Media Week

The Guardian is getting very into Twitter - and aren't we all! My old editor Vic Keegan has written a piece today suggesting that Twitter is going to 'go ballistic'.

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jan/29/twitter

 I'm not going to disagree with him. I love Twitter. Vic mentions a free service called www.monitter.com. It is utterly addictive. Type in a word or a phrase and you see all the real-time tweets on that subject. Just type in a client and see what comes up.

 Vic says how many companies are proving slow to see the potential of these tools which he predicts will become part of company working in the future. I am sure they will. Despite the name, there are many companies already using Twitter and they have to because everyone else is. If you don't go where your customers are, how can you be customer-centric?!!

 There are going to be some major transformations of business when these tools like twitter are adopted. Working practices will change. Customer communications will alter. Meanwhile a lot of companies plod on doing the same thing behind the firewall.....until the tweets come home to roost!!!

 www.itsopen.co.uk

Not to be outdone by Current and Twitter, CNN.com tied up with Facebook yesterday to enable Facebook users to watch the inauguration and at the same time to discuss their views and thoughts with their friends. This is all possible through the Facebook Connect technology which basically enables Facebook to become more mobile.

http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=48783697130

This presents a lot of potential advertising PR opportunities for organisations and underlines how important it is for companies to become more social if they are to build relationships with their consumers and stakeholders.

www.itsopen.co.uk

Yesterday Current TV, the satellite and cable TV service, tied up with Twitter to cover Barack Obama's inauguration.

Twitter users were invited to send their tweets into Current which then transmitted them as part of the coverage. Current is trying to harness the Twitter community to help develop its TV service. http://current.com/items/89735720/current_twitters_the_inauguration.htm

Probably more TV companies are going to start to integrate popular social media applications into their programmes to build a sense of community. Big Brother and Twitter...maybe?

www.itsopen.co.uk

More and more companies like Comcast, PepsiCo, JetBlue and the likes of Stephen Fry and Barack Obama are using Twitter.

 But how can companies best use Twitter to their advantage? Maybe ad and media buying agencies can use it?

 I recently did a podcast interview with Julio Ojeda-Zapata who has written a book called 'Twitter means business: how microblogging can help or hurt your company'

It is short and you can listen to it here:

http://itsopen.co.uk/twitter-means-business-author-talks-with-itsopen

Julio talks about which companies are using Twitter best and why; whether it makes a difference to sales and how companies and their employees can use Twitter to befriend customers rather than blasting out messages at them.

Facebook now has 150 million users and more than half of them use Facebook every day, according to a recent post on their blog http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=46881667130

Facebook is represented on every continent including Antartica. If it was a country it would be the eighth most populated in the world, just ahead of Japan, Russia and Nigeria.

 The company post also points out that Facebook reaches a cross section of society from grannies to students. So that knocks on the head the idea that some traditional marketeers hold that social media is only for young people.

 www.itsopen.co.uk

http://twitter.com/itsopen

In a sign of the rising influence of Twitter, PepsiCo turned to Twitter after users began posting criticisms of a Pepsi Max advertisement which depicted a cartoon calorie committing suicide.

Huw Gilbert, communications manager for PepsiCo International, posted a public message apologising for the creative and saying it was totally inappropriate.

Advertising execs who might want to use Twitter to publicise ad campaigns in the future might want to check out a new book about Twitter called 'Twitter means business' by Julio Ojeda-Zapata

http://yourtech.typepad.com/twitinbiz/about-twitter-means-business.html

Despite the rising interest in Twitter - about three million accounts - it is still  highly vulnerable to hacking. Barack Obama's account has just been hacked into even though it has not been active since it was used to publicise his presidential campaign.

www.itsopen.co.uk