901am

New Media News Every Morning

Surprise! Folks Don’t Go to Twitter for Breaking News, Facebook Wins Again

By

Following their report that Facebook has just beaten Google again as the U.S. most visited site, Hitwise is now reporting another Facebook triumph. This time is has something to do with where people go to if they want to know the latest and most breaking news. Opsie! Sorry folks, you’re wrong, not from Twitter but from Facebook.

According to Hitwise, Twitter is only at the no.39 of the list of which sites people go for breaking news. And you’ve guessed it right, Facebook is almost at the lead, landing at the no. 3 spot. It even beat Google which is at eleventh place.

Additionally, Facebook drives 3.64% traffic to news and media sites, followed by Google  with 1.27% and Twitter accounting for only 0.14% of traffic driven to those sites.

Now, here’s a rather interesting point raised by Hitwise’s data. Twitter visits may have more than doubled and yet where could these visitors go to right after they’ve gone through Twitter.com? According to the report, majority of those visitors go to social networking and entertainment sites.

But wait, how come then that Twitter is hailed as the new media news source if it doesn’t even comes close to Facebook as leader in driving traffic to news sites. Venture Beat has an interesting analysis. According to VB, those news posted on Twitter timeline came from variety of sources. And most often than not those tweets do not link back to the “traditional media” source of news. Another reason is the fact that most of the news reported by Twitter users are based on their experiences and were not yet reported by news media sites.

There you go folks, it looks like we need to call Facebook as the new king of new media news source and take the title away from Twitter now.

Originally posted on March 16, 2010 @ 5:00 pm

Hootsuite Twitter App Goes to Android, iPhone App Updated

By

I’ve encountered Hootsuite a long time ago when I was reviewing Twitter apps for iPhone. I like it  a lot then that I even purchase the paid version. After the review I totally forgot about this app but it still resides in my iPhone, until now.  Hootsuite is announcing its latest project – Hootsuite for Android phones. In addition, its iPhone app now supports full Facebook integration.

In case you haven’t heard about Hootsuite or you haven’t use it before, well it’s just your usual mobile Twitter client that supports multiple accounts plus some added features such as message scheduling, statistics and now Facebook integration and landscape view feature.

For its Android version, Hootsuite lets you manage multiple Twitter accounts also. It also lets you create streams for #tags and searches, schedule messages, add followers to lists and accounts, share photos and shorten URLs of posted links and  now background notifications for incoming  messages on your Android phone’s homescreen.

Hootsuite for Android is available in both free and paid options.  The paid version adds features such as unlimited accounts, on-board, click-through statistics tracking while the free version only allows you to have three Twitter accounts.

You can get the app by searching for it on the Android market or scan the QR barcode below.

Originally posted on March 2, 2010 @ 3:32 pm

Yahoo Becomes a Real-Time Search Engine, Thanks to Twitter

By

It didn’t take that long for Yahoo to achieve what seems to be the trend among search engines today – to become a real-time search engine. And what better way of doing this but by teaming up with Twitter to integrate the 600 tweets posted on Twitter per second, assuming of course that those tweets are public.

In other words, Yahoo and Twitter had agreed on an integration deal with several components. But this is not just plain Twitter streams integration to Yahoo search results, but there are other components  as well.

The integration was quickly implemented by Yahoo as soon as the deal was sealed. So, if you check Yahoo search right now, you will start seeing Twitter updates on your search results.

But that’s just one part of the deal. Once in full swing, the Yahoo-Twitter integration will allow you to do the following:

  • read personal Twitter feeds directly from various Yahoo online properties such as Sports, Mail, Updates and others
  • update your Twitter status as well as share content from Yahoo to your Twitter profile.
  • share your social actions on any website that appears on Yahoo Updates to your Twitter timeline
  • get quick pulse-check on various topics and trending on Twitter related to News, Finance, Entertainment and Sports

Of course as you all know that this is just one of Yahoo’s strategy on making itself social. It has recently sealed a partnership with Facebook as well. But this will have to take effect later this year.

So what’s next, Twitter?

Originally posted on February 24, 2010 @ 1:45 am

Seesmic Makes its BlackBerry App More Powerful

By

So aside from releasing their Android app, which is a very good If I may say so, Seesmic is also releasing an improved version of their app for BlackBerry devices.  The latest version of the BlackBerry app now supports multi-Twitter account handling, Ping.fm support as well as a facility for choosing the size of photos you will upload. Plus some other minor enhancements that made the app almost close to its iPhone and Android counterparts.

If you’ve used Seesmic before in any of its versions – dekstop, browser, iPhone and Android phones you’d know that one of its strongest features is the multi-account support. This is one feature that makes Seesmic stand out from the rest of its competitors.  You can now simultaneously verify your Twitter accounts and once you’ve verified them, you can easily navigate from one account to another on your BlackBerry device. You can add as many Twitter accounts as you want, although I’m not really sure why would you have more than 3 Twitter accounts. Seesmic will make one of your accounts as the default and will open that account first everytime you log in to Seesmic on your BlackBerry.

The other feature which is integration with Ping.fm. If you have a Ping.fm account you can easily integrate it to your Seesmic for BlackBerry and engage with your social network friends even if they are not on Twitter. You need to create an account in Ping.fm if you don’t have one yet.

The other new features of Seesmic for BlackBerry is photo sharing/uploading via TweetPhoto service as well as an option for you to select the size of the photos that you are posting on Twitter via Seesmic.

I just installed the app on my BlackBerry Bold 9700, as well as on my Nexus One Phone and in fact, I also have it on my iPhone. So, how do I compare Seesmic for BlackBerry to its versions in the two other smartphones? Quite surprisingly, it does compare well given what the device can handle.

Originally posted on February 26, 2010 @ 5:45 pm

Seesmic Web App Gets New Useful Features

By

Are you still using a third-party site for accessing your Twitter account? I mean frankly, why would you do, if you can just head over to Twitter.com, log in to to your account and there you go. But then, there might be some of you who find the old Twitter.com interface to plain boring already, hence the need for an enhanced way of viewing Twitter.

And that’s where Seesmic, more popularly known for their mobile Twitter application for iPhone and recently Android phones comes in. I mean Seesmic, the web application. For those of you who have been using Seesmic for the web, you’d be glad to know that it has just been updated with several new features as reported by Mashable.

First of these features, and perhaps the most important one is conversational thread which aggregates Twitter conversations and displays these into pop-up chronological view of @replies between you and other users. You can see this thread whenever there is a link that says “in reply to” on individual tweet.

Then the web app’s contact manager also received an update.  It now has a new address book-like tool that provides you with various information about your followers, people you follow as well members of any Twitter lists you’ve created. What’s good about this new contacts manager is that you can send messages, unfollow or follow Twitter users from the interface.

Other new features of Seesmic for web include list management, intuitive drag and drop functionality, inline photo uploading and sending geolocation information together with your tweets

So, if you’re using Seesmic web app, log in to your account and check out these new features.

Originally posted on February 22, 2010 @ 5:00 pm