The explosion of Flash content like widgets has created several complex problems, like how to index it in search engines, how to make it work on mobile, and how to track it. The latter is being addressed today at Adobe Max, where Google is announcing Analytics Tracking for Flash, which will let publishers track metrics for their flash applications from within Google’s popular stats package.

Aside from the unique file format, one of the major differences between tracking Flash and tracking webpages is that Flash can be embedded anywhere – meaning that analytics software needs to be able to measure interactions from not just a single location, but from within an application, regardless of where it’s placed.

To demonstrate how Google Analytics now does this, the company has teamed up with web-based Flash creation tool Sprout. Now, users who publish widgets and other Flash apps using Sprout can track metrics such as time spent, what links and objects users click within an app, and goal tracking – all from within the same Google Analytics account as their website.

Google and Sprout demonstrate how this works in the video below:

While Analytics for Flash is an interesting breakthrough in its own right, it also could be the dawn of a new era in marketing and how companies pay for advertising. As opposed to paying simply for clicks and for views, advertisers can now (in theory) pay for actual engagement, because it can be accurately measured.

Sprout is currently charging clients based on a “pay per publish model,” meaning the client pays each time someone actually does something with an app – like customize it (with Sprout’s “remix” feature) or republish it to a social networking profile. Sprout is marketing this new approach through a product they are calling SproutMixer.

Although most of the widget platforms like Clearspring and Gigya offer their own tracking solutions, Google Analytics adding its own support for Flash tracking is a big deal – it’s a solution that any Flash developer can implement into their applications – without the need for a middleman. As such, it could have significant implications on how online advertising is paid for, and how the widget companies evolve their business models.

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:New Google Analytics Plagued with ProblemsGoogle Analytics Announces New Features, Urchin UpgradeGoogle Voluntarily Taking Your Analytics DataGoogle Analytics Now Compares Different Data PointsThis Post is Being Tracked by Google Analytics!Google Analytics Gets a Beautiful New InterfaceIt’s Official…Google Buys MeasureMap

Source:Mashable!

Sarah Evans is the director of communications at Elgin Community College (ECC) in Elgin, Illinois. She also authors a PR and social media blog.

In my previous post I discussed how to build your Twitter community, offering 10 tips as a guide. Here are a few tips on what not to do:

(Make sure you know a few of the basic Twitter commands to understand the content of this post.)

Don’t get caught up in the COUNT; get caught up in the CONTENT!

My biggest pet peeve on Twitter is when people ask for more followers. I don’t think anyone has malicious intents, but it doesn’t make any sense to me. You get more followers because you provide great content, are entertaining or someone likes you.

It’s much worse to have someone follow you, not like what you tweet and then unfollow you. Chances are, you’ve lost them for good. Practice good Twitter etiquette and don’t solicit followers for yourself or your friends.

Don’t install the Twitter application on Facebook if you send more than 10 tweets per day

You will seriously start to confuse your network…or worse, annoy them. If you’re like me, my networks are separate. Not all of my Facebook friends are on Twitter, or plan to be. When I use “Twitter lingo” it confuses them.

I learned this lesson from a personal mistake. I did have a Twitter feed updating my Facebook account until a few very nice friends “encouraged” me to stop it (one was my sister!).

Don’t publicly thank each of your followers

The quickest way to get people to stop following you is to provide a lack of good content or engaging dialogue. Thanking each of your new followers is a nice concept, but not practical. Keep in mind that tweeting the names of those following you is not valuable content to anyone. If you set the precedence you’re going to thank each and every person, you better be prepared to keep it up.

If you really must thank each follower:

1. Use the direct message feature and send it privately.

2. Retweet good content they have posted and give them credit for it (the ultimate thank you!)

Don’t underestimate the power of tracking a trend

Be part of breaking the hottest Twitter topic or find out what’s going on and join the conversation. If you have information or news you’d like to track, use the hashtag. Use Twitter search to get your results.

Keep it short and sweet. The more you cut into the 140 characters, the less content you provide AND the less likely people will use it.

When to use a hashtag (#)?

• Taking notes at a conference (Ask everyone around you to do the same thing and then you’ll all have access to ALL notes)

• Promoting major events (i.e. conference, meeting, etc…)

• Tracking a message (see how far a reach you’re getting)

• Communicating during national and natural disasters (which is how the hashtag function began)

• Promoting a favorite (i.e. Web site, musician, writer, etc…)

• Launching a new product or idea

NOTE: You create a hashtag simply by prefixing a word with a hash symbol: #hashtag.

