Methodical Madness

Is Twitter biting the hand that feeds it?

 

We’ve been watching and writing about Twitter for over a year now and a recent Mashable article highlights some of the concerns we’ve seen with recent Twitter developments. Earlier this year, Twitter held its first developers conference, Chirp. It was there that the microblogging site announced its first app – an iPhone app called Tweetie. 

 

With this announcement, Twitter said loud and clear that they aren’t just going to sit back and let others dictate how their site is used. Overnight, Twitter killed a whole burgeoning development segment. Third party app developers went on alert and some were sent running scared. Venture capitalist took notice as well and funding for Twitter based apps dropped from $21.6 million between June 2008 and May 2009 to $10.4 million between June 2009 and May of this year. That’s a 50% drop in early-stage investment over the past year.

 

Twitter has seen rampant site growth and third party app development over it’s short life. If it wasn’t for the company allowing anyone and everyone to build on top of their system, they wouldn’t be the powerhouse site they are today. The microblogging site owes its success to the independent developers that created applications to make the user experience more rewarding. 

 

Twitter has added Android and BlackBerry apps to the smartphone mix, effectively cornering the market. Their iPad app has all but killed development in that area and the addition of the Tweet Button ousted Tweet Meme and other sites that do the same. So far, we haven’t seen Twitter purchasing additional apps, but we wouldn’t be surprised if they develop more location based systems a la Facebook and Foursquare, purchase an official url shorting system and photo sharing app, as well as better use of analytics and trending topics. All of these areas seem natural for Twitter expand into. 

 

With less focus from developers on Twitter apps, we could be coming to an end of the golden age of the site. If developers perceive the site as a direct challenger, the site will be left to develop their own apps and this will stagger innovation and creativity that has, to date, been one of the defining characteristics of Twitter. Could this be the beginning of the end of Twitter’s market dominance or is this just a bump in the road we try to figure out Twitter’s next move?

 

Google one step closer to communication dominance

With Google Voice, the web giant crams most of your communication needs into one browser

Given their recent track record with the likes of Google Wave and Google Buzz basically tanking from the word go, it’s difficult not to feel skeptical when Google releases a new “revolutionary” product. But where Buzz and Wave failed, Voice has every chance to succeed. The former services were entirely new communications platforms. Their use wasn’t communicated clearly and as such people didn’t know why they should bother putting the effort into incorporating yet another networking tool into their lives. Voice is back to basics, offering a service everyone understands and needs.

But why should you rethink your calling habits? Web services like Skype and of course mobile phones work pretty well for you already. Well, there are some pretty nifty advantages to making calls from your browser. Advatages like:

• having one universal phone number
• being able to call all of a contact’s phones at once
• listening to voicemail as a caller leaves a message
• transcribed voice messages that appear automatically in your Gmail account
• text messages that go to both phone and email
• send texts for free online via Gmail
• mobile app lets you call and text for free
• low international calling rates.

It’s the coming together of all our major communication needs in one toolbox that makes the launch of Google Voice especially intriguing. If Voice takes off, Google will add calling to the list of successful communication platforms that cover email, video and photo sharing and chat. All of which are browser based, making them easier to access from anywhere than app-based platforms that need to be downloaded and installed. With the advent of HTML5 and the ever increasing array of functionality of web browsers, the future might be a lot less app-centric than we think. 

The major mountain left to climb for the search giant is social networks. Google has tried to break into the space with the aforementioned Wave and Buzz, but have fallen flat on their face so far (GoogleMe may or may not change that). But Voice could at least put them at the top of the heap in non-social network communication.

What do you think: is Google Voice going to change the way you call, or is it another miss from Google’s throw everything against the wall and see what sticks strategy?

Jason Ross is a copywriter for The Duffy Agency. He loves working on both traditional and social media projects and speculating on the future of the ad industry.

 

 

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5 ways businesses can use Facebook Places

Location based services just hit the mainstream. Here’s how you can capitalize on it.

