InstaBG Delivers Instagram Backgrounds To Your Twitter Account Automagically
While I take great pride in managing my Twitter account through user interaction, quick responses to questions and sparse sharing of my own personal posts I don’t care much for updating my background so it remains fresh upon user visits. It’s for that reason that I began using and highly recommend the program InstaBG.
The InstaBG platform connects users to their Twitter account and the Instagram photo sharing platform in order to create backgrounds based on user preference.
The program couldn’t be easier to use, simply click on the “Sign in with Twitter Account” as shown in the screenshot above, after you give the program permission to access Twitter you will be taken to the following setup screen: [Read more]
Does Your Business Need a Blog?
There’s a growing segment of bloggers who fall into the “business” category, who blog for the purpose of promoting a business, and you might be or become one of them. Businesses are realizing the value of blogging, especially if they’re hoping to establish an online presence.
Does your business need a blog? The short answer is “maybe.” Not every business needs a blog, just like not every business needs a website. However, if you are building any sort of presence online, then a blog is a very good idea.
Why? A website on its own simply isn’t enough to establish an online presence, unless your domain is “aged,” has tons of high-ranking content (from a search engine perspective) that other high-ranking sites have linked back to, and has consistent new content. Many search engines favor sites with regular fresh content — which means the likelihood of more Web traffic.
While you CAN publish lots of regular content on a non-blog site, the tools for managing non-blog content — e.g., a CMS (Content Management System) — are often far too complex and expensive for the needs of smaller businesses. Blogging systems (a lesser form of CMS) may have their limitations, but as most of the best are free and have supportive communities, they can be a benefit when you’re on a tight budget. A few such as WordPress can even be used as a low-end CMS in incredibly versatile ways.
Simply put, your business website needs a blog because if it’s leveraged properly, your site benefits in terms of Web traffic. Readers also benefit, and if they become regular readers due to regular content, their trust grows and they’re more likely to convert to customers. It’s a win-win situation.
So how do you decide whether to have a business blog or not? Here are a few questions you can ask yourself.
- Do you have a bricks and mortar ‘local’ business that would benefit from a broader market?
- Do you already have a website that brings you customers or leads?
- Do you want your customer base to be more knowledgeable about your product or industry?
- Do you want to establish an online presence?
- Do you want to sell your business’ products or services online?
- Do you know about social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook and want to leverage them for your businesss?
There are other questions you can ask yourself, but this is a starting point. If you’ve answered yes to any of these, then having a blog might benefit your business. If this is something you’d like to explore further, search our article archives for other helpful content relating to writing, creativity, productivity and other aspects of blogging. If you have decided to build a business blog and need some help, feel free to contact Performancing Services.
Dave Grohl: Another celebrity disses Twitter
Outspoken Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl has laid into Twitter, or — more accurately — the people who use it, suggesting that they are wasting their time.
“F**k Twitter! That’s the biggest waste of time. If people got their head out of their ass, they might f**king get out and accomplish something.”
Presumably, he’s hurling his insult at the stereotypical couch potato Twitter user who simply tweets about what they’ve just had for lunch, rather than the myriad of interesting people (both celebrities and not) who update their Twitter accounts with interesting and insightful words.
Funny how Grohl chose to waste his time slating a service he doesn’t like. Many people who don’t use Twitter just get on with their lives without making a big fuss in order to garner some publicity.
Microblogging drives mobile Internet usage
If you’re in any doubt that adding geotagging to Twitter is a good idea, the latest survey from Novarra has found that microblogging services are driving the use of the mobile Internet.
In the past year, mobile usage of URL shortening services such as bit.ly and tinyurl.com — near-essential for sharing links on Twitter — has leapt by 1,068%, while page views of Twitter grew by 3,500% in the first half of 2009.
VP of marketing at Novarra, Randy Cavaiani, said that Twitter was a great viral tool for exposing consumers to new and interesting content.
These statistics are bound to be encouraging for those pushing uptake of the mobile Internet, and it’s not too surprising that Twitter is particularly popular given that interesting things generally happen when users are mobile.
Increased functionality, such as geotagging, more interesting third-party apps, and more mobile operators opening up Twitter via SMS, should propel Twitter usage even further.
Twitter geotagging: Will you be using the new service?
Do you Twitter from your mobile device while on the go, or do you tend to use the service from the comfort of your home computer?
Twitter’s recent announcement that it has added geotagging capabilities to its API means that we will soon see a number of third-party Twitter applications taking advantage of that.
Geotagging is one of the latest crazes, it seems, with many devices now containing GPS devices and making the task very easy.
Yet, while taking photos and geotagging them some time later has few privacy concerns (assuming you’ve granted permission to share the photos on a service such as Flickr), tweeting from an identifiable location raises some possible concerns.
Whereas manual tweeting means you can be a little vague about your exact location (West London, for example), broadcasting your GPS location means it’s possible for people to track where you are.
In the ideal, friendly world, this is a fantastic feature because it allows you to find your friends and other interesting people.
Without being alarmist, a slightly more sinister world may require some care to be taken. After all, unless you’ve made your Twitter account private, you could be tracked by anyone, and the fact that geotagging happens with each tweet means you can’t even delay revealing your current location.
What do you think of geotagging for tweets? Will you be using the new feature?