Don’t use up your entire 140 characters with a lengthy URL

Use applications like TinyURL or Snipurl. They automatically shorten your URL and can offer link customization. Once you submit a tweet with a long URL, Twitter automatically converts it for you. It doesn’t help your cause “pre-tweet.” Make the most of your content and space by shortening the URL in advance.

Don’t worry about those who “unfollow” you

It’s like Pandora’s Box, if you REALLY want to know when someone unfollows you, applications like Qwitter are available. I warn you, if you decide to use this function—do not hold a grudge. Those who unfollow you on Twitter may want to connect with you on a different network, or search your info at their leisure. And, yes, sometimes it’s just not a “match.” It’s not personal.

I do use the application, and I only look for trends of people who unfollow after a certain tweet or trend (i.e. if I’ve sent too many tweets in a short amount of time).

Worry more about building the community you envision…it’s energy well spent.

Don’t be afraid of being a “polyconversationalist”

(You caught me. I made up this word. For the purpose of social networking, it means one who converses with multiple people simultaneously.)

You are now part of an asynchronous microblogging world, multiple conversations are a reality. The beauty of it is the expectation that you’ll reply as you have time. When you “find the time” you may find yourself replying to multiple responses at one time. Get used to it…it’s what Twitter is all about.

Don’t miss out on the face-to-face

Social networking is just the beginning. Many Twitter users host events to get out from behind the computer and get in front of one another. Find a local event or host your first Tweetup.

Score major cool points at your Tweetup:

• Supply name badges for people to wear. Have people write their Twitter IDs on them (@yourname). For a few extra bucks check out Tweetup Badges.

• Live tweet the event (don’t forget to use a hashtag to track tweets).

• Keep a sign in of all participants, including their Twitter IDs and a valid email address, then share the attendance list with everyone.

• Take lots of pictures and upload to Flickr.

Don’t forget about your safety if you are going to meet up

If you plan on meeting up with someone you’ve never met face-to-face, here are a few tips:

• Google them. Take a look at their online presence. Are they well connected across many networks? Have they been around for at least six months to a year?

• Shared connections. (There’s nothing wrong with asking about someone prior to a meet up. Check to see if you share any mutual connections.)

• Publicly tweet/message the name of the person(s) and location of your meeting across your social networks.

• Exchange phone numbers. Call the number to verify it belongs to that person. Then give the phone number and any other contact information you have about that person to your partner or a trusted friend.

• Meet in a group setting in a public location. (Don’t meet at your home!)

• If you’re meeting up with several people you’ve never met, verify that the others are coming.

• Drive yourself or get your own transportation to the meet up. (I know…I broke my own rule in my example.)

Most importantly, trust your gut. If a request to meet “doesn’t feel right,” don’t do it. There are several Internet safety resources out there. It can’t hurt to take a peek.

Sarah writes her own blog PRsarahevans.com and is the director of communications at Elgin Community College (ECC) in Elgin, Illinois. She also worked for Advocate Health Care, the largest health care system in Illinois, as the manager of communications and government relations at Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital. She brings a comprehensive background in the knowledge of non-for-profit and health care management. Her personal mission to engage and employ the use of emerging technologies in all communication makes her effective in reaching a dynamic audience.

Imagery courtesy of iStockPhoto, SchulteProductions,spxChrome

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Mosio Uses Twitter For Mobile Q&AMenuism’s “GutCheck” Imports Twitter FeedsTwitter Closes $15 Million Funding RoundTwitter Mobile InterfaceQuick Fix For Twitter TroublesTwitterholic: Mashable Is World’s 45th Biggest TwitIntegrated Twitter Search Might Be Coming Soon

Sarah Evans is the director of communications at Elgin Community College (ECC) in Elgin, Illinois. She also authors a PR and social media blog.

The inaugural celebration of International Baby Wearing Week also serves as a platform for the Motrin brand’s launch of their new ads (below) targeting what else, “baby wearing moms.” Touting the tagline “we feel your pain,” the Motrin IB ad in particular takes a snarky approach towards moms who carry babies in a pouch or sling.

And on the surface at least, the company accomplished the ultimate in outreach goals:

1. Reach target audience

2. Get them to engage in dialogue about your brand

3. Find way to track message and outreach

The Wrong Move

Sounds great, right? Wrong. While the ads are the number one discussion trend on the microblogging platform, Twitter, the overall grade? A great big “Fail Whale”.

Avid Twitter user and mom, Jessica Gottlieb is the originator of the conversation via her Twitter network. The dialogue (and overwhelming outrage) is growing exponentially. Already there are thousands of comments on #motrinmoms and almost all are negative with many saying they will no longer use the brand name product.

It took only a few short hours to go viral. Katja Presnal, founder of SkimbacoLifestyle.com and LadybugLandings.com, wants Motrin to know that the ads themselves are giving moms headaches.

