Very interesting: Google’s Search Results Get More Social; Twitter As The New Facebook “Like”

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Feb 17, 2011 at 10:00am ET by Matt McGee

Excerpt:

"Your friends’ activity on Twitter, Flickr and elsewhere — but for now, not Facebook — will soon be a lot more visible in Google’s search results, including having an impact on how pages rank. Google has announced an expansion of its Google Social Search results that’s beginning to roll out today on Google.com. Here’s a look at what’s new:

Social Search Blended Into “Regular” Results
Prior to today’s announcement, Social Search results — which Google introduced in October 2009 — only appeared at the bottom of a search results page or after clicking the “Social” filter in the left-side column. Now, you might see them mixed anywhere in the search results..."

BIG LIKE: Twitter Opens Up More of Its Data - MIT Technology Review

Researchers and companies who want to track the conversations going on online are intensely interested in data from Twitter. It's been hard to get deep access to that information, however. Onstage today at Defrag, a Web conference in Denver, Colorado, Twitter announced that it's formed a partnership to make more of its data available for analysis.

Ryan Sarver, a member of Twitter's platform team, said that the move is aimed at helping people who are analyzing huge bodies of Twitter posts in order to perform sentiment analysis, identify trends, and other sorts of data-intensive tasks. "We haven't been able to serve that market well in the past," Sarver said.

Twitter already let people pick up portions of its data for free through several partial feeds, such as the Spritzer, which skims a portion of the posts moving through Twitter at any given moment and passes them on. Before today's announcement, however, those wanting more had to make deals with Twitter to get more data. Google and Bing, for example, made special agreements to incorporate real-time feeds from Twitter on its search results page.

That data hasn't been readily available for several reasons. First, it's valuable and makes up some portion of Twitter's business model. Second, Twitter already struggles with overload and wouldn't be able to handle constant requests for its full feed.

Twitter will open up more of its data through a partnership with Gnip, a social data company based in Boulder, Colorado. Gnip will help Twitter distribute the information, minimizing the stress that this places on Twitter's resources. Twitter is also granting Gnip a license to sell the data.

Gnip is starting out by offering three new feeds: the Twitter halfhose, which gives 50 percent of the full Twitter firehose, the Twitter Decahose, which is 10 percent of the full Twitter stream, and the Mentionhose, which is a full real-time stream of all tweets mentioning a user, including replies and retweets.

"We will provide more transparent, consistent access to Twitter data than has ever been available before," said Gnip CEO Jud Valeski. He says that all of these new offerings give much more data than was previously available to most people. He expects the Mentionhose to be particularly interesting to companies tracking trends, looking for influential people on Twitter, and monitoring engagement with a product.

Valeski said, "There is insatiable demand for lots of data to understand how conversations online are taking place and transpiring."

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Are Pictures on Twitter Public Domain? - AllTwitter - #DIY10

An interesting debate has sprung up as a result of a lawsuit over ownership rights of photos posted to Twitter. The lawsuit between a large press organization and a photojournalist boils down to one simple question: do you own the content you publish on Twitter?

As reported on PaidContent, Agence France-Presse (AFP) is suing photojournalist Daniel Morel against his claims that they stole photos that he had taken and posted to Twitter.

Morel asserts that the AFP took his photos without his permission – while the AFP maintains they’re free for the taking because of where they were published.

The details of this litigation really point to a sticky situation when it comes to copyright online.

The photos in question were taken by Morel during the earthquake in Haiti back in January. Morel had uploaded the photos to TwitPic, and advertised that they were for sale on Twitter, linking back to the pictures.

These actions are nothing new, and are an attractive, low-cost way to advertise products and services as a photojournalist.

However, the photos ended up being published by AFP and a number of other news organizations – including Getty Images, ABC, CBS and CNN, all of which are also named in Morel’s suit – without Morel receiving any compensation.

AFP’s response to the allegations that they stole his content was a counter-suit. It claims that Twitter’s terms of use clearly state that third parties have a right to the broad re-use of content posted on Twitter.

However, within the “Your Rights” section of Twitter’s Terms of Service is the following statement:

“This license is you authorizing us to make your Tweets available to the rest of the world and to let others do the same. But what’s yours is yours – you own your content.”

This would appear to deflate AFP’s claims and bolster Morel’s, as the photojournalist should own his own content if bound by these terms as all Twitter users are.

This lawsuit is one to watch if you’re a publisher of any type on Twitter. Ownership is a big deal online, and you deserve to know your rights when you post images, video or content that you created.

All kinds of usefulness: 11 Twitter & Social Media Tools To Try In 2011 | From Social Media Today by Adam Vincenzini

It's hard to keep up with all the tools available to help maximise Twitter and other social media platforms.

