jatiN mahindrA doT coM

Twitter Changes the Update Button to “Tweet”

When Twitter users go to post a new tweet, they have in the past used a button that says "update" (at least from Twitter.com…that varies when you get into all the different apps Twitter users use). Now, that button says "Tweet". We’re not sure exactly when the change was made, but it appears to have been very recently, as there is quite an outpour of Tweets from users...

MySpace Launches New Games Site

MySpace launched a new gaming experience at myspace.com/games today. The company says it empowers developers with new tools, analytics, and opportunities for driving usage and revenue. "Gaming is core to the overall entertainment value of MySpace; we are replicating our success from MySpace Music for this next round of platform improvements," a representative for MySpace tells WebProNews....

The Rich Are No Different Than You & Me

Well, except for that money thing. They want the pretty much want what we all want from social networks: to connect with people they know and trust, spend some time unwinding, and share content.   The key difference is this: affluents don’t want to friend a brand on Facebook – they prefer to check out fan pages. [Then again, I feel the same way. Hmm. Maybe I qualify to be rich? I...

Facebook: “Promote your Post” Just a Test

Update: I finally got word back from Facebook, who confirmed that the feature is indeed only a test. "The "Promote" feature is just a test and is unrelated to our Promotions Guidelines," the company says. They  did not give any specifics about a possible full launch. Original Article: Facebook appears to either be rolling out or testing a feature that lets Facebook...

Email – the Silent E

A rather unlikely suspect has been making the rounds lately. And while you may have come to know this blog for covering the cutting edge communications and marketing tools, it may seem odd that this suspect is rather old school. That’s right. Good old email is making a comeback. But it shouldn’t be a total surprise – it’s not like I didn’t warn you. Every indicator I’ve...

What Happens to Twitter Ad Networks When Twitter Launches Ads?

Twitter is expected to launch an ad platform this month (some have speculated this will happen at SXSW). While this hasn’t been confirmed, the industry has been waiting for quite some time to Twitter to launch such a monetization model. That’s not to say the industry has been sitting on its hands as it’s waited. Third-parties have taken it upon themselves to offer services for Twitter,...

New Twitterers and Tweets Slow in February

Each month, we look at Twitter’s growth based on total tweets and new user registrations. This data is supplied by Matthew Daines, the lead developer for our own Twitter app Twellow. In February, the number of new registrations fell, compared to the previous month, and tweeting in general rose, but the growth in the amount of tweeting slowed. "New registrations are down for February by...

Google Makes Facebook Pages a Higher Priority for Businesses

Google announced via Twitter this week, that public status updates from Facebook are now included in the search engine’s real-time search feature. That means the largest social network in the world is getting play in Google’s real-time search alongside Twitter, MySpace, and others, and these real-time results are often featured prominently on the first page of search results for the hottest...

Twitter to Get More Useful in Time for Monetization?

Twitter engineer Alex Payne tweeted over the weekend, "If you had some of the nifty site features that we Twitter employees have, you might not want to use a desktop client. (You will soon.)" Some took that to mean that Twitter was working on some new features for its own site, that would essentially render some popular third-party clients all but obsolete. The question is whether this is...

Twellow Gets Twitter OAuth Support

Our Twellow team has been working hard on getting Twellow set up to use Twitter’s OAuth system, and that support is now available on Twellow.com. "The Twellow OAuth upgrade is a major improvement for Twellow users," Twellow’s Lead Developer Matthew Daines says. "Not only is it much more secure, but it also increases the amount of interaction users can have with the Twitter...

How Will Twitter Show Users Ads?

Twitter is testing an ad platform, which is expected to be released next month, possibly at the South By Southwest event in Austin. Though the timing of the release has not been confirmed, Twitter’s head of product management and monetization, Anamitra Banerji, told MediaPost that they "are working on an ad platform, but it’s only in the test phase." According to Banerji, when...

Google Writes the Buzz Handbook 5 Tips at a Time

Since the launch of Google Buzz, there has been a seemingly endless amount of chatter about the things that are wrong with it. Privacy concerns and other gripes have kind of taken center stage, even though Buzz usage was impressive pretty much right out of the box. Still, to truly get to mainstream usage, people are going to have to understand it (people finally seem to be getting there with Twitter),...

MySpace: Expect More Discovery Products

There has been a bit of discussion throughout the Blogosphere that MySpace is changing its direction, trying to differentiate itself from other social networks like Facebook. They reportedly have a new product strategy called "Discover and be Discovered", which would include a feature simply called "Discovery." Not many details are known about MySpace’s forthcoming new direction,...

What if Facebook Added a “Blog” Tab?

Facebook wants to keep users on Facebook. So far, they are doing a pretty good job of that. More and more people are spending more of their online time on Facebook, not to mention, spending more time connected to the web in general (at least partially due to rising use of smartphones). How much time do you spend on Facebook in a month? A week? Let us know. Facebook recently made it a point...

LinkedIn Can Be One of Your Most Valuable Traffic Sources

LinkedIn is often discussed as a powerful social networking tool, particularly for business professionals, employers, and jobseekers. What is not discussed as frequently is the site’s ability to simply drive traffic to your site. We talked to entrepreneur Lewis Howes (who claims that LinkedIn is one of the top traffic sources to his blogs) about how powerful LinkedIn can be for driving traffic....