There are a couple of reasons this pisses me off:

1. Any developer interested in extending, enhancing, or interfacing with Twitter has no choice but to ask you for your Twitter username and password. This is a limitation with Twitter. Their programming interface doesn’t allow for a better method of authenticating you. This Twply debacle will make users even more apprehensive about using any 3rd party Twitter application. I’m sure most of you were already suspicious.
2. This application was completely unnecessary, not innovative, and duplicative using applications which already exist.

Get Your Twitter Replies

I’ve previously written about Notify.me in regards to Facebook, but I also use it to catch all my Twitter replies and to see when people are tweeting about me. Here is how it works:

1. Sign up for Notify.me
2. Go to Twitter Search and find your replies. I’m “rahsheen” on Twitter and people often misspell it, so I did a search for “@rahsheen OR @rasheen”
3. To the right of your search results, you should see Feed for this query. Right-click on that link and copy it’s location.
4. Go back to notify.me and click Sources
5. Paste the URL of the search where it says Feed and click Add Feed

At this point, the power of Notify.me becomes apparent because you can receive your notifications by Email, SMS, Instant Messenger, or desktop application. You will see 4 icons for the filter you created. Click the methods by which you would like to be notified to activate/deactivate them. Make sure you visit Destinations to configure your email, cell phone, or IM information.

There are about a million ways that you can use notify.me to help you keep track of yourself and other things. Check out their their wiki for more information.

Many services out there want your Twitter credentials. We will see more in the coming year. The only way for this situation to be solved is for Twitter to update their API. Until then, it’s up to the Twitter community to point out the fakes. Someone must know someone, who knows the someone that created the application.

So, before you sign in, make sure you use a lifeline. Tweet a friend.

Ad money gets old.
While ad based sites will still be a good source of revenue for some many will move away from pure advertising based models.  This is where a lot of innovation will live. We’ll see content sites large and small execute on additional ways to monetize their sites outside of just advertising. This trend will trickle over into the ad network space with businesses who play in that sandbox getting more innovative on how to recruit publishers and more importantly how to keep them and money in their bank accounts. In ‘09 this is an opportunity for smaller publishers to get creative on “the ask.”

Sustainability for small fish in a big pond