Some believed it was a clear example of a company “not getting it”.  Social Media is about engagement right?  You should be listening, thinking, and engaging the community surely? Not just displaying a load of random tweets that include your brand name?

Some were complimenting skittles.  For trying something new, for experimenting with twitter and social media.  After all the world of twitter was buzzing with skittles mentions, every other tweet mentioned skittles and surely that counts for something right?  Well I doubt it is going to sell many extra bags of sweets, but I can’t remember the last time I mentioned or thought about skittles, so there something gained from the stunt.

Whether you believe the move to be a success or not depends, as always, how you define success.  If the aim of the exercise was to put something out there, in the aim of getting some exposure and trying something new, then it is a clear success.  Brand wise, the only harm came from the spammers and comedians who chose post less than complimentary words about skittle and revel in the irony of the statements appearing on skittles.com.

If the objective was to sell more skittles, well, hmmm….I’m not sure it could be deemed a success.

But the bigger question for me is what next for skittles?  They have gained all the buzz which came from the experiment.  But surely the homepage isn’t going to stay like that for an extended period?  It’s not much of a user experience!  It’s not even been done in an aesthetically pleasing way.

So where does skittles take it next? Do they have another stunt lined up? Are they going to use any of the posts they have received today for further activity?

The Buzz was great, loads of exposure for the brand, if only within the twitter community.  They also gain a bit of kudos for having the balls to pull such a stunt and doubtless they will go into numerous presentations as an example of twitter usage, but without something more to follow it up, this will only last so long. Buzz and the viral impact of marketing only last so long, so where next skittles?  What else have you got in store for us?

Reading between the lines of the article it sounds to me Stone said it more as an idea than the definitive solution to monetising twitter, but is this the best he can come up with?

Obviously there is value in twitter for businesses.  They gain access to their customers in a conversational manner, something you don’t get outside the realms of social networking.  The ability to push messages at your consumers in real time, and more importantly, gain feedback on your product/service from an engaged audience, certainly has some value.  But how much value?  and is it enough for companies to want to pay for an account?  I have my doubts.  Especially when individuals at said company could set up personal accounts and act on behalf of the company without any associated costs.

A much simpler model would be ad funded, maybe not in the traditional way but in a more flexible, targeted way, as Facebook has started doing.  Everyone on twitter expresses an interest in one thing or another.  Through the small bio they write to accompany their profile, through the website link they choose to list, but more importantly, through the updates they make, some up to 50 a day!  Due to the way in which people use twitter, they constantly refer to products and activities which they use or partake in as part of their every day life.

People tweet about their phones (mostly iPhone and Blackberry at the minute but others will catch up!), they tweet about their laptops, their lifestyles, and just about everything else that is going on in their life.  A search on twitter for “valentines day” for example reveals that hundreds of people who have mentioned it in their recent tweets.  Now imagine being a flower company, wouldn’t you pay to hit these guys with a targeted advert around now?  You could even use smart technology to interpret the senitment of the statement to avoid hitting those with an “I hate valentines day” sentiment so as to avoid compounding their misery!

In fact, keyword level targeting with a sentiment filter could be awesome (can you tell I am writing as I think!?!).  Imagine being able to target those who were mentioned your competition in a negative way.  Hitting somebody who writes “broadband provider X sucks, I have been on the phone for hours!” with an ad for your alternative broadband package with 5 star customer service, priceless!

The continually evolving conversation of twitter could make it a highly exciting prospoect for advertisers (there have been 41 more velntines based tweets since I wrote the above!).  As an advertiser you could track tweet trends in real time and evolev your campaigns to match.  Facebook’s targetting platform is great, but it is pretty static as it is based on profile information more than anything else.  Twitter would have a potentially endless stream of inventory for topical products and services and this would make the advertising platform a hugely exciting prospect.

Im sure the top dogs at twitter are consider these options as we speak, but I sure do hope that charging for commercial accounts isnt the best thing they come up with!

Im obviously talking about twitter, the latest social tool to be all the range in the digital world, and big news in the mainstream media as well.  I expect the purchase rumours, twitter needs it if it is going to stay ahead of the game and solve its infrastructure issues.  But it seems every second article I read now is about why twitter is going to replace Facebook, or why it is the tool to end the search engines dominance online, but I am not really buying it.

