Take a look. Right now I just peeked and saw Chad Pennington (a Quarterback for the Miami Dolphins), apparently tore his ACL playing off-season basketball. One comment on the oft-injured QB was that even without football he can find a way to put himself on injured reserve. Earlier this week there was a trending topic ‘RIP Jackie Chan’. I took a quick scroll down the list and many people were aghast that the news (totally untrue) was shocking but most people did not believe it.

GoDaddy’s CEO Bob Parsons was also a trending topic today – he posted a video of he and some team members on safari in Africa shooting and killing an elephant, the elephant was alleged to have been trampling a sorghum field thus impoverishing local farmers and causing starvation. This will no doubt be all over the news in the next few days with people calling for boycotts of GoDaddy.com.

What makes a trending topic? Obviously the things that people are tweeting about. And (by some counts) with more than 100 million Twitter users that’s a pretty large sample (granted most users actually tweet rarely). So what makes a trending topic is having a substantial number of people Tweet about something that they find interesting and want their followers to see. You can select trending topics to be segmented by country, or even by city. Take a look at what’s trending in Brazil or Turkey for example.

Not all of the trending topics are trivial however. I first saw the news of the tsunami in Japan as a trending topic on Twitter. I immediately searched for more news. The speed at which people tweet an event is mind-boggling at times. I can’t imagine being that plugged into everything that is going on that I would be able to (or want to) be an early tweeter of what will be a trending event.

At the same time trending topics on Twitter do act as a representation of some collective consciousness of what people are thinking about. I find that very interesting and I am betting it will get even more interesting as more people jump into the Tweetstream.

Non-social media users like to make fun of Twitter and readily admit that they don’t get it, and don’t have time for what they consider to be nonsense. As a marketing guy I find the maturation of Twitter and Twitterites (it would be good to settle on one name for those that Tweet I admit) to be a good study of the way human beings interact as well as how communications are evolving.

And I am somewhat relieved but sad to learn that they caught the missing Bronx Zoo Cobra – who which by the way has more than 200,000 followers. And many of the tweets from the @bronxzoocobra were both clever and hilarious. It’s good to laugh at work sometimes.

Other social influence measuring sites exist like www.Peerindex.com and www.Topvoice.com as well. (Full disclosure – I have met the CEO of Top Voice and the Chairwoman is a business associate and friend).
In an article in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal http://on.wsj.com/hZoFDb a 25 year old woman was given access to a ‘swanky holiday party’ on the basis of her tweets being ‘influential’. The woman was surprised. That would not have been my reaction but I’m far from being 25 years old.

I became aware of Klout several months ago and signed up for an account (my Klout score is a lowly 32 – even Hosni Mubarak has me beat at a 43). 70 is considered a pretty good Klout score and Justin Bieber has a Klout score of 100 (Bill Gates has a score of 76 BTW – I myself don’t find Bill Gates to be less influential than Justin Bieber but hey that’s me).

So the next question is (at least for this marketer) – “Where’s the revenue model?” While the WSJ article does not outline the revenue model , theoretically by using Klout consumer brands could reach out to top influencers by having them talk about the brand – positive or (dare it be), negative. Maybe it could work and I am probably missing something so help me out if you have a better idea.

Top Voice is also a new entry and they are working through the challenges of being a start up with regard to interface and site usability. I understand the Top Voice revenue model much better than that of Klout. People Tweet or post about their favorite brands and are rewarded with points which can then lead to them receiving merchandise for becoming a Top Voice influencer. So both the brands and the individual can benefit.

Social media influence is here to stay whether people want to accept that is important or not. Even if you personally feel it is a waste of time (as I often do) we marketers should be very aware and watchful of trends and developments. The authenticity of conversations from consumers will continue to gain traction.

So have you checked out your Klout? Will you?

The idea that LinkedIn could be worth more than $ 2 billion actually was surprising to me as I thought it would be higher. After all Facebook was valued at more than $ 50 billion (25 times more than LinkedIn) but LinkedIn has fewer than 7 times as many members. Part of the reason is that LinkedIn members are not nearly as consumer-ish and buying oriented as those on Facebook.

I’m a big proponent of LinkedIn as I have noted on my blog in the past in two separate posts, http://bit.ly/f1v1HU and http://bit.ly/grhp8R . Since more and more people are using LinkedIn it gains value for its subscribers every day. While I use the paid version that offers more access, the free version is useful all the same even though the folks at LinkedIn will surely find a way to gain more paid subscribers for obvious reasons.

I have a Plaxo.com account as well, although I almost never use it. Occasionally Plaxo will send me an email with updates but I pretty much ignore them entirely. Why would I need two accounts that have similar missions when LinkedIn is much more utilized and simply better? I suspect Plaxo will be toast before long.
LinkedIn does sell advertising and the model is a sound one. You can advertise to specific groups by purchasing display ads. The advertising CPM’s are surprisingly expensive but that market has been created on demand so I am certain that if they did not perform for advertisers the rates would or will drop.
From Computerworld.com and Sharon Gaudin January 6, “LinkedIn would be the first social networking company to go public and it will be a good test of how valuable these companies might be,” said Dan Olds, an analyst with The Gabriel Consulting Group. “While LinkedIn isn’t Facebook or Twitter, they do have something like 85 million users and a business plan that is at least as developed, or hazy, depending on your perspective, as those at Facebook and Twitter.”

