Worth The Read

• Product Management Tips – Secrets of success in 8 words and 3 minutes
• Write That Down – Twitter’s Product Manager
• Ignite Social Media – Top 5 Viral Marketing Campaigns of 2008
• Dave Fleet – Strategic Communications Planning
• Joshua Dilworth – A new breed of Twitter apps
• Wired – Vaporware 2008: Crushing Disappointments, False Promises and Plain Old BS
• A VC – Bits Of Destruction

Enjoy!

Are You In the Top 5% Of The Twittersphere?

Did you know?

Only 5 percent of all Twitter users have more than 250 followers.

and

70% of Twitter users joined in 2008 (for more facts see  The State Of The Twittersphere (HubSpot Edition) )

I joined Twitter earlier this year during the first ProductCampAustin. The conference set up a Twitter account for everyone to follow during the event.  It was a great way to keep track of all the comments during the sessions and to keep in touch after it was over. From there, I was hooked.

So, if you are on Twitter, why did you join?

Worth the Read

Passing along some of the best posts I have read over the weekend:

• FeverBee – “How Do You Build An Online Community?”
• Influential Marketing  – “9 Ways To Make Twitter More Useful For You”
• The Cranky Product Manager – “Why it doesn’t matter where Product Management lives in the organization”
• Thingamy –  Long Tail and Long Snout strategies
• Nielsen Media – “The Nielsen Company Issues Top Ten U.S. Lists for 2008“
• Mashable – “24 Most Underrated Websites of 2008”

Social Networking

Alora Chistiakoff  at The Pragmatic Contextualist has a great discussion on the values of social networking.

I have recently become a huge fan of Twitter and its ability to let you connect with groups of people with common interests (that’s how I found the Pragmatic Contextualist).

Facebook on the other hand is a different story.  As Alora points out in her article, you need to carefully walk the line between your work life and your home life and with Facebook, and it is very hard to keep these separate.  When I joined Facebook, I accepted invites from everyone I knew and before I realized what was happening, filled up my friend list with fewer friends and more associates.  Now I have to think before I a make a post whether I want John in accounting to know what happened over the weekend.  I am sure there is a way to fix this by cutting back my friend list but it seems like the easier choice is to just stop using the site.  Isn’t it about time for the next Facebook anyway?

Read Alora’s full post here.

Twittelator

I have no problem admiting when I made a mistake.

I have been a casual user of Twitter for some time now (joshua_d) and except for a few conferences, have not found it extremlly useful, until now….

I took a recommendation and bought Twittelator Pro for my iPhone.  It is well worth the spare change.  I have gone from a causal Twitterer to a full time addict (maybe this should be a warning post instead of an endorsement?).

Check it out here.