Did Twitter Change Your Password?

Today, blogger Andrew Girdwood pointed out in his post that Twitter is forcing its users to change their passwords. According to Andrew, these users have received an email containing the following message: “Due to concern that your account may have been compromised in a phishing attack that took place off-Twitter, your password was reset,” together with a link for resetting the password.

Now although these emails looks suspicious, and after taking a look at these emails I would not blame them either, they are genuine. It seems that Twitter is trying to prevent any attacks from an undisclosed/unknown source.

The Next Web writes about unconfirmed reports from Twitter users that this might be in regard to a user account @THCx. A thread on Twitter’s support system recommends that users change their passwords immediately if they are currently following that specific Twitter account. @THCx, supposedly a tips/tutorials service, has managed to gain access to over 42000 user accounts in a matter of days and doesn’t appear to be following one.

The screenshot below shows that it’s possible, if @THCx is the culprit, that they may have gained access to users via NutshellMail, a service that lets you access and reply to Twitter messages as you would email. So if Twitter asks you to change your password, look at the link in the email, right click on it and click on copy link location (if you are using Firefox), then paste it on the Notepad. Then check the actual URL on the Notepad and see if it begins with http://twitter.com, if it does then it is a genuine email. In that case, go ahead and follow the instructions.

Chirp, the Offical Twitter Developer Conference

The first ever official Twitter developer conference is going to be held between 14th and 15th April, 2010 at San Francisco. And it has a very befitting name, Chirp! The word Tweet is a noun defined as the chirp of a small or young bird. The Twitter ecosystem is still very young so naming this conference Chirp felt right.

In a blog post on the official Twitter blog, Biz Stone said that there are more than fifty thousand registered applications on the Twitter platform. These applications represent the creativity, ingenuity, and talent of a growing number of developers and companies building innovative new ways to interact with the Twitter information network.

Moreover, there are thousands of individuals who work on Twitter—over one hundred of these individuals actually work at 795 Folsom Street in San Francisco but many platform developers work in offices, coffee shops, apartments, and even friend's couches around the world.

So they want to get together with some of these developers and enthusiasts and celebrate the chutzpah that goes into so many of the apps built on the Twitter platform. Carsonified are helping us so it's going to be awesome. You can sign up for as low as $469.

For all the details and information about the event please visit Chirp, The Official Twitter Developer Conference web site.

ReTweet Buttons on Posterous Blogs

Posterous has introduced ReTweet buttons that would make sharing posts on Twitter super-easy. To disable or enable the ReTweet button on your Posterous blog go over to your Manage page by clicking here. Then click on the Settings tab, where under the Look and Feel section click on More Theme Options. There simply select Enable Retweet Button.

You can also add the retweet button and customize its look on your custom theme. For that, please visit the retweet documentation for the Posterous theme engine here.

So enjoy the new ReTweet button on your Posterous blog and make your posts famous!

Does This Guy Look Familiar?

Duncan Riley of The Inquisitr posted this video, although he couldn't come anywhere near to deciphering its actual meaning. The video is titled and captioned "lalala omg wtf haha" and "Best video evar!!!!" respectively, so no one can make head or tail of it from the titles.

But one look at it and I knew what is it all about. This is exactly what you would do and how you would feel when you would get retweeted by Guy Kawasaki, Pete Cashmore and Chris Brogan, all on the same day. Now does he look familiar?

[Via : Inquisitor]

Seesmic Desktop Is Tweetdeck With A Facelift

It's time Seesmic should stop trying to imitate Tweetdeck and remain what it is. But that is exactly what it is failing to do, and this fact has become more eminent after the release of the new Seesmic Desktop.

The Seesmic Desktop is Tweetdeck with a facelift. It has almost all features similar to Tweetdeck, and a few less. The only advantage I see that the new Seesmic Desktop has over Tweetdeck is the ability to manage multiple Twitter accounts. And with it's full support for the new Facebook Open Stream API, it can not only update Facebook status, but also but all its content (pics, links, videos, likes and comments). But that's all about it.

On the flip side, it does not have video sharing, which Tweetdeck manages with 12seconds. The user interface is cumbersome and the settings are a bit difficult to figure out at first. You would not be able to view your Twitter stream in narrow columns. And although it has the ability to create groups, the only way to add friends to a group is by individually selecting them from your main Twitter stream. This makes the group feature useless.

Overall, I would give Seesmic Desktop a rating of 1.5 out of 5. You can download your copy of the Seesmic Desktop from here. But don't forget to let me know your views about it. For me, I would stick to Tweetdeck for now.

