My morning kicked off with a conversation about Twilert and in particular why the site was launched in BETA and what BETA actually means. It got me thinking about my reasoning behind it and I ended at the question of "Why would I ever take the site out of BETA?" For me, BETA means the final version of a service or site before small tweaks are made and a final, clean version is rolled out to the masses. However, that implies that the service is perfect as doesn't require constant TLC, tweaks and improvements and I'm yet to find a single online service that fits in the "perfect" bracket. The point is that, as I am finding with Twilert, user interaction online now means that feedback and advice for online tools and services comes thick and fast and webmasters (for want of a better word) need to react to this feedback by incorporating it into their sites. The feedback will never stop and therefore neither should the tweaking. BETA works for real-world things, things that can't be upgraded or changed en-mass easily. But online, there is no such thing as BETA. Every CEO, CFO and webmaster should treat their site like it is ...

I'm beginning to find some innovate ways brands are leveraging the Twitter platform. Two new services caught my eye this week! The first, Qwitter, aims to help stop people smoking. As a non-smoker I haven't tried it but it's simple to get involved. Simply follow Qwitter and send messages to the user (@iquit) telling it how many cigarettes you have had. Qwitter will track how many packs you're getting through and provide tips and advice to help you kick the habit. The second is Tweet What You Spend which, like Qwitter, allows you to send messages and track how much you are spending day to day. What I love about this is the fact that it's such a simple way of engaging an audience through an existing and established platform. Both Qwitter and Tweet What You Spend are the start of brands engaging Twitter users with value-add services. Many of our clients are jumping on the Twitter bandwagon, using it as a simple comms tool. But, the examples above show that Twitter is becoming much more than a micro-blogging service and extending beyond comms and into a powerful web app for both brands and consumers.

Today marks the 4th anniversary of BlogDay. To take part the rules are simple: Find 5 new Blogs that you find interesting Notify the 5 bloggers that you are recommending them as part of BlogDay 2008 Write a short description of the Blogs and place a link to the recommended Blogs Post the BlogDay Post (on August 31st) and Add the BlogDay tag using this link: http://technorati.com/tag/BlogDay2008 and a link to the BlogDay web site at http://www.blogday.org - So without further ado, Happy BlogDay 2008: Delightful Work: Coach Tom Volkar provides advice on achieving, as he puts it, "work life freedom". Great blog that should be visited whenever those deadlines start mounting up! PsyBlog: Psychology is little more to me than a fleeting interest however I find this blog incredibly useful for gaining small insights into the way our minds work. For marketers this RSS feed should be a staple The Blog of Tim Ferriss: Any blog with the url fourhourworkweek.com is going to get my vote. Great advice on Tim on working smarter and not harder Chris Brogan: The hardest working man online? Probably! Chris regularly rolls out insightful, in-depth advice and information ...

Further to my post on client adoption of Twitter, Jeremiah has posted a great article on the evolution of brands using the service.

TechCrunch has published an article by Ashley Norris on why blog publishing has failed in the UK.

Royal Pingdom has posted a great article on the top social networking sites by country using data from Google Insights for Search. So lets kick things off. Which countries are the following social networking sites most popular in? MySpace: United States Facebook: Turkey Hi5: Peru Friendster: Philippines LinkedIn: India Orkut: Brazil Last.fm: Finland LiveJournal: Singapore Xanga: Hong Kong Bebo: Ireland Imeem: Philippines Twitter: Japan How many did you get? Not many I'm guessing.

These seem to be popping up all over the place but I feel it'd be unfair to write about one and not the other.

HMVis getting into the social networking act with the launch of getcloser.com - a site that has "been built by collectors for collectors". Knowing a few record collectors myself I can see this type of thing being quite useful. I commend HMV for not short-changing the humble collector by settling for a Facebook / MySpace widget and instead providing a dedicated area for people to discuss their collection. Just think how long it would take this guy to sign-up though!

I sat in on a meeting last week on digital PR with a focus on Twitter to discuss the role that it can (should?) play for our clients. It struck me throughout the meeting the sense of disbelief there was that companies and brands aren't actively engaging. This was then followed by the well-publicised PR Week story on FTSE 100 companies not registering Twitter accounts. Whilst I do think our clients should be engaging in the Twitter movement I also think as PRs it is our role to take the baby steps necessary to encourage this engagement. Forgetting that we tend to be communications early-adopters there is a danger that we go in too strong and make the mistake of presenting a black and white argument (you should be on Twitter, it's a mistake if you're not). The fact of the matter is that the role Twitter has in terms of corporate communications is still unclear and for that reason it is a potential minefield for clients. The service is still incredibly immature and it takes a bold person to take the plunge and gamble brand reputation on a tool that could do more harm than good if not used in the right ...

Hi-tech criminals target Twitter