Presnal says, “Moms have brains, don’t treat us like that and learn to market for us. We spend 75% of our families’ money.”

Will Motrin Respond?

The world of social media is reaching a tipping point and my bet is yes, they will respond.

This is their opportunity to engage and connect with a powerful (and influential) audience. (Perhaps the one they should have consulted before launching the ads?) So, what should they do first?

1. Deliver an apology. (From a person, not just the brand.)

2. Offer an outlet for people (not just the target audience) to share their feelings and emotions – especially important – let people share how they felt when they watched the ads.

3. Talk about what will change or be different (and incorporate feedback)

4. Get a social media presence!!!

If they do respond, their response will be blogged, chatted and tweeted about and will serve as a case study for social media engagement for years to come. No pressure.

I’m waiting with baited breath.

Sarah writes her own blog PRsarahevans.com and is the director of communications at Elgin Community College (ECC) in Elgin, Illinois. She also worked for Advocate Health Care, the largest health care system in Illinois, as the manager of communications and government relations at Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital. She brings a comprehensive background in the knowledge of non-for-profit and health care management. 

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Windows Live Launching Niche for MomsMom Central Empowers Moms and Tests Products for CompaniesMomJunction, Another “MySpace for Moms”, Raises $1.5 MillionCafeMom Gets $5M in Latest Round of FundingMommyBuzz Launches MySpace for MomsMothersClick is LiveMothersClick to Launch a Mommy-Based MySpace

Today the sheeps were out in force showing the full power of the sheep. First we had sheep signing up to follow "the cold" of Kevin Rose. Let’s not even talk about how Kevin should be using his own service instead of pushing his competitor’s service and what it must be like to be Leah Culver when her boss is using the competition. The cold of Kevin has nearly 1,000 followers so far. I am looking forward to the Sarah Lacy’s "pocketbook thoughts" account.

The bigger sheep hearding happened with a new ranking service for Twitter called Twitterank. You had one sheep start the chain to the rest of the sheep and then we had a good sheep movement. Adam Ostrow has a good recap of the "sheep effect" in which he explains that the site may have been used to grab passwords for Twitter. The Twitterank developer now states he had no interest in stealing your passwords. Frankly these rating services for Twitter are plain stupid. As I’ve written before a real stats program would show retweeting, outbound links, profile views, ya’know useful stuff.

Louis Gray believes everyone is good and he isn’t afraid to give out his Twitter password to anyone! Louis does mention that even if a malicious hacker got access to his Twitter account, all they could do is make up bad things which would be removed once Louis calls Twitter CEO Evan Williams to remove the nasty tweets.

The bottom line is this - you need to think before you give out your password. Don’t assume that some "friend" on Twitter has verified the service. As Twitter grows in popularity, I can only imagine that more phishing schemes will start to show up. While today’s issue would have only grabbed your Twitter password, what if they grabbed something more important?

So what’s the lesson we have learned today sheeps? Don’t be a sheep! Use your noodle!

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Other CenterNetworks Coverage: iminlikewithyou, FriendFeed, Web Jobs

Dr. Mark Drapeau is an Associate Research Fellow directing the Social Software for Security (S3) project at the Center for Technology and National Security Policy of the National Defense University in Washington, DC.

Thoughts of a future President Obama have gotten many people in the tech community abuzz with glee. Indeed, this is a great opportunity for new ideas and creativity to impact the federal government, and society in general. As someone who works in the government every day, I’d like to see the readers of Mashable put their money where their mouths are, as it were.

Many people have commented to me personally, and in general, that the term “Web 2.0” and anything else with “2.0” after it is tired. When I was very new to the social software world, I was sitting next to Peter Shankman at a workshop when he exclaimed, “If I hear someone mention the term Web 2.0 one more time, I’m going to [redacted]!” I was half-laughing, and half-terrified, since I had only just recently heard the term!

Using “2.0” to denote applying new social technology to a noun has become practically ubiquitous. So maybe its use is tired. But often people don’t have any better ideas. Articles like this and this prove that while empty criticism is easy to dish out, suggesting good alternatives is hard work.

Searching for alternatives

My gut told me that better ideas were out there. As a preliminary test, I recently queried my Twitter followers for ideas about what to rename Government 2.0, and got one great response from Jody Reale. She suggested “Quantum Government,” which I like, because in physics a quantum is the smallest unit that light can be broken into. If we consider government the light and individual employees the quanta, we might think of social media empowering each individual quantum to achieve more than they could before, and truly make the whole more than the sum of its parts.

