140Char

The BBC has fallen foul of ‘Twitter Squatting’, with a non-BBC user using www.twitter.com/BBC since around October 2008.

The issue came to light when the user replied to a comment with an insult (Found at 14sandwiches, via Currybet)

‘Gary’s tweet read: “@BBC You are an absolute DISGRACE for refusing to air the Disaster Emergencies Committee’s Gaza appeal: http://www.dec.org.uk/“

A little later he received a reply which read: “@sputnik101 so are you :p“.’

Screenshots and more details are also at Native

The account has now been handed over to the BBC team officially, but it’s quite surprising that an organisation that has several Twitter accounts and employees using Twitter didn’t think to check their main brand name.

Having said that, @thewhitehouse is an unofficial Twitterfeed which could easily be mistaken for an official channel.

What makes it slightly frustrating is the fact that this isn’t exactly new.

Way back in August 2008, it was revealed at the @ExxonMobileCorp account was a fake.

And even those unfamiliar with Twitter must be vaguely aware of Cybersquatting/Domain Squatting, which has been happening for at least a decade.

You don’t have to actively engage in Twitter to protect your name – just set up a profile with bio information explaining it’s a holding page. And I’m not saying you have to do it to protect your name – I’m saying you have to do it to protect the people that will be at risk by fakes.

You can always find my Twitter profile.

It’s proving to be the most effective way to communicate when family concerns take priority over blogging for a couple of days.

The good news is that all is well, and posts will be back up to speed for next week.

Plinky is a new service which aims to ‘help you create inspired content on the web’ by prompting you with questions and topics each day – e.g. ‘Which wild animal would you have as a pet’, or ‘Which three songs would you have on your roadtrip tape’.

It’s got some pedigree, with CEO and founder Jason Shellen formerly of Pyra Labs (which developed Blogger), formerly Product Manager of Google Reader, and also VP of Product Development at LiveJournal.

Not only does he know his stuff, but his name has meant favourable coverage on ReadWriteWeb, Scobleizer (including a video demo), Louis Gray and Venturebeat.

I think Louis made a good point that it isn’t a tool for early adopters as much as it is for people who might not have updated their blog for a month due to a lack of inspiration.

But still…

I’m on there. I quite like the idea. I’ve discovered that one of my best friends loves a song I’d never have predicted in a million years. I’ve written about the most bizarre animal I’d like to own. And I like the ability for my answer to be posted to my blog.

But I think my favourite query for any new service is going to be a stumbling block.

Relevancy.

So far, there’s only 9 prompts (I believe one is posted daily), and I realise I’ve got a pretty specific focus on my blogs – microblogging on one, social media marketing/digital publishing on another, and my Nissan on a third, rarely updated Blogger site.

But even on a general lifestyle blog, I’m not sure it wouldn’t look completely random to answer more than one or two prompts from the limited selection of 9 so far.

And I’m not sure it’s more informative yet than looking at a Facebook profile etc.

I think there is a space for an inspiration tool like this – but I suspect the number of prompts needs to increase pretty quickly, and perhaps be categorised by topic to make more sense for many people.

It wouldn’t be hard, for example, to use Plinky once a week to create a post from a selection of prompts on whatever your focus might be e.g. all sport prompts, or all music prompts.

Add that relevancy, and the ability to easily schedule posts for a certain day – e.g. a regular ‘Plinky’ Friday post, and I’d be more convinced of the ability to scale and grow. It would not only become a useful tool for inspiration, but also a way to minimise blog guilt and missing days/weeks of posting due to other pressures.

And even for those of us who try to get one or two days ahead at the weekend, having Plinky inspiration could be a great way to get some ideas out without my usual Google Reader marathon session on a Sunday!

There’s been some coverage of the appearance of Twitter on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, due to both @wossy and guest @stephenfry not only being ‘celebs who Twitter’, but actualy ‘celebs who really get how Twitter works’.

Martin Belam calculated that Stephen Fry had increased his follower count by 16% between the filming on Thursday and Sunday morning.

Personally, I’d have calculated any effect from when the programme was first shown, as that’s when new followers would appear. Neville Hobson used Twittercounter to count 4000 new followers for StephenFry in the first 24 hours, but really focuses on the increase in activity and conversation from existing Twitter users about the TV mention. (Techcrunch UK also has a summary of the TV coverage)

But hang on a minute.

Even if we take the total at 10.30pm on Sunday, @stephenfry has gained 8864 from an audience of 4million+. Meanwhile 84% of his followers appeared before the mass media appearance, by finding him on Twitter and spreading the word.

So he gained 8/10 followers by conversation, word of mouth and social networking, and just 2/10ish by broadcasting on the biggest national TV station in the UK.

Does mainstream media coverage really boost followers or validate Twitter?

In between complaining about the endless reshashed guides to Twitter tips for beginners, and at exactly what point newspaper and TV coverage, celebrity usage and user figures can officially class Twitter as mainstream, there’s something that stops me in my RSS tracks.

