Twitter’s CEO, Dick Costolo defended the every changing micro-blogging platform, at the AllThingsD media conference in Laguna Nigel, CA, yesterday stating: “There’s been no change in our stance or attitude or policy with respect to content on Twitter.”

The CEO was standing up to challenges made towards the company on their announcement that some countries could find tweets censored in the interest of government compliance. Some felt this was a foolish move on behalf of Twitter, with many criticising Twitter for selling out to the corporate machine over the new censorship policy, losing its authenticity and interfering with freedom of speech.

Costolo went on to add, “What we announced is a greater capability we now have. Now, when we are issued a valid legal order in a country in which we operate, such as a DMCA take down notice, we are able to leave the content up for as many people around the world as possible, while still operating within the local law. You can’t operate in these countries and choose the laws you want to abide by.”

The new policy does seem to give a greater platform for freedom of speech, and could open the door for Twitter in places like China and Iran where they are currently blocked.

When a tweet is censored it won’t necessarily be blocked from the world, only hidden from the countries that by law require such.

But this wasn’t the only matter, the companies CEO found himself defending at the conference.  Given the significant changes Twitter have made recently, the micro-blogging label seems a difficult one to pin down these days; given the multitude of information, search value and news content it provides us with each day.

 

Costolo’s response: “We are in the media business, but we’re not necessarily a media company.”

He went onto explain that they do distribute content, and traffic, but do not create their own.

His words also seemed to echo that of a similar interview held with co-founder, Jack Dorsey at last week’s DLD conference. “Twitter’s business model has been in development for quite some time, and it works.”

Of course in between now, and then Twitter has also acquired the social news curation service Summify, which Jack said would help Twitter in “delivering relevant content to people.”

Micrositez: Digital Agency Glasgow offering Web Design solutions.

digital media, micro-blogging, social media, social network, twitter

Developers and engineers from Facebook, MySpace and Twitter have been working on a solution to the “Google+ problem”. The solution they have developed is in response to the new Search Plus Your World changes that have been rolled out on Google, which were felt to unfairly promote Google+ pages instead of more active social profiles.

The result of this work can be found at focusontheuser.org. From there, users are encouraged to click and drag a button to their bookmarks bar, and this button can then be used to alter search results. Or, as the team call say “try a more relevant Google”. It works by using Google’s own relevance measure to determine which social content should appear in the People and Pages section of search results. So the social results better match the most relevant and popular social locations for search terms. It doesn’t exclude Google+, but it does categorise it more accurately according to how relevant it is.

The name of this bookmarklet?

the "don't be evil" button

If this phrase sounds familiar, that’s because “don’t be evil” is the informal corporate motto of Google themselves, and an ironic reminder to the company that perhaps they’ve slipped from that ethos with their promotion of Google+ above all other social networks.

It’s an interesting project, and it could become very popular. Search engine users value relevancy over anything else, and if they’re given the tool to get it, why wouldn’t they use it?

Micrositez Digital: Web Agency Glasgow.

facebook, Google, myspace, search plus your world, twitter, Web Agency Glasgow

Brandon Harris, senior designer for Wikimedia, updated his Facebook status this morning to say “And that’s that. We have our orders. A global, hard blackout of the English Wikipedia is a go.”

This confirms that Wikipedia will go ahead with a planned protest on Wednesday. In an unprecedented move, the world’s 6th most-visited site will “go dark” to raise awareness of their opposition to the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP Act (PIPA). Anyone attempting to access any of the English Wikipedia pages will be greeted with something that looks like this.

Wikipedia has never attempted a blackout on this scale before, but the Italian Wikipedia did close down in October 2011 to protest changes to libel laws. Link-sharing site Reddit will join the protest with a similar blackout.

The reason that Wikipedia, Reddit and others are so concerned about SOPA and PIPA is that they impose additional responsibilities on websites to thoroughly monitor their content for copyright infringement, and suggest harsh punishments where the law is broken. Wikipedia’s stance, which is outlined on their site, is that PIPA and SOPA “have the potential to significantly change the way that information can be shared through the Internet.” The SOPA initiative/action statement on the site today continues: “It is the opinion of the English Wikipedia community that both of these bills, if passed, would be devastating to the free and open web.”