Help a bureaucrat out

Let’s get back to Peter Shankman, who created a wonderful crowdsourcing service called Help a Reporter Out (HARO), which connects reporters’ story ideas with sources’ knowledge. Well, I hope that the people who read this column can “help a bureaucrat out” – what do you think Government 2.0 should be renamed? Please post your comments publicly here on Mashable, and discuss them with me and amongst yourselves. Be creative, be vicious, and most importantly, have fun.

To make things interesting, I’m going to personally give away prizes. First prize will be an excellent blue CIA coffee thermos and other emblazoned gear (pens, etc.). Runner-up will be an awesome-looking classic white coffee mug from the historic and prestigious National War College in Washington, DC. Finally, I will give out a prize for the “most creative” name that isn’t chosen in the top-two (I have to be creative with that prize, so I haven’t thought of it yet – suggestions?).

So, do you have something for me? Can you beat Jody’s “Quantum Government” idea, currently the number one? And most importantly, will the readers of Mashable prove that government crowdsourcing can really work? I challenge you.

Dr. Mark Drapeau is an Associate Research Fellow directing the Social Software for Security project at the Center for Technology and National Security Policy of the National Defense University in Washington, DC. These views are his own and not the official policy or position of any part of the U.S. Government.

Image courtesy of iStockPhoto, klikk

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:In Finland, Government Disconnects ItselfFacebook Banned For Ontario Government EmployeesWhat Happens When the Government Goes Web 2.0Granicus Gets $10M for Government Webcasting ToolsGoogle’s Hopes for Government WebsitesUK Politicians Seek To Legislate Against YouTube ViolenceGovernmentdocs.org Adds Social Twist to the Freedom of Information Act

Part game, part free music site, TheNextBigSound is surely one of the slickest new music sites we’ve seen.

As demoed at the TECHcocktail event in Chicago last week, the concept is simple and ingenious: listen to free music from unsigned bands, and “sign” your favorites to your own virtual record label. When your signed artists become hits on the site, you score points.

Simple…ingenious…and very addictive.

Once you’re done building a music empire, don’t forget to check out the hundreds of other free music sites we’ve covered recently:

Online Music: 90+ Essential Music and Audio Websites

Keep Rocking: 30+ Sites for Free & Legal Music

30+ Awesome Sites for Streaming Music

25 Tools For The Independent Musician

Music News Toolbox: 50+ Links For Discovering New Music

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Last.fm Still Growing. Thanks, Free Music.Moshable: Great Name, How’d Ya Think Of It?Last.fm: Free Music Initiative Has Sparked 119% Rise In SalesMore Free Music: Teen Social Network Kiwibox to Get Universal’s CatalogLala’s Free Music Streams Shuttered: Too PopularBillboard Top 100 Now Includes Yahoo and AOL MusicMySpace Music: It’s All About the Activity Stream

Source:Mashable!

Torley amplifies your awesome with the useful and fun. He loves life, wife, and watermelons. You can check out his profiles at Torley.com

I’m thrilled that websites are increasingly becoming aware that long registration forms discourage you from joining them. Like free drinks at a bar, there have been a few core approaches used to increase your chances of committing: simply shortening a form and leaving much info optional until later is a popular choice, and so is allowing you to test-drive or tour features firsthand before ever giving away your personal info.

Image editor Picnik and form-maker Wufoo are superb examples. But still, after you’ve signed up, you’ll likely want to enter a bunch of stuff — especially on social networking sites that ask about your taste in music and your pet’s middle name. So what do you do? Here are some simple steps that you can use to smooth the form-filling process, and each subsequent time you sign up for a site, think of the following as a handy checklist that ensures you’ve got everything ready.

Use the same username everywhere

Not always possible, but the reason why this matters is that it curbs the sheer frustration of “WHAT WAS MY USERNAME!?” Yes, modern Web browsers can remember it for you, but what if you’re at a public terminal and want to login? Or what if you clear your personal data? Even if most places offer a “Forgot your username/password?” service, avoiding trouble from the start is smartest.

As essential as water is wet: pick something brief yet unique, and definitely memorable. If you can use your email address as Guy Kawasaki is fond of advocating, that folds 2 things to remember into 1. I go with “Torley” because that’s my first name — it may not be so clear for you, but in any case, I recommend trying out UserNameCheck.com (previously covered on Mashable) to get a good feel. It shows where your suggested name’s taken across almost 70 sites.

Even if you’ve already signed up for various sites, this is a good principle to keep in mind going forward. Another reason why it’s important: if you’re into lifestream aggregators like FriendFeed, they’ll ask what your usernames are on other services. Some aggregators have the ability to auto-add you to multiple services if you have the same name on all. Otherwise, it’s more laborious.

