Friendfeed has just enabled an option to broadcast your lifestream – in its entirety – to Twitter. This means that whenever you share something in Google Reader, upload a new photo to Flickr, favorite a video on YouTube, or participate in any of the dozens of other activity streams that FriendFeed monitors, it can automatically be tweeted as well. The tweet includes content from the message, and a link using what appears to by FriendFeed’s own URL shortener – ff.im.

It’s not hard to see how this could end up becoming incredibly annoying on Twitter and add to its already significant noise problems. While Friendfeed’s new feature lets you decide which services to sync with Twitter, many users are involved in hundreds of activities a day on the service. Having those all duplicated on Twitter seems like tremendous overkill. Nonetheless, I’m sure many power users will quickly move to double their exposure.

That said, you can always unfollow those that become too noisey. But, that seems so hasty, when all you really want to do is have a conversation. In short, this sounds great for attention hungry Friendfeed users, but, not so great for the quality of discussion on Twitter.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Walled Garden Be Damned: Import Facebook Activities into FriendfeedFriendFeed Brings Twitter BackGeoTwitterous: Personalized Twitter on a MapFriendFeed - Does It Enrich The Conversation Or Add To The Noise?Facebook Becomes FriendFeed; Launches Commenting On Mini-Feed ItemsMovable Type Plugin Connects FriendFeed Comments With Your BlogIntroducing Mashable, Twitter Edition!

Like many of you, I simply can’t keep up with the river of lifestreaming applications hitting public beta this year. Many seem to simply do the same thing, more or less, with a bit more of this or a bit more of that to differentiate each from its competitors. But social apps are bound, perhaps more even than "conventional" software, to conform to best practices. Why? Because they are social applications. Social applications succeed only if they can extend the individual user experience out into new and interesting social experiences.

And they do have to be interesting — for social applications, again more than conventional software, must be interesting. More often than not they are interesting because they are used as tools for talk. Talking with, to, at, amongst, in front of, behind, and to the side of. Talking with friends tends to be interesting to those involved simply because it is among friends. But where the face to face dimensions of social interaction are also rewarding for the obvious reasons, social applications must deliver a working substitute. There is no real "spending time together" online.

Even chatrooms, which are as much a precursor of lifestreaming as anything else online, can only approximate this sense of togetherness. I recall early days in IRC chatrooms where that sense of being there or of being in it was as much due to the suspense and waiting (for somebody to type out their response) as it was due to the "room" itself. One might even argue that this pressure of time grows in the user the slower the technology is to record and transmit time. The longer the latency, the greater the waiting, and thus the greater the anticipation, suspense, and urgency! (Is it not said that suspense in film is simply the time that it takes for something to happen?).

Swurl.com is interesting because it has a visual timeline of the lifestream (pictured above). In calendar format, and well-designed, the timeline looks good and is an attractive visual representation. It’s low on conversational content and talk, but it captures the past of a user’s activity in a compelling presentation. Plurk.com also has a timeline, but one that is used to steer interaction (and which looks more like a horizontal river display). Not only does Swurl’s calendar provide thumbnails of pictures and shortcuts to posts, it expands to accommodate periods of heavy activity. All days do not look alike. I like that.

This variation is important in lifestreaming apps. In contrast to the profile-based site or service, the stream stands in for the profile. The person’s talk stands in for profile elements. These choices make sense, because the call to action in a lifestreaming service is talk. It’s not browsing, searching, or navigating. At least not quite yet (I believe we’re ready for more order and structure). Really, each message/post/tweet in a lifestreaming app is its own call to (inter)action, which is also why most users are in it "now" or never.

Which makes Swurl’s representation of past user activity interesting to me. Most lifestreaming have stayed away from the archive of past activity (what’s the pleasure in paging backwards through a user’s posts?). But there’s a lot of value in past activity, and visual coverage of the past can take many forms (think Edward Tufte). We’ve seen none of them yet (Chirpscreen’s slideshows come to mind, though it would be nice to see them become actionable) but I’m certain that we will.

