Were you asleep at the controls or arguing about work policy and missed some Twitter news this week? Read on for Twitter headlines for the week of October 23, 2009.
The biggest news this week was answering the question, Who’s going to pilot our search for the latest Twitter topics? Bing declared itself the captain, but Google quickly responded with its own me-too (without a specific date, but it didn’t seem to matter).
If those absent minded Northwest pilots are looking for new jobs, Twitter can help although changing their avatar might not be a good idea (hat tip @TweetforBiz). Or was the in-flight movie that good? (Sure beats in-stream advertising, which might make you reach for the airsick bag.)
If those pilots try to go underground, take note that the CIA bought a stake in Twittering-monitoring service. But aren’t those protected tweets in fact exposed by Google asked the LA Times? Turns out the answer is no.
Maybe the pilots were location-challenged and should filter tweets by location. Or does that only work with politics? Maybe they should have spent more time at church or with the Bible.
In other Twitter developments…
Twitter Services and Apps
- Klout measures influence on topics across the social web to find the people the world listens to (hat tip @jmpineda)
- Trendistic – see trends in Twitter
- See what’s trending on Twitter and why with WhatTheTrend.com
- P2 theme for WordPress for Twitterizing your site with live, inline comments
- 140trans – social translations for your tweet
- 9 Open Source Microblogging Applications
- 16 Cool Sites To Get Free Twitter Backgrounds
- Buddy Media releases tool for updating and tracking social media. Maybe they can make a tracker for airline flights?
Twitter News
- Twitter hits 5 billion tweets (not sure what that drops to if you exclude Guy Kawasaki and Scoble)
- Mob Rule! How Users Took Over Twitter
- Twitter supports net neutrality
- Pew says 1 in 5 tweet or do other status updates (but it’s 4 out of 5 dentists)
- Comcast: Twitter Has Changed The Culture Of Our Company
- #BeatCancer Sets Guinness World Record
Twitter Tips
- Can Twitter Replace RSS for Sharing the Best of the Web?
- Segment your audience
- Twitter abbreviations
- 5 Twitter Tips You May Not Know
- 20 Hilarious (well, amusing) Twitter Comic Strips
What was the biggest Twitter item that flew onto your radar this week?
Church Mojo 
What do you think of Mr. Tweet and other apps that supposedly help you to link up with other like-minded Twitterers?
Woops. That was me. You can delete that other post if you want. Not sure why it logged me in as that old name.
Anyway, my question still stands: What do you think of Mr. Tweet and other apps that supposedly help you to link up with other like-minded Twitterers?
A lot of people I know use it, but some people say that meeting people that way is not the best since you don’t form relationships aren’t formed organically.
I like Mr Tweet as I’ve found some interesting folks on Twitter and have also heard from followers who have found me through that tool. It’s built on recommendations from actual people and depends on the user to make individual decisions to follow a particular recommendation or not.
In some ways, it speeds up the process of looking through the followers/friends of people you’re already following. I think I found your blog, ProductiveCatholic.com, while manually looking at a friend’s followers and there you were. Mr Tweet tries to do that algorithmically to present you recommendations.
Mr Tweet is in a different category than those services that promise 1,000 followers automatically. That approach is a mindless numbers game with no opportunity to make a genuine connection.
You do need to give a public @reply to offer your own recommendations to Mr Tweet. Some will find that annoying and free promotion for Mr Tweet, but others find that helpful information and see it as a quality control measure.
Okay sweet. Yeah, I thought that it worked pretty well, and that the people that I connected did have some commonality with me.
I am with you, there have been a lot of times when I’d have to sift through my friend’s followers to find people, but it takes a long time. Often, they have followers that are spammers because they don’t bother to maintain their account.
Good, I’ll keep using it then.