Rusty Online

The New Face of Twitter

Yesterday, Twitter unveiled its brand new home screen, and it seems as if they are well on their way to changing the page's focus from a social networking tool to the prime source for keeping your finger on the pulse of what's going on around the world.

If you can remember, the old home screen focused on you creating personal connections and sharing "what you are doing" with your social circles. The new home page has totally flipped that view upside down. Instead of asking what are you doing, Twitter tells you to "Share and discover what's happening right now, anywhere in the world".

Naturally, the new look feature's Twitter search tool prominently with that call to "see what people are saying about...". The new page also integrates current trending topics as well as most popular topics over the last week and month.

A couple of months ago, Gary Vaynerchuk said that Twitter search is the single most important site on the internet. With the new facelift, Twitter is driving that point home even more. The site has removed the emphasis of creating personal connections, and has instead positioned itself as the place to be to find out what is going on in the world.
Now to convince all of the late adopters that Twitter is more than telling the world you are eating breakfast.

This post also appears on the MGH WOM Blog at http://mghwom.com/blog/2009/07/29/the-new-face-of-twitter/

BREAKING NEWS: People Trust Pesonal Reccomendations

In a recent Nielsen Global Online Consumer survey, it was revealed that 90% of online consumers are highly trusting of personal recommendations made by those close to them and 70% of the consumer group consider online reviews as reputable information sources.

While these numbers are certainly impressive, I don’t think that they should really come as a surprise to anyone. It’s no secret that sites like Twitter, Facebook and every site that allows user interaction has contributed to the excess of opinions on any topic, and the openness and transparent nature of these sites leaves little room for brands to hide their dirty laundry.

The study also goes on to point out that the plethora of consumer-generated media has also forced brands to be much more honest with their traditional advertising. This fact has created a situation where consumers are now even looking at brand-sponsored advertisements as a much more reputable source of information than they did before.

Does this mean brands are starting to “get it”? It’s something that we have been talking about for a long time now, but it’s great to see the power of social media and how it has influenced not only purchase decisions, but the way advertisers market their products as well.

This post also appears on the MGH WOM Blog at http://mghwom.com/blog/2009/07/09/breaking-news-people-trust-personal-reccomendations/

12seconds, A great tool for... *ran out of time*

So, I am sure most of you know about 12seconds.tv by now, if not, let me know and I can send you an invite to sign up (it's still in its alpha stage). I for one love the site, but I have been seeing some chatter about people questioning its usefulness.

Most of what I am hearing is that no one can really get anything across in 12 seconds. Agreed, but in the same breath, I am not trying to share the meaning of life (obviously, my last video is a staring contest). The real power in 12seconds is that it forces people to be concise and GET TO THE POINT. Much like Twitter's 140 characters, I think less can definitely be more.

I am still new on the site, have only posted a handful of videos and only have a few followers, but I have watched tons of videos, and without a doubt the ones that stand out are the ones that you can see the personality of the user - Here's and example from KSpidel.