Foursquare was doing very well for itself. It was marching along at the head of the location based services (LBS) trend with almost three million users having fun by “checking in” to restaurants, stores and other places via their mobile phones. Yesterday, a bombshell dropped on the LBS movement as Facebook gave its 500 million users a similar service. Foursquare may live on, but it’s suddenly dropped into a distant second after being the long time leader.

If its users take to it, Facebook Places will vault LBS into the mainstream. As marketers, we couldn’t be happier because this unleashes a new array of creative possibilities for brands to get in touch with fans and have fun doing it. Here are 5 ways you can use Places to get your audience involved. Bear in mind that some of these depend on future developments of Places and just how open Facebook are with its information. Knowing Facebook, it’ll be pretty open.

Reward users for check-ins and loyalty
Foursquare’s major advantage over Places is its reward system where users get badges, points and “mayorships” for their checkins. But there’s nothing stopping you from creating your own rewards for users who checkin to your location, which isn’t that difficult to track as each Place has its own page. This can also be real world rewards where users take their phones to locations like shops and restaurants and show their Facebook stats to get free stuff. This is a big draw as it essentially turns day-to-day life into a game where ordinary tasks become accomplishments.

Reach out through your Place Page
Speaking of each Place having its own page, you can go into Facebook and claim your business’s location as your own by uploading proof in the form of a business license or the such. You can then send messages to the people who “like” the page with updates, offers and contests. You can get users to talk to each other about their experiences and provide reviews. If they’re positive, they can be extremely effective.

Networking
When you go to conferences and events you can checkin and see who else is attending. You can then check out their profiles and decide which ones are worth reaching out to. You can also keep an eye on what competitors are up to by seeing what events they attend. 

Create checkin based apps
Facebook has opened up the Places API, which means you can create apps that use the checkin data gathered from Places. This has the potential to bring together and reward people at events by checking in through the app. You can also create location based games or contests like scavenger hunts that send people around cities to find specific locations and complete tasks. An app could also come with auto-notifications that send a message when a user nears a specific location. There are loads of possibilities with this one.

Create a friend for fans to hang out with
I’m not sure this feature will be around forever as it has loads of potential for blowback, but why not have fun with it while it lasts? You can tag friends when you check into a place, and said friend may or may not actually be with you. Creating a humorous brand profile that people can check into locations with could be a fun way to get people to interact with you to earn rewards and status, while giving you greater exposure as your profile shows up in news feeds.

Those were a few of our initial ideas. Any lightbulbs going off over your head? Let us know. Here are some more thoughts on the future of location based advertising through Facebook from eMarketer.

Jason Ross is a copywriter for The Duffy Agency. He loves working on both traditional and social media projects and speculating on the future of the ad industry.

 

 

 

 

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Twitter “Who To Follow”: Great idea or total mistake

If you’re like me, you use Twitter every day but never go actually go to the Twitter site. In the past week, Twitter has upgraded a feature on their site. On the right side bar, Twitter has now added a feature called “Who to Follow.” It works two ways. If you’re very active, it’s able to show more people that share the same interest as you. If you aren’t very active, it shows you the most popular people on Twitter.

Reactions from the web have mixed. Over on Tweetsmarter.com, Aman Sharma voices his dislike, “I loathe the ‘who to follow feature’”, while just below him Tim Baran says, “I’ve been known to criticize Twitter but I like the new feature...I even find it useful.” The cooking blog, Kitchen Mage, posted a step-by-step guide to blocking the feature. It’s proved to be very popular.

While I can understand why people are reticent to use the new feature. Twitter has added a feature that it believes will create a better user experience without seeming to understand what its users want. The site has had this feature for a while. It’s been under the “Find People” tab, where it still resides. Why does bringing this feature front and center on a profile feel so intrusive? We didn’t mind it being there before. It’s like going to a high school dance where the chaperones force everyone to dance wether they want to or not. Now that it’s a constant reminder on our profiles that Twitter is shoving people in our face, it takes away the organic nature of growth that people have grown to love . 

