On September 10, 2009 Twitter changed its terms of service and is now allowing for advertisements on its platform. Twitter has not said what types of available ad units it might offer, but of course this leaves the door wide open for a range of possibilities. Analysts are saying that this development will help twitter monetize its website. But what is more interesting is that analysts generally agree that Twitter can offer advertisers more valuable information on the websites population than the actual advertisements themselves.

Twitter currently offers companies and individuals the ability to just discuss brands, and the marketplace in general, allowing businesses to “listen in” to the running commentary. Text analysis, coupled with CRM will be a very powerful tool set in the future as customized marketing becomes much more prevalent in cyberspace.

All of us here at SM Notes take these “polls of convenience”  with some seriousness becasue – well you are telling us what is happening out there.  Our very first poll asked the age old question –> “Is Facebook Chat the best instant messaging service?” And wow – the results were very interesting.

First, 45% of the total said “Yes” that Facebook was the best IM chat client… and while this number is significant, the other number is equally as telling.  With 55% saying that something other than Facebook was better – it would seem to the casual reader that Facebook has to do some soul searching if they want to try and own the IM chat arena.  Comments ranged from “MySpace offers more functionality [ouch - that hurts just a little]” to “I don’t use any of these IM clients – that is so yesterday!” suggest that maybe IM chat is in need for a technologicial shot in the arm if it is to stay active as a communication vehicle.

More polls and analysis coming.  Vote – comment – counter-comment… that’s what SM Notes is looking from each of you.

Picture courtesy of gocomics.com (9-24-09)

For everybody that has a twitter account — obtaining followers in seeking out the people or organizations that you want to follow was a difficult chore up until this year. Twittgeek has come onto the scene and allowed twitter users to help you automatically follow fellow geeks based on keywords that you insert into their database. Twittgeek uses twitter is login information and gives you access each day to seek out as many as 200 followers based on a particular tag or keyword.

I put in the keyword “scholarship” and within five minutes I had a list of 200 people that had matched my keyword and I was now following. It is a simple site, and free for what I described above. They do have a Pro account which lists the “no limits” and give you additional professional functionality. You can upgrade to the Pro account for a single month at seven dollars, three months at $18, six months at $30 and a full year of professional services at $48. Everything is transacted through PayPal.

SMnotes gives Twittgeek 4.5 out of 5 stars