Twit4Hire – a company who'll Twitter on your behalf, for cash

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I can understand people not having the time to update a blog. To grow a blog properly it needs time, effort and careful feeding of the community. A Twitter account, on the other hand, requires considerably less effort – 140 characters, perhaps twice a day? Well, if even that’s too much for you or your business, then Twit4Hire is the company for you.

It’s targeting business who want to “get on the Twitter” but haven’t got a clue how to go about it. Or they might have a clue, but can’t spare the resources. Either way, Twit4Hire will sit there and chat to legions of followers about nothing your business on your behalf.

I’m not sure I could recommend employing Twit4Hire. Do it yourself. For top tips on how best to use Twitter for marketing and PR, visit this handy site, instead.

Twit4Hire (via TechRadar)

Related posts: Tweetminster lets you follow your MP on Twitter | Twadio – silent radio station launches on Twitter

Less is more – new socially-networked nano-blog Chirp gives you ten letters to express yourself

New tech start-up Chirp is the hottest new, lime-green-coloured, nano-social-blogging tool on the web, offering users a chance to “Keep fellow Chirpers up to date with your every thought” – in ten characters or less.

So if you find that Twitter is simply too long-winded and you can’t be bothered doing a whole sentence-worth of typing because you can never think of as many interesting things to say as Stephen Fry, give Chirp a go.

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It is, of course, a joke. And a very good one. The sort of joke most of us will go to the grave without having created…

Tweetminster lets you follow your MP on Twitter

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It’s nice to see Twitter going from strength-to-strength, and I genuinely believe that it’s got the potential to do for status updates and IM what Facebook did for social networking. The latest application to sit on top of the service is a TheyWorkForYou-style service called Tweetminster that lets you search for your MP and see whether or not they’re on Twitter.

Unfortunately my MP, Jeremy Corbyn, isn’t Twittering yet, but he’s the kind of guy who might, so I’m hoping he picks up on it soon. In the meantime, I now know that Jude Robinson [Lab] “is steaming over the Lib Dems’ Airport Inquiry” and Jo Swinson [LD] is “so heading home to change and go into Parliament”. Exciting stuff.

Tweetminster (via @jordanstone)

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DIGG THIS: Micro-blogging citizen journalism toy Twitter beats granddad Digg in traffic war

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Internet traffic tracker Hitwise has reported a readership boom kicking off for mini-blog portal Twitter, with the number of visits to the “citizen journalism” gonzo reportage site topping that of Digg for the first time.

The graph generated by Hitwise – stolen by us and shown to the left there – tells the story of Twitter’s unstoppable rise, with recent high-profile Twitter events pushing user numbers to new highs…

Track Obama's inauguration day LIVE, thanks to everyone in America live-blogging like mad

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We saw last month exactly how modern internet technology is kicking the hell out of traditional news media when it comes to on-the-spot reporting – and today’s the perfect day so see America EXPLODE in a sea of sickeningly patriotic citizen journalism.

Numerous dedicated Flickr groups have popped up to catalogue Obama’s special day, as people hanging around in Washington right at this very moment use up all their data allowance for January by uploading evocative photos of children waving flags live from the scene…

First photo of Hudson air crash surfaces on Twitter

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Score another one for citizen journalism. The very first photo of the plane crash in the Hudson was taken on a mobile phone, and uploaded to Twitter. The photographer was one Janis Krums, and he was on one of the ferries used to rescue the passengers from the stricken plane.

Although you could say he was in the right place at the right time, the quality of the photo is pretty damn good as well – well framed, and with plenty of detail. On a side note, though – you’ve got to wonder if it’s the first class passengers that are on the raft, while the economy plebs have to stand on the wing…

Twitpic (via Silicon Alley Insider)

Related posts: Twadio – silent radio station launches on Twitter | Twitterer liveblogs his own plane crash

CelebrityTweet – behind the velvet rope

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If you’re an avid Twitterer, and you want to keep up with the comings-and-goings of various celebrities, then you can just follow them. If you’re not, however, and you still want to keep in touch with what famous people spend their time doing, then you might do well to bookmark CelebrityTweet.

It’s a site that aggregates the Twitter accounts of only famous people. Sadly, that doesn’t include me, yet. Present and correct, though, are Wil Wheaton, Barack Obama, Lance Armstrong and Robert Llewellyn. Recent updates include @bobbyllew getting excited about the Tesla, and @lancearmstrong saying how nice Adelaide is.

Useless if you’re already a Twitter user, though. If you are, console yourself by measuring your Twick size. Not kidding. Mine’s a respectable 7″, the same as @techdigest. Top of the table are @techmeme and @cnetnews with massive 20″ twicks. Childish? Yes. Fun? Yes.

Celebrity Tweet (via Mashable!) and Twick Size

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Twadio – silent radio station launches on Twitter

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Are you listening to music? Turn it down, or off for a moment. Now go visit @tweejay on Twitter, and sing along in your head for a moment to whatever’s at the top. Congratulations, you’ve just enjoyed the delights of Twadio.

It’s the first ‘silent radio station’, where every five minutes, a song is posted. Listeners who sign up are notified via @tweejay, and across the world, the same song suddenly gets stuck in millions of people’s heads. Brilliant, or an evil plot to get “U can’t touch this” in your head? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Tweejay (via @dubber)

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Britney, Obama and Fox News' Twitter accounts get hacked

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Last night, the Twitter accounts for Britney Spears, Barack Obama, Fox News, Facebook, the Huffington Post and 28 other decreasingly famous people were hacked to display a variety of messages, from spammy to hilarious.

It started with Fox News, who posted a message about one of their anchors, saying “Breaking: Bill O Riley is gay”. Rick Sanchez from CNN was then hit, with a message saying “i am high on crack right now might not be coming into work today”. Then Barack Obama (who hasn’t posted since the election) posted an affiliate marketing survey. Then Britney’s incredible missive came through. Find out that said over the jump (mildly NSFW).

Twply takes a spam-and-grab approach to violating your privacy

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When’s the last time you gave out your username and password for something crucial to a random web service? That’s what a lot of people have been doing with Twply.com. The site asks you for your username and password, and then promises to send any @replies that you get on Twitter to your email account.

However, it’ll also spam its own URL across your Twitter account – “Just started using http://twply.com/ to get my @replies via email. Neat stuff!“. That means they’ve got a big database of Twitter usernames and passwords, ripe for spamming. I wonder what could happen if they got bought by someone without a conscience… Oh, wait.

If you’ve used the site, now would be a great time to go change your password. If you’ve not, then remember basic security advice. If you’re not sure about giving out your username and password to a website, then don’t do it. Have you got any tales of Web 2.0 privacy woe? I want to hear them. Drop me a comment below.

Oh, and for a service which does the same thing without asking for your password, try replies.twittapps.

Twply (via Helloform)

Related posts: Twitterer liveblogs his own plane crash | Evening Standard fails in its meagre attempts to understand Twitter