If twitter is the power curve of lifestreaming, then apps like swurl might show us some of the value in the long tail — the long tail being the past. To picture this, take the standard long tail graph and turn it sideways. The Present is the curve, the Past is the tail.

Mining the tail of time is mining in depth rather than mining across connections. Mining the connections of past time, for lifestreaming apps, might mean drawing connections across the past times (pastimes, experiences, too) of a site’s users. Currently, Swurl engages conversations around a user and his or her posts. But we could imagine indexing user streams for the purpose of making connections and extracting content. After all, a user’s post posts, talk, uploads, etc are used by many applications to predict or anticipate choices and preferences.

I’m excited to see what Swurl, with minimal complexity, has done to wrap a bit more around lifestreaming than we get out of tools like twitter. Twitter will remain for me my primary talk tool, as it has and will continue to have the best audience awareness. But if you wanted to imagine social networking, and profile-based social networking around lifestreaming instead of profile pages, Swurl would be a good place to start.

Join Adrian on Swurl. Adrian Chan is a social media experience expert and analyst. You can follow him on twitter at gravity7.

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During the Microhoo debacle, everyone was wondering who was going to buy Yahoo. While all eyes were on that, Yahoo has been quietly going about its business. Their business now seems to be wanting to become the platform that everyone develops for, and that initiative is called Yahoo! Open Strategy (Y!OS).

In the past few months, we have seen the release of SearchMonkey, FireEagle and the BOSS API. On Monday we saw the addition of two preview technologies, Yahoo! Social APIs and Yahoo! Query Language (YQL). Obviously, Yahoo has not been giving us empty promises.

So, what have they given us so far?

SearchMonkey - the structured search result data API

FireEagle - the location aware API

BOSS - the build your own search service API

Social APIs - a suite of preview APIs for basic social networking, contact communications, user status and user activity.

Yahoo! Query Language (YQL) - a preview release of a single endpoint service to query, filter and combine data across Yahoo and beyond.

Why is this interesting? Well, the first APIs that we saw were interesting by themselves. There was a good amount of hype regarding the SearchMonkey API because it gives developers a way to use search results in their own applications. FireEagle’s location awareness was a cool addition, but nothing earth-shattering by itself. BOSS allows us to create niche search services, or any application that is based on search services. So the combination of these first three services starts to get interesting. You can build a location aware niche search engine as part of your application, and your users would only know that your application is really cool and useful.

The addition of the Social API suite takes the Yahoo platform in a different direction entirely. They have not had a good history with social networking up to this point. Mash was recently shut down, and Yahoo 360 has not had the significant adoption that they hoped.

Given the number of users with email accounts and personalized homepages at My Yahoo, there is a very large market that they can tap into. By providing the Social API suite, they are giving third parties the chance to create a social application based on the Yahoo user base.

This could be a very interesting move for Yahoo. Because they have millions of users, many developers will try to create applications to woo them. Because the social applications would be using the Yahoo Mail address book and other information that users have already entered, these applications would need to be value added services instead of a “traditional” social network application. The Social APIs could be a major boon to Yahoo’s social presence, but it is not the most important technology release.

Yahoo! Query Language (YQL) uses a SQL-like SELECT syntax to retrieve data, and SHOW and DESC commands to discover the available data sources and structures that are available. For developers that are familiar with Unix systems and databases, YQL will not have a big learning curve.

This means that YQL enabled applications could be developed fairly quickly as well. Creating a generic query service gives tremendous power and flexibility to the developers. If you combine YQL with any of the other services available, like the Social APIs and FireEagle, very innovative uses of the now available Yahoo information are possible.

