Not sure if I’d call it new – but I guess mainstream either way.
There’s a new tool that can help companies predict sales for the coming weeks, or decide whether to increase inventories or put items on sale in certain stores.
Businesses Can Use Twitter to Predict Sales – WSJ.com.
Posted in Quick Post, business, community, marketing 
Tags: business, marketing, Marketing and Advertising, social networking, twitter 
Comments OffIf people are comfortable with this informaiton it could really provide a wealth of additional knowledge which wouldn’t have to be added to the already tight 140 characters.
“The added information provides valuable context when reading your friends tweets and allows you to better focus in on local conversations,” writes Twitter platform/API man Ryan Sarver in the blog post.
C64 Twitter client – Hack a Day.
Honey – where’d ya put the C64?
Posted in Quick Post, community, gen y, technology, twitter, wedia Tags: school, twitter 1 Comment »When NOT to Use Social Media – ReadWriteWeb.
This post brings up a good point. Soical Media is not for everyone, all the time.
What Does that Hashtag Mean? New Service Tells You – ReadWriteWeb.
Some great twitter info here if you are a noob.
So, my buddy Jason gives me crap everyday for my multiple twitter names: @vwtom and @tomaltman He gives me this round of balony becuase I am a knuclehead. How was I to know you could change usernames on twitter. I’ve been a web programmer for 10 years – I’ve never built a system where you could change usernames. But Twitter did.
All I was trying to do was “unify” my “social media profiles”. I have been using tomaltman as my handle for most things – and thought it would be good to have that on Twitter too. So, it was a good as time as any to change. I searched and secured the new name, walked though my Twitter friends list and got it all moved over…and boom. Jason and @WagsTV are like – yea, you can just change it.
I was dumbfounded. I couldn’t believe it. How could I be so stupid – it remind me of some of the “old media” types I work with. I assumed I knew you couldn’t change the username. But I didn’t know what I didn’t know. All I would have had to do was ask some people around me – and they would have told me. But I assumed I knew better – because I was the WEB guy.
How stupid and narrow minded was that? I acted like a jerk – mostly because I wasn’t open minded enough to ask – hell, I talk to Jason multiple times a day, but I didn’t ask…and now I’m a knuclehead.
I think newspapers need to realize they are acting like knucleheads. Admit we’re not sure what to do. Listen to the people on the front lines, yup – managers you’ll have to allow and empower those people to do what they think is right. And most of all – gather all the young,hip, cool kids in the company and ask them what they would do. Trust me, the information and just plain seat of the pants feelings they have is money – and if we don’t listen, we’re not going to make it.
Posted in just because, religion & philosophy, tom's journey Tags: Online Communities, programmer, social media, twitter, Web Comments OffI can see it now – people will poo-poo this ASAP. Who in their right mind would send money via Twitter?
Yea – I remember when people said that about a little company called “PayPal” 
Posted in Quick Post, community, innovation, wedia Tags: payments, paypal, twitpay, twitter Comments OffWord-of-tweet recommendation for local business excellence | Mark Czerniec.
Very cool article – this will become infinitely more important as Twitter gets more and more popular.
Posted in Quick Post, community, technology, twitter, wedia Tags: Small business, twitter Comments Off
Wow – I’m not exactly sure how many times I LOL’d while reading this – but defending Twitter and Facebook is starting to get old. Its absolutely silly how the “old media” type just cannot wrap their mind around new ways to do web.
From the post: “Why I hate Facebook”
For the record, I am not on Facebook, and the recent fuss about privacy doesn’t affect me — I’m not a disgruntled user with an axe to grind.
No, your an “outsider” who has not invested any time to understand the concept. Facebook is a place, a gathering spot. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not a Facebook fanboy. But I get it, I’m not in the target audience…but I get it. I love how someone can say “XYZ” is stupid – I’ve never tried “XYZ”, but damn is it ever dumb.
Then he goes on to show more close-minded thinking when he blasts internet based business models. Here is what he has to say about Facebook’s growth.
In the Fortune story, there is a chart showing how quickly Facebook got to 150 million users compared to other technologies such as the iPod, cellphone and television.
While it’s impressive that it took Facebook only 5 years compared with 7 years for Apple to “sell” 150 million iPods, who has the better business model?
Facebook merely signed up people to use their service…for free. Apple sold a product…and a pretty pricey one at that. What’s more, Apple makes money when people buy music from iTunes for their iPod.
OK – this is where I have to call the “old”, “closed-mind” cards. Dude. (I love to use “Dude”, because it makes the old, closed-minded people cringe.) Seriously – DUDE! The people ARE the commodity in web world. Facebook isn’t selling products…they are selling people – at least selling access to those people. So, as Facebook sees and surpasses 150,000,000 users, they are building an arsenal of marketing data.
This is not about selling units, there is no full-fillment center – that’s not how Facebook rolls. They are selling data. Advertisers are evolving – they will begin to see the value in qualified leads.
See my post on “Wish lists” – if you can give advertisers three names of people who are genuinely interested in the product you sell…they will pay. Gladly, they call it a “qualified” lead. Cha-ching. I’m sorry – is that the sound of money? How are they ever going to make money?
Put on banner ads – that’s what many Web 1.0 people will say…
Even if users tolerate ads on Facebook, I’m not sure they’d actually click on them.
Exactly. Facebook could put up banners on the site (in fact, they do a little). But guess what – people hate them. I hate them – I think we can all agree, banner ads are not very good. The web is not a newspaper in electronic format. We cannot turn print display ads into web-tastic banners. It doesn’t work. We need a new way. Like “Wish lists“, I’m telling you. (This is a good idea, read about it – give me feedback.)
To me, Facebook seems to be growing for growth’s sake without a plan for making money. And that’s really risky in a recession as bad as this one. Not only is Facebook faced with the prospect of ad spending declining this year; it also has to likely deal with the rising costs to manage the increased amount of data as it signs on more and more users.
So while I applaud Facebook for its ability to attract a loyal base of users, I just don’t get how it will ever be a financial success.
That I agree with, Mr. La Monica – I’m not sure he’s spent the time to understand the web is breeding a new a model. It’s not about how many “units” a company pushes a month. It’s a focus on the relationship. It’s about how you become part of the community – not how you watch from above in your ivory tower and count your Benjamins.
So I leave you with Paul R. La Monica’s word from the beginning of the post:
The social networking wunderkind may be cool. But enough already! How’s it ever going to make money…especially in a recession?
Now – let’s get to the real question. Will Facebook quit messing with things until it can prove customers are important! Yes, I’m asking Facebook to leave the privacy terms alone. I guess we’ll see!
UPDATE:
I almost forgot to add this…the only reason I wrote this blog post was because CNN doesn’t have comments turn on for their site. If they would have – I would have probably spammed him inbox!
Posted in community, innovation, technology, web concepts, wedia Tags: Business model, facebook, Online Communities, social network, Social network service, twitter 2 Comments »
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