I use twitter, I am on Facebook, I use Google and pretty much any other online tool of any great use as well, and I can safely say, no one of those which I use has reduced the amount I use the others or replaced them in any way.  I use Google for my search activity (or live search if I get bored), I catch up with old and distant friends on Facebook, and us twitter for industry news and general commentary on life.  So why does everyone want to merge them, compare them, or pit them against each other in a social media/online battle?

Fresh Egg ponders whether twitter might take business away from Google, techcrunch taks about Facebook stealing twitters market (although suggesting it isn’t likely) and many other bloggers and social commentators debate why and who twitter is going to replace.  Can they all not co-exist on their own merits without the desire to imitate, acquire or destroy one another?  Or is it just a symptom of the evolving social world we live in where every new venture is set to be bought by one of the more established players?

But how do you go about engaging a celebrity on twitter?  Do you treat them as you would any other follower or does the fact that they are a celebrity change things?

Well, help is at hand from one of the original twitter celebrities Stephen Fry.  @stephenfry  has provided you with a helping hand for how to engage with him and other celebrities on the micro blogging platform. 

Mr Fry has written a post for his website which provides a five step guide to the dos and donts of twitter usage when it comes to celebrities.  By @stephenfry’s own admission, they aren’t guidelines, who is he to tell you how to act, but more insight into how to engage in a way which will be appreciated. 

So if you are following celebrities and want to know how to act around them in the world of twitter, read on!

Stephen Fry on twitter

The Operations Manager, J.R. Cohen, of CoffeeGroundz (@coffeegroundz) became a user of twitter on a personal level.  When one of his followers decided to tweet at him requesting to place an order Cohen spotted a business opportunity.  CoffeeGroundz now regularly receives pre-orders through twitter and is using the platform to grow their business and gain new customers.

This is a great example of business use of twitter and also the innovation and flexibility of small businesses.  There is obviously a scale issue here and I can’t foresee McDonalds adopting a similar strategy in the future as it just wouldn’t work for them, but hats off the Cohen and CoffeeGroundz for finding a way to utilise the latest social media phenomenon.

More and more companies are going to be looking to harness the growing popularity of twitter over the coming weeks and months and examples like this show it can be done.  It won’t work for everyone, just as Facebook and blogging don’t, but with an innovative mind and willingness to trial new channels some companies will undoubtedly find a way to make it work for them.

Why twitter might be the next big thing?

•    It helps like-minded people connect - Connecting with people who share the same interests of you can be fun, but finding these people is not always easy.  Twitter helps bring together people from all over the world who have shared interests and lets them engage with one another.
•    It is easy to get involved - Pick a username, populate your profile, choose some people to follow, and you’re away.  The simplicity of twitter is part of its beauty.
•    It’s easily accessible on the move - Despite major advances in mobile internet, complex sites still struggle from a usability perspective.  Twitter is as easy on a mobile handset as it is on a computer screen.
•    It becomes addictive - Updating your twitter can become addictive, as can following others.  This could keep people coming back for more and take it past the “fad” stage.
•    You can customise twitter - Many MySpacer’s prefer MySpace to Facebook as it allows personalisation of your page to give it character.  The same can be done with twitter skins.
•  It allows people to share – People like to share information both about their own life and about the world in general.  Twitter allows the same photo sharing opportunities as Facebook (through twitpic) as well as the ability to post links to external sources of information for your followers to see.
•    People like to be nosy - Being able to take a peak into other people’s lives brings out the voyeur in us all.  Some people spend hours looking through other peoples photographs on Facebook and enjoying reading their status updates, twitter has the same appeal.
•    It is not as time consuming as blogging - Maintaining a blog is time consuming but twitter allows you to post industry or personal news without any maintenance at all.
•    It provides instant access to news and articles - We have seen recently the success of twitter in bringing breaking news to the masses in the case of the Mumbai attacks and the Hudson River plane crash.  By following a broad spectrum of tweeters it is possible to get the news, as it happens, rather than after the event.