Reaching out to new people and finding new people to connect to is one of the most important things to do on Twitter. Networking is one of the fundamental uses of Twitter. There are scores of websites that help you with finding new people. Individuals have registered with these sites and identified themselves under different categories. The difference between that and Twitter’s suggestion is Twitter doesn’t know me. Most people don’t identify all of their interest in their profile. Twitter is doing a random guess of people to recommend.  It suggests people that they think I would be interested in. 

There are several features people would like to see added to Twitter such as tweet search, editing published tweets, finding your Facebook friends to follow, link shortening and translation of foreign language tweets.  Of course there is every present request for Twitter to be stable enough to handle traffic surges and reliable use of their API. If Twitter would address some of these issues, maybe people would migrate back to the site over third party apps.

Really Twitter, why do you think I would care about Justin Bieber? 

Stefan Halley is the Digital Project Leader for The Duffy Agency. He loves to talk about social media.

Google Wave may come back with Google Me

It should come as no surprise that Google Wave is being shuttered by the end of the year. It’s another in a long line of failed efforts from the search giant. Sure, Wave was pretty much set up to fail as Google didn’t clearly explain how it should be used and made early adoption difficult as people clamored to get an invite.  Buzz was a victim of Google’s model of throwing things against the wall and seeing what sticks. Wave was doomed from the beginning and follows long line of failed projects such as Jaiku, Dodgeball, Google Video and Lively. 

According to Google:“But despite these wins, and numerous loyal fans, Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked. We don’t plan to continue developing Wave as a standalone product, but we will maintain the site at least through the end of the year and extend the technology for use in other Google projects. The central parts of the code, as well as the protocols that have driven many of Wave’s innovations, like drag-and-drop and character-by-character live typing, are already available as open source, so customers and partners can continue the innovation we began. In addition, we will work on tools so that users can easily “liberate” their content from Wave.”

From Google’s statements, it appears they never intended to support Wave long term. Instead they wanted to work out the kinks so it can be used in another manner. Wave is revolutionary in that it gives you the ability to share photos, videos and comment on them in real time. Could Wave return as built in feature of the Google OS or their Facebook challenger, Google Me? 

Google’s other big project, the supposed Twitter killer Buzz, launched to great fanfare and criticism earlier this year.  Unlike Wave, where you had to get an invite to use it, by having a Google account, you already had an active account. Most people, including myself, weren’t happy with this new feature openly sharing content without the users permission.  Since it’s launch adoption has been slow and it’s impact isn’t as strong as Twitter, Digg or Reddit. Because Buzz hasn’t seen the hype and promotion that Wave had, it makes you question Google’s commitment to the project and if we’ll the axe fall on it next year.

The question now becomes, what does this mean for Google Me. If they stick true to form, Google Me will launch out of Gmail. This means that everyone that has a Gmail account will see it magically transformed into a Google Me profile. Rumors are flying about what features will be a part of the site. I would expect Wave to be a big part of that along with a retooled version of Dodgeball, Jaiku, and Buzz. 

Whatever comes out, expect it have to full support of Google. They want to cripple Facebook and only a major push can have any hope of putting a dent in Facebook's 500 million users. Working in Google's favor is Facebook fatigue. Users of the world's largest social network are starting to look for new sites to join and Google Me could be in the perfect position to exploit that need. While Google has been tight lipped about the Me project, expect details to start trickling out soon. 

Stefan Halley is the Digital Project Leader for The Duffy Agency. He loves to talk about social media.

5 rules for creating a successful Twitter campaign

Like any media, social media takes planning and commitment. Unlike other mediums, social media requires a level of understanding and commitment not necessary for traditional media like TV and print.  Before tweeting for your brand, campaign or recognition, it’s important to understand the medium. Sure anyone can open a Twitter account but to run a successful Twitter account there are many steps. We’ve boiled it down to five, but each of these could be their own blog post (in some cases, they already have been their own blog post). 