Twitter Search Makes The Front Row

For those TweetDeck/TWhirl users who haven't seen their Twitter profile page for ages, very recently it has got a facelift. Twitter has added Search and Trending Topics right on your Twitter home page.

The search results are displayed on the main page in place of your Twitter stream. You also have the option to save your search results, which would be displayed below the search box.

Just below the search box you would be able to see the Trending Topics. Similar to the search results, once you click on a topic, the results would be displayed at the place of your Twitter stream. That too without any reloads. And there is also an option to collapse your list of saved searches as well as the icons of the accounts you are following for a cleaner view.

Twitter Co-founder Biz Stone writes in the Twitter blog, "Accessing Twitter.com is a simple experience—you sign in and read the updates from the accounts you have chosen to follow. If you've been using Twitter for a while, you've probably curated an interesting collection of updates from friends, family, co-workers, businesses, media organizations, and maybe even a favorite celebrity. With the addition of search, you can ask Twitter to build you a fresh timeline of updates based on a keyword or phrase. It's a whole new experience with a familiar look and feel."

And they have kept their word, Twitter has remained what it had been since it's inception, simple. Simplicity is the key to success for Twitter. That's why when users are creating a hue and cry over the new interface of Facebook and FriendFeed (Beta), Twitter continues to satisfy it's users. Well, maybe "satisfy" is just an understatement when it comes to Twitter.

@atomicpoet's Guide To Twitter Nirvana

For once, I'll shut my mouth and let someone else speak about the secrets of successful Twittering. Here is a collection of thoughts of @atomicpoet which I compiled from his Twitter stream. It's about what you can expect from Twitter and what Twitter expects from you.

First, what matters most is quality of followers, not quantity. This is true for any other site, and it is applicable to Twitter.

What you got to do is find content that excites these "quality" followers. Make THESE people happy.

Out of the thousands of followers you have on Twitter, the quality followers will actually only number maybe a few hundred -- at the most.

Now, what are "quality" followers? They retweet, they share news, they interact with you on a regular basis. Impress THESE people.

Before you do anything else, find quality content. Here's the golden rule: if it impacts YOU, it will probably impact someone else.

Once you find quality content, schedule it. This creates presence on twitter, creates anticipation, and spreads it to more people.

The shorter the tweet, the better. Short tweets encourage retweets.

Now, if someone responds to your links, even if it is just a "LOL", respond back. Create conversation. Engage with the "quality" followers.

Do NOT thank people for retweets. It's a waste of time and clouds the feed. If you want to thank them, retweet them in kind.

If you retweet, make it be something you yourself would tweet. Your followers always want good quality content.

iFrames, whether it is a Digg or ow.ly iframe, encourages these "quality" followers to spread the media.

Remember, you are not looking to impress the "casual" follower. You are looking to impress the quality follower.

What you need is a mechanism to make it easier for quality followers to share media. The ow.ly bar and DiggBar does those things.

Once they are at the site, these people use the bar to retweet, submit to Digg, Reddit, SU, or send an email. It works for them.

Now, as with many awesome inventions, what may be good for one person is loathed by another. Content creators HATE iframes...

BTW, what kind of game is social media? It's kind of like Secret Santa. You are looking for partners in win-win.

Content creator, meet social media guy. You both love quality content. Let's work together!

One final note. Twitter is NOT social media. Nor is social media anything new.

Twitter is one interesting component of social media, but it is a tiny fraction of what it is.

You would find @atomicpoet blogging at atomicpoet, and while I was on his blog, the post How I Find Amazing Content didn't fail to catch my attention. Here, he describes how to find quality content. He is also a must follow on Twitter.

If you liked this post, then tweet this for the benefit of your "quality" followers. And if you are a first time visitor, subscribe to my RSS feed.

5 Steps To Twitter Branding

The past one year has seen a tremendous growth of Twitter. According to Nielsen Online, Twitter grew 1,382% year-over-year in February, registering a total of just more than 7 million unique visitors in the US for the month.

And so, brand owners have started to crowd Twitter to promote their brands. If you are planning to do the same, here are five things that are a must for the success of your brand on Twitter.

First of all, think about a decent Twitter handle. If possible, use your brand name for your username. If you are an individual brand, then use your name for your Twitter handle. No one is going to follow you if your Twitter name is hdsghdjkfd.

Second, before starting off with your collecting followers marathon, add a few tweets to your profile. Nothing can be more put off than viewing a profile with no tweets.

Third, create a bio which should reflect what you do. If possible, add a link to your site or blog. But try and make it a little bit catchy. You can check my profile bio on Twitter here.