But, over the last few months I've been testing some of the new ones I've stumbled across, getting a feel for the ones that have the potential to be the most useful.

Here are the ones I'll probably use more over the next 12 months and perhaps you might give 'em a whirl too...

Note: Most of these tools are free to use or have adopted the 'freemium' model.

11 Twitter & Social Media Tools To Try In 2011

1. Twoolr - complete Twitter statistics

If you are familiar with TweetStats.com you'll think that this is quite similar, but Twoolr provides some additional metrics and insights that TweetStats doesn't.

Twoolr will tell you how your account is being used, when you are most active, what you are tweeting about and which links you are sharing most frequently.

Best bit

The network tab tells you who you are communicating with the most and in what context i.e. @ replies, RT's and #FF's

Invites

I have ten invites to Twoolr in BETA available if you'd like to give it a go.

2. MentionMap - conversation visualisation tool

I think PR people will really like this one.

MentionMap provides a 'live' analysis of what a particular person is talking about on Twitter and who they are talking to.

When you take a look at a blogger or journalist's MentionMap you can get a really clear idea of what they have been tweeting about of late.

Best bit

It's physical output allows you to get a feel for that person at a glance as opposed to trawling through a bunch of bland raw data.

3. The Archivist - tweet library and analysis

The Archivist does what is says, but also provides some really useful insights and data visualisations around the Twitter activity for a specific subject / search term.

Hashtag analysis is really handy with this tool, especially if you want to keep a running tab on how many mentions it is getting over a period of time.

You can also download all the data in an excel file and use as you wish.

Best bit

The data dashboard is really handy, giving you information like the most used associated words and weekly frequency mapping.

4. Qwerly - people search for the social web

This was launched recently and has been billed as the best people searching tool yet if you want to get a feel of someone's social media presence.

It is also handy as a reference guide for your own contacts, listing the contact details you have for everyone you are following and the networks they are using.

Best bit

The most popular users is pretty cool, showing who has been searched for the most.

5. Hash Tracking - hashtag tracking and analytics

What I immediately liked about this tool is the quantifiable value it represents.

While most Twitter tools profiled here are free (or adopt a freemium model), this one is priced in a way that makes it an easy sell internally if you did need to obtain deeper results.

You can try Hash Tracking out now but you'll have to wait a bit until the paid options go live.

Best bit

I assume the best bit will be the reporting, especially as it can feature 100,000 tweets associated with the hashtag in question.

6. TLists - Twitter List search engine

This allows you to search public twitter lists by keyword / topic, bringing up the most relevant results.

The associated stats TLists provide are great, giving you an idea for how frequent each list pushes tweets outs and what sub-topics they mention.

Best bit

It is really simple to use.

7. TouchGraph - visualise the connections between related websites

This will give you a picture of the sites connected to you, your brand and your website giving you a visual representation of what a google search for that term might look like.

This is useful if you want to get a picture of where else you are being mentioned outside your 'owned' web properties.

Best bit

The Facebook specific search option does the same job for you and your friends and who has the most photos toegther which is pretty nifty.

8. FeedLooks - Google reader on steroids

It is always hard to imagine anyone out-googling google, and while I don't think this will get anywhere near achieving this, FeedLooks functionality will probably be borrowed by google at some point.

The interface is clean, items are sorted into 'old' and 'new' as opposed to 'read' and 'unread' and Twitter feeds can be integrated into the dashboard too.

Best bit

A rating next to each post gives an indication of its popularity / hotness, helping you browse and identify content more efficiently.

9. Address Book One - bringing all your contact together

The amount of ways you can communicate with your contacts only gets bigger and bigger, and consequently more difficult to manage.

This tool is worth a look if you want to centrally manage all of your contacts across all the platforms they are involved in.

It will import address books from Facebook, LinkedIn etc and arrange them on a snazzy dashboard.

Best bit


I've only just started using this one, but the search option seems especially useful if you need to track down someone's contact detail

10. StatPlanet - the infographic creator's best friend

Want to create maps and graphs? Then this is well worth a look.

The best explanation of how this works is via the demo video and these example here also help tell the story more.

Best bit

The interactive graphs breath life into what would normally be quite static slides.

11. Citrify - web-based photo editing

This is a great tool for bloggers who need to adjust images for posts.

It is also incredibly simple to use and comes without the hefty price associated with Photoshop.

Best bit

The wrinkle removal feature is a god send!

Have you spotted any other tools that you think might be handy in 2011?

If so, I'd love to hear from you.

Adam

COMMScorner.com is the blog from Adam Vincenzini which focuses on social media and PR. Connect with Adam on Twitter or subscribe to his blog