1. Research - This is often overlooked but it can make the difference between a successful Twitter campaign and a failed one. Before launching a Twitter campaign you should know who are the thought leaders, what are the keywords associated with your campaign and which Twitter profiles are the most active in your area.

2. Develop Content - When developing your message for your Twitter profile as yourself the following questions. What are you going to say? What do you want people to know when they view your Twitter stream? What kind of people do I want to attract? 

3. Build Your Profile -  If you want people to take your seriously on Twitter, make sure you fill out your profile as detailed as you can make it. This will be important for SEO purposes as well as attracting the right kind of followers. Here is a handy guide to help you create a Twitter profile that screams “Follow Me!”

4. Follow Others - Starting out, if you aren’t following anyone odds are no one is following you. Start with following the thought leaders and anyone already using hashtags or are tweeting about your field. There are several tools currently existing that will help you locate the people you need and want to follow.

5. Engage - This is the most difficult part. Anyone can broadcast their message through Twitter. The Gods of Twitter are the brands and people that engage their followers. You’ll be able to establish authority and spread your content even further once people feel that you aren’t only broadcasting your message but are also talking back to people that respond to what you are Tweeting.

Successful Tweeting is more of an art than a science, but with an understanding you’ll go from painting with your fingers to masterworks in no time.

Stefan Halley is the Digital Project Leader for The Duffy Agency. He loves to talk about social media.

Twitter brings the San Diego Comic Con to the masses

We love Twitter at events. We’ve covered how Twitter was used at SXSW and created a simple guide on how to use Twitter at your next event.  The past weekend saw the Super Bowl of pop culture and entertainment at the San Diego Comic Con. The 4-day event saw over 126,000 people and once again, Twitter was in the forefront leading communications. For those attending and those playing at home, the constant stream of information not only let people know what the latest scoops were but also where to meet your favorite celebrities, where to get the best swag and which parties to attend. 

For those that haven’t attended or seen photos from the San Diego Comic Con, it’s a blend of movie, TV and comic book stars (yes there are comic book stars) converging on one place for four days. It’s not uncommon to see a celebrity stopping to talk to a Klingon or a gaggle of slave girl Princess Leias. Hollywood trots out their big budget films in an effort to gage fan reactions and stoke the fires of Internet hype. Twitter provides instant feed back to the studios and hopefully they are paying attention to what's being said.

Cosplay women and men broke Twitter from time to time when photos of people in their hottest superhero outfits swarmed the site. As news of Green Latern, Thor, Captain America, The Avengers and The Walking Dead leaked out from the event, rumor spread like wild fire across Twitter with fans clamoring to be the first to report the news. And when a reported stabbing occurred, of course it was blown out of proportion in the way that only Twitter knows how to do. (It turned out to be a minor squabble over a seat. Hell hath no furry as a nerd scorned.) 

Check out what you missed this year with tweets from celebrates as well as us common folk.

 @NathanFillion Goodbye Comicon. You are the summer girl I met at the lake. We made out, then I had to go home. I hear Boys of Summer and see a montage.

-Nathan Fillion, Actor ("Serenity," "Firefly")

@BRIANMBENDIS best convention present was from a film projectionist who cut out a piece of film from Ironman 2 that had my credit on it and gave it to me
-Brian Michael Bendis, Writer ("New Avengers," "Ultimate Spider-Man")

@ronmarz No, I don't know anything about the Marvel-CrossGen stuff. It was news to me. But I'm glad to see the material make a comeback.
-Ron Marz, Writer ("Green Lantern," "Witchblade")

@jpalmiotti This San Diego did not feel like a comic book convention...this year more than most. The census of most everyone I spoke to
-Jimmy Palmiotti, Writer ("Jonah Hex," "Painkiller Jane")