How about an article on Twittersexuality: A Twitter Sex Guide from SFGate’s Violet Blue? It’s not as crass as you might think, and has some interesting points – for instance, listing some of the adult entertainment industry personalities on Twitter, along with sex educators and tips on flirting.

And after all, the adult industry has been involved in popularising every piece of entertainment technology of the last 100+ years – from photography, through home video and the internet.

Alternatively,  Twitter @wossy and @stephenfry have discussed Twitter during recording for the return of ‘Friday Night with Jonathan Ross‘ on BBC1 tonight at 10.35pm, if it makes it through editing.

There’s something about Twitter’s recent decisions that just doesn’t make any sense to me at the moment.

It’s experiencing huge growth and celebrity adoption, it’s appearing in mainstream media (Even The Sun is carrying stories about Twitter),  and it has some money in the bank.

But one of the big advantages of the Twitter model is that it can use the huge advantage of external developers and applications undertaking the risky part of establishing themselves before acquiring them or introducing something similar.

After all, Twitter acquired Summize to become Twitter Search.

But since then, things have been a little different. First Twitter acquired Values of n, the company behind Stikkit and I Want Sandy, with Rael Dornfest joining Twitter’s user experience group – and the former services being shut, which caused some outcry, and a group of developers to come together to create an open source version of Sandy.

Recently Twitter introduced a ‘suggested users‘ page for new registrations and alongside the options to find other members. Which seemed like a reasonable idea to encourage new users to start following and interacting with other members.

Sadly it’s rubbish. For two reasons.

• There’s no relevancy. It’s offered to new users before they have filled in profile details or sent any messages, meaning thatthe suggestions have no context, and are pretty much useless. And although many people have said this could be the start of monetisation, how much money do irrelevant friend suggestions make?
• There are far better options out there already. For new users with no context, why not simply let people take a look at relevant categories on Twitter user directory Twellow? And if you’re looking for relevant suggestions for people to follow, there’s already the totally awesome MrTweet. (Interview here)

The only time I've mentioned a whale, it had 'fail' in front of it!

Much better suggestions and information from MrTweet

And now there’s concern over the decision to limit API calls from applications. I’m not aware of how many calls are average, so take a look at Jesse Stay’s thoughts on the SocialToo blog, Mark Evans at Twitterati, or SocialToo advisor Louis Gray (Who very kindly recommended and linked to 140char today!)

The idea from Twitter’s perspective is to ensure reliability – which is certainly understandable giving the problems that sometimes occur – and the only services that aren’t viable any longer are those which notify you of people unfollowing, such as Qwitter (no longer with us) . But as Marshall Kirkpatrick writes at ReadWriteWeb, Twitter applications are developing incredibly fast and this could hurt anyone trying to offer something radically new. And as Rafe Needleman points out at Cnet, it seems very odd that Twitter hasn’t used this chance to partner with external developers.

On the bright side, the API limit should force more efficient use of the Twitter API, which will benefit everyone, and the Twitter Firehose and OAuth support are due within around a month.

Hopefully that will mean Twitter can stop worrying about the scalability and learn to love external applications again. Especially as they’re building financial models (e.g. Twittad and Magpie), and monetisable services (e.g. Stocktwit) which show where the cash is for Twitter without the internal team having to experiment at all.

A bit of a microblogging round-up.

There’s been a bit of discussion about the Hitwise findings released by Heather Dougherty, that claim Twitter traffic surpassed Digg for the first time. OK, when I say discussion, it’s the normal coincidence of Techcrunch and ReadWriteWeb both jumping to analyse the same topic when it appears. (Having almost identical headlines didn’t help!).

And in the UK, it’s grown by 974% in 12 months! It’s now the 291st most-viewed website in the UK – with fastest growth among 35-44 year olds.
Apparently European CEO’s might not get Twitter, but it’s users do – as shown by the amazing growth of Twestival,  which has grown from a group of London-based Twitter users getting together, along with some gatherings in places like Toronto and Vancouver. The next one, on February 12, will now have 100+ cities around the world hosting events in aid of charity:water. And the first release of London tickets sold out in a couple of hours.

Stephen Fry is a British celebrity and icon, and to celebrate 50,000 following @stephenfry he’s set quite a challenge, which has definitely hit UK productivity today! (Via thatcanadiangirl). Entry is by submitting the best tweet using 50 letter Ls.

And speaking about celebs, one of the most mainstream TV hosts in the UK, Phillip Schofield, is not just on Twitter (@schofe), but verified himself by referring to Twitter live on the mid-morning chat show This Morning. (via PaidContent: UK). While I wouldn’t credit the host of This Morning and Dancing on Ice as the sole tipping point for Twitter becoming mainstream, it’s another big push of added momentum.

If you’re wondering what #inaug09 means, it’s the hashtag for people tweeting about the inauguration of Barack Obama as President of the United States.

So aside from keeping an eye on Twitter stability, I’m taking a break.