I should mention this can also be a good motivator for being an early registrant of a site you might possibly be interested in, just to make sure you’ve claimed your name.

Prepare a “passport” of all commonly-used info

At the most basic level: it never hurts, and often helps to have a folder in an easy-to-reach place on your computer — like your desktop or Documents — where you have a plain or rich text file containing the stuff you often enter into profiles either during or after initial registration.

Some examples of common fill-me-in fields: Biography (aka “About Me”), Location, Interests, and Occupation. Social sharing sites get more granular, e.g., Flickr also has a “Favorite Books & Authors,” “Favorite Movies, Stars & Directors,” and even “Favorite Music & Artists.” MySpace, FaceBook, and others have their own equivalents. I may not fill these out unless there’s some compelling advantage to doing so — like finding others with the same taste, or posting my fave bands on a music recommendation site that actively parses that info to suggest new tunes. But the point is: these “personality pop quiz” fields can be time-consuming and require some thought, so a prepared copy-and-paste can make a big difference!

Part of your text file could look like this:

- Favorite Books & Authors: Harry Potter, Stephen King’s The Stand

- Favorite Movies, Stars & Directors: Johnny Depp, Ed Wood, Neil Patrick Harris as Dr. Horrible

- Favorite Music & Artists: Tangerine Dream, Vangelis, Yanni, A-Ha’s “Take on Me”

Then, copy-and-paste as needed.

One level up on the automation scale is making your Web browser help you autofill. Modern browsers have autocomplete, and Firefox offers add-ons like Autofill Forms which I adore. I know many people like RoboForm, which works with Internet Explorer too. These tools have the disadvantage of possibly not being able to recognize a form if it’s seemingly labeled the same but has a different ID, so that’s where copy and paste fallback is useful.

And further up — or perhaps sideways, since this is complementary, a macro app will let you enter long chunks of text with a single, or few keystrokes. I favor PhraseExpress (version 6 was recently released), which works in just about any Windows program that supports pasting text. One of the best ways to judge if you need a program like this is to ask yourself: “Do I find myself typing the same stuff over and over while grumbling about how tired I am?”

The goal here: the quickest possible access to your text, cutting down on time and trouble.

But ah, what about pictures?

Have your “passport photo” ready, too

You know what they say about a picture being worth so many words. Many sites have a generic placeholder until you choose to override it with one of your own, which you should. And if you belong to many sites with the same visible identity, it helps to use the same picture — it’s easy and boosts your personal brand, if you’re into that.

Aside from selecting from a premade gallery, these are the two most common choices:

1. Local upload - Browse your hard drive for a photo

2. Remote upload - Specify an URL, e.g., http://blahblah1234.com/profile.jpg

Let’s cover both of these. With “Local upload,” it helps to put a few different versions of a picture in your earlier-established profile passport folder, alongside your text file(s). Some sites have eccentric requirements, but by and large and not unlike fast food, you’ll want a:

1. Small size - 75×75 pixels or less, useful on many forums, Gravatar, etc.

2. Medium size - Say, 500×500 pixels, likely to be shown in your “extended profile”

3. SUPER-SIZE - As big as it can be!

It’s true some sites will auto-resize or allow you to crop your upload (e.g., for non-square ratios), but that’s far from universal, so don’t count on it. Your image can be in JPG or PNG format — the former’s more common. And make sure it looks great at a small size. (E.g., no Boschian gardens in their entirety.)

The same principle applies to “Remote upload.” It gets easier if you use Flickr, because Flickr automatically creates up to five different-sized versions. Click through to see the actual profile pic/avatar/buddy icon I use, called “Watermelon Eye:”

And you can save Web images for local upload, sparing you resize time. But please don’t violate anyone’s rights (that sounds so dirty) — make your own art or get something in the public domain or Creative Commons.

I love to save time so much that I use Direct Folders (basic version is free), which provides easy access to your commonly used files and folders. It allows me to double-click when a file browser is open, then select my profile image with one more click. Pedantic? No way, all those clicks add up when you’ve signed up for over hundreds of sites for experience’s sake as I have.

Simply put: a well-chosen photo helps you to stand out and be more memorable.

Identify profile patterns across sites

Certain site profiles look similar because they’re built on the same software. vBulletin forums, WordPress blogs, and Ning networks are prominent instances. If you sign up for a lot of one or more of these archetypes, you’ll want to continually optimize your “profile passport” to be streamlined for the next time you sign up.

For instance, you’ll often notice a vBulletin forum’s User Control Panel has a layout like this:

Thus, reinforced lesson of the story gleaned from the above: be prepared!.