Even though the “business side” of Yahoo seems to be struggling, they are still a major player. They have a very large user base in their Yahoo Mail and My Yahoo properties, and Buzz is also attracting plenty of attention. With those sites, Yahoo is still valuable. The new Open Strategy is putting Yahoo in a platform position with the hope that developers can pick up the innovation slack and make Yahoo cool again. With these new releases, Yahoo is telling everyone, they are not going down without a fight.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Yahoo Search Monkey Reveals More Details on Developer PlatformPushed By Icahn, Yahoo Jumps Back Into Ad Deal With Google?Yahoo OMG. Get Your Celeb Gossip Here.More Problems For Yahoo: They Might Lose Bebo Ad DealYahoo China Launches a MySpace CloneYahoo Didn’t Give Up On Its Widget Engine (Yet)Yahoo Acquires Analytics Company IndexTools

Source:Mashable!

A few weeks ago, FriendFeed’s beta program was leaked, then introduced to the general public as the next evolution of the microblogging and lifestreaming platform. A lot of the same features talked about in the announcement fo the Beta made the cut, with a few minor changes (along with the addition of some additional and in my opinion much needed functionality boosts).

The ability to make lists and segregate out your follows into separate groups made the cut, though the original layout as to where they appeared has changed slightly. Before, everything showed up on the right column.

Now the data presented there has moved back over to the left.

While the possibilities for using these list capabilities are endless, I’ve endeavored to segment out my political FriendFeeders out from the non-political ones so that I can mitigate the affect of the sometimes infuriating rhetoric.

The other major addition of particular noteworthiness is an attempt to reduce the fracturing of conversation with the ability to organize topics and items via meme and commonality. If an item has been shared or posted by more than one person on your friends list, they’ll show up together with the conversations and everything.

All in all, a great set of updates to the service, and all the more reason to check things out again if you’ve recently fallen off the FriendFeed bandwagon.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:FriendFeed Gets $5M, Launches to the PublicFriendFeed Recommendations? Who Are You Likely to Like?Former Googlers Team Up to Launch FriendFeedMashable Rocks: Connect with us on FriendFeedFriendFeed Launches SearchFriendFeed for iPhone Coming - I’ve Waited For This All My LifeFriendFeed Brings Twitter Back

Twitter announced on its blog today that it would no longer deliver outbound SMS over its UK number. In its place, the company claims, “Twitter will be introducing several new, local SMS numbers in countries throughout Europe, in the coming weeks and months. These new numbers will make Twittering more accessible for all the folks who have been using SMS to send long-distance updates through our UK number.”

Twitter said that it simply can’t afford to support long-distance SMS Twittering anymore and the company claims “it could cost Twitter about $1,000 per user per year to send SMS outside of Canada, India, or the US.”

And while I can understand where it’s coming from, isn’t this the perfect time for Twitter to wake up and establish a real business model?  So far, the site has added users and paid millions to keep it running with nothing to show for it but some venture funding.  And considering it barely escaped ruin after numerous downtimes over the past few months, now is the best time for the service to pull its head out of the sand and create a business model.

So what can it do?  That’s a tough call.  Some believe that it should add advertising to the timeline and others think ads should be placed within each message.  But in reality, there’s no easy way for Twitter to add advertising to the service and it’s going to take a full-fledged analysis of what users would be happy with before it can move forward.

But the clock is ticking.  Instead of spending money, Twitter needs to start making money if it wants to survive and keep its new investors happy.  And if this news highlights anything, it illustrates one point: Twitter seems lost about its business model and it needs to come to quickly if it wants to keep its full offering afloat.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:Twitter Mobile InterfaceQuick Fix For Twitter TroublesDon’t Send Bac’n: Use TwitterSearchPyzam and Others Shunned by MySpaceMosio Uses Twitter For Mobile Q&ATwitter Adds GMail Contacts ImportHow Messed Up Is Twitter For You Right Now? [Poll]

If you’re a blogger, you’re probably aware that FeedBurner recently began migrating customers to Google’s infrastructure, and in turn rolling out AdSense for RSS to certain publishers (Allen Stern had a good summary of the changes earlier this week). While initially I was optimistic when I heard Google’s plan back in May, calling it “huge news for content publishers,” today brings an alarming sign of the current state of the contextual advertising product.

