Taking the twitter

Want to know the latest on the Budget? Then Twitter was the place to be this week with Channel Four offering to keep you up to touch with the breaking news. This shows how seriously PRs need to take Twitter; everyone from journalists to the Government is now using it.

Not everyone takes it seriously, though. Here's a piece of fun I came across on YouTube. Enjoy.

From: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeLZCy-_m3s

Twittering about worms

PR clients are always quite rightly concerned first and foremost about their reputation. Twitter has taken a battering this weekend after a worm was placed in the site taking users to StalkDaily.com.

This was set up a by a 17-year-old American student, Michael Mooney, who said he did it out of boredom. He has even published a web page explaining why and how he did it. Twitter has had reputation issues before and has been slow to act when pressed by people being misrepresented on its site. If a student can cause this much chaos just imagine how much trouble a real professional hacker can create.

If Twitter allows worms and such misrepresentation to infect its day-to-day working this will hugely damage Twitter's standing. This could really curtail whats seemed to be the unstoppable rise of Twitter.

If I can't trust whether a Twitter has really come from someone it claims to be, or it could infect my machine, then I for one will not want to use Twitter. I am sure I will not be the only one.

The $250m Twitter question

The Internet is awash with rumours that Google is wanting to Twitter and ready to pay about $250m. While the credit crunch may be hitting some parts of the world, it looks as if Twitter make fly off to yet new heights if the tie up with Google comes off. Twittering could become as mainstream as blogging.

For those of us yet to join the rush to Twitter and not quite sure what to use it for I was glad to find this guide on the benefits for the PR industry:

WTF is Twitter and why should I care?

From www.prblogger.com

Is Twitter really worth $250m? How do we really find the value of Internet-based busineses? Tomorrow we will be flying elsewhere and $250m is a lot of cash for just a quick touchdown. Friends Reunited seems old hat today but ITV bought it for £120m (then $208m) back in December 2005.

So what is the next big thing? Well, if I knew the answer to that then I could be $250m richer.