Between Ashton Kutcher, CNN, Larry King, and Oprah the world is now buzzing over Twitter. I personally love twitter, and have used it to build up a number of web properties. (BTW Follow me!)

I love how easy it is to follow real-time trends. I love how fast a person can get questions answered. Sure you could use one of the answer sites like yahoo answers, or anzwers, or ask a ChaCha.com guide, but twitter is almost automatic.

There are many different things you can do on Twitter including:

• Looking for a Job
• Quitting a Job
• Posting Jobs
• Networking
• Getting Engaged
• Dumping People
• Being Dumped
• Getting Business Ideas
• Finding Funding for a Business
• Sharing websites
• Following every minute action a Celebrity takes
• Following the Swine Flu epidemic.
• Arguing Politics
• Social Branding
• Getting blog traffic by Twitter
• Getting Programming Advice via Twitter
• Get out of an Egyptian Prison (it really happened to a Berkley Student)
• Get restaurant recommendations
• etc…

So if there are so many wonderful things that you can do with Twitter… Why are so many people trying it, then leaving it?

According to Nielsen:

Compare it to the two heavily-touted behemoths of social networking when they were just starting out…we found that even when Facebook and MySpace were emerging networks like Twitter is now, their retention rates were twice as high. When they went through their explosive growth phases, that retention only went up, and both sit at nearly 70 percent today.

Of course Mashable did mention how Nielson only tracks return visits to twitter, and many users don’t use Twitter.com to tweet.

Due to twitter’s api there’s hundreds of different ways to use twitter without ever even visiting twitter.com – e.g. TweetDeck…

Does Nielsen’s Twitter statistics add up? Or do the numbers lie? Do more people ’stick’ than meets the eye?

IMHO I believe that the numbers are way off, and I think there might be more like a 10-15% drop rate. I know a lot of people who Tweet via 3rd party apps.

Related articles by Zemanta

• The Fastest Growing Social Sites (mashable.com)
• Why all of your friends are on Twitter (northbynorthwestern.com)
• CNN, Ashton, Twitter … Oh My (mashable.com)
• Twitter Fight! (nickwagman.blogspot.com)
• Twitter Fight! Larry King To Kutcher: CNN Will Bury You (techcrunch.com)
• Celebrities Are Not Taking Over Twitter (adamhcohen.com)
• AOL Pimps Twitter and Pushes Bebo Aside (centernetworks.com)

Apps are great, but sometimes we can get overloaded by them. Whether they’re facebook apps, iphone apps, wordpress plugins, or myspace apps, sometimes more is not better.

In an effort to bring attention to only the best of the best apps, myspace has announced that they are rolling out a new “Editor’s Pick” category in its application directory, starting next week.

This new category will allow members to quickly sift through the best apps for the platform. Myspace has previously shown off a handful of featured apps, but they were rotated, and did not offer a mechanism for easy browsing.

Now users will be able to access a complete list of the featured apps. Applications on the list will be determined by a team of MySpace employees who work with the day to day application operations. (Myspace affirms that apps will be chosen by merit, and NOT paid sponsorships, of course that is yet to be seen.)

This is a great step in combatting the clutter of spammy apps plagueing sites like myspace and facebook.

Facebook has mentioned a similar program last summer, called a ‘Verified Apps’ program. It is yet to be launched though. Facebook’s program seems to be more structured, and probably more comprehensive than Myspace’s but at least this is a good start. [Via TechCrunch]

Related articles by Zemanta

• Put My Money on Myspace not Facebook (kylelacy.com)

MySpace Launching Profile 2.0 – Feature Filled Drag and Drop Profile Upgrade…

Image via CrunchBase

Myspace the world’s first and still foremost leader in social networking has announced the integration of Profile 2.0 (I wonder when everything will hit 3.0? Isn’t 2.0 getting a bit old?).

Profile 2.0 for myspace is the next step in the global site redesign which is enabling millions of users to opt-in to customize the appearance of their profiles using an inovative drag-and-drop ajax user interface.

Profile 2.0 is a huge step towards the next wave of Myspace’s global redesign initiative which they launched this past year. This new profile page arrives on the heels of a new splash page, and navigation redesign only months earlier. Profile 2.0 builds on MySpace’s existing framework and allows deeper levels of control with their friend categorization functionality.