In the post we published earlier today, “18 Smaller Olympic Countries to Root For,” the ad accompanying the story in Google Reader was the following:

What we have here is another example of a contextual advertising misfire – Google sees a lot of words about sports and automatically determines that an ad about fitness might be a good fit. But rather than fire up a PG ad for GNC or Gold’s Gym, we get the very PG-13 ad for a gay fitness site that has absolutely no place in the feed of any professional news organization.

Now don’t get me wrong – I’d have the same reaction if the ad was of a scantly clad female as well. It’s simply inappropriate given the nature of our business, and while I realize we can have this ad removed from our rotation (we can use AdSense’s site filtering features), the policy of shoot first and fix later doesn’t do much for readers that have already formed a negative brand perception based on this type of advertising showing up with our feed.

To its credit, AdSense does offer a new “Ad Review Center” that can give the publisher full control over reviewing all ads before they show up – but again, the default is “Run ads immediately,” meaning unless you disable the setting right away, you’re leaving yourself open to inappropriate ads. There has to be a better in between – manual review by us of every ad is infeasible and will hurt our earnings, but at the same time, “run ads immediately” creates situations like the one above when there is no flag for this type of content.

Meanwhile, Yahoo and Google are taking a similar approach directly with consumers in separate announcements issued this week concerning targeted advertising - you can now opt-out of it on both company’s websites, but you’re opted-in by default. This is more understandable – asking each Internet user to opt-in to advertising before showing ads is unrealistic. Similarly, when Facebook serves those obnoxious “26 and Still Single?” ads, they have every right to do so, because if I hate them that much, I can just stop using the service.

While in those cases, it might be infeasible to have Yahoo, Google, Facebook ask permission before serving targeted ads on their own respective websites and third-party ad networks, when you are dealing with publishers, their brand, and ultimately their business, a bit more discretion should be shown in determining what type of ads are displayed. Believe it or not, we actually care.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:Ask.com Launches AdSense CompetitorProximic Puts a Twist on Contextual AdvertisingBlinkx Launching Video AdSenseContextual Advertising Misfires Hit Presidential CampaignsThe Daily Poll: Which Online Video Ad Format Will Win?When Contextual Advertising Goes Horribly WrongAdSense Becomes a Video Distribution Network with Help from Family Guy

Source:Mashable!

Editor’s Note: This post is part of an ongoing series at Mashable - The Startup Review, Sponsored by Sun Microsystems Startup Essentials. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

STARTUP DETAILS:

Company Name: About Airport Parking

20 word description: AboutAirportParking.com helps you find the best place to park at the airport with prices, maps, user reviews and more.

CEO’s Pitch: With air travel an expensive hassle these days, AboutAirportParking.com simplifies the question of where to park your car. AboutAirportParking.com lists over 400 parking lots, covering every major airport in the United States. We provide detailed information on each lot, including prices, available services and user reviews all neatly organized with maps and tips to help you find the best lot for you. In select markets you can also make a reservation to guarantee a spot and lock in online discounts.

Mashable’s Take: There are a lot of Web-based services out there that are taking on the offline parking industry in an effort to make it easier to find parking spots, especially for travelers. The fact remains that it’s a difficult industry to fully break into, given its offline presence and technological obstacles for making it a viable Web-based tool. But today we have another team that’s dedicated itself to bringing the parking industry into a useful online search tool.

About Airport Parking is a site that was borne of an idea some time ago, and is finally manifesting itself fully online. With search capabilities for parking around the world, About Airport Parking has a global reach on a very niche market. But in concentrating on the airport parking market, About Airport Parking has been able to do a few things that move it further ahead than some of the other parking search sites we’ve seen, like online reservations for parking handled directly on About Airport Parking’s site.

This particular niche in the parking industry is more likely than an independent parking lot owner in a downtown area to support things like online reservations, and as airport parking is something that can easily be planned for ahead of time, About Airport Parking doesn’t have to be as reliant on mobile or in-car navigation integration. This also means that the self-service market isn’t a likely consideration for About Airport Parking.

