I am on a campaign to get all my friends on Twitter and to add as many friends as possible to my Twitter list. Add me to your list here:
www.twitter.com/brianwong

When I first came to know about Twitter, I thought “who would want to use this?”. I mean it only allowed you to post 140 characters and to be honest, I just could not understand what Twitter was about. Time to eat my words.

Twitter is awesome! And I think I am addicted. Especially since I can now Twit on my iPhone. Some of you reading this post and hearing about Twitter for the first time are going to think the same thing as I did. But let me tell you to give Twitter a chance. The POWER in this Web 2.0 service is in its simplicity and also because it has an API (application programming interface) which allows other services to integrate with it. There are already hundreds of services that are now integrated with Twitter. The implications for this is enormous.

I will be putting together some information about how to use Twitter effectively over the next couple of weeks if you are new or not using it to its full potential yet. But in a nutshell, let me just give you the basics about Twitter.

Twitter is just like a very very simple version of Facebook where you connect with friends. Once connected, here’s what you can do:

1. Twitter allows you to send short messages from your computer, handphone or automatically - let say every time you update an RSS feed.
2. Twitter allows you to receive or display your short messages on virtually anywhere online including your Twitter sitebut also your Facebook page, Blog or anywhere you can paste html code.
3. Your message can include a link to a photo (using Twitpic), webpage and includes your location from where you are sending the message from.
4. You can send a message to everyone on your friend list, privately to one person or publicly but directed to one person only.

Here are some simple examples of practical applications of Twitter:

1. Say you and your friends are connected on Twitter and enabled receiving Twitter messages on your mobile phone. If you want to send a mass text message to all your friends at once, you can do it with Twitter on your phone. That’s not new. But if you wanted to include a photo you took on your phone and display where you are by location, that can be done easily with Twitter. With a data plan for your mobile phone, you can save a lot on text messages by just using this web service. If you are still using a non-3G phone, Twitter still works using the SMS system.

2. If you have all your friends linked on Twitter, there are 3-rd party applications that can automatically send Twitter reminder for say birtydays and events. You can also have Twitter messages sent when an event is triggered e.g. stock price, new blog post (I’m currently adding that to my blog). Now get this for a whacky application -there is a device you can stick into the soil of your household pot plant that sends you a Twitter message if the soil water level is low! Imagine now that your house plants can talk to you via Twitter!

3. You’re at a social event and you’re having a great time. You do a real time update on your phone saying “having a blast at this party in —–”. If one of your friends is also at the event, they will receive the Twitter message and contact you directly saying “hey, I’m here too”. And now you are connected. If you are in a crowded arena - say a concert, you can take a real time photo of where you are and Twitter it to your friend. They can then try and find you based on the Twitter message.

Listen, I can’t think up all the possible iterations of when Twitter might be useful to you but all I can say is that as more and more people use it and as more and more developers add more applications, it will become increasingly useful to you. You can read more about the possible applications here:

http://twitter.pbwiki.com/Mashups

Now the BEST reason to get Twitter is because we are only beginning to see more and more innovative applications of this device. Get used to using it now so that you are familiar with it.

Now sign up for Twitter and/ or add me to your list of friends:

www.twitter.com/brianwong

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I had lunch with a really good friend yesterday who is also in the Internet industry and we talked a lot of about the future of the “new media”. Despite us both being very involved in the Internet and with Web 2.0 projects we agree that we are not even scratching the surface of what will soon become “the new media” in our society.
I would say that I am an early adopter of new technology personally but I feel really behind when it comes to fully utilizing all the amazing Web 2.0 tools out there today. If I feel this way, I’m sure people who have NOT even begun utilizing some of the tools below will find it hard to integrate them into their lifestyle in the future. I also believe that in the “information age” when the value in our society is determined by the quality of the information you have, anyone who wants to be successful in the future will NEED to adopt “new media” in their day to day routine. So my advice to you if you are reading this is to start now to embrace new media technology.

Here’s a round up of the top 6 key changes or features of the “new media” that we need to be aware of:

1. Democratic News As They Happen:
News in the old media is dictated by the large networks. They decide what IS news and what is not. In the “new media”, we would CHOOSE what is news to us by choosing news sources and being actively involved in nominating what is newsworthy. For example, with Digg.com you can get “news” items posted by individuals and ranked by Digg users themselves so its a kind of democratic news service. The more popular news floats to the top of the page. I actually don’t watch news on TV or even read newspapers anymore. I get all my news via RSS feeds and also via video podcasts to my iTunes account. All free. Also, with mobile devices that can record video and directly upload them to sites like YouTube, you will find a lot of instant news that will break before it reaches mainstream news channels.

2. Really Simple Syndication (RSS)
Surprisingly, a lot of people still do not know what RSS is and what it does. To me, RSS will become an indispensable tool because of the unfathomable growth rate of information. You can no longer read from one source (like traditional newspapers) but you will need to ready from multiple sources. RSS is the KEY standard to summarizing content into a format that can be read on news aggregators whether through your computer or through your mobile device. I use my Apple Mail as my default RSS reader on my computer. Other popular readers include NetNewsGator or Google’s RSS reader called Google Reader. This way, you can get a up to the minute digest of headlines from all your selected news source. You can then read from dozens of sites in a few glances and investigate further if a news item is of particular interest.

3. Going Mobile
My iPod Touch is the first device to bridge the gap between a mobile device and my computer. With my iPod Touch, I find that for the first time, I can actually not turn on my computer to satisfy my information addiction! For example here’s what I do with my iPod Touch - a quick search on the web, read RSS news updates, connect with my social networks (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace), update my blog, check my emails, get location/ map information, use the Bible, quick calculation, share a photo or video, watch a movie on YouTube and the list goes on and on. To think that this device was originally just for listening to music? This is truly the way of the future when all your daily communication and information needs are done through a portable mobile device.

