As the battle to grab Tweets for news reporting continues to heat up Twitter on Tuesday officially launched Twitter for Newsrooms, a resource for media company’s that attempts to explain exactly how to best utilize 140-character tidbits of information.

Twitter created the newsroom with four section in mind: #Report, #Engage, #Publish and #Extra.

The first option #Report provides information to media users so they can better understand how to find sources on the microblogging service, including “best practice uses” for mobile device searching.

The second option, #Engage is a simple glossary of key terms along with an “effective tweeting” guide and tips for optimizing Twitter profiles to make them more engaging and easier to find by other media agencies and Twitter users.

The third section called #Publish is meant to attach actions to readers, while providing specific guidelines such as how to show tweets, user names and hashtags during on-air presentations, this section is similar to creating an AP Styleguide for Twitter information presentation.

Finally the #Extra section offers Twitter support forms, ecosystem partners and any other information Twitter has deemed important for media organizations.

Speaking about their new platform Twitter wrote: read more

Ensogo. Great for bargain hunters, but how about merchants?

I’ve been receiving pretty good offers from Ensogo over the past few weeks now and I am surprised by the amazingly low prices they have.  Almost every single thing is marked down or discounted by at least 50 percent and the quality of the stuff they are offering  seems pretty good.

Ensogo, like Groupon, is a social buying site and was recently acquired by LivingSocial, one of the major Groupon competitors.

In their e-mail to me today, two things interested me immediately: an offer for a Php600 (about US $ 15.00) Berting’s Grill gift certificate discounted at P300 (about US $ 7.50) and a 3-day, 2-night stay at the Boracay Terraces Hotel going for P7,700 (about US $180) when it would normally cost twice that much.

And, having just opened up a bank account that links up with PayPal (but you can also pay via ATM Peso Pay or bank transfer), I might just buy that gift certificate from Berting’s Grill and use it to buy several orders of their fabulous barbecued chicken ass and liempo or pork ribs.  As for Boracay Terraces Hotel, well, it’s something that I really got to discuss with my wife first — but it looks like a pretty good buy.

All in all, it’s almost a revolutionary site for bargain hunters like me but it may not be all that amazing for merchants who get into social buying sites expecting “magic” to happen.  A long time acquaintance who sells organic food online clued me in on a couple of caveats and cited a couple of reasons why he isn’t a fan of Ensogo — at least, not yet. read more

Zynga may have cornered the market on selling corn, lima beans and other farm based produce but there’s one crop you won’t find on Farmville, marijuana and now Ecko|Code is planning to change that fact.

A new game, titled Weeds Social Club launched on Monday in “closed beta” and the game allows users to build a weed growing and selling empire.

The game is based on the hit Showtime TV series Weeds and plans to fully launch in August 2011.

The premise is simple, cultivate and grow enough marijuana to save your home from foreclosure, a premise fans of the Showtime show will understand the moment they begin playing. The game shows players how to grow marijuana, while a time time clock will show growing cycles and selling responsibilities for the players virtual pot.

Along the way players must avoid police, ensure that organized crime agencies don’t end their run, even pay taxes among other responsibilities to showcase a “legitimate” organization to authorities. read more

Clickjackers tend to find the easiest target and expose it in the name of pageviews and clicks for their scams and this week they have taken to Facebook using Ryan Dunn as their motive. Dunn died this week when he sped off the road in his Porsche at 140MPH while under the influence of alcohol.

The scam artists are using various means to gain clicks from curious Dunn fans, asking users to take surveys to view videos and access other information, the most prevalent clickjacking scheme is a request to view a video of Ryan Dunn’s very last words which requires users to verify their age or other personal information.

Once a user accepts the terms of the clickjacker additional information is then automatically placed on their Facebook page which makes the source look like a “trusted” link from a friend. read more

Will you buy something that was recommended to you on Twitter?

The thing is, I wouldn’t even buy something that one of my best friends recommends to me.  But maybe I am not the sort of person who would be susceptible to any of my friend’s recommendations or perhaps it’s because my best friend always ends his recommendations with a disclaimer — “check it out for yourself man, don’t take my word for it.”