So LinkedIn being the first social network to go public would be something of a coup particularly in view of all the noise made by Facebook’s on again off again IPO news. I hope it will not end up being a Jeopardy answer years from now – ‘The first social network to go public’.

If you are in business you should be on LinkedIn and use it all the time. If you are not on LinkedIn I’d love to know why (because I have a hard time understanding that).

This one will be a winner I think. What do you think?

So why was I shaking my head when I read that both Ms. Keys and Lady Gaga (can she be Ms. Gaga?), are going to turn off Twitter and Facebook for World Aids Day this Wednesday December 1? They are going to publicize their ‘digital deaths’ in a campaign labeled ‘Digital Life Sacrifice’.

From NBC Philadelphia –
”Don’t expect any Facebook or Twitter updates from Lady Gaga and Alicia Keys on Wednesday. They’re taking a break from social networking for an important cause. The two are among the many celebrities who will log off from social media platforms on World AIDS Day as part of the Digital Life Sacrifice campaign, The Associated Press reported. The campaign will benefit Keys’ charitable organization; Keep a Child Alive, which helps families impacted by HIV/AIDS.

Among the other celebs who are taking part in the campaign are Ryan Seacrest, Kim Kardashian, Serena Williams and Jennifer Hudson. Their “last tweet and testament” videos were shot and will be used in advertisements to symbolize what the initiative characterizes as digital deaths.

The celebs will log back into their social media accounts when Keep a Child Alive achieves its $1 million fundraising goal. The charity was started almost a decade ago with Keys serving as its first Global Ambassador.“

The premise here is that people will be ‘shocked’ into greater awareness over the AIDS crisis by not being able to get updates on their favorite stars on Twitter or Facebook. OK so here’s my question: The seriousness of the AIDS epidemic, (and it is indeed an epidemic) is just that – serious. Does the denial by celebrities of Tweets and Facebook updates sound serious to you? And is this going to motivate people to donate money to the cause so that their favorite stars will start those updates coming as soon as possible? Is this a big sacrifice for stars to halt their tweeting and updating their everyday life events and thoughts?

To me it sounds a bit like the celebs are really saying –”Great we will be able to take a vacation for however long on the inane items we post to our fans and followers until they pony up the cash.” Is that possibly an extortion-like threat under the auspice of doing ‘good’?

I don’t get it folks. It sounds noble but smells bad to me. Agree? Disagree?

A blogging service based in NYC, Tumblr claims to want to (in the words of journalist Mark Coatney) occupy ‘a space in between Twitter and Facebook’.

Personally I have difficulty seeing how big that space might be. The 24 year old founder David Karp notes that Tumblr is not all about followers (well that’s a relief). What I like about Tumblr is that it offers a like for publications to truly interact with their readers in a way that Facebook and Twitter do not. Tumblr requires publishers to add commentary in order to gain favor with its ‘community’.

Here’s what is even more interesting. Somehow Tumblr – which still does not have a business model, recently raised $ 5 million from Spark Capital and Union Square Ventures. This apparently (according to President John Maloney) offers some validation. Ya think?

As the American and world business climate today remains choppy and challenging it’s more than difficult for companies, even like ours, to obtain adequate financing for expansion, hiring and working capital. That VC firms would throw up a combined $ 5 million to a firm without a business revenue is evidence that despite all the talk of fiscal prudence, as long as there is the chance to make a fast buck, caution can and will be thrown to the wind and the speculators will continue to do what they have always done.

I am all for on the edge new ideas and new businesses. But Twitter still has not shown the ability to make any money (in contrast to Facebook) and much more money has gone into Twitter than $ 5 million. Maybe Twitter will get there but the jury is still way out as far as I am concerned.

Do you think you would get financing for coming up with an idea that had no decided revenue model?

I was a relatively early adopter of Twitter so I could see how people would use this ‘new cool’ social networking tool.  I started in 2008 and to this day only ‘tweet’ what I hope my followers will find to be amusing and of interest.   While I have put up 350+ tweets over the 20+ months, there are a number of people that have posted more than 10,000 tweets.   What they do other than tweet is a mystery to me.

One disconnect I have is that in order for me to check on what one of the 1,000 Twitterers (or Twitterati as they somehow like to be called) that I follow are doing, I have to go to that person’s profile or put them in my ‘favorites’ on TweetDeck or another platform.  If I tried to view the tweet stream in real time or even periodically there are SO many tweets that things can get buried very quickly.  Not exactly ideal for engagement. 

