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TWITTER is developing a penchant for keeping its CEOs’ tenures as brief as its 140-character limit.

Evan Williams has become the second Twitter co-founder to step aside after a two-year stint, making way for a colleague considered to be better suited for steering the next phase of the company’s rapid growth.

Known simply as @Ev on Twitter, Williams intends to focus on product development while continuing to work for the company.

The change in command at the privately held company turns over Twitter’s leadership to Dick Costolo, an early investor who was hired as chief operating officer a year ago. Since Mr Costolo’s arrival, Twitter has moved into larger offices in San Francisco to accommodate a payroll that has swelled from a few dozen people to about 300 employees.

Mr Costolo, 47, also has played a key role in devising an advertising for Twitter as it tries to make money from an online audience that ballooned from 3 million registered users when Mr Williams became CEO in 2008 to 160 million now.

A recent redesign of the Twitter website opened up more opportunities to sell ads without disrupting the stream of messages by creating a new pane for photos, video and other information, including marketing messages. Williams oversaw the website’s new look.
In a joint interview, Mr Williams and Mr Costolo said they believed Twitter had reached another critical juncture that called for different leadership skills.

More at News

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If you’re using Twitter, you’ll probably agree that it is tough to find good quality people to follow and even more difficult to get interested and engaged people to follow you.

The guys that developed Socialoomph, a tool designed to assist the management of Twitter accounts and communications, have developed an answer.

They call it FollowerHub.

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Positive language about learning new things and serving the self-interest of readers is the most common characteristic of blog post titles that get shared the most on Twitter, according to new analysis posted on the blog Smart Data Collective.

Essentially the analysis sought to identify which words or phrases have a positive versus negative bearing on what is likely to get your content tweeted.

The author, Greek data mining consultant Themos Kalafatis, found that the words increase, socialize, automate and manage appear most in posts that prove popular.

Terms including write, talk and trust appear to have a negative weight on the likelihood of a post being retweeted.

With this information, an analyst may then identify why such words tend to commonly exist in popular Social Media posts.

Here are some insights :
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Mainstream media have served up to the American public a mixed view of how information technology influences society, according to a new study by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.

Over the past year, messages about the promise of technology making life easier and awe about new gadgets have competed in the news with worries about privacy, child predators, shrinking attention spans and danger behind the wheel.

The most prevalent message about the influence of technology is positive – the idea that is makes life easier and more productive.

Chomping close at its heels, though, is the sense that the convenience has risk, to privacy and children, themes that gobbled up almost a fifth of media coverage.

These themes form part of the findings of the study that examined 437 tech-related stories that appeared across 52 different news outlets.
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If you’ve ever wished celebrities like actress Demi Moore or tween-star Justin Bieber would follow you on Twitter, now’s your chance — but you’ll have to cough up some cash for the privilege.

EBay Inc. is hosting a charity auction called TwitChange, through which people can bid to have celebrities follow them, retweet their posts or tweet their username on Twitter for three months.

Money raised from the auction, which runs through Saturday, will go to aHomeInHaiti.org and its efforts to rebuild the Miriam Center, which is based in Haiti and houses special-needs children.

More than 180 celebrities are involved in the auction, ranging from Maroon 5 lead singer Adam Levine to actor Zachary Levi.

As of late Monday, Dana White, president of mixed-martial arts group Ultimate Fighting Championship, was in the lead with $15,600 after 86 bids. Levi, who plays a computer nerd implanted with spy secrets on NBC show “Chuck,” was behind him with $14,900 raised.

Both auctions offer to follow the winner on Twitter for at least 90 days, repost one of the winner’s own postings and broadcast the winner’s username to the celebrity’s list of Twitter followers.

There were also plenty of celebrity Twitter opportunities below $100: A listing for comedian, talk-show host and actor George Lopez to retweet a message from the winner was going for $38 after 19 bids. A listing for rapper Snoop Dogg to do the same rose to $67.55 after 7 bids.

Source: The Associated Press

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LONDON – Eurostar has cancelled a January radio sponsorship and is to review its 2010 marketing plans and use of social media as part of a contrite reaction to its ongoing service disruptions.

Speaking to Brand Republic, sales and marketing director Emma Harris said that while Eurostar’s first priority is getting people home for Christmas it has a “big job to do from a brand point of view” after three days of “quite damaging” customer disruption.

The problems started on Friday night after five trains lost power and were stuck in the Channel Tunnel.

Passengers were evacuated from two of the trains in the dark.

Passengers’ experiences of unpleasant conditions, delays and lack of communication from Eurostar staff were extensively reported by the media and in social media, while subsequent attention has focused on those marooned in London and Paris due to the continuing lack of operational trains.

Harris has suspended normal advertising, pay-per-click and direct response activity and taken out apology ads signed by chief executive Richard Brown in today’s broadsheet papers.
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Amid the bankruptcies, layoffs and budget cuts in journalism, one beat has prevailed.

Behold the rise of the social media director.

About 200 social media directors now exist at newspapers, book publishers, magazines and television news stations.

Most have taken on their positions in the last two years.

Rarely offline, their job is to tweet, ping, blog and friend-find throughout the day, building and interacting with new audiences, promoting media brands and sometimes breaking news.

Find out more here.

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Companies involved in Twitter are often worried about getting a return for their investment.

But here is some good news: it can be done.

The computer company Dell has announced it made $6.5m in revenues through links on the micro-messaging site.

Its aggregated followers on social media – including Twitter, Facebook and their own Direct2Dell and IdeaStorm – now number 3.5 million and as the firm’s “chief blogger” Lionel Menchaca announces proudly, that is “roughly a fan base the size of the population of Chicago”.

But, before you get too excited, although $6.5m sounds impressive, when you compare it with the net revenue of $12.3bn Dell reported in the first quarter of fiscal year 2010 it becomes clear that this is only a drop in the ocean.

Read more here.

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TWITTER is cracking down on fake celebrity accounts after being sued over an imposter’s profile.

Tony La Russa, a US baseball coach, took legal action after discovering his name on a fake account.

Mr La Russa claims some of his imposter’s posts make fun of the death of two of his players.

Twitter says it doesn’t have a legal case to answer.

Hundreds of famous names have been used by imitators, some of which have developed a massive following for their online celebrity parodies.

Stars including William Shatner, Christopher Walken, and Ewan McGregor have imposters with tens of thousands of followers.

See more at The Australian.

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VIRGIN Blue chief Brett Godfrey has thrown down the social media gauntlet to competitors by vowing to use Twitter as a launch pad for fare wars.

Virgin Blue has almost 8500 followers, making it the most popular Australian airline on Twitter

Virgin has jumped into the social marketing battleground and has campaigns on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

Almost 8500 followers make it the most popular Australian airline on Twitter — and it tops 11,000 when international offshoot V Australia is added.

“Social media has been tagged as a fad for the youth market, but it’s not a passing phenomenon,” Mr Godfrey said. “Smart companies will quickly learn to use it as tomorrow’s essential marketing platform.

“We’re looking forward to starting the world’s first airfare war on Twitter.”

Read more in about Virgin’s Twitters in The Australian.

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