As this site continues to develop its feature set and automated features, I’d be interested in seeing how it could fit in with other travel services. Sites like SideStep have already integrated parking information, or personal assistant and recommendation services, as these too are beginning to move into the airport-specific travel industry.

Sponsored by Sun Startup Essentials

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:SideStep Launches Useful Airport VerticalParkingHunter is Just a Google/Craigslist Map Mashup. Yawn.FlashMashMeet @ Austin Airport Concludes SXSWiCNET Launches AtLarge - Social Site for Airport Wi-FiFlagXO Launches Airport Review SiteOrbitz Launches Incentives for Traveler Update ServiceAt Least ParkingSpots.com Has a Good Domain Name

Source:Mashable!

SecondBrain, the online content aggregator that launched a few weeks back, has added support for ten more services, including FriendFeed, Facebook, Diigo, Reddit, Mixx, Tumblr, Qik, Goodreads and Behance. While many consider SecondBrain a FriendFeed clone of sorts, there’s more to SecondBrain’s platform than lifestreaming. It takes your aggregated content and places it in an organized, searchable context.

As you can see just by looking at the list of newly supported sites, SecondBrain supports a wide array of social bookmarking and media-sharing sites, most of which are good for individual marketing purposes once widespread redistribution gets going. A primary focus for SecondBrain is to better organize your lifestreaming content and make it easier to share this aggregated content accordingly. That means that there are things like collections, which are tailored to your preferences and have privacy setting options and more.

One of the best things about this particular format for sharing lifestreaming content is that you can still aggregate certain content into various collections and share each collection with a specific audience, depending on your needs. What this does is increase the amount of content you can share, as you won’t have to worry about any ill-gotten overlap for other catchall lifestreaming services that don’t offer such privacy options with such organization.

From there, SecondBrain is also among those that are making aggregated Web content more searchable and easy to find, hence making it easier for aggregated content to be useful in more ways than just having been shared amongst a group of friends. It’s been quite interesting to see the types of services that do this, from SecondBrain to social search engine Delver, and surely more will come in order to tackle the very specific task of turning aggregated lifestreams into more useful things, from recommendations to marketing fodder.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:Secondbrain Announces Macbook Air WinnersMashable Announces SecondBrain Beta Launch: Win a MacBook AirSecondBrain Official Launch: Q&A with Founder Lars TeigenWindows Live Messenger Malware Forces Upgrade for UsersHow To Lose Your Users and Kill Your Web 2.0 Company: Zoto37Signals Releases Backpack UpdateUpgrade Time: 16 Services So Cheap it’s a Shame Not to Pay

In a move that could have a major impact on the way you surf the Web, the Mozilla Foundation today announced Snowl, an experimental solution designed to bring messaging and Web surfing together in the browser.

According to the company, Snowl is designed to answer the question of whether or not a browser can “help you follow and participate in online discussions.”  Mozilla believes that browsers are specially designed to address issues most users have in handling messages – weeding out the less important messages and navigating through the messages – and with Snowl, it aims to bring messaging platforms into one central location to let you surf the Web and handle messages at the same time.

Mozilla is still unsure of whether or not people will actually want to use the service and is opening up Snowl for us to figure that out.  But if it does become a desired application, Mozilla expects to offer “support for additional message sources like Facebook, AIM, and Google Talk; create an interface for writing and sending messages to enable true two-way conversations; and develop an API to make it easier for developers to build new experimental interfaces, e.g. an instant message view.”

There’s no way to tell if Snowl will be a success or if most users will even want to use the program.  But at first glance, it looks like a winner.

Let’s face it – it’s utterly annoying to switch back and forth between tasks to answer some messages and address other issues in AIM or Google Talk.  But if messaging was built into the browser, productivity would certainly increase and the overall usefulness of a standard Mozilla browser would skyrocket.

I don’t know about you, but I’m behind Snowl.