Fourth, add a picture on your Twitter profile. And do not post a picture of a celebrity, unless of course you are the one. You can also put the logo of your brand.

Fifth, create a good Twitter background image. There are lots of services available today for creating a professional Twitter background. It should contain details about your brand, your other contact details and possibly a good photo.

Remember, this is just the beginning. But the first impression is often the last.

Tweetmeme Introduces ReTweet Buttons

One of the best ways to promote your articles is to put them on Twitter. Once you tweet the link to your articles, if people find them interesting they would start retweeting those links and that link/article would thus get more exposure. Here your responsibility is to make it as easy as possible to retweet your articles. For that you can resort to Tweetmeme's ReTweet button.

A few days back, Tweetmeme has introduced it's ReTweet button. One single line of JavaScript and you're in business. It would help your readers retweet your content with one click, along with that it would also display the number of times that link has been retweeted. So not only are you having the benefit of getting your links easily retweeted, you are also getting free stats from which you can easily learn which one of your article your readers like the most. The button comes in 3 varieties. They also have a WordPress plugin.

You can download the code for your ReTweet button from here. Also you can see the full documentation on the WordPress plugin here. But before you do that, subscribe to The Chronicles of R to be notified when we are updated.

Are You A Tweetaholic?

This is a cool song for all you Twitter fans from the stable of Dave Ryder. To download the mp3 for free, head over to his site.

15 Reasons Why I Won't Follow You On Twitter

Many people complain that I don't follow them on Twitter when they start following me. Here's why :

1. You have the photo of a duck on your Twitter profile! How lame is that. What reason you might have not showing your face? You don't look good? I don't really care, I am not here to date you. And you know what, it just makes me feel that you are not too serious about social media. Doing it for fun then, eh? Well, then you gotta be really interesting for me to follow you.

2. You don't have a bio on your profile. Now how am I supposed to know what you do, why you are here and why should I follow you at all? I guess you were either living under the rock and thus had nothing to write, or you do something that's not interesting to you and so you thought that I would not be interested in it either, or maybe you are simply too lazy to write anything at all but want to start building on your leads directly. In any case, thank you but I am not interested.

3. Although this is not mandatory, but don't you think you should spice up your Twitter background a little bit? But then, it's fine with me if you use the default theme in case you are interesting enough and this is not an absolute must.

4. You are following 12,437 people out of which only 403 people are following you. Are you nuts! You must be really desperate to follow those many people without them following you. What reason do you have, huh? Selling something aren't you? Thank you but I am not interested.

5. Your Twitter account is 2 months old and you have only 32 Tweets. You want to make friends and you don't want to say anything! Sorry, but I don't want to play the role of a guru-disciple. I am not here to preach anything. So thank you but I would not follow you. Although a hundred-dollar bill would be a nice way to change my mind.

6. In your bio you say you are a thinker, and all you update about is how are you feeling and how is the weather and what not, except anything to indicate you are a thinker. Chances are that you don't know your role as a thinker, or maybe you are too bored to think anymore. Fine, I am not asking you not to mix you personal life with your professional life here, but all I am asking is give me some value input along with that for Pete's sake!

7. You login to Twitter at 7PM CST everyday and then you start bombarding your followers with information. Sorry buddy, information overload. Give me time to digest, I don't want to follow a bot who is an encyclopedia of the information superhighway who keeps on vomiting bouts of information like undigested food for 2 hours daily. If I really feel that the information you give me are indeed useful, at the most I would subscribe to your Twitter feed using a FeedReader, but I still won't follow you.

8. You are too infrequent on Twitter. Thank you but I am not interested. Even @abevigoda does not forget to Tweet everyday pronouncing that he is alive.

9. You don't join in any conversation. If you are a Twitteratti I can understand. But if you are not, chances are that I would not follow you. Please understand that you are not here to give a sales pitch. Even sales is not selling anymore, remember!

10. I start to follow you, and you send me an @reply pointing me towards your website or your product. I already know what you do from your bio, that's the first thing I would do before following you, remember? I feel bugged when the first @reply coming from you sounds again like a sales pitch.

11. You spam me with DM. Stop it, do you think I would fall for that? That's harassment. I would either block you, or if you are a team then probably I would report it to Twitter to get all your accounts banned.

12. Be knowledgeable, you should know what you are talking about. I am not asking you to be the next Einstein, but if you claim to be a social media expert and then tell me that "Chris Brogan is a very good actor and son of Hollywood actor James Brolin" and Tribes is uninteresting because you don't like "Indian folklore as it is too boring to me as I am too busy raising up Social Media experts", then I would not only unfollow you but also block you.