The protest itself has met with plenty of criticism. The Guardian reported that Dick Costolo, CEO of Twitter, tweeted that he thought Wikipedia’s plans were “foolish” and “silly”. (Although he has since stated on his twitter feed that he is in support of Wikipedia’s plans). Costolo has reassured users that Twitter will not be participating in the blackout.

Whether the protest will have any impact remains to be seen, but surely some of the 23 million unique daily visitors to English Wikipedia’s sites will be at a loss on Wednesday.

Micrositez Digital: Web Agency Glasgow

PIPA, Reddit, SOPA, twitter, Wikipedia

Once upon a time, the go-to online social hub was MySpace. You were on MySpace, your friends were on MySpace and, if you wanted a social network, it was the only logical choice. Recent figures suggest that MySpace’s decline could be terminal, as they shed more than 1 million users between November and December 2011. So where are those users going?

Today, Facebook dominates the social landscape, and has infiltrated popular culture to the point that the brand, like Google, peppers people’s speech as a verb:

“I need to find a car hire company, I’ll Google it”

“I don’t have her number, I’ll just Facebook her”.

The growth of Facebook has been well documented, and recent figures now suggest that the social network could hit the 1 billion user mark this year. Local big players in countries around the world are being usurped one by one, from Hyves in the Netherlands and StudiVZ in Germany to Orkut in India. Mark Zuckerberg’s creation now has unparalleled global reach, and that makes it an incredibly attractive platform for advertisers. Facebook controls approximately half of all social media traffic in the UK.

But this figure indicates that Facebook is in decline here. Recent figures are suggesting that Facebook’s share has fallen by more than 7% in the last year, and analysts are suggesting it has reached saturation point. Social media users in the UK are gaining a reputation for being a fickle bunch; MySpace’s dominance a few short years ago was shaken by Bebo, which then stepped aside for Facebook. Now, Twitter, YouTube and even Yahoo! Answers are showing considerable growth. Meanwhile, Google+ isn’t in the top 10 social networks in the UK yet, but it is growing incredibly quickly.

So how do you keep social media users in the UK interested in your online social media presence?

The important thing is to watch and engage with the movers and shakers on the social media landscape. The popularity of niche social networks and forums like Moneysavingexpert and Pinterest, and even local social networks such as KILTR, make social networking in the UK a different experience. Make sure your business establishes a presence in these networks before your friends start to explore them as well. It’s a lot of work, but there are big rewards for those who invest in this kind of brand awareness.

Micrositez Digital is a Social Media Agency.

facebook, Google, KILTR, moneysavingexpert, myspace, pinterest, social media, twitter, YouTube

Twitter receives a $300m investment from Saudi Prince Alwaleed bi Talal.

The billionaire Prince known for his substantial investment in Robert Murdoch’s News Corporation, where he holds 7% ownership, is also the principle owner of Saudi Arabia’s largest company, Kingdom Holdings.

Prince Alwaleed was listed by Forbes Magazine as the 26^th richest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of around $19.6 billion. His stake in 3.75% stake in Twitter was purchased through this international investment company, Kingdom Holidays, in which he owns 94%.

A statement released by Kingdom Holdings spoke about their latest investment in the social-blogging site said that this had been “the result of several months of negotiations and comprehensive due diligence”.

Prince Alwaleed has also made a comment adding; “Our investment in Twitter reaffirms our ability in identifying suitable opportunities to invest in promising, high-growth businesses with a global impact.”

Picture sourced from Flickr.com by eldh

Micrositez: Social Media and Internet Marketing

kingdom holdings, social media, social networking, twitter

The Philadelphia 76ers NBA team launched contest last week, encouraging fans to choose a new team mascot from three finalists. The campaign was advertised on their official social media accounts, but the response had been lukewarm. The team’s CEO Adam Aron had made it clear that he saw increasing social media presence as a priority when he took over in October, but the contest had failed to catch the fans’ imagination.