Major features of MySpace Profile 2.0:

Drag and Drop visual Interface: MySpace users are now able to arrange their profile by dragging and dropping modules into any location to create new layouts. Similar to blogger.com’s template management. Users are also able to use a new, fast, and intuitive editing and loading system to customize each profile module.

Flexibility in Viewing: Profile 2.0 allows users to display specific information on their profile to specific friend categories that they create or have already created in “Friend Categorization”. E.G. a MySpace user may choose to share one module with family, one with friends, and a different one with co-workers.

New Redesigned Themes. MySpace has also gone a long way to create 50 new profile styles ready to load giving users a ton more flexibility in redesigning their profiles at their leisure. The easy to use single-click themes will feature popular celebrities, fashion designers, films, musicians, and sports figures in the future.

Currently users are being offered the new profile but have the option of staying with the original profile including any CSS they may be using.

Related articles by Zemanta

• MySpace Launches Profile Version 2.0
• The New MySpace Profiles: Granular Privacy, W3C Compliance
• Myspace Profile 2.0 Takes Visual Cues From Facebook
• MySpace Launches Profile 2.0 With Drag And Drop Interface
• SnapLayout: The Profile Editor MySpace Should Have Made
• MySpace Launches Profile 2.0. No, You Don’t Have to Switch
• MySpace Launches Profile 2.0. No, You Don’t Have to Switch
• MySpace Launches Profile 2.0. No, You Dont Have to Switch
• MySpace Unveils Revamped ‘Profile 2.0′

You know that stupid news, that’s sooo stupid, it can’t be made up?

This issue of stupid news is brought to you by McDonalds – Have it your Way..

Or is that Burger King?

Apparently McDonalds teamed up with myspace to come up with a new jingle, via some sort of social network contest. Lets call it Mc-Idol. It’s basically to come up with a jingle to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the Big Mac(As if 5 Billion heart-attacks are something to celebrate.)

The original jingle was created in 1974(you know: two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, pickle, 500 grams of fat, etc… notice sarcasm – please or I’ll shoot you.);

Over 1000 users submitted videos and audio submissions, well the winner’s song will become the new official Big Mac jingle, and be featured on upcoming McDonald’s commercials, and yada yada yada.

The 4th finalist in the Big Mac Chant contest(the guy with the white tshirt and baseball cap); is none other than 29 year old, Tamien Bain, who actually held up a McDonald’s at gun point when he was 14 years old. Tamien Bain was convicted as an adult and served 12 years in prison for the deed.

The finalists were picked by a panel of judges, and apparently no background checks were done, or as techcrunch suggests perhaps they did a background check, and this is just a publicity stunt. Reportedly, Tamien Bain has hired a PR firm and is making the most from the publicity as he can.

Actually, it does seem that he may have turned his life around, only time can tell of course, and name one person who hasn’t done something stupid when they were 14, maybe not robbing a McDonald’s but still..Here’s what his profile says:

BAiNG “The Locksmith”, a top up and coming Miami rapper who went to prison at the age of 14 and did 12 years for robbing a McDonalds, now works with West Palm Beach State representative Maria Sachs on a project called “REAL TALK” which features him visiting juvenile detention centers to speak to the youth about overcoming negativity. BAiNG LOVES THE BIG MAC!! In the video he rides day and night through the drive through to get his favorite sandwich! He starts the song by saying: “see this is the chant”(the big mac chant), “and im just giving back” (making up for his error at the age of 12), “real talk though…” (because of the real talk project). HOPE YOU ENJOY IT!

Now watch the video for yourself – it’s actually really good at least in my opinion – I really do hope he does win – it’ll keep him from robbing another McDonald’s right? LOL.

Big Mac Chant

Related articles by Zemanta

• Finalist In McDonalds/MySpace Jingle Contest Is Former McDonalds Armed Robber
• Man who robbed McDonald’s to win McDonald’s jingle contest?
• Advertising: Remember ‘2 All-Beef Patties?’ McDonald’s Hopes You Do
• McDonald’s Robber Among Finalists For New Jingle