You can download Snowl here.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:Mozilla Messaging Spins Off To Develop Thunderbird 3Mozilla Launching Open Source Email Project for Developer CommunityMozilla Names John Lilly as New CEOMozilla Prism: Bringing Web Apps to the DesktopMozilla Launces Desktop Integration Tool For FirefoxMozilla Financial Report Shows its Increasing Importance to GoogleMozilla Adds Live Chat Support: Eroding Microsoft’s Stronghold?

Source:Mashable!

Rejaw is not YATC (Yet another Twitter Clone). Sure, it has some similarities but it’s really more of a hybrid of twitter, Plurk, and Meebo. It’s a micro-blogging service with a hint of chat. Here’s the quick and dirty rundown of its best features.

The first thing you will notice is the different terminology they use. For example, a public message on Twitter is called a Shout and a private direct message is called a Whisper.

The other difference is the size limit of messages. Rejaw allows messages up to 1,000 characters instead of the 140 characters that Twitter allows.

One of the most refreshing (pun intended) things about this service is that it isn’t as static as twitter because the messages automatically appear on your screen in real-time. This adds a much needed instant messenger feel to the microblogging experience. The most unusual thing about Rejaw is that it has a Mac client called Rejaw Radar for the desktop, but not a windows version yet! That is in the works though.

The un-twitter-like ability to add audio, video and images within a message post via links is very nice. This means no files to upload as on services like Pownce and Utterz. Simply paste the URL in your message and the picture, song or video will be instantly embedded within your post.

We’ve touched on the subjects of social networking addiction (and fatigue) in the past, but a new survey from AOL Mail shows just how hooked Americans are on email. Among the findings are that 59% of us check our email from the bathroom – no wonder one of the first questions T-Mobile’s customer service asks when you report a malfunctioning device is whether or not there is water damage!

The study of 4,000 users also showed people checking their email with regularity from the following unusual and perhaps inappropriate locales:

• In bed in their pajamas: 67%

• From the bathroom: 59%

• While driving: 50%

• In a bar or club: 39%

• In a business meeting: 38%

• During happy hour: 34%

• While on a date: 25%

• From church: 15% (up from 12% last year)

According to the study – which can be read in full at crazyforemail.com – the most email addicted cities are New York, Houston, and Chicago, with San Francisco coming in at a surprisingly low 5th.

The report also includes a word to the wise regarding email sign-offs: 25% report being annoyed by “xoxo” while “cheers” irritated 13% of the respondents.

Meanwhile, we thought we’d run the same poll for Mashable readers and see how your email addiction stacks up:

If you have a more bizarre location from which you’ve checked email, feel free to share the story in the comments

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:MySpace Teams with Drug Company to Launch Site Addressing AddictionGet Pwned By The Horde - On Your MobileFuzzy Math: Facebook Costs Australia $4 Billion in Lost ProductivityTwitterMail Lets You Tweet from your Email AccountContactify Creates URL for your Email AddressFav.or.it: 200 Invites for Mashable ReadersFTC: Bogus Email Alert

Source:Mashable!

You can choose two sides when it comes to getting people on Twitter:

You drink the noob hatorade: You claim that you’ve used Twitter since the dawn of 2006 and you don’t necessarily want Twitter to become the next MySpace.

or

You invite your mom to Twitter: You think Twitter is the best thing since AOL and want to know the exact doings of everyone you care about, at all times (in 140 characters or less).

If your stance is the latter, then you know how hard it is to convince someone to join, never mind use Twitter. If your stance is the former, well this article is probably just going to irritate the crap out of you.

For everyone else, here’s how to get your mom, friends, and colleagues on Twitter:

1. Find them some valuable people to follow

If you’re dedicated to the cause, you’ll find people of interest to your subjects who are on Twitter. If your subject is already into social media, then this task is easy. There are dozens of social media mavens on Twitter, which you probably already know. If they’re not, then you’re going to have to do some more digging. Here are some suggestions:

Parenting types – Moms love other moms and dads like to give the ‘ol punch-in-the-shoulder to other dads, so give them some mommy twitterers or daddy twitterers to follow.