Enter Jerry Rizzo and Hunter Coleman. These two enterprising fans decided to help the team out by launching and running twitter accounts for two of the mascots. Soon @PhilEMoose and @BFranklinDogg were engaging in friendly banter online and encouraging fan votes. This quickly caught the attention of Adam Aron, who sent a friendly but firm e-mail requesting ownership of the accounts “without the use of lawyers or anything like that”.  When voting closed, Rizzo and Coleman dutifully handed over the account passwords, and the 76ers rewarded them with box seats for the season opener, and season tickets for their troubles.

Adam Aron wasn’t finished yet. He began to research Jerry Rizzo, a self-confessed “social media sponge”, and was impressed by his social media presence and the quality of writing in his blog posts. So impressed, that he offered Rizzo the role of Social Media Consultant for the 76ers. Jerry Rizzo accepted the offer of his “dream job” and the story gains an even happier ending.

This doesn’t appear to be an isolated fairytale. Beverly Macy, social media author and Huffington Post contributor, sees this as evidence of shift in the communication industry. She told Mashable: “It just shows that people now have the ability to showcase who they are for good and bad, and that all of that is findable. It says it’s about personal initiative and that if you have a love or an affinity for something just go do it, because you don’t know what might happen.”

Statistics released by MBAworld this week show that social media recruitment is on the rise. Over 18 million americans credit Facebook with getting them into their current roles. Over 10 million LinkedIn users got jobs through the site, and 8 million Americans are in jobs they found on twitter. Employers are more open about monitoring the social media presence of job applicants, not just for the screening process, but for recruiting stand-out “superusers”.

The moral of this fairy story? Make your social media presence stand out and it could reap real rewards.

Micrositez: SEO and Social Media.

facebook, jobs, LinkedIn, NBA, social media, twitter

More changes taking place within the social sphere this week. It’s now twitter’s turn, First Facebook, Google +, Google pages with some update in between from Twitter who introduced their own version of Timeline with new activity feed intertwined amongst the traditional twitter home feed. Earlier this week, we reported news on our blog linking back to StumbleUpon and told of their rebrand, I guess it was only natural to expect that Twitter would be next in line given its current growth and influence.

The social network originally famous for its micro blogging services has growth tremendously in the five years since CEO Jack Dorsey founded the business back in 2006. Now Twitter has over 380 million users, has seen over 60 billion tweets posted in this year alone, and has become increasingly used as a search and news wire, raking in more than 1.6 billion search queries every day.

Announced via the company blog, Twitter revealed to users a new look for their profile that they believe will enrich user’s experience, and be made available for both desktop and mobile apps. Adding further information, the blog went onto explain;

“We’ve simplified the design to make it easier than ever to follow what you care about, connect with others and discover something new.”

What will this mean for users?

Well your new profile should look like this…

And feature these…

The four new tabs Home, Connect, Discover and Me will be rolled out over the next few weeks, but for the curious cats with an iPhone or Android mobile, updates are available for download from your Apps provider now.

Micrositez: Social Media Agency

tweet, twitter, web design

At F8 back in September, Facebook announced the launch of the Open Graph initiative, which was engineered to allow users to share the news stories they were reading with friends. It’s proven to be an immediate success, with top newspapers like the Guardian and Washington Post gaining 4 million and 3.5 million subscribers respectively. The publications are pleased too, as it has given them access to a younger demographic. The Guardian has had strong uptake in the under-24 age group, and 83% of Washington Post app users are under 35 years old.

Some users greeted Open Graph with some derision, as the automatic sharing of news stories they are reading isn’t something they wanted. Many still share stories using the more familiar copy/paste method, giving users more control over the articles they choose to share.

