Twitter’s Big Week

New Announcements Abound at the Chirp Developer Conference

Twitter is suddenly more all over the news than usual. So what’s all buzz?

Turns out, lot’s of things.

First, let’s start with the big event: today was the first day of Twitter’s inaugural developers’ conference called Chirp. This is a gathering of just under 100 geeks at San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts who build applications that rely on Twitter feeds (or APIs) to provide a Twitter-related service to end-users (that would be you and me.) Company co-Founder and CEO, Evan Williams said that developers using the Twitter API make about three billion calls a day into the service.

These applications make it easier for individuals and businesses to, for instance, send tweets from their desktops or mobile devices across multiple accounts (Seesmic or TweetDeck), or to send pictures via Twitter (TwitPic), or…

Bing, Google Add Tweets to Results

UPDATE (8:43 a.m. PDT): Microsoft has struck a deal with Facebook to include its news feed updates in Bing’s searches.  Bing powers search on Facebook.

Tweets from users on Twitter have hit the big-time: they’re now going to be featured in search results on Bing and Google.

For those geeks among you who follow news from places like Twitter, Google and Microsoft (maker of Bing) like I do (it’s not a particularly scintillating life I lead…), you were no doubt enthralled with yesterday’s unfolding events.

First there was this blog post by Biz Stone, Twitter’s chief:

…there are already tens of thousands of Twitter apps and more to come because people want the choice to consume and create tweets wherever and whenever they prefer. The folks over at Bing took a keen interest in Twitter and worked fast to establish…

Small Business Marketing Series: Basic Twitter Etiquette

Tips and Tricks for Top-Notch Tweeting

Set Up Your Account On Twitter Wisely. When you first set up your account, be sure to pick a user name that is easily / readily associated with your business.  At Yield Software we use “YieldSW” on Twitter and everywhere else.  If your business is named Kathy’s Kupcakes, choose “kathyskupcakes” as your user name.  (Hopefully that’s not a real business! If it is, I swear that was a random choice.)

Remember this formula: Followers = Social Capital; Social Capital = Success. You can begin to build followers by first uploading your address book to Twitter to discover who is already on Twitter.  Follow all those people.  They will get an email saying you’re now following them and will be given the opportunity to follow you in return.  Put a “follow me on Twitter”…

Small Business Marketing Series: To Tweet or Not to Tweet, Or Six Reasons Why Twitter is Good for Business

The Business Benefits of Twitter

On first blush, Twitter can look and feel like a complete waste of time.  Essentially you get 140 characters to say something to all the people who follow you.  And any cursory review of these updates – called tweets – will reveal many, many people who “lifecast”; that is, people use their 140 characters to give an update on what they’re doing or thinking or seeing in any given moment in time such as eating lunch or getting ready to board a plane.

So why would you want your business on a service that has a whole lot of people tweeting about the joys of a grilled cheese sandwich?  Because a deeper view into Twitter will reveal that the number of people using their 140 characters for more serious and helpful purposes are…