Dlvr.it from Spam to Love

Just to set the record straight, I hate automated Twitter tools. Services like Twitter Hawk , in my opinion, compromise the true meaning of Twitter. Sure these automated tools were cool a year ago when Twitter was starting to grow rapidly, but if you don't manually communicate with your followers, you'll set yourself up for failure.

That being said, if part of your Twitter stream contains links to your blog (or other RSS feed), then there is a huge benefit in using Twitter feed software. I'm against self-promoting on a massive / aggressive level so this should never make up the majority of your tweets, but there's really nothing wrong with throwing a link to your blog into the mix every now and then. Twitter feeds are huge time savers in this regard. Instead of manually submitting your blog posts to Twitter every time you update, Twitter feed software will automatically update your Twitter account for you everytime you post a new blog.

Why did I bring up automated Twitter tools in the beginning? Because people often mix up the Twitter feed tools with automated Twitter tools when the two are entire different. Automated Twitter tools are generally responders that will automatically message users who meet a keyword criteria. I also consider Social Oomph (formally Tweet Later) where you can schedule future tweets as an automated twitter tool. Twitter feed tools are different because it follows the "real time" approach as it updates your Twitter account as soon as you update your blog. Plus, it doesn't generate a random message to a random user that might be intrusive and spammy (think Twitter Hawk).

So what's with my blog post title then? Well, originially I was using Twitter Feed. It did it's job. Every time I the RSS feed I provided updated, so would my Twitter account. Plus, I was able to populate the tweet with a message before or after the feed (I did this in a form of hashtags usually). What was the issue then? Well, Twitter Feed posts are messy as hell. If a New York Times article called "Taxes Rise 5%" is part of my RSS that I submitted my Twitter post will look something like "Taxes Rise 5% - New York TimesTaxes Rise 5% - New York timesTaxes: http://bit.ly/whatever". Ugly right? Exactly. Plus, remembering passwords is not my forte. I lost my password to one of my Twitterfeed accounts, requested a new one about 5 times, but to no avail. So now there are Twitterfeeds populating Twitter accounts that I can't freakin' stop.

Then came Dlvr.it and my life changed forever. Well not really...I actually just discovered them Monday (two days ago), but I already am giving them high praise. I originally heard about them because they spammed me. I hate spam so naturally I was turned off. However they reached out to me at a time where I had enough of Twitterfeed and their lack of giving me my password. I can't show the tweet because it's gone from Dlvr.it's stream and my @'s, but it was something along the lines of "if you use twitterfeed try our brand new dlvr.it tool". I was this close to not clicking on it because again, I hate spam, but figured I'd at least check it out.

I went to the website and it says it's in beta mode, which I expected. What I didn't expect is that it said I needed an invite to try it out. You spam ME and then tell me I need an invite?? Screw you! Oh wait..there's an option to "request an invite". I guess it's just a way to make them look a lot more exclusive than they are. Anyway, finally joined the program and I love it so far. I have a feeling this thing will explode over the next couple of months, but here are numerous reasons why this kicks Twitterfeed's ass:

• Cleaner Twitter Posts - Already I'm in love. Just the title and URL of the post (no repition!). Plus I can still populate it with hashtags before or after the tweet.
• Analytics - I can check the number of clicks for each of individual tweets. Plus I can break it down by the Twitter account as a whole! (I can see how many people clicked on my dlvr.it links over the past day, week, or month). Sweet.
• Even More Analytics - Get this...not only will it tell you how many people clicked on your links, but it will tell you how many of those people were your followers. Awesome. So if I'm getting 400 clicks / week and that only 20 of them were my followers, I don't have an engaged group of Twitter followers and also I'm apparently opitmizing my tweets well considering I'm getting great expsoure elsewhere. Another cool feature is that it will tell you where the users who are clicking on your tweets are coming from.
• Facebok - You can also do all of this through Facebook as well.

I think there are more analytics too, but need to investigate further. The only negative is that I'm not sure the accuracy of the analytics. Bit.ly and Google Analytics always has a discrepency, but that's the case when comparing all analytic platforms (plus bit.ly measures clicks where Google Analytics you need to wait until the script loads before it tracks traffic...so GA is always less than bit.ly).

I'm curious to see if this takes off. I don't expect this to ever be on par with a tool like Hootsuite, but this should easily surpass Twitterfeed. Stay tuned.

Twitter Clout Tools

I HATE Twitter Clout tools. Especially after today (save that for another story). Twitter graders, rankers, clout tools, or whatever you want to call them don't mean jack. All these tools provide are fake bragging rites. "Twitter Grader says I'm a 95 out of 100, while your account is only an 82 out of 100 so that means I'm better than you". Check a dozen other tools and compare the same two Twitter accounts and you are highly unlikely to see all twelve rank one account higher than the other (unless of course you are comparing Oprah's account with Bob Smith's two day old account).

Please remember that the success of Twitter is based on your own goals / objectives and can't be measured using a Twitter Grader. If Twitter is increasing revenue, driving traffic, and helping to increase brand awareness to your target demographic, then it is successful. You don't need a Twitter tool telling you otherwise. If you want to analyze the success of your Twitter campaign use tools like Google Analytics to see total referring traffic from Twitter, Bit.ly or Ow.ly to see how many users are clicking on links when you post them, retweets to your account (or replies), sales from Twitter (also can be tracked through Google Analytics), total followers, number of Twitter lists being included on, and other meaningful metrics.

What's going to sound better at the end of the day. "Hey boss, Twitter Grader said our score went up 5 points from last week" or "Hey boss, over the past week we received $100 in sales from Twitter, traffic has doubled because of Twitter, and 20 people replied saying how much they loved our new product".

Is Web 3.0 Here?

For the past year (and maybe longer) I've heard a lot of people discussing "Web 3.0" and that they have discovered and perfected it. Bullshit, to say the least. Everyone can form their own opinion on the subject, but the fact is that Web 3.0 hasn't been established yet. Any website or person who tells you otherwise is trying to scam you out of money. Period.

Now, I have a prediction in what Web 3.0 will entail of. Again, a prediction..not a fact. Web 2.0 really focused on using the Internet as a communication / social vehicle. Tools / site like IM, twitter, and Facebook all fall under the Web 2.0 umbrella. I think Web 3.0 will be more focused on augmented reality and geotargeting. The Internet is already shifting towards this (hence FourSquare, the fact that Twitter is now geotargeting their trending topics, and the Yelp iPhone app) and I can only see it expanding further into this direction.

The reason why I see this being so successful and the new "hot" web trend is that it captures the demand of the Internet user demographic. Mapquest as Web 2.0 tells me how to get to point A to point B by following a series of directions, but with Yelp's augmented reality I can visually see where I'm going and even get recommendations on places in my area that suit my needs. It's more targeted, it better meets demands, therefore it has to work.

Everybody likes deals / discounts. Business have been using Web 2.0 to push incentives "Facebook fans receive 20% off product A when you purchase by February 1st". Cool..a lot simpler than clipping coupons and having to drive your way to the store. Now there's foursquare, "hey you are 5 minutse away from location A, why not check in and receive 20% off". Even better..even more convenient.

I haven't had my coffee so this is more of a rambling of my ideas than a coherent thought, but really the direction I see the Internet going in. The term "web 3.0" might never exist, but if it does I really see it being a combo of augemented reality and geotargeting. Thoughts?