13. You are a fake account. If it's for fun, I would be too happy to follow you. I follow lot's of fake accounts like @abevigoda, @BadPeggyOlson, @God, even @darthvader. But if you are impersonating someone to sell your product then chances are I would not only unfollow you, but I would also give your id to that poor soul you are impersonating so that he/she blocks you. To sell your product you don't need to impersonate anyone, first learn how to sell yourself, the rest would fall into line all by themselves.

14. Your Tweets are plain and simply boring. Try to be interesting, please. There are thousand others in your profession who would provide me with the same information that you give me everyday, and be interesting at the same time. So why should I follow you?

15. And while I am writing this, I got an email that someone had started to follow me on Twitter. In the someone's bio it's written that he loves jQuery. You love jQuery! And you wrote that in your Twitter bio? I mean you are so much in love with jQuery that your whole life revolves around it? I mean fine, earlier I had put ahead #6, but I guess you have taken it too seriously and have thus become far too descriptive.

Bottomline, try to be innovative or I won't follow you. Okay, a hundred-dollar bill would do fine, but not for too long, and surely not for everyone. If you like this post then you can follow me on Twitter @rajtilak.

7 Social Media Evangelists Who Can Change The Way You Think

After my last post on 12 people you should consider following on Twitter, many people have been showing interest in Social Media for various purposes. Now moving ahead, to know about how social media, in general, would influence your business model you need to have a fresh insight about the same. Here is a list of 7 people from whom you can learn what is social media, the latest social media trends and how can social media affect you and your business. You can follow them on Twitter too.

1. Kyle Flaherty

The Director of Marketing at BreakingPoint Systems in Austin, TX, Kyle blogs at Engage in PR. Here you can read about the emerging trends in PR, marketing and Social Media. In Kyle's own words:

"I’m a geek according to my friends, but I’m a marketer/PR guy according to my colleagues (who are really geeks). You will read here about how PR and marketing is changing rapidly, like it always is, and how social media is NOT a revolution but an evolution. I make short little videos that often show my face, you’ve been warned. Each time I write I try to make a difference for someone reading. Hopefully today that person is you".

2. Dave Fleet

Dave Fleet is a communications professional with a passion for social media, based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Dave has worked in marketing and communications for major corporations and public sector organizations including Hitachi Europe, Lloyds TSB and the Ontario government. Currently he is working with Thornley Fallis Communications as a Senior Consultant.

Dave Fleet blogs at DaveFleet.com. Here you can read about communications, public relations, marketing and social media, and the areas where those topics intersect. You would also find Dave at Toronto Runner, where he chronicles his efforts as a runner, Social Media Training Wiki, a site launched in 2007 with the aim of using social media to create social media training and at Caralin Ruth Photography.

3. Jennifer Leggio

Jennifer, who uses the moniker “Mediaphyter”, has spent more than 14 years in the communications industry. She had been a journalist, an editor and has managed influencer relations programs for several network security and enterprise technology companies.

You would find her social business blog Feed at CNET's ZDNet. She was also featured on “Network Security Podcast” and “Security Round Table” to discuss topics of social media and security as well as blogger ethics. She founded the Security Twits, a community for network security professionals on Twitter. Jennifer is the director of strategic communications for Fortinet, a leading network security appliance vendor, where she oversees global industry analyst relations, digital media, community engagement and communications for the company’s security research team.

She is a personal favorite of mine.

4. Shannon Paul

Shannon Paul has a background in public relations and is currently working with the New Media communications of the Detroit Red Wings where she is the contributing editor for the organization’s Hockeytown Blog.

Shannon blogs at Shannon Paul's Very Official Blog where she writes about social media, marketing and PR in a humorous fashion.

5. John Johansen

John is a marketer. In his own words:

"I like being clear about that because it's something I'm passionate about. The application of Internet tools to marketing is the current focus of my career. My blog explores the evolution of marketing as discovery becomes more fragmented."

John blogs at Original Comment where you would find him writing about everything from social media to lead nurturing, from sales strategies to B2B buying cycles, from search engine marketing to Starbucks. Very informative, specially his detailed writeup on lead nurturing. In his words:

"My primary focus is on Demand Generation Marketing and I look at social media through the lens of how it can be used to create, strengthen, and convert relationships. I'm more focused on integrating social media with existing marketing channels"

Currently he is working on my own series of posts about how Social Media is forcing the shift to opt-in communications from marketing because of the nature of the tools. That focus on making your content valuable so people will want to follow you, rather than forcing it on them until they opt-out, is going to be incredibly disruptive to marketers that don't recognize the change.