Why twitter might not succeed

•    People won’t get it – many people I speak to who are aware of twitter don’t get the attraction, and a lot of these people are already involved in digital marketing.  So what are the chances of the average Joe picking it up as part of his everyday life?
•    Who wants to connect with people they don’t know? – people away from business and the world of “networking” prefer to connect with people they know, and have met on more than one occasion.
•    Safety/privacy worries? – Whilst it might be a pessimistic and cynical view on the world, is there safety/privacy worry about allowing people you don’t know to follow your daily life?  I’m sure there is many a parent out there who wouldn’t be too pleased if their child had people keeping an eye on their life, potentially with sinister motives.
•    Twitter’s creaking infrastructure! – in recent weeks twitter has experienced regular periods of downtime as its user numbers increase and put mounting pressure on their infrastructure.  If their growth is going to continue, some investment is needed in their infrastructure, which may mean external funding to raise the cash.  Without this, people will become frustrated and potential give up on twitter.
•    It needs monetising – As we have seen with Facebook and YouTube, large user numbers are great, but if you can’t effectively monetise this traffic it isn’t worth much.  Initially CPM advertising will probably suffice, but twitter will need to move past that if they are going to effectively monetise their user base.
•    Businesses will struggle to find ways to utilise it – although it is easy to see how twitter can be used by news sources for additional distribution and traffic generation, other businesses may struggle to see a use for it.  If twitter can find a way of accommodating businesses away from standard accounts this could be key for its success, as it is these businesses that will be willing to pay to reach twitter’s user base.

So what do you think?  Will twitter be the big success story of 2009?  Have I missed anything from this list?  Let me know what you think.

Now I’m as big a geek as the next man.  I love finding the latest social tool to have a play around with.  I Twitter, use messenger, have a Facebook and a MySpace account (although the latter as been redundant for a long time).  But the thought of a family sat around on Christmas day silently tapping away on iPods and laptops depressed me slightly.

I don’t think I’m being too old fashioned when I say that Christmas should involve spending time with the family and actually engaging in some form of non-digital communication!  And it is not just in this scenario I see this happening, the workplace is just the same.  People emailing and messaging colleagues a question when they are sitting on desks less than 5 yards apart.

It seems strange that the ability to engage and communicate with people thousands of miles away means we communicate less with those closest to home.  Is this the way of the future?  Digital chat and social media replacing old fashioned speech and face to face engagement?

I sincerely hope not.  As much as I love using online social media tools I’m also rather fond of meeting and speaking to people face to face.  I have technophobe friends who refuse to have a Facebook account or personal email address giving the response, “If I want to speak to someone Ill just ring them.”  Whilst I am not going to go to that level of extreme as I see the benefits of social media tools away from connecting with friends, I hope for all our sake that the picture painted by the BBC reporter is not a sign of things to come.

Reports of Twitters use during the Mumbai terror attacks and a recent derogatory article by the mail online caused a major spike in Google searches for twitter and today its infrastructure creaked and crumbled under the strain as its users experienced down due to technical difficulties at twitter HQ.  Twitter doesn’t make any money so there is minimal investment in infrastructure from its founder Evan Williams (creator of blogger which was sold to Google in 2003).

Twitter is due for even more increased exposure and coming weeks as it is set to be discussed by Jonathan Ross and Stephen Fry on the return of The Jonathan Ross Show on Jan 23rd.  Fry and Ross are users of the social application and are set to discuss other celebrity users.

This is likely to increase Twitter’s users and website traffic significantly in a short period of time and considering they are having issues with current levels I hope they are investing in new servers as we speak!

I current trends continue and further awareness can be gained Williams and his fellow board must be hoping for a quick sale to one of the big players with the ability to harness and monetise the Twitter traffic effectively or potentially tie Twitter in with existing social media tools.

But in order to do so Twitter will need to prove its stability over the next 1-3 months or it could be game over and a party like Google may just decide to build its own solution to take its place.

Its going to be a very interesting and important for Twitter and as a fan, I hope it survives and finds its buyer.

Blogger David Armano started the appeal on his blog, Logic + Emotion, for Romanian immigrant, Daniela and her 3 children who are struggling financially since Daniela filed for divorce against her abusive spouse.  At present Daniela, Brandon, Daniela and youngest Evelyn are staying with David as they try to get back on their feet and he appealed to the blogging and digital community to help raise $5000 dollars to support them.  At last check they had raised $12,663.60 and rising well in excess of its target.

David used the popularity of his blog and also his connections on social media tool twitter to raise awareness of the appeal and it has spread like wildfire around the social media community.  I found out about it through a tweet by someone I follow on twitter and the amount of retweets I have seen already is obscene.  The twitter community has taken hol of this story and is showing that even in the hardest economic times people are willing to show their charitable side and help the needy.

The Digital Lookout has made its donation, if you would like to contribute follow the link below.  Do your bit, and pass the message on.

Daniella’s Apartment Fund