A recent article in Brandweek asked the question is Twitter the Next Second Life.  

www.brandweek.com/bw/content_display/news-and-features/direct/e3i2a2383a07ad64ff8a8e8473f0cd169a1?pn=1

To me it seems that Twitter is a good platform for smaller brands looking for a one-to-one connection with a narrow audience.  Some would argue that it is more than a connection perhaps even a conversation but I don’t see it that way.  If you are interested in exclusive offers from an exclusive merchant or provider then Twitter can be a lifeline direct to the consumer. 

Twitter can be a worthwhile tool for monitoring the conversation about your brand and we do recommend that to our clients.  But with seemingly more than 90% of the conversations between like minded individuals Twitter is more about preaching to the choir than anything else.   Without a sound revenue model, and with the cacophony of the Twitter cocktail party at nearly deafening levels, I suspect that eventually people may just stop listening altogether. 

Agree or disagree?

When the bombings in Mumbai occurred in 2008 the first reports of the incidents were made on Twitter.  Agile and fast, tweets offer citizen journalism in its finest and condensed form.   The catastrophe in Haiti is still unfolding and there are amazing stories of survivors still being pulled out nearly a week after the earthquake.   I cannot help thinking that if people had mobile devices and could tweet their situations help could have been directed to those in need in a much more efficient fashion.  

GPS on mobile devices also would offer tracking abilities but a broadcast tweet on Twitter would have enabled MANY people to better understand individual situations and arrange help.  We all want to help and aside from donating funds, working on sending food to Haiti there is little more that we can do. 

The power of Twitter sadly was not and will not be realized in Haiti.   Having a bunch of followers is often seen as preaching to the choir.   Yet the opportunity to rally people to help on a one to one basis in a time of need is something Twitter can do better than just about any other platform.  

Certainly Haiti has had and will have much bigger issues than connecting its population via mobile devices.   Yet how many more lives might have been saved had the injured been able to call out for help to their followers?  

Am I off-base here?

I have been ‘Tweeting’ for nearly a year. It has been an interesting experiment and I have blogged more than a couple of times about what I am experiencing on Twitter. I still ask myself if and how Twitter.com can be used by our agency and our clients as a business application (there are a few examples where I think it works).

The seemingly greatest impact is the social aspect of disseminating information in real time. Events like the shootings in Mumbai, India in 2008 and the current upheaval in Iran were and are well-chronicled in the form of real time tweets. In India it gave the world its first knowledge of the terrible carnage as it occurred and in Iran it has become a way for the world to see what is really going on inside that troubled country.

When I started on Twitter the community appeared to be primarily composed of marketers, news agents and those interested and willing to share information in the form of links and pithy sayings. Then it evolved to become an environment with many people ready to show you how to make money on Twitter – to dominate and blow everyone else out of the water. Such joy! More recently I am seeing Twitter being used to promote pornographic photos (I have some new followers like Amber who wants to share things). Twitter is pretty good about shutting down inappropriate content but the tide is rising so fast that I think the wave may inundate the Twitter universe.

Like the early days of the internet there are Twitter squatters and all kinds of misrepresentation. Just yesterday Biz Stone (Twitter’s founder) acknowledged that Twitter is attempting to come up with a 24 hour response time to protestations about misuse of Twitter names. The Real Shaq has emulators who are all fake Shaq’s. Twitter is also working on a verification system which they say should be released shortly – and none too soon.

All this and there still is no model for Twitter to monetize what it is doing. Combine that with a universe of would-be ‘Twitter marketers’ that for the most part offer nothing much at all and I can easily envision Twitter entering an impending death spiral.

Twitter can be useful and even cool. But unless things change quickly the dark side may well soon overshadow and consume its universe and force it into a black hole.

But I really think LinkedIn provides are great tool and service for business people. Since the information is self-provided it is generally accurate if not a bit embellished. (Save for the prevaricators that are no doubt members as well but hopefully not in my network). Whenever I am given a new contact via referral the first thing I do is type their name into the search function of LinkedIn. It does not work every time since there are still many folks who are not on LinkedIn or there are times when there are too many John Smiths to figure even if you know the geographic location. Since the information is what people provide on their own and when you do get a proper profile you get a snapshot of their location, career path, education and even a few interests. This is BEFORE you have even LinkedIn with them. And answering questions in specific areas does build your standing and reputation as a resource which has helped me and our company gain business.

But it gets better than that. Search by company can provide position locations for job searches. Industries can be investigated by category. And people with whom you have lost touch can be found (yes this is done on Facebook and other social networks as well). Of course you can get great information via Google and Yahoo but I have found LinkedIn to be faster and quite reliable.

Did I mention that Linkedin is free? They do have a revenue model for enhanced access and the ability to send messages to people with whom you would like to be in touch but have no contact. More importantly introductions via people you are connected to work out really well as there is a level of inherent trust built in.

I don’t understand why anyone would not want to be listed on LinkedIn. The days of reveling in ones anonymity are over. People can find out things about you in many other places. Just ask and read about Justice Scalia this past week. Wouldn’t want them to find out things about you from your own perspective?

Have a great holiday weekend.