6. Hutch Carpenter

Hutch has worked as the Vice President of Bank of America Securities. His first tech job was with eFinance (now Identrust), after which he spend a couple of years with Pay By Touch. While working with BEA Systems as a Senior Product Marketing Manager for its Enterprise 2.o products, Hutch started blogging on February 9, 2008.

Hutch's blog, I'm Not Actually A Geek is crammed with his views about social networking et al. Another informative blog.

7. Chris Brogan

Chris Brogan is President of New Marketing Labs, a new media marketing agency, as well as the home of the New Marketing Summit conferences and New Marketing Bootcamp educational events. He works with large and mid-sized companies to improve online business communications like marketing and PR through the use of social software, community platforms, and other emerging web and mobile technologies.

Chris Brogan is a ten year veteran of using social media and both web and mobile technologies to build digital relationships for businesses, organizations, and individuals. You would find his blog at ChrisBrogan.

He is another of my personal favorite.

This list is in no particular order. If you think I have missed someone, which is very much possible, please do let me know by leaving a comment.

[P.S. Special thanks to Jennifer Leggio for helping me compile this list inspite of her tight schedule.]

12 People You Should Follow On Twitter

Today was pretty hectic for me, almost throughout the day I was doing Rn'D with my template to create a 3-colomn footer. Thankfully, my efforts never went in vain. With a few more tweaks I would be able to get my own 3-colomn footer with it's own CSS. Now in the past couple of days I developed a sort of obsession for Twitter. So I thought why not discuss a few things about Twitter and how it can be a good source of traffic for your site. So here is the first installment.

Twitter is a popular microblogging and social networking service that allows you to send an update, better known as a Tweet, which are text based posts within a limit of 140 characters. Although you can send URLs in your Tweets too. These updates are posted on your profile page and can be viewed by other users who have chosen to receive your updates, these users are called your Followers. Although you can restrict the delivery of these Tweets within a close circle of friends by changing the security settings. Your Followers can also receive these updates without logging into the Twitter site through different media. For example, they can receive these updates via RSS, SMS, emails, or through 3rd party applications such as Facebook, Tweterrific etc.

Twitter was founded by Biz Stone, Evan Williams and Jack Dorsey as a Rn'D project inside Odeo in March 2006. Odeo was a San Fransisco based podcasting company and was co-founded by Evan who is also known as Ev. Both Ev and Biz are regular Twitters and you can Follow them as well, just don't get disheartened when then don't reply to your messages directed towards them, they get thousands of those in a day.

I had already mentioned a very strange yet useful advantage of using Twitter in my earlier post. Now let's say you have created an account in Twitter and would like to Follow someone, who should it be. Well, of course you can Follow your own circle of friends and vice-versa but apart from then there are a few more people who I would suggest you to Follow as well. Remember, I am discussing Twitter as a mean to attract readers, not just for plain social networking.

The two people who are a must on this list are of course Ev and Biz, you would receive updates on Twitter downtime, new products and other related news along with their personal conversations. Then if you have a blog/site which publishes breaking news to it's readers, then following BNO News is a must. Very recently during the plane crash at the Hudson Bay river, the news of the crash was on Twitter even before the media was on the site! You can also follow CNN Breaking News for more updates on the same.

If you are into researching new hacks for Blogger then I would suggest you to follow Annie and Amanda. Although Amanda is not quite regular on Twitter, Annie is a very nice person and quite regular on Twitter. She would follow you on most cases, and you can ask her for help on Blogger related hacks. On most occasions she would reply back with a suggestion. Then you can follow Technorati and Blogger for their updates.

If you are interested in Google related products, then it would be a nice idea to follow Matt Cutt. More often than not, you would get an inside scoop of what's going on in Google. In case you are fascinated by technological advances which is not bound to Google, try following Robert Scoble. He would give you updates throughout the day which was simply invaluable. For more technology related news you can follow Pete Cashmore.

You can follow God on Twitter. Yes, there is an account called God, follow it and get hilarious updates from Him. And last but not the least, you can follow me for regular updates on various topics. Twitter has an interesting way of replying or addressing a person, you need to put an "@" sign and then their username. For example, if you would like to reply to me you need to begin your Tweet with @rajtilak and then your message, and if you want to say something like "This was a nice article, thanks to Rajtilak that I found it" you need to type it as "This was a nice article, thanks to @rajtilak that I found it". So if you wish to follow me do leave your username and a small description on what you do and why you want to follow me and I would try to add you on my Twitter network.

So enjoy your Twidventure, and in the next installment I would write about how to build more traffic using Twitter.