Political types – While I’m sure that political candidates have their interns running like mice on wheels, you can count on the fact that politics thrive on Twitter. @BarackObama and @HillaryClinton are on there; John McCain doesn’t have an official account, but his followers have made a few including @JohnMcCain2008 and @McCainNews. Even @RonPaul2008 is on there, which is said to be the official account but has a whopping 2 followers and some hardly relevant content. @JohnEdwards has a more impressive following.

Celebrity gossip types – There aren’t many real celebrities on Twitter, but I did find @MCHammer, and there are plenty of other minor celebrities on Twitter. Worse case scenario they can just follow @RSS_PerezHilton.

You’ve got the idea. If worse comes to worse, just point them to Twits Like Me and let them find people to follow. Also, don’t forget to tell them who is on Twitter that they already know.

2. Get them a desktop or mobile app

This is important, because using Twitter.com to tweet, respond and message is downright painful. Point them to a list of cellphone Twitter apps or other Twitter tools. Once they have an app that makes it as easy as instant messaging, it’ll stick.

3. Respond to their Tweets

Twitter is going to get really boring, really fast if no one is responding to them. I mean really, if a tweet falls in the Twitterverse and nobody hears it, does it make a tweet? Again, make it look and feel like an instant messenger. Once they make their own friends, they won’t be so dependent on your responses.

One way to force them onto Twitter is to tell them that you can’t talk on IM but if they want to tweet you during the day, that’ll be easier for you. Trickery always works.

4. Introduce them to Twitter Lingo

Twitter lingo isn’t completely right-brained, but if there was ever a Twitter Lingo FAQ, these items would be on it:

Tweet – A tweet is a message of 140 characters or less, sent through Twitter.

@ - Use this symbol before the name of the person you want to respond to. When you do, the person you’re sending it to will see it as a reply them instead of just a regular tweet in their feed.

Hashtag – A predetermined phrase that starts with a # sign that Twitterers use to categorize tweets. When someone want to talk to a particular group of people, they’ll use the hashtag after their message. Everyone else will still get the message, but anyone who searches that hashtag later on will only follow the designated tweets.

TweetUp – A gathering of Twitter users; normally a luncheon or a casual meetup. Stormhoek has infamously contributed wine to these types of gatherings.

Fail Whale – The Fail Whale is the symbol of twitter down-time. When twitter is down, the page displays a whale being carried by birds. Common phrases referring to the whale include “whale sighting” and “launch your harpoons”.

DM – A DM is a direct message sent from one Twitter user to the next. Only the recipient and the DMer can see this message, as opposed to the rest of the Twitterverse.

Twitterverse – The universe of Twitter users; everyone who “tweets.”

Plurk – the service that Twitter users swear they are switching to every time there is a whale sighting.

FWIW – A common acronym meaning, “for what it’s worth.” Hey you’ve got 140 characters to talk, and I’m surprised Twitter users haven’t come up with an entire tweet made of acronyms.

5. Invite them to a social media event

There’s no better way to feel out of place than to show up to a social media event like PodCamp or SummerMash without an answer to the “what’s your twitter name” question. Once your subject makes real-life friends, they’ll feel comfortable chatting in what is now their earned social space.

6. Remind them of how Twitter is good for business

Just look at @comcastcares; that guy recently got into the New York Times for using his Twitter account at work. It’s good for marketing, it’s good for customer care; it’s probably even good for teachers and police officers and public officials if you want to go nitty gritty with it.

7. Don’t give up

Trust me, nobody gets tired of hearing in real life what you Twittered about today. Wait, do they? Why didn’t anybody tell me?

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:Twitter Mobile InterfaceQuick Fix For Twitter TroublesDon’t Send Bac’n: Use TwitterSearchMosio Uses Twitter For Mobile Q&ATwitter Adds GMail Contacts ImportHow Messed Up Is Twitter For You Right Now? [Poll]30Boxes Brings Us Power Twitter