The most popular story shared on Facebook this year came from the New York Times; a collection of interactive satellite images of the after-effects of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami in March. This story was shared over 600,000 times. The second most shared story was a CNN feature on “What teachers really want to tell parents”, which was shared 586,000 times. The top ten was rounded out by a variety of stories including animal tales, feminist themed editorial and two stories on zodiac signs. The top 40 is available as a note on www.facebook.com/media. It’s clear to see that humorous and political pieces are the most often shared types of story on Facebook.

The volume of articles shared and uptake on news apps is further proof that social sharing is a massive influence on the way we consume news today. More and more current events are shared on Twitter before the mainstream news catches on, meaning more people turn to their social networks first when looking for the latest updates. Just this week a video of a woman in the UK having a racist rant on a London tram spread like wildfire over twitter. By the time BBC News caught on to the story, it was to report that the woman had already been identified and arrested. The line between traditional news media and social media is blurring by the day, and it will be interesting to see how this trend evolves in 2012.

Micrositez: SEO and Social Media.

BBC news, facebook, Guardian, Open Graph, social sharing, twitter, Washington Post

Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday are three of the biggest shopping days of the year in the US. Today is Cyber Monday across the pond, and while the UK equivalent isn’t for another week, we thought it was still a good enough reason to check out how businesses are using social media to promote their big deals this year.

Cyber Monday falls on the Monday following thanksgiving, and is the busiest day for online retail of the year, as families prepare for Christmas. In the UK the busiest day for online retail is usually the first Monday in December. US retailers often offer massive discounts, similar to Black Friday deals and will be competing with each other to lure shoppers to their sites.

This year, more than ever, social media is being used to spread the word about deals, offer exclusive discounts and attract customers. According to shop.org, 29% of American consumers will check out the Facebook pages of retailers when deciding where to shop this year. More than ever, it pays stores to have a social media presence.

Social media also serves the customers well. Dedicated Facebook and twitter accounts have popped up seeking out deals for customers (searching “Cyber Monday” on either site yields a large number of new accounts). Individual retailers are also offering exclusive deals to fans. Great techniques include inviting fans to “events” at their online store (Hudson Jeans), updating fans with new offers in real time on twitter (Best Buy, Kmart), and deal alerts to customers’ mobile phones by SMS (Amazon).

On Small Business Saturday – a US only event which encourages shoppers to buy their festive goods at small, local merchants – American Express customers who synced with Foursquare got a great deal: a $25 dollar voucher towards purchases at the small businesses of their choice. Etsy, as a collective of small merchants selling handmade wares, was a perfect fit for Small Business Saturday, and used their blog to showcase deals available on the day.

At Micrositez, we can’t wait to see if UK retailers are as keen to use Social Media to get our attention next Monday.

Micrositez: SEO and Social Media.

Cyber Monday, facebook, Foursquare, online retail, social media, twitter

Searching the web can be an overwhelming process, and sifting out the wheat from the chaff an even lengthier process when you are not sure what to believe. Whilst more and more online users are flocking to social networks such as Facebook and Twitter to get their daily dose of news, there is wisdom in using more than one source. So we’ve put together three alternative search tools to help you save time and get the best search result in return.

1.Addict-o-matic

Addict-o-matic is a great search tool that pulls real time search results from a number of high profiled sites, including Google, WordPress, Bing, Twitter, YouTube and number of other news websites. The great thing about this site is that you can search a topic or trend over multiple sites at one time and Addict-o-matic will lay out your results across a single three column page, making it much easier to skim for the relevant content.  Whether you require a broad look at a specific topic, or a more refined result perhaps through a smaller number of sources, then addict-o-matic will do that for you.

2.Social Mention

Another real time social media search that also provides analytical data.

Like, Addict-o-matic you can select from a number of sources, although social media has a particular focus on social media sources and will feature a list of relative keywords, hash tags etc. amongst results page.

This site will also allow you to create free alerts on your brand, company, specific search terms, or breaking news story similar to Google Alerts, but for social media.  Once you get going, you’ll find the interface easy to personalize, enabling you to tailor your search to any particular social media source too.