Extend these principles to specific site content

A growing number of sites use data and metadata like tags to organize your stuff. Flickr — which I mention so often because it’s a great example — makes it easy to see which tags you’ve used the most. Some places can autocomplete popular tags. Unfortunately, they’re the exception, not the rule. When I upload a video tutorial to YouTube, blip.tv, or Vimeo, I have a PhraseExpress shortcut: typing in “[tags]” expands that abbreviation to a list of commonly-used tags, which I can edit as needed. Just like a word processor template isn’t the end of your creation, but is a facilitator to get on the right track.

Here’s another example of specifics: if you’re a musician, there are numerous music (like Jamendo and SoundCloud) and stock content sites (like Envato) which encourage you to upload your MP3s. Do just that, and put the MP3s alongside the text files in your passport folder. In this case, your text file would have relevant info like the story behind each song — whatever you observe keeps appearing on different sites.

This goes beyond filling out your profile and can be applied in a variety of ways, but the same benefits are incredibly true. It’s part of what I call knowledge compound interest, where the methods you “invest” today and share tomorrow — exactly as I’m doing here — will earn unto itself in the long run. After all, a well-filled profile shows how interesting you are, and tags add value to identifying your content. Time’s a-tickin’, and the sooner you get started, the more you have to gain.

Don’t be stressed to fill everything out at once

I emphasize this, because as much as a rabid, buzzword-binging junkie I can be at times, I’m also smart enough to know that the best experiences come with extended usage, not all in a day. Especially with so many startups to check out on Mashable.

I like to dip into various sites and tinker around to gain an understanding, and naturally cling to the ones which are useful for me after weeks. I never stay on a site just because of peer pressure.

Accretion counts for a lot: incrementally edit your profiles as you grow in life and your passions evolve. Leave optional fields empty if your intuition indicates you won’t benefit from filling them out. And as for what you are willing to share, I can’t say it better than Madonna: “Express yourself, don’t repress yourself.” Even if your taste in colors is a bit wacky:

If you find a site particularly well-worth using and you enjoy being active in the community, then by all means, contribute what you feel will be helpful for your fellow members to get to know you. And if you’d rather lurk, then make that your modus operandi.

The usefulness of what I’ve shared above will make itself clear after the next few signups you do, but don’t hesitate — apply and adapt them for your comfort at the earliest opportunity you get, and let me know your time-saving tips ‘n’ tricks!

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While it may be tough times for many social media startups, there could be a silver lining in the industry’s future. Interest in social media doesn’t appear to be waning, and in fact this week there’s been a growing realization in the mainstream media that social media played a significant role in Barack Obama’s campaign success. If the history of technology innovation is any guide, the next phase of industry growth will come from the markets and industries that adopt social media for their own purposes. And the same can probably said of the media’s evolutionary path, too. In fact mass media, which is an industry that observes events, news, and by necessity, itself, is practically destined to assimilate social media.

But added to historical tradition is another obvious but rarely noted reason for social media’s ongoing durability. It’s in social media’s DNA: that social media collapse the distance between production and consumption.

Unlike traditional (mass) media and in contrast to past modes of production and manufacture, including information production, social media co-locate the means of production with means of consumption. Video is recorded, edited, posted, and viewed on the same platform. Opinions, news, and stories are told, shared, commented on the same platform. Music is made, distributed, branded, and listened to, on the same platform. This conflation of means of production with means of consumption not only presents a threat to mass media (and one which mass media will respond to by co-opting the social), it promises opportunities for those who can see them.

All commerce involves some amount of marketing, whether it’s based on brand identity, "real" utility and value, pricing, or whatever else comprises a marketing message and campaign. Social media disrupt marketing by eliminating much of the distance between the marketing/sales/branding medium and its audience. In social media they are one and the same: the audience does the branding and marketing, through communication, and often without the brand’s direct intervention or participation. Distribution by means of communication among friends and colleagues (social media users) is not only natural and organic (non-commercial), it reproduces itself without any help from commerce required. In other words, it’s self-referential and non-commercial.

This might cause palpitations for those who make a living by imagining, imaging, wrapping, crafting, and distributing brand and marketing campaigns, but it shouldn’t. Conventional branding requires that value be created away from an audience, to then be introduced to an audience, resulting in (hopefully) consumer interest, desire, and spending. The distance between the brand and audience not only allows those on the brand side to finesse their presentation, it allows them to control its release. Traditional means of course are print, television, radio, and outdoors advertising. Lifestyle, affiliative, demographic and other types of market segmentation and targeting serve the purposes of campaign management. The whole process relies on a separation of brand from its audience, and time during which to conduct, refine, and steer the campaign.

