For those of you who have not tried Twitter yet, we’d highly recommend it. Twitter is a way to tap into another world literally of real-time, ongoing communication by thousands of people who are busy tweeting away. You can choose to follow real-time tweets (short written notes) from a select group of friends, interesting people, or the public at large. Just as important, you can engage in the conversation or add your own two cents– whatever those might be. Whether it’s breaking news or real-life drama unfolding, or frankly mundane everyday things affecting people (”Stuck in traffic due to major accident on 101. Traffic at a stand still.”) After diving into a world of twitters and tweets, we found it to be a highly informative and an influential, dynamic communication tool. The nice thing about Twittering is that brevity rules. Your tweets are limited to just 140 characters, so keep it short and sweet. Tara Anderson of Citizen Agency and HorsePigCow blog wrote an exceptional primer titled, “Tweeting for Companies 101.” It’s a how to guide on the world of Twitter and tweets, highlighting many of the cool new tools one can use to become more Twitter proficient. Check it out here: http://www.horsepigcow.com/2008/04/21/tweeting-for-companies-101/

We believe the practice of Twittering is going to grow like wildfire so you might as well figure out how to get your Twitter on sooner than later.

Yet another interesting post and chart by Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine about the metamorphosis of the media and its changing role and influence over “news.” With all of the various internet tools to access information and push “news,” stories of interest are indeed no longer confined to traditional newsrooms (whether those be TV, radio or newspaper or print publications). Through the internet, people have vast access to tools such as Twitter and Digg and YouTube, online search, comments from readers and friends, links, video, podcasts, etc., where they can create or consume news and certainly be part of the conversation. Undoubtedly bloggers have had the biggest impact in being able to create news and inform readers faster and more dynamically than traditional media. With mobile broadband networks and more powerful smartphones making strong, rapid inroads in the U.S., new tools and services are being readied to enable people to capture and broadcast events and developing news as they themselves witness it. The rise of citizen journalism is certain to be an up-and-coming key element that will be incorporated into today’s new press-sphere of choices for news creation.

Here are a few cool new web 2.0 tools that we’ve been recently using and wanted to share with you.

Snurl: used for shortening unnecessary (and annoying), ultra-long url addresses. You just paste the cumbersome ulr address in snurl & voila! Snurl gives you an easy-to-use compact url that you can share with bloggers or the media. http://www.snurl.com

Twhirl: was recently bought up by Seesmic, an up & coming online video streaming site. Twhirl is a great Twitter client. What makes Twhirl even more powerful is that it can be used with competing Twitter services like Pownce and Jaiku. Twirl also embeds snurl, which is extremely helpful because Twittering services max out at 140 characters.
http://twhirl.org

Perl: Okay, we really don’t use this and it’s not a cool web service. Just our attempts to be witty here. Perl is actually a dynamic programming language derived mostly from C language and predominantly used for Unix-based operating systems. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perl

Lots of stuff coming out of CTIA this week. These two items caught our attention that bode well for the growing adoption of 3G-enabled smartphones in the US. Gizmodo reports that the AT&T Mobility CEO spilled the beans related to Apple, noting to expect a 3G iPhone in months.
http://gizmodo.com/375314/straight-from-att-mobility-ceos-mouth-3g-iphone-in-months-and-299-vu

The second piece came on the heels of RIM announcing projected growth for its smartphones in the US is taking off like wildfire. Citigroup estimates that the smartphone market will grow 50% to 60% annually in the next few years. It also estimates that smartphones will account for 22% of the handset market next year, almost triple its 8.5% share in 2006.
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/01/smartphones-soaring-good-news-for-apple-rim-nokia.html

It’s welcome news to our ears that the US market is moving away from dumb phones as an increasing number of consumers open up their wallets to join the bandwagon of using supercharged smartphones.

Here’s one more recent study comScore issued last week regarding the blazing trail of mobile broadband growth. http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=2099

Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine wrote an excellent post today about Wal-mart’s recent bad PR move. In the recent legal suit Wal-mart won against a former employee, who now has brain damage due to an auto accident, Jarvis’ perspective is right on point with respect to Wal-mart’s doozey of a move here. This is a case that underscores how sometimes company management should disregard their lawyers’ advice and seriously weigh the cost/benefits of an action that has all the promise of a PR calamity–all for a few dollars. As the world’s leading retailer, Wal-mart earns around 11.25 billion in profits. You’d think that this is a company that can afford to forgo persecuting a former employee, dragging her to court, and taking the only funds she won in the accident lawsuit that was earmarked to care for her. A big whopping $275,000. (They originally asked for almost twice as much but the judge decided against their request.)

My guess here is that their PR firm, Edleman, did in fact counsel Wal-mart against pursuing this legal suit, but this is also a huge assumption that Walmart and its team of lawyers even kept Edleman in the loop with their decision to pursue this suit. Wal-mart’s bad judgment to wring the few dollars from a physically and mentally-impaired, former employee is frankly outrageous. (By the way, Ms. Shank also lost her 18-year old son, a soldier, in the Iraq war.)

Evidently, the public outrage to the story of Debbie Shank now has come back to bite Wal-mart and they are back-peddling. After taking Ms. Shank to court in several rounds and more than 3 years to win the measly $275,000 award, the world’s biggest retailer is considering holding off on taking the money after all.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=4566641&page=1

My goodness, the long-term damage the company has done to itself, future sales and profits, and any remaining company goodwill— all with their focus on an extra dollar exemplifies cutting off your nose to spite your face. As Jarvis points out in his post, Wal-mart should have borrowed a page from Google’s corporate mantra of “don’t be evil.”