Is it too easy to spam Twitter by using hashtags?

Some people think it might be. Twitter users started using hashtags - a # followed by a unique bit of text - to help them follow conversations. Through some eerie demonstration of the hive mind, Twitter users usually come to a consensus on the tag or tags for an event or topic.
As with email and blog trackbacks, anything that becomes successful on the web ultimately becomes the target of spammers. Users began to notice a few months ago that tweets on popular hashtags often contained marketing messages or links to porn.
Upscale furniture maker Habitat was caught out last month when marketers working for the company used hashtags, even ones related to the disputed Iranian election, to promote its "totally desirable Spring collection". Twitter users cried foul, and Habitat apologised.
That hasn't stopped less scrupulous companies from continuing to use hashtags for spam. Hashtags around the death of Michael Jackson often have unrelated commercial messages. Beyond spam, the internet pranksters of 4Chan recently "attacked" Twitter (in the words of some web watchers) by creating multiple accounts and pushing the hashtag #gorillapenis into the trending topics.
This has led many to ask if the hashtag system is too prone to abuse. Twitter's openness has been praised as one of the key reasons behind its meteoric growth. But is it that openness also an achilles heel?
Social media blog Mashable wrote: "Trending topics are a great way to find out what's hot in the Twitterverse, but they're also a haven for malicious hackers and spammers."
Of course, not everything slightly off-colour is spam. Last week the hashtag #MrsSlocombesPussy trended (at the urging of Jonathan Ross) after the death of actress Mollie Sugden. British Twitter users and American fans of Are You Being Served? spotted it at once as a tribute to the actor; others, such as TechCrunch and Mashable thought it was just more pornographic spam, until set straight by their readers. Some accused Twitter of censoring the hashtag, but Twitter co-founder Biz Stone told appscout.com: "We don't filter out offensive content from search. There's a bug involving hashtagged words with more than 16 characters." (MrsSlocombesPussy has 17.)
But some companies think that Twitter should capitalise on their eagerness to use the sevice to promote their businesses. Moonfruit, a website building service, has been giving away MacBook Pro laptops in return for tweets with its hashtag. It trended - but then disappeared. The company wondered whether Twitter was suppressing it, but was unable to get any confirmation.
Moonfruit's Wendy Tan White thinks that Twitter is missing a trick. "This is probably a commercial channel for Twitter in the future."

www.tweethandbook.com

Get schooled on Twitter ... by UK government

If you’re still not hep to the Twitter, that new-fangled InterWebs thingy all the kids are talking about, you’re far from alone. A recent LinkedIn Research Network/Harris Poll survey found a whole lot of people who don’t know a re-tweet from a hashtag.
The fact that out of 2,025 adults questioned, a whopping 69 percent didn’t feel they knew enough to comment on the hot and happenin’ microblogging site may be a bit of a bummer to all the advertising and marketing researchers hoping to reap the benefits by tuning into Twitter’s top trending topics that may or may not represent the mindset of the masses.
Whatever. Even within the miniscule polling pool, those results aren’t much of a surprise to those watching this current trend of social media unfold with a jaded eye. Most people, marketers and mega-media behemoths operate Twitter on a seriously steep learning curve, spewing out feeds of what pretty much amounts to self-serving spam destined to be lost in a sea of who-really-gives-a-damn.

www.tweethandbook.com

Twitter By Posting Tweets

Communicate in Twitter by posting tweets One of the most important parts of using Twitter is knowing how to post your updates, also known as tweeting. It all starts with you answering the simple question: what are you doing? In this tutorial we'll show you how to post.
In the "What are you doing?" box, post updates on... what you're doing.- Your privacy settings dictate who can see the updates you post.- Don't be intimidated! Twitter runs on people sharing little details. - You can also share important information and updates with your friends or colleagues using Twitter.- Posts must be under the 140 character limit set by Twitter.- If the character count at the top-right of the update box goes into the negative, it turns red to alert you that you've gone over your character limit. - Using the @ symbol followed by a contact's user name will alert them to the fact that you're speaking directly to them. It will also link that user's name to his or her profile page, where privacy settings permit.- Using the Direct Messages link in the right-hand navigation panel, you can send someone a private message that won't be publicly broadcast. It will go straight to their private inbox. The 140 character limit remains unchanged in this scenario.

Twitter By The Numbers

There have been a lot of statistics coming out lately about Twitter. I'm sure there will be more headlines about Twitter given today's little outage. What follows is a sampling of some various statistics that have been published lately.
Here are some stats from Sysomos about Twitter usage:
53% of Twitter users are women and 47% are men
72.5% of all users joining during the first five months of 2009
85.3% of all Twitter users post less than one update/day
21% of users have never posted a Tweet
93.6% of users have less than 100 followers, while 92.4% follow less than 100 people
5% of Twitter users account for 75% of all activity
48% of the most active users have more than 100 followers, compared with 6.3% for overall Twitter users
More than 50% of all updates are published using tools, mobile and Web-based, other than Twitter.com
TweetDeck is the most popular non-Twitter.com tool with 19.7% market share
Here are some stats from Nielsen about Twitter usage:
10.7% of all active Internet users used Twitter in June 2009
16% of Twitter users are under 25 years old
64% of Twitter users are 26 to 54 years old
It should be noted that Nielsen was only looking at Twitter.com users. That leaves out mobile phone and other application users from their statistics.

Twitter By Sonja Cole

25 ways to teach with Twitter by Sonja ColeTwitter can feel like a strange new landscape when you first jump in. It is not always clear what its professional uses are, or what to post in 140 characters.Here are 25 ways that teachers can use Twitter to ask for help, get lesson plan ideas, book and professional resource recommendations, connect with other professionals, and even host an online book club. First, a guide to Twitter shorthand.

Twitter By Tweet Calls

Speak your Tweets
Update Twitter from anywhere by simply speaking into a telephone. 1-877-TWEETCALL is completely free, start using it today!
How it works
1. Dial 1-877-TWEET-CALL
2. Speak your tweet
3. Your voice is transcribed and posted to Twitter as text!
Before using TweetCall, please log in to associate a PIN number with your account for security purp

Twitter By David Pogue

"The World According to Twitter" by David Pogue LifeTwoUnless you live in a cave, you've heard of Twitter--the hype on it is at fever pitch. It's being used by celebrities, brands, and regular people to share what's on their mind or what they are doing at that moment. And here's one more use, to write a.Pogue's idea was to use Twitter to pose such questions as ""What's the best bumper sticker?' or "What's your strangest habit?" resulting in "The World According to Twitter". ...

Twitter By The Numbers

The Case Against Twitter, By The NumbersThere's mounting evidence suggesting Twitter's rocketship ascent might be more mirage than moonshot. Because we think Twitter search results pages would be a great place to put the kinds of ads that make Google $21 billion a year, we have, at various points, argued that Google, Microsoft and Yahoo all need to acquire Twitter. So obviously, we're as bullish on the micro-blogging startup as anyone. But at the same time, we're not blind to the mounting evidence suggesting Twitter's rocketship ascent might be more mirage than moonshot.

Twitter By Ben Stiller

By Michelle Collins
Ben Stiller has done all of your Grandparents a gigantic service. He sat down with child star from the 1700s Mickey Rooney to explain to him the magic of Twitter. And even though my Grandparents don’t even know how to turn a computer on, much less what “140 Characters” means, Mickey seems to pick up what Stiller is putting down. Namely, never trust anyone who shares too much information. Truer words have not been spoken.