@TheRealStanLee Oops! My bad! It seems NEXT week I'm guesting on "Entourage." I just had a 1 1-sec shot in the trailer at the end.tonite\
-Stan Lee, Writer ("The Amazing Spider-Man," "The Fantastic Four")

djlarew Of course there are strollers everywhere at Comic Con! How else would an 8-month-old infant find those rare Dr. Who action figures? #sdcc

facepunchlife I was blinded at ComicCon and all I got was this stupid eyepatch #SDCC #NerdOnNerdCrime

MrDonaldGlover Someone getting stabbed in the eye at SDCC. Not funny. The guy dressed as wolverine screaming like a girl next to him…a little funny.

PipsBadIdeas If the World Cup broke twitter then Comic-Con broke tumblr. Curse you sexy cosplay women, curse you! #sdcc

therealcliffyb Just saw someone run up to a Princess Peach cosplayer saying “OMG Fat Princess is my favorite game!” #facepalm #cosplayfail #sdcc

FaustestSobeck These enormous free bags offer ample room to store self respect and virginity. #sdcchttp://twitpic.com/2802cr

pattonoswalt Having a window seat at a restaurant during #SDCC is like dinner with a puppet show directed by Diane Arbus.

-Patton Oswalt, Actor/comedian ("Weeds," "The King of Queens")

NathanFillion Slave Leia debauchery at G4 party #sdcc http://tweetphoto.com/34327714 /via @cyborgturkey— Geekgasm. Just now.

MichaelAusiello In advance of our chat in AM, SPARTACUS’ Lucy Lawless is texting me pics of herself modeling merkins. This interview could get hairy. #SDCC

gizmogladstone cute trekkie girls talking to gaming nerds? I’m calling it — #SDCC is a dorky Brigadoon.

hawaii United announcer at the airport: “For baggage claim three, note oversized items, surfboards, car seats, lightsabers…” Yep, it’s #SDCC.

wilw OH: “What’s a Cylon?” (someone is in the wrong place) #sdcc

ophanim People dressed like Ghostbusters DO smell like they’ve been hosing down the dead. #sdcc

jesusreyes The problem with all the #SDCC webcams is you can’t experience the Exclusive Comic-con scent of BO and funions.

Justin_Stangel San Diego Comic-Con: How many Stormtroopers helemts do you think are in the lost and found right now? #SDCC

DeathStarPR If you’re attending #SDCC & happen to see @darthvader go up to him and yell “Go, go Gadget legs!” He loves that joke. & force choking nerds.

a1topnotch Hall H #sdcc is like riding coach class for 8 hours but with movie stars and previews..

mattfraction I smell cigarettes and pepper spray… @warrenellis must be here #SDCC

clearasmud Will Ferrell is dressed as Megamind! Lol “I thought we were all going to dress up. I kinda feel like a turd up here.” #sdcc

pattonoswalt Just spotted a Superman who’s not donut-proof. #SDCC

benschubert Okay, #sdcc has been going on for a day now. Where are the hot chicks in cosplay galleries?!? You fail me internets.

Melilli Chef Vader serves up Jar Jar, John the Baptist style: http://twitpic.com/27lxiq #SDCC

augiedb #SDCC is a world of promises and announcements, followed up with a year of bitter disappointments and failures.

Stefan Halley is the Digital Project Leader for The Duffy Agency. He loves to talk about social media.

How to attract thousands of visitors through StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon may just be the traffic goldmine you’ve been looking for

StumbleUpon has a reputation as an idle time waster, and as such is often overlooked as part of a serious strategy to promote web content. But in reality it’s a widely used tool for people to find new, highly targeted content tailored to their interests. In fact, almost 10 million people have jumped on board this discovery tool, recommending over 5.4 billion pages in the last year alone.

When we noticed StumbleUpon was sending us a lot of visitors, we decided to look deeper into how it works and how to enhance traffic from the service. With minimal effort, you can get hundreds, or many more, new visitors. Here is a quick guide on how to get your content to go viral among the stumblers of the world and give your numbers a swift kick in the pants.