3.Search direct

Search direct is Yahoo’s latest answer to real time image and video search, for the UK. The site went live today, and aims to deliver results before the user completes a search. The new feature will display top trending images from around the web, allowing full size image display; and update each search every 10 minutes to ensure the latest search trends are displayed.

Users can also search the Yahoo! image bank, which gathers pictures from Yahoo news and Flickr, through their Facebook account providing the user has synced their Facebook with the Yahoo stream.

The US search engine giant has also announced a video search results page will also be available, with the ability to filter videos of interest to the user.

Micrositez: Search Engine Marketing

facebook, Google, search engines, twitter

Google has announced that changes have been made to search algorithms that could impact 35% of searches. The changes were announced yesterday on Google’s blog, and reflect one of the biggest tweaks they have made recently. By comparison, the recent Panda update was estimated to only affect 12% of search queries. The last major algorithm change in February was designed to distinguish between high and low quality websites, and award less authority to sites it deemed to be “content farms”.

The latest algorithm changes have been made in response to the increase of social media use in delivering the most recent and up to date news and events on the web. The search engine giant hopes to compete with Twitter and Facebook as the go-to page for updates on the latest news and events, and redirect some of that social media traffic back to search. In order to do this, Google recognised that it had to amend the algorithm to freshen up some stale searches. Google also need to maintain market dominance over Bing, who already include more Twitter feeds and Facebook updates in their search results.

Google Fellow Amit Singhal blogged: “Given the incredibly fast pace at which information moves in today’s world, the most recent information can be from the last week, day or even minute, and depending on the search terms, the algorithm needs to be able to figure out if a result from a week ago about a TV show is recent, or if a result from a week ago about breaking news is too old.”

In Google’s blog, Amit wrote that changes will affect searches relating to the following:

• Recent events or hot topics – quality content and stories on the latest news and talked about events as they happen.
• Regularly recurring events – relevant updates on annual conferences and events, Olympiad and sporting tournaments.
• Frequent updates – the most up-to-date product queries and reviews (e.g. “best camera” or “ford fiesta review”).

In order to ensure they are not compromised by “freshness spam” (websites re-posting stories to ensure they are the latest word on a topic to boost rankings) the freshness will be determined by the time the page is first crawled. The usual rules of quality and topicality will also apply, so making sure your content is relevant and well-written is key to maintaining rankings.

Micrositez: SEO and Link Building

facebook, Google, link building, search algorithm, SEO, twitter

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo used his platform at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco to talk about Twitter’s latest milestones and indicators of success. The company, which defines itself as an “information network”, has struggled in the past to convince some critics that it could attain a business model that would allow it to monetise. Costolo’s interview should put paid to those concerns, after he revealed some startling statistics along with details of the company’s still-thriving ambition.

Firstly, the size and scale of twitter has boomed in a way that even the most optimistic tweeter would have struggled to imagine at launch in 2006. Twitter has 100 million active global users and half of those users log in every day to send a collective 250 million tweets between them. This represents an increase of 150 million tweets a day from the beginning of 2011. The site is still growing too – particularly on mobile which is growing at a rate of 40% per quarter. Since the launch of Apple’s iOS5 for iPhone and its integrated Twitter functions daily sign up rates have tripled. Twitter’s influence on other social networks is tangible too; Google+ even has integrated hashtags and real-time search.

The reach and influence of Twitter are not the only aspects showing growth. Costolo reported enthusiastically on the success of promoted tweets, claiming that they are working “better than we could have ever hoped”. Promoted tweets, which have now been integrated into the timeline, and promoted trends have seen growth since their launch in 2010 and have provided a good source of advertising revenue. Twitter hope to expand this with richer advertising platforms. As Twitter like to shout about their simplicity, don’t bet on movie ads or intrusive graphics. Instead, Costolo is keen to utilise the type of platforms that create themselves organically within the site.

When asked about the future of Twitter, Costolo was certain of one thing; there are no plans to go public. With a valuation of $8billion and plenty of cash in the bank, the company can, and should, continue to grow while still under private control.