Social media disrupts all of this with the sheer immediacy and proximity provided by its tools — tools that serve the needs of talking and communing. "Word of mouth marketing" is a fancy way of saying "we let it go and our fingers are crossed." Control over the marketing or brand message is but a residual inclination to stay one step ahead of the market, to use the distance between traditional media and their audiences to steer outcomes in a company’s favor. But control is precisely what is sacrificed in a medium that conflates means of production and consumption; a medium we sometimes call an "echo chamber" because there’s no telling where the noise is coming from.

Future and successful marketing campaigns that leverage social media will benefit the startup and social technology space by extending what’s been designed for daily use into soft commercial use. The budgets, while trimmed, are there. It would behoove social media companies to consider the ways in which soft commerce may play along. Just as mass media should entertain new forms of conversational and social marketing, from new types of creative, to compelling serial "talkies": brand stories, interactives, games, and other new forms of what I’ll call "participatory branding."

Social media are notorious for giving rise to unintended social practices, and those of us who design and build social applications should not for a minute think that we know everything that can be done with them. Any more than television manufacturers would be expected to develop the TV programs shown on them. Current market conditions make this a perfect time for creatives to get inventive, and for social media companies to reflect on where they will fit in.

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

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I’ve often asked myself, “how do enough people possibly click on this awful piece of spam to make it profitable?” Apparently, “enough people” is an incredibly small number. According to a new study, only 1 in 12.5 million pieces of spam draws a response, but that alone is enough for a spam network called Storm to generate more than $2 million in annual revenue.

To come up with those numbers, a team from several institutions in the University of California system hijacked Storm and setup fake spam campaigns to measure the response rate. According to the BBC, they took control of more than 75,000 machines, and then extrapolated out the data to the full size of Storm’s network to arrive at the final numbers. In case you’re counting, 1 in 12.5 million in a response rate of 0.000001%.

So how is that possibly profitable? Since the spammers behind Storm don’t actually send the malicious email from their own servers and instead use a vast network of distributed PCs that they’ve infected, the costs are basically nil. And the end products that they are selling – usually prescription drugs – pay huge referral fees.

Essentially, this study means that spam isn’t going away any time soon, despite the seemingly horrid numbers behind it. It’s also one of the more recession proof online businesses you can find – people need their V1AGR@ no matter how dire the economic conditions.

Image courtesy of iStockPhoto, fpm

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Mozy Online Backup - Don’t Spam Us, We’ll Spam You!Buy Blog Comments Lets You Buy Spam. So Not Cool.Are Gmail’s Antispam Filters Leaking?GMail Gloats About its Superior Spam ProtectionDear Spam, Happy 30th Birthday. P.S., You Suck.“Getting Bought” is Not a Business Model!MyBloop - Online Storage and Sharing

Source:Mashable!

Sarah Evans is the director of communications at Elgin Community College (ECC) in Elgin, Illinois. She also authors a PR and social media blog.

Your Twitter community is your life line. The strength of your community determines overall what you will (or won’t) get out of the microblogging platform. What do you want to use Twitter for? I wanted to build a community where I could engage in dialogue, stay ahead of the social media curve and share some laughs.

I just shared my objective with you. What’s yours? Start with your community objective and then go for it. Use the 10 tips below as your guide to grow the community which benefits you (and your audience).

Do… Create a user-friendly Twitter ID (@yourname)

Your Twitter ID is part of your personal brand. Plain and simple. Your first choice for a Twitter ID should be your name. There is nothing stronger for creating your personal brand. If your name is taken (as mine was) find a way to keep it as close as possible. (I added “PR” in front of my name, which worked for me as it reinforced my name and my expertise.)

There are only 140 precious characters available in each Twitter post.The longer your Twitter ID, the more space it takes up, thus limiting your interactions. If at all possible, stay away from numbers or an underscore. As your community grows, you’ll have many names and IDs to remember. Throwing in numbers and underscores makes it more difficult. This could ultimately minimize your interactions.

Are you reading this and thinking you should get a new username or a stronger personal brand? It’s actually pretty easy.

Do… Search for people to follow

It’s completely normal in Twitter culture to “follow” people you’ve never met. In fact, it’s encouraged. Begin by looking for people with common interests, hobbies or professions. I also like to follow people who are experts in areas I know nothing about.

A few tools to get you started:

• Twitter search - This is the only search function actually hosted by Twitter. It’s extremely easy to use and offers comprehensive results.

• Twellow - An application similar to Twitter search except that you can search by categories (which makes results more targeted).

• TwitDir - I like TwitDir because it offers a search function and breaks Twitter users into categories like the top 100 people followed and top 100 updaters.

Do… Learn the lingo. You’ll want to join the crowd. Trust me.