How it works
Installing the toolbar puts a “Stumble!” button in your browser. You select the topics you are interested in – say Arts, Marketing and Roleplaying – and when you hit Stumble you are sent to a webpage about one of those topics that other people have recommended. Pages are only registered when a user specifically recommends it. While you’re stumbling along, you also have a thumbs up/down button to pass judgement on the page (if you click thumbs up on an unregistered page, it will open a form for you to submit that page to the database). A page with a lot of thumbs ups will have more people sent to it, and vise versa. 

May the best man win
Creating brilliant content is key in all social media, but it’s especially vital with StumbleUpon. If Stumblers aren’t giving you a thumbs up, the service will stop sending people to your site. Put extra effort into creating intriguing headlines and striking visuals as it is in the nature of Stumblers to quickly click away from a page if they don’t think there’s anything of interest. You’ve only got a few seconds to hook them, so make them count.

Be selective with what you submit
Certain kinds of content do well on StumbleUpon. It’s a long haul traffic source, so timeless content is more likely to do well than breaking news. Since visitors by and large don’t know you, the page also needs to work as stand alone content and not require delving deeper into your site. Great big no-no’s include pages that have long load times, protected content that requires a sign up, layouts laden with ads and any page with pop-ups - all of those will send people clicking away immediately.

Advocate stumbling
Put a “Submit” button on your website or blog so people can recommend it with one click, even if they didn’t arrive via StumbleUpon. As many don’t know about the service, it’s also not a bad idea to write a post or article educating people about StumbleUpon and why they should use it.

Cheaters never prosper
If you’re thinking you’ll just register and recommend all your pages yourself, StumbleUpon is way ahead of you. Submitting loads of pages from one site will get your account blacklisted (and they won’t even tell you, it’ll just stop working). The only way to effectively submit your own content is to use StumbleUpon genuinely and often, and be very selective about which of your own pages you submit. Also note that if you have avid fans that recommend all of your pages, the value of each thumbs up will quickly diminish, eventually reaching zero. In short, your recommendations need to be from a wide array of active stumblers.

Or just take the shortcut: pay for stumblers
If you’re strapped for time and want an overnight traffic boost, you can join StumbleUpon’s ad program. You first specify your target audience by category, demographics and geography and StumbleUpon will recommend your content to relevant individuals when they click the Stumble button. But it’s still on you to impress them - the more people that recommend your page, the more traffic you’ll get.

StumbleUpon is one of the most genuine recommender communities where each person can shape the content. If you think you've got the content to get loads of thumbs up, dive in and start stumbling your way up the charts.

Jason Ross is a copywriter for The Duffy Agency. He loves working on both traditional and social media projects and speculating on the future of the ad industry.

Foursquare: Changing the way marketing works

There has never been a better time for marketers to directly influence a buyer’s decision. Through mobile apps, businesses can build brand loyalty and add value to the user experience. Smart marketers are now adding simple location-based services to their toolbox.

Location-based apps are the hottest thing going right now. Leading the pack is Foursquare. Foursquare isn’t the first location-based app on the market, nor is it the biggest, but what it does have going for it is that it’s the current media darling. The star of this year’s SXSW, this app is proving it’s not just for letting people know where you like to eat and shop.

The system is simple: you check-in to a location, earn badges for multiple check-ins and score points which, in some instances, can lead to real-world rewards from retailers. Local restaurants and bars have started offering free drinks, appetizers and discounts to the person that checked in the most to their establishment. Now you’re seeing the likes of Bravo, Virgin Airlines and Harvard University taking advantage of app to further reward customers. We searched the web to find examples of companies using this simple app in ingenious ways and found four great examples. 

Harvard University has teamed up with Foursquare to create a campus-based game that rewards students who check in to locations with badges and helpful bits of information. The idea is to encourage students to connect with others and explore more of the campus. It’s a brilliant way for freshmen to learn about the university and connect with more people.