Micrositez: PPC and Social Media Marketing.

Advertising, iOS5, Promoted Tweets, social media advertising, twitter, Web 2.0

There were a lot to take in during last week’s Facebook annual developers conference in San Francisco, and as many users continue to wrap their head around the new layout changes and trends laid out by Mark, and his team.

 There continued to be a steady stream of backlash over Facebook’s new Timeline and ticker concepts. Watching the network’s founder Mark Zuckerberg live on line, you can’t help but get caught up in the charm and innocence of his appearance during the opening with Andy Samberg, which then proceeded to blow everyone away during is passionate and intellectual talk over the future of Facebook.

Despite immediate concerns about user privacy, and the unsure feeling of whether having your whole life on display for all to see was a good thing, or not. It was hard not to be caught up in all the excitement, from what appeared to be an extremely interactive conference. Delegates were able to test out some of the new apps, and features being released by Facebook, which collects and summarises your personal information, from what kind of music you listen too, to what you had for dinner each day last month, down to the place and time you were born.

Whether this will actually take off, and win the hearts of Facebook users remains to be seen. Many industry insiders have expressed their views on the new changes already, claiming Facebook have copied two of their major changes, Timeline and Ticker from rival companies, Twitter and Memolane.

Micrositez: Social Media Agency, SEO Company.

facebook, Memolane, social media, twitter

HP and Dell in colossal social mudslinging match

Michael Dell is a smart man, he built an empire around the notion of quality IT equipment, revolutionised the PC market and it could be argued, presented HP with a platform to become the world’s number one PC manufacturer.

So what then can you read into a series of rants regarding HP’s decision to retreat from PCs? Well it would seem that it all stems from recent comments coming from the HP camp that the world is entering a post PC era where the desktop computer is less essential than ever in recent history.

Presumably the sentiments regard the rise of alternative platforms and more mobile hardware options, but it would seem that Mr Dell either took exception to the notion. Or more likely, he ceased upon the very ruthless opportunity hunting nature which enabled the creation of his company and pursued some easy publicity to present Dell as the loyal PC users number one choice for the future, with the added benefit of being able to slightly devalue his biggest rival into the bargain.

Whatever the intent, the level of publicly accessible mudslinging from CEO level was interesting in that very rarely will such an approach be adopted. Usually, consumers are put off by negative outspoken comments, it remains to be seen if Michael Dell will be subject to any backlash from the online community in general, or whether he might just have pulled off a very clever piece of PR.

Micrositez Digital: Social Media, SEO, PPC, Web Design

Dell, HP, PC, social media, twitter

Retweet makes the Oxford dictionary debut

Retweet Pronunciation:/riːˈtwiːt/

As if it was necessary to point to any event as an indication that social networking isn’t just a passing fad, the inclusion of retweet in the oxford English Dictionary is surely such an event upon which to point if prompted to do so.

Interestingly though while announcing it’s inclusion, Oxford English Dictionary Editor, Angus Stevenson, also paid tribute to the role of social networking sites in promoting new terms by saying

“We’ve noticed that new words come into currency much more quickly as a result of the internet, as people see friends, or friends of friends using new words and copy them.”

In addition to retweet, follower was also included, a noun with specific reference to social media it has been defined as someone who is tracking a particular person, group, or organization on a social networking site

Micrositez: Social Media Agency

facebook, follower, retweet, social media, twitter

Whilst youths have continued to riot across London and several parts of England over the past four days, media analyst’s record record breaking figures as people flock to find out what’s been going on.

Yesterday, the BBC recorded its second highest traffic levels ever, on the sites website with 6.8million users.  Sky News has also seen a rise in its search term SkyNews, which towered about BBC from Sunday 6^th August, when the riots began.

However, the real source of news and beneficiary of this surge of interest was by far social networking site, Twitter, which saw a record breaking number of searches for ‘News and media.’