As with any new network there is a learning curve. Twitter has a quirky lingo all its own. But don’t let that hold you back from interacting. If you don’t understand something, ask someone. That’s how I learned!

A few of the essentials:

• DM = Direct Message

• @ = Use to reply and always include proceeding a Twitter ID in a reply

• RT = Retweet

• Tweet = Sending a message on Twitter

• Tw + any other word. A fun practice on Twitter is to develop a new twist on old words. For example, Tworld = Twitter world, and Tweeples = Those who use Twitter. You get the picture.

It’s an evolving list. Who knows, you might even invent the next “tword.” You can also check out basic Twitter commands.

Do… Know who “@” replies to you

It may not seem overwhelming at first, but soon after you gain friends on Twitter, conversations tend to move quickly. How will you keep up with it? My personal favorite is Tweetdeck (however it can slow down the functionality of your PC), I recommend a combination of the following:

• Twitter search - If you use Twitter search, also subscribe to the RSS feed. I set up two searches, one with the “@” in front of my Twitter ID and one without. You will get different results for each query.

• Tweetscan - I use Tweetscan as my quality check to see if I’ve missed any replies. You can also see a trends search cloud before you type in your search query.

• Google Alerts - Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (Web, news, blogs, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic.

Do… Add your Twitter ID to all of your signatures

Pimp out your Twitter name (and not just on Twitter). As social networks like Twitter begin to go main stream, you’ll want to be able to connect with new users.

A few opportunities to pimp out your Twitter ID:

• Add under your name when you comment on a blog

• If you friend someone on another social network, add a personal message which includes your ID

• Include a “follow me on Twitter” signature on all of your email accounts or for your social media email signature

Do… Reach out and say something

No one likes what I call a “virtual voyeur” (i.e. someone who watches social media interactions without responding). Everyone is putting him or herself out there and as far as my experience has shown, people are pretty darn accepting and helpful. Something as simple as a “good morning” often leads to a response. If that doesn’t work, try something a little more aggressive like, “someone say hello!”

Do… Read the bio of those who follow you

Know something about those who follow you. The information you get from a bio makes it easy to engage in dialogue. If someone lists knitting as a hobby, send them a link to a knitting blog you came across. It opens the door for dialogue and that is what your community is all about.

Do… Promote others and share your best information

Twitter is all about karma. The more good you put out there the more you receive. When you find others with great information, don’t be shy in sharing with your community. It’s a great feeling when you promote one of your followers (instead of yourself) and it results in dialogue among your community. It ultimately reflects support for you and credibility for your follower. Win-win!

Do… Learn the etiquette.

Most important is to learn about when you should “@” versus DM (i.e. direct message):

• Sending personal information like a phone number or email address. (It may seem like common sense, but I encourage you to NEVER post personal information like your social security number over ANY public forum.)

• A conversation which will consist of multiple “tweets” or a lengthy discussion with more than three posts. (Many people on Twitter will “unfollow” someone who sends multiple “tweets” in a row. Trust me.)

• Asking multiple questions to the same person or the same question asked to multiple people. (Your content becomes less valuable when people see the same thing repeated too many times…especially right in a row.)

• Correcting a mistake you’ve identified in someone’s blog post or “tweet.” (This isn’t required, but it is considered a common courtesy. The person who made the mistake will thank you.)

• Thanking each of your new followers. (It’s a nice concept to thank each of your new social media connections, but keep in mind how many responses you’re sending out each day or within a 10 minute period.)

• Making a request to someone. (Want to ask someone to write a guest blog post or partner on a project? Don’t put them on the spot in a public forum. Once you agree on a partnership, then by all means, tweet away!)

• Constructive criticism…this is your call. (If you have some pretty serious feedback to give someone, consider the most appropriate venue.)

• Getting someone’s attention! (Want to make a connection with someone, send them a direct message to get things started. A lot of people on Twitter get direct messages sent to their email or mobile phone.)

Do… Find out who some of the big players are

Twitter is not a popularity contest and it’s your choice on whether or not to follow these “top tweeps,” but they do tend to share a lot of great information. Did you know Pete Cashmore and other Mashable “tweeps” are on Twitter?

Stay tuned for a follow-up to this post on what NOT to do.

Sarah writes her own blog PRsarahevans.com and is the director of communications at Elgin Community College (ECC) in Elgin, Illinois. She also worked for Advocate Health Care, the largest health care system in Illinois, as the manager of communications and government relations at Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital. She brings a comprehensive background in the knowledge of non-for-profit and health care management. Her personal mission to engage and employ the use of emerging technologies in all communication makes her effective in reaching a dynamic audience.

Image courtesy of iSto