Below are some of my online reading favorites this week. Click on a headline to read the full article. Hope you enjoy!
Top 20 Social Networks of 2008
Twitter is growing like crazy (I’m sure you already knew that). Facebook is about to catch MySpace. Classmates and Ning are doing surprisingly well? Very interesting report by Mashable.
Don’t Make this Twitter Mistake- It Will Destroy Your Brand
Is it possible to go from 23,000 followers to just 213 before you know it? Just tweet something offensive and it will happen. I guess this proves @astrospace followers were paying attention.
Wikipedia is Wrong? How Can this Be?
Right or wrong, I still love Wikipedia. Thank goodness I don’t plan on doing any reports soon.
Marketers Promise Hope
I love this Seth Godin Blog Post. A perfect reminder that marketing isn’t always about a product or service, but about the feeling it creates. The feeling of hope.
Derek,
Nice post! Some questions and comments:
1. How do you get 23,000 followers in the first place?
2. How do you feel about controversial tweets? Still unsafe?
3. I joined NING early on and then let it slide. I’m going to check back. Thanks.
4. Have you tried the Kindle? If so, what do you think? I subscribe to Godin’s blog. What a great thinker. I’m old. Love that I can make the font large.
Thanks for the info.
Lawrence,
Thank you for the compliment…now to answer your questions!
1. The general rule that I have seen is that most people that you follow, follow you back in return. My guess would be that looking through other people’s followers in a large scale and following them would help you reach that level. Then you have other people like @scobleizer that are industry leaders and have over 50,000 followers. I am not sure what the background was on this particular Twitter user, but I would venture to guess they added several people that returned the favor.
2. Controversial tweets can be good. Similar to a opinionate or spicy blog post, controversial tweets can generate a ton of feedback, comments, and great conversation. But you cannot directly attack the reader. This is the mistake that was made. You must direct the subject of these toward a particular thing, not a person….especially your followers!
3. I need to check back in on NING as well.
4. I have not tried the Kindle… fill me in!
Derek,
Thanks for your thorough reply. I love the Kindle because:
1. I’m old, and you can control the size of the font
2. I love reading the newspaper and can the Kindle is simple to transport; plus it is easy to read in a public place
3. It holds more books and periodicals than you’ll need to read, especially on a journey
4. You can download a new book in about 30 seconds
5. Newspaper or magazine subscriptions are delivered to your Kindle every day so you don’t have to venture outside in the snow
Try it, you’ll like it.