customize Google Analytics to collect the unique site usage data most important to your business. Define and track visitors according to visitor attributes (member vs. non-member), session attributes (signed in or signed out), and by page-level attributes (viewed Sports section). Use custom variables to classify any number of interactions and behaviors on your site. Start learning more about them now.

Sign in to your account to try the new features.

Happy analyzing,
Google Analytics Team

Quick reminder on Convergence – Tech is here

Ping.fm Do I need that too? Why?

Ping.fm is a simple and FREE service that makes updating your social networks a snap!
Is adding Ping to your arsenal of Online Social Media tools really needed? I mean you still have to log into each one of your social sites (or use a third party addon, or a mobile addon) to reply to the great newest bit of information you are sharing, right? Yes, that does seem to be the case with Ping.fm

So why bother signing up if you have to open up all your social apps in new windows and tabs? For one really good reason, if for no other reason that this. You can login to your ping account and post a link back to your new product, service, special your running, event your holding, picture you just uploaded of you and your favorite celebrity, etc. and it hits all your other online accounts that you have connected to it. Bamb! One post and out to over 40 different sites*! *if you have an account at all 40 sites they currently offer.

Ping does just what the name sounds like it does. For those in the know, pings in blogging are: an XML-RPC-based push mechanism by which a weblog notifies a server that its content has been updated. Source

So when you ping make sure you are doing so in way that requires little to no replys via the onslaught of social media outlets of which you are a memeber. Think of it as simply Link Dropping

Happy Pinging

Elegant Sports Jewelry

Have you every thought about how sports fans like to get all dressed up to support their favorit team before the the game. The wear Hats, jackets, scarves, big foam finger-thingys. Some fans, women fans in particular, like to show their spirit in a little bit of a different way….JEWLERY!
That is the concept behind one of my more recent projects, Elegant Sports Jewelry, that uses the Magento Shopping cart/cms platform. It was a new platform to me when I started, but I feel comfortable getting around under the hood. The user community is ok-to-good for support, mostly just users helping users, as the platform is completely open-source.
Elegant Sports Jewelry is all hand made by Michelle Reid. She has a passion for her work and it shows. Dave Reid has been my main source of contact as we developed the site and have made updates. A pleasure to work with and a very understanding person with a sense of humor that is perfect working on tech-projects. You can also follow what Elegant Sports Jewelry is doing on FACEBOOK. Elegant Sports Jewelry’s main focus to start out with is geared toward the college Alumni, but over the past month they have started to add professional sports teams to there product line.
Next time you are looking for sports gear that shows a little more style and class than the Big-Foam-Finger-Thingy…point your browser over to ElegantSportsJewelry.com

What is Opera Up To? (browser)

Taking a look at this page : http://www.opera.com/freedom/

On June 16th at 9:00a.m (CEDT) We will reinvent the web. And hidden in the source code:

We start our little story with the invention of the modern day computer. Over the years, the computers grew in numbers, and the next natural step in the evolution was to connect them together. To share things. But as these little networks grew, some computers gained more power than the rest and called themselves servers. Today, millions of people are connected together in a great web …

Ok I’m more than a little curious…so I’ll be checking back in in less than 24 hours. Reinvent the web? hmmm what web are they talking about. mobile…social networking…powerful browser integrated with cloud computing?

Stephanie Lichtenstein Message on Affiliate Tax

Hello everyone,

Some of you may have already seen the awareness badge on several blogs. This is an effective and easy way to spread awareness. This is an icon displaying our concern against the advertising tax as well as all the states being affected. Please feel free to add this to your blog or site.

The most important thing you can do is link the awareness badge to an educational resource that relates to the advertising tax. There are many you can link to such as:
http://affiliatevoice.com
http://performancemarketingalliance.com
Our Facebook Group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=77931506576&ref=ts
Affiliate Tax Law Forum: http://forum.abestweb.com/forumdisplay.php?f=543
You can even link to an advocate blog such as Melanie Seery: http://nyaffiliatevoice.com/

Link where you wish, the idea is to spread awareness and education about the harm that the advertising tax causes.

Here are the banner HTML codes:
<a href="http://affiliatevoice.com/"><img src="http://i637.photobucket.com/albums/uu100/nexusaware/sitebadge125.gif" alt="Oppose Advertising Tax – Support Small Business" width="125" height="125" /></a>

<a href="http://http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=77931506576&ref=ts/"><img src="http://i637.photobucket.com/albums/uu100/nexusaware/sitebadge160.gif" alt="Oppose Advertising Tax – Support Small Business" width="160" height="160" /></a>

<a href="http://performancemarketingalliance.com/"><img src="http://i637.photobucket.com/albums/uu100/nexusaware/sitebadge250.gif" alt="Oppose Advertising Tax – Support Small Business" width="250" height="250" /></a>

I have added different website links which you can edit. The awareness badge looks like the new facebook group icon but it is flashing with the affected States along with their Bill numbers. A big thanks to Joel Garcia for creating this for us. If you have any ideas on how to help, run with it! Every little bit counts.

As you can see in California we were victorious. We still need to keep an eye on things. As for Minnesota, we need more affiliates in this State to step up. Connie has been working hard and would love some support from other MN affiliates. Please feel free to email me with any questions or ideas.

Thanks and have a great weekend!Thank You Stephanie for the hard work you and the many others that have been putting into this. I’ve posted a badge and pass the word along to some of the local groups I attend.

We are living in exponential times.

2008 Latest Edition – Did You Know 3.0 –

This is a wake up call to all those in the marketing space, the workplace, in school, preparing for higher education and those that just want to know.
Great list of facts about our ever increasing world of technology, information and population.
When they ask you did you know, you answers may not be what you would have expected Did you know how fast things are progressing and evolving? This video should leave you at least somewhat in shock and awe.