4. New Social Communication Structure
I find today that I am closer to friends that I connect with online via FaceBook chat, or Skype as opposed to people I meet face to face! Is this a bad thing? Well I don’t know. The feeling of connection when you share a photo that is tagged with the friends you know and love seems to provide a very strong bonding feeling for me. Sometimes, stronger than the event itself when the photo was taken. Is it just me? I think as our lives get busier and friends becoming more global (I have friends who are on different continents each week!), electronic social networking becomes a truly VALUABLE tool in preserving that friendship and bond.

Also, I find that its now easier then ever to communicate with ALL of my friends at once. It the past, if you would speak with friends on the phone, you could probably maintain that kind of relationship with about 5 people. Now, with Facebook and Twitter for example, I find that I am reaching out to HUNDREDS of friends at once all over the world.

5. Location Based Services
One of the next big trends is the new media is being able to feed location based information to you on demand. I’m not just talking about GPS. For example, if you send a Twitter update today, you can also specify your location. If your Twitter friends have enabled updates via their phones for example, you will be able to tell when some of your friends are in the same vicinity to you. Another example, if you select “Starbucks” on Google Maps on your iPhone, you will then see all the nearest Starbucks to where you are. In the future, you could attend a function or watch a movie and then say “are any of my friends here” on your social network device and it will tell you which of your friends are there. Better yet, you can even specify what kind of people you want to meet and your device could connect you together. I know this may seem “weird” and kinda scary but I think it will become the norm in the future.

6. Entertainment 2.0 - Beyond YouTube
New services like www.ustream.tv allows you to watch live user created content AND interact with other viewers at the same time. As information becomes all consuming, our attention span drops significantly. People in the future will grow to prefer absorbing media content in 3 minute to 5 minute shots rather than 30 mins to 1 hour slots on TV today. Also, raw and quirky content created by mobile phone cameras or homemade camera’s will make more interesting content to the masses than the cookie cutter type content that is saturating traditional entertainment sources. People will also rely on Web 2.0 services to recommend content. For example, if you like a video, the system will also display related or similar content for you to choose from. Also, social networks allow you friends to recommend what is “entertaining” to you via video posts. Assuming if you are friends you will have similar interests.

Ok, having said all that - “new media” me up here:

YouTube - www.youtube.com/brianwong73
Twitter - www.twitter.com/brianwong
FaceBook - www.profile.to/brianwong73
MySpace - http://www.myspace.com/brianliveswithpassion
Pownce - http://pownce.com/brianwong73/
My RSS Feed - http://feeds.feedburner.com/brianwong/ZlEi
MyBlogLog Community - http://www.mybloglog.com/buzz/members/BrianWong/
Flickr - http://www.flickr.com/photos/brianwong73/
Skype: brianotg
MSN Messenger: cloudn@hotmail.com
Blink List - http://www.blinklist.com/brianwong/
StumbleUpon - http://brian-wong.stumbleupon.com/
Technorati - http://technorati.com/people/technorati/brianwong
Blog Catalog - http://www.blogcatalog.com/user/brianwong

This is a list of accounts that I am most active with. I signed up with a LOT of services that I just don’t have time to maintain properly.

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What do affiliate marketer’s do on their weekends? Well this weekend I joined an Advance Driving Course for Lotus car owners.

It was a lot of fun. Skill sets we learned include oversteering and understeering techniques, handbrake turns for 180 degree spins and heel & toe turns to corner without slowing down.

http://brianwong.com/blog/video/lotustraining.flv

The Lotus Elise is a one of a kind vehicle because of its amazing engineering. With the entire car weighing less than 1,980 pounds, you can really get some great tail-spins and drifting action going.

All in all it was an awesome day and we ended up a little sun-burned because it was such a beautiful sunny day. I was really impressed with the new design of the Lotus Elise Mach 2 in hot red and am thinking about getting it.

What do you think? Do you prefer the silver or red finish? Leave a comment if you care to share.

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If you are an Adwords advertiser you will like this free tool. Generating a good keyword list is the first step to a successful campaign. However, you can easily double and even triple those great keywords by creating “exact match” and “phrase match” quotes around your words.

Now if you have a 100 keywords, that will really be a pain in the a**. So the solution? Use an Adwords Wrapper Tool provided at www.mikes-marketing-tools.com.

What does it do? Well, just cut-and-paste your keywords into the form and click “wrap” and it will create all the variations below:

Check it out for yourself.

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Crazy Egg is amazing! Especially for marketers since its free version is awesome for analyzing single page sales letters or opt in forms?

What is it? Well its a simple analytics tool that gives you 4 different types of graphical analytics tools to analyze your site.

There’s “Overlay” which gives you color coded icons on all your links and displays the number of clicks numerically.

There’s “List” which pops up a straight forward table with all your links and clicks.

There’s “Heatmap” (my personal favorite) that shows you a the “hottest” spots on your page. It reminds me a little of the “temperature sensitive vision mode” from the movie “Predator”!

And finally there’s “Confetti” mode which as the name suggests displays the more popular spots on your page with more…confetti!
Yup! Aside from the fun of it all, there’ literally no installation required. Just plug in your site and it tracks it for the duration you specify. Either by number of visitors of by duration (e.g. 1 month).

Its extremely useful to let you know if your landing pages are doing what they should be doing. If you’re not using Crazy Egg, you gotta be crazy! ;)

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