Maybe I am actually confessing to be a caveman when it comes to buying on the sole basis of a recommendation I come across online.  Or maybe I don’t really fully understand how “online conversation” can lead to an actual sale.

The patently dishonest hype, if you will, surrounding the social media marketing buzz around the world is that the repeated and frequent mention of your brand on Twitter and Facebook can ultimately lead to rip-roaring, laugh-like-a-maniac-wall-the-way-to-the-bank sale.

It won’t. Not immediately, magically, or miraculously.  Especially NOT just because it’s on Twitter or Facebook or a blog.

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Next week users of information site Wikipedia will be able to click on a “Love” button and send messages to other users in the form of beer, cats, other cute and cuddly animals and more.

Called “WikiLove” and debuting on the sites English based channels on June 29 the goal of the project is to encourage more users to edit posts and engage with articles through positive reinforcement.

According to the Wikimedia Foundation blog:

“The drive for quality and reliability has led to the development of sophisticated automation mechanisms that aid in socializing new users to Wikipedia’s norms, policies and conventions,” the company explained in its announcement. “The act of expressing appreciation for other users, by contrast, is a largely manual effort. Whether it’s welcoming new users, inviting users to participate in specific topics or discussions, recognizing effort using barnstars and trophies, or just sending a whimsical note, expressing appreciation is not an activity that is facilitated by the software — in spite of its known importance for people’s likelihood to want to edit.” read more

Foursquare on Friday announced that their location based service has raised $50 million in new funding, bringing the company’s valuation to roughly $600 million.

Company CEO Dennis Crowley says the new money will be used to help the company “grown international” and “expand” their product line.

In an interview with the L.A. Times Crowley said:

“The thing that’s most exciting is that we think we’re inventing the future here a bit,” adding, “We’re doing things nobody has really done before, and to be able to raise this amount of capital will really allow us to look at the white board and accomplish the goals we have written up there — things we’ve been wanting to do for awhile now.”

The $50 million comes just after Foursquare announced they had passed 10 million registered users and then signed a deal to offer American Express customers discounts just for checking in at their favorite locations. read more

We’ve talked a lot in this column about the various activities that might get you and your site in legal hot water, including some of the false legal threats you may face.

But that begs the question, who is likely to do either make the threat or file the lawsuit? While the answer could easily be just about anyone as lawsuits online are as varied as thy are in the bricks and mortar world, there are definiely some groups that have been far more litigious than your average netizen.

However, actual data in this area is very difficult, if not impossible, to come by. Not only does one have to factor in the courts of over 50 states and nearly 200 countries, but many of the most important legal threats never actually make it to court.

So, unfortunately, a lot of guesswork is involved but it doesn’t take much research to see some trends forming. With that in mind, if you’re worried about being sued for your blogging activities, here are some groups that you probably want to avoid or at least be wary of messing with. read more

Facebook has actually made social connections more entertaining, rendering even some of my most boring relatives, friends, co-workers, and casual acquaintances a bit more interesting.

Now that Netflix chairman and CEO Reed Hastings has joined Facebook’s board, I’m wondering what’s going to be down the road of my life on Facebook.  Will I one day look up from my laptop and ask my wife to watch a movie or TV show on Facebook?

Clearly, as Facebook inches towards reaching 1 billion users sometime next year, it is looking for more and more ways to keep people logged in. Games are obvious time consumers and so is music.  Movies and TV?  Definitely. (Even if it means watching Green Lantern laying a big fat egg at the tills.)

As an additional revenue stream (which Facebook probably needs more than just traffic), perhaps it’ll lead to seamless social network TV/movie promotion that actually brings bigger bucks.  That will definitely come in handy, if and when, Facebook goes public next year and needs to support its profitability profile.

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Location based service Foursquare announced on Thursday that they are teaming up with credit card company American Express to offer their base of more than 10 million users special discounts in an easy to access format.

To use the program Foursquare users with an American Express account simply sync their accounts together and then receive “check-in” discounts without the need to print or clip a coupon.

Since customers will only receive specials at locations where they check-in the program also means customers are not bombarded with sales items that they don’t want and will only receive specials when they choose to accept them by using the Foursquare check-in function. read more