Twitter: How much is too much information?
Even more than blogging, Twitter seems to be the ultimate way to say exactly what you mean, sometimes without thinking about the consequences, and sometimes not caring.
Twitter has had its fair share of high-profile spats, but a recent “outrages” concerns Penelope Trunk’s twitter: “I’m in a board meeting. Having a miscarriage. Thank goodness, because there’s a f***ed-up three-week hoop-jump to have an abortion in Wisconsin”.
Old news, perhaps — two months is an age in the world of Twitter — but it does still raise some interesting points about what should be shared online.
Love it or loathe it, there’s no doubt that such a tweet is a far more interesting answer to “What are you doing?” than “eating a sandwich” or “staring out of the window”.
Apart from the personal attacks many poured upon Ms Trunk, critics said that the tweet was beyond what’s considered acceptable.
Then again, this world of self-publishing, completely free from editorial control, is what independent bloggers have enjoyed for so long.
At the end of the day, if you don’t like someone’s take on life, or how they express it, you don’t have to follow them.
Is there a Twitter limit, or should we be defending people’s right to say what they like, regardless of whether it fits our own outlook?
Twitter banned from courtroom, as it should be
Twitter may allow you to share anything and everything from anywhere, but that doesn’t mean that it’s always right to do so.
Spectators at a Georgia state coatroom have been banned from sending tweets during the course of a criminal trial.
District Judge Clay Land said that Rule 53 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which prohibits the “broadcasting of judicial proceedings from the courtroom”, can be extended to include the use of Twitter.
Both logically and ethically, that makes a lot of sense.
Many criminal trials are extremely sensitive, and judges have an obligation to control how both media and public are allowed to disseminate information.
What’s possibly harder is to enforce such a ruling. Short of confiscating mobile phones and other communication devices upon entering a courtroom, it could be quite hard to ensure that such a rule isn’t breached.
What do you think? Was the judge right to ban Twitter?
Will Amazon Affiliate Twitter posting tool increase spam?
Amazon has introduced a new feature for its Affiliate members, making it easy to post a link to any product on the site to Twitter.
It’s another step in making it easy to promote Amazon’s products, after the introduction of cut-and-paste widgets and “link to this page” for bloggers and website owners.
Yet Twitter is already flooded with spam and promotional messages, and Amazon has just made it a whole lot easier for casual spammers to flood the service with affiliate links.
Additionally, because the links are effectively cloaked (a side effect of having a limited character count on Twitter) it’s not easy to know what will directly benefit the Twitter account holder if the link is clicked and a purchase is made.
Of course, seasoned spammers will already have automated systems in place to create and publish tweets, but now anyone can do it with just a few clicks.
I don’t deny that the service is useful. If you have a loyal Twitter following and are genuinely recommending products, and providing disclosure, then the occasional link is fine. This new tool will save you time.
Unfortunately, I can also see it adding to the stream of rubbish flowing through Twitter, and an increase in the number of account blocks I’ll be having to do on a regular basis.
What do you think?
Would You Consider a Dedicated Twitter Device?
Since I’ve started appreciating Twitter for both personal discussions and promoting my blogs and online content, I’ve been exploring ways to access the service conveniently, even while on-the-go. For this purpose, I’ve settled with a Symbian Series 60 application called Gravity. The application is a fully-featured Twitter client that supports practically anything that a desktop-based client can, such as retweets, direct messages, searches, TwitPics, and even multiple accounts.
I’m satisfied with the application, but I only have one gripe, which is connectivity. At home and other WiFi-enabled establishments, I can roam around and still be able to Tweet, since my phone has WiFi. When I’m out of coverage, I can simply use my 3G or HSDPA connection. While the cost is nominal, this is a bit limiting.
On ForeverGeek, I recently read about TwitterPeek, a dedicated device for reading, receiving and posting tweets. What’s appealing with the TwitterPeek is the unlimited connectivity it offers. The device sells on Amazon for $199 with lifetime unlimited service or $99 with a 6-month subscription ($7.95 monthly thereafter). Developed by Peek in partnership with Twitter, the company behind the device hopes to be a big part of Twitter’s mobile strategy. If all goes well, then this is also one good way for Peek to promote its dedicated email device.
The TweetPeek is affordable, and it’s out just in time for the holidays. I’m not sure if it will work outside the US, though, given network limitations. If it does, then I’m going to grab a few for myself and my loved ones.
Would you consider an unlimited Twitter device?
Australian Court Gives Permission to Live-Tweet Proceedings
In what could be an important development in how social media affects just about any industry and field, an Australian court was recently reported to have allowed live tweeting of proceedings. Judge Dennis Cowdroy states that tweeting was fine as long as it did not disrupt court proceedings. He believes that the public “has a legitimate right to be fully informed of proceedings, particularly proceedings such as (the iiNet case), which have attracted considerable public interest. Twittering can serve to inform the public in a more speedy and comprehensive manner than may be possible through traditional media coverage.”
This has precedence in previous cases in the US. While live reportage of legal proceedings are usually at the discretion of the presiding judge, not all jurisdictions might allow direct discussion of ongoing court cases.
As with any discussions held on Twitter or any social medium, readers are advised to check and verify the information and the veracity of the sources before retweeting, blogging or otherwise helping spread information online.