During New York Fashion Week, fashion designer Marc Jacobs created a “Fashion Victim” badge. It allowed customers during the week to check-in at any Marc Jacobs store to unlock the badge. Four people who unlocked the badge in New York received passes to attend the Marc Jacobs fashion show. 

Shoe phenom Jimmy Choo has established a treasure hunt around London using Foursquare. A pair of Jimmy Choo trainers check-in at a location somewhere in the city and whomever checks-in and says, “I’ve been following you” to the pair of trainers before they leave the location will win a pair of Jimmy Choo training shoes. People can track the trainers through their Foursquare user page and their Twitter profile.

Desperate to stay relevant, The Wall Street Journal has created special badges that provide interesting facts about New York City and reviews of local business and movies. It’s always great when a print giant like the WSJ embraces new media instead of fighting it like so many other print outlets. 

Hopefully you now feel inspired to craft a location-based campaign of your own. Feel free to share any bright ideas.

Stefan Halley is the Digital Project Leader for The Duffy Agency. He loves to talk about social media.

Twitter Places launches tweeple into the location based web

The lowdown on Twitter’s new geolocation service and what it can do for you

Long whispered about, Twitter has unveiled its entry into location based services: Twitter Places. In this new geolocation foray, you will be able to tag tweets with the location you happen to be in (much like check-ins on Foursquare and Gowalla) thus creating a Twitter Place. Users can click on said Place and see all the other recent tweets from that location in one stream. 

It's like Birdemic all over again

Places is a great addition to Twitter’s functionality, and was an inevitability given the skyrocketing popularity of location based services. And rightly so, they create lots of fun, useful applications. Here are five new possibilities Places has created for Twitter:

1. Follow events in real time from anywhere
Say you’re trying to follow the latest news from some major event, like a conference, festival or the World Cup. What you really want is to get updates from people on the ground, not the worldwide chatter flooding hashtags and search words. Twitter Places will make listening only to the people at the event possible for the first time by following a stream of tweets from only that location, whether it be a stadium, conference hall or street corner. This also adds a new level of engagement for anyone organizing events, as they can promote both remote and on location interaction through Places.

2. Reward programs for “check-ins”
This was already happening with the likes of Foursquare and Gowalla (which are integrated with Places), but now it’s possible through Twitter itself – the much more popular and market saturated mobile service. This means a company or organization can incentivize Twitter users to visit and tweet from their Twitter Place by rewarding them just for participating, or get creative with scavenger hunts and competitions. 

3. Get recommendations on the spot
Having trouble deciding what to order off the menu at a new restaurant? Or what shoes to buy at the mall? Or whether you should get a 6 shot iced venti with 2/3 half-caf and 2 1/2 pump sugar-free cinnamon dolce, or a 13 shot venti soy hazelnut vanilla cinnamon white mocha with extra white mocha and caramel? Check out what other visitors to your location have had to say and you might find some golden advice.

4. Twitter apps move into the geolocation dimension
Third party apps have always been a fundamental part of Twitter and its success, so you can expect a wave of new apps utilizing Places in creative ways. This makes the timing of Places’ release interesting from a business standpoint, as Twitter announced just a few weeks ago that they will start taking a cut of the profits from 3rd parties. So if you’re a company looking to cash in on Twitter’s new API, Twitter might come knocking, wanting to cash in on your profits.

5. A new level of gauging user sentiment
Analyzing Twitter has been unearthing some brilliant insights into people’s attitudes and behavior. Places should allow for even more specific and refined research, which is good news for online savvy businesses, as well as consumers who have yet another way to talk back to companies and give them their two cents. 

Those were just some of my initial thoughts. I’d love to hear any ideas you have for using Twitter Places, leave a comment if you have any epiphanies. 

Jason Ross is a copywriter for The Duffy Agency. He loves working on both traditional and social media projects and speculating on the future of the ad industry.