Strangely it was actually coping well until the moment before I started blogging when an ominous 4 minute lag appeared – if it survives at 4 minutes considering the huge amount of usage it’s experiencing I’ll be mightily impressed!

Just one last thought – the experience of being able to share in the event through Twitter and throughout the web is definitely affecting other UK tweeters, and other people around the world. It seems that the convergence of technology and Obama is connecting people in a new way – perhaps because previous large scale events tended to be around nation-specific sports (e.g. The Superbowl), or large scale tragedies as occurred in Mumbai.

This time it’s a positive event in the messages of everyone I’m witnessing. And that can only be a good thing.

It appears that Tesco-owned U.S food chain Fresh & Easy has a twitter profile (as reported by Brand Republic).

Aside from the fact it might stop brands using & in their name to enable them to register on new sites more easily, it also shows Twitter is gaining more and more validity as a customer service and communication channel.

As the Brand Republic article notes – it’s interesting that U.S. mainstream companies are starting to jump on Twitter, but UK firms are being pretty reluctant – Tesco doesn’t have an account for example.

And yet:

‘UK Internet visits to www.twitter.com have increased by 631% over the last 12 months, with 485% of that growth coming this year. Twitter is more popular with Brits than Americans: last week the site’s share of UK Internet visits was 70% higher its share of visits in America.’ (From Robin Goad at Hitwise).

So why are UK firms (that aren’t in the tech space) more reluctant to jump on Twitter than their U.S counterparts? Anyone got any suggestions?

It may because I’m tired and a bit ill, and the fact I’m following an ever-increasing number of Twitter-related blogs, but it seems that there is a never ending stream of guides to starting on Twitter, or gaining followers, and 90% of them have the exact same advice. (Even the New York Times carries a Twitter beginners guide!)

For the record, I didn’t feel the need to do one after I read Luke Razzell’s excellent Twitter guide back in October. Search traffic be damned!

Whether you’re an individual or brand, the tips are always to be human, interactive, interesting etc.  Which is basically the same as you’d get for any network, or for your offline life.

So I’d like to suggest that following most of these guides is a complete waste of time – if you’re a spammer by nature, or your company is in fact the work of evil robotic overlords, then you’ll revert to your true nature eventually, and you’ll have wasted everyone’s time until the mask falls.

Instead, I’ll present the one suggestion I think should be given out to everyone as the way I’d love to see people using Twitter.

Rule 1: Try to make other people’s lives suck a little bit less.

That’s it.

There’s no ‘how to’ guide because it varies for every individual. It could be providing great customer service (Do I need to reference @ComcastCares or @Zappos?). It could be by responding to someone asking for messages to demo Twitter to their colleagues, or finding a bookmark someone has lost.

Or it could even be auto-posting from your blog via Twitterfeed if that’s how people want to receive information (despite all right-thinking wisdom pointing to the contrary!)

It could be something more formal, like helping out with a great charity project like the Charity Water campaign by @Pistachio, or contributing to a personal attempt to help a family.

It could be posting something that makes someone think, laugh, cry or start a conversation.

It’s simple, but easy to overlook when you’re thinking about other things.

‘We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give‘ Sir Winston Churchill.

Twitter users have long been able to share images via Twitpic, but video generally relied on using a URL shortening service to link to the content in question.

New service Tweetube aims to solve this problem, for Youtube videos at least.

You can either use the url of the video/page, or keyword search from the main Tweetube page.  Edit the message as your wish, and then submit using your Twitter username and password.

If you then visit Tweetube and log in, you can view all shared videos, with the time submitted, and the total cumulative visits.  It also has a Public Timeline of all videos submitted via the service, which is quite handy for seeing what is being shared, and a Popular Videos stream (which doesn’t include publicly-viewable figures sadly).

The ability to post and track visits is something that could be accomplished fairly easily via a URL shortening service – but the Public Timeline is definitely interesting as a method of identifying popular content, what is going viral, and people who might be interested in similar content etc.

In some ways, it’s almost a very lightweight Blip.fm for video, with the sole weakness that you have to post a public Tweet for it to register your video – whereas Blip exists seperately, so you can choose whether or not you need to share each song you listen to.

Definitely a service worth using if you’ve got an interest in producing or sharing video.

Tweetube Public Timeline

You do remember there are some microblogging networks other than Twitter?

If so, and you have an iPhone, you’ll be happy to know that there’s an official Plurk application, iPlurk, now available via the App store. Ironically for a service that differentiates itself from Twitter with a horizontal timeline and more graphical interface, both aspects have been dropped for the iPhone – then again, if you’re already engaged with the Plurk community, it might make more sense for a lighter interface to update when you’re on the move?

Meanwhile, the Google-owned Jaiku now has it’s own app, developed by third party mJaiku.  It’s got most of the features you’d expect to find, although a test by Darnell Clayton over at Blog Herald reveals that it doesn’t support domain shortening, which may be a significant pain in use. But the good thing is you can contact the developer via Jaiku at raiglstorfer