The number of people jumping online, in the UK, over these last few days has jumped 14% since the riots began.  Twitter has provided the most up-to-date information platform through-out the events in London city, and was opted more than any other social media site.

As the random acts of violence continue to pour out across the cities, police across the UK continue to rally together, whilst government continue to host emergency meetings. Prime Minister David Cameron and other parliamentary members will meet tomorrow for further discussions.

It is believed smartphone blackberries were used by some looters to organise their next move, and today this was confirmed as the company vowed their allegiance to assisting the police with their investigations. The hacker group, named Team Poison broke into the site, and left a stern message, in which they vowed their support of rioters attacking police and government, but not innocent people or small businesses that have been affected.

Micrositez: Digital Marketing Agency

bbc, sky news, social media, twitter

In exactly one year from today, millions will gather for the opening of the London 2012 Olympic Games.

The games have been launched on Twitter, as the event’s social media strategy kicks off. The official games website launched a tweet competition to discover which country has the most online fans. The page hash tag #1yeartogo will be the measuring tool for the country with the most tweets.

The official social media policy on what Olympics competitors are allowed to tweet during the games, were release last month.

The use of the social network is likely to be an occurring factor in the Games strategy, as the recent Super Bowl Game in America proved tweeting during sporting events was a powerful marketing tool. Over 7, 100 Tweets were recorded per second during the Woman’s World Cup soccer, compared to the 4,064 Tweets per second is a huge and welcoming response.

So far the #1yeartogo has received over 35,000 tweets.

Micrositez: Digital Agency, SEO Agency

london 2012 olympic games, olympics, social media, twitter

Google drops realtime search from its search product as agreement with social Networking site Twitter is terminated.

The agreement, which expired this month allows Google to produce faster results through a pool of sources, which included Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Quora, Gowolla, FriendFeed, Plixi and Me2day.

The search giant relied heavily on access to Twitter, as its main source of data, which it’s thought to have paid around $20 million for. Although reason for the breakdown remains unknown many speculate the move is all part of Google’s plans; to incorporate the feature into Google+.

Gabriel Stricker, Director of Global Communications & Public Affairs at Google touched on the subject in a recent statement stating; “The Company envisions include Google+ information along with other Realtime data from a variety of sources.”

Whilst a spokesperson for camp Twitter confirmed to tech blog Searchengineland that the contract between itself and Google had come to an end they said; “We continue to provide this type of access to Microsoft, Yahoo! and dozens of other smaller developers. And we work with Google in many other ways.”

Whilst both camps maintain tight lipped on the matter, it is worthwhile noting that Twitter will not be completely invisible from Google search. Any information that is publicly available will be picked up by Google crawlers, and be searchable by users on Google’s site.

Micrositez : Search Engine Marketing

Google, search engine, social networks, twitter

Twitter is reportedly under investigation by the US Federal Trade Commision.

Twitter’s rapid rise has been supported by a vast inventory of third party companies that build applications and services to make twitter easy to use on mobile devices and PC’s. It is the dealings with these companies that are reportedly under investigation from the US consumer watchdog. Unsurprisingly there was no comment from Twitter.

Industry researchers calculate that the company generated and estimed $45M from their 2010 marketing. Twitter who does not publish financial information are expected to generate $150M this year alone.

Micrositez: Social Media

facebook, Internet Marketing, social media, twitter

Social networking site Twitter has signed, sealed, and delivered a $40million deal upon the purchase desktop application Tweet Deck. Tweetdeck, ‘the personal browser for social network users’, has become one of the most popular applications on Twitter, and used across various social platforms including Twitter, Facebook, My Space, Linked and more.

Tweetdeck connects thousands of social networkers with friends from across the previously mentioned social plaforms, and runs compatible across most operating systems, including Microsoft windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

The news broke across CNN and CNET after weeks of speculation that a deal would be completed soon. Despite offers from UberMedia, who almost sealed the deal. It was Twitter who flew ahead, and clinched the deal with an offer they could not refuse.

Micrositez: Search Engine Marketing

social media, social networking, tweetdeck, twitter