• Social Networks Continue To Draw More Visitors
• Yahoo Signs Partnership to Integrate with Twitter
• Betty White Has a Shot at SNL, Because of Facebook Fans
• Twitter Passes MySpace For Number of Status Updates

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Yahoo on Wednesday announced the partnership with the popular micro-blogging service that will see real-time Twitter feeds integrated across the Yahoo network. The deal is part of Yahoo’s drive to deliver personally relevant information from various online sources and largely mimics the efforts of Google and Bing.

A Warning for Twitter

Brad Shimmin, a social-media analyst at Current Analysis, said the Yahoo deal gives consumers yet another entry point to Twitter and may lead to the democratization of micro-blogging services. Although Twitter is ubiquitous, he said, it could blend into the background as a service for other platforms.

“What matters is not that your micro-blogging is running on Twitter,” Shimmin said. “What matters is that wherever you call home, you are communicating using the methodology of micro-blogging. Twitter could become less and less relevant. What counts most is the communication rather than the brand.”

While the search-engine deals may broaden Twitter’s exposure and lead to short-term growth, Shimmin noted, at the same time it lessens Twitter’s grip on its user base. Google Wave-type services could provide a similar capability and reach the same number of people. If that happens, is Twitter that important?

Betting Against Buzz

Time may answer Shimmin’s question. Meanwhile, Bryan Lamkin, senior vice president of Yahoo’s consumer-products group, took the opportunity to offer a marketing message around the deal in Twitter style (that is, 140 characters or less). Lamkin wrote: “We’re turning the key to the online social universe — you will find the most personally relevant experiences through Yahoo.”

Marketing hyperbole aside, the nuts and bolts of the…

Editor’s Note: Bill Hartzer is a contributor to Practical eCommerce and manager of search engine optimization and social media marketing with VizionInteractive, a Dallas-based online marketing firm. Hartzer wrote the article, below, which first appeared in that company’s blog.

This search engine optimization tip has to do with removing a page or a specific URL from the Google search engine.

I’m not going to go into a great deal of explanation about why you would want to remove a page from Google. There are many reasons for doing that (which might include the fact that it’s a duplicate page or maybe even a page that has sensitive data on it that you don’t want given out to the whole entire world). But, what I am going to do is give you…

Contact me if you have questions:
www.dangerouslyirrelevant.org/contact.html

This is the first of a series of videos I shot for display at Online Educa .

…Tags: Tags: Community Informal Learnin

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Reading Adrant’s take on the recent tweet from PETA sent to Mommy Bloggers about baby elephants has some important points for all marketing professionals who want to use social media channels to market their product, service, brand or cause.

What PETA did wasn’t necessarily a horrific blunder but it did use an old model (broadcast) in a new medium (social). That was the big mistake here. Broadcast tactics, still an entirely viable strategy in the right media, don’t work well in social media.

It is important to know that social media is a conversation, not an advertising platform. Until Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and all the other social sites have been around a little longer, there will be lots of mistakes. Hopefully we marketers can all learn from them.

But will it happen? I still get email blasts about things I could care less about, recorded telephone messages from candidates I won’t support, and junk mail in my driveway mail box. It’s only after government intervention with do not call lists, anti fax spam laws and opt out rules will we be free from the shouting. Not that I’m eager for gov’t control (shudder!)

My point is, don’t look at social media and say, “Free! Wow, let’s blast this out!” and then think you have an effective marketing program.

Actually, I think that rule goes no matter what the media. Consumers and business buyers alike are sick of being shouted at with one way communication.

Creative Commons Flickr photo courtesy: Dave77456 self portrait day 56 of the 365days project.

Yesterday, an anti-Drupal ad by Microsoft was spotted in the wild; see the image on the right. The news spread on Twitter like wildfire. I said this was “interesting”, not because Microsoft isn’t allowed to compete with Drupal but because Microsoft is also promoting Drupal. In fact, I was flattered by the idea that Microsoft considered Drupal worthy of competition. However, it left many of us confused about the fact that Microsoft decided to both partner with Drupal and compete against it.

For me, the interesting part is not whether Microsoft is allowed to compete or not — of course they are allowed to compete. What is interesting to me is the way Microsoft reacted. Within hours, Microsoft had noticed the small Twitter-tsunami, picked up the phone to talk about it, pulled down the ad and publicly apologized for confusing the Drupal community.

This means a lot. It is hard proof that social media like Twitter works, and that Microsoft can be great at listening and responding. It is proof that the web has changed to be more humanized, and that Microsoft understand how to build relationships online. By being transparent and human, and by publicly apologizing, they built some trust with the Drupal community (as reflected in the comments of Mark Brown’s blog post), and that might actually influence people’s experience with Microsoft. Plus it looks like, at least for now, Microsoft decided to promote Drupal rather than compete with it.

At the end of the day, this was the act of one Microsoft employee in India who was out of sync with the rest of Microsoft. This inevitably happens in big companies. All is good now.

Microsoft said it “assumes responsibility for this situation” and would suspend “access to the Juku beta indefinitely.”

Microsoft said the Chinese vendor of the software has “acknowledged that a portion of the code they provided was indeed copied. This was in clear violation of the vendor’s contract with the MSN China joint venture, and equally inconsistent with Microsoft’s policies respecting intellectual property.”

Respect for Intellectual Property

The statement emphasized that Microsoft insists its vendors strictly respect intellectual-property rights. “Our practice is to include strong language in our contract that clearly states the company must provide work that does not infringe the intellectual-property rights of others. We are a company that respects intellectual property and it was never our intent to have a site that was not respectful of the work that others in the industry have done.”

The company said it would “reach out” to Plurk “to explain what happened and the steps we have taken to resolve the situation.” It also said Microsoft and MSN China would examine practices in acquiring application code from third-party vendors.

Plurk was less than content with the apology. Cofounder Alvin Woon said the company is likely to sue over the breach. “We are definitely looking at all possibilities on how to move forward in response to Microsoft’s recent statement,” Woon said. A “lawsuit is definitely one of the many options we have considered and will continue to look closely to.”

Crisis Management

A lawsuit may be unavoidable, but Microsoft likely requires its vendors to grant immunity from lawsuits, said Matt Rosoff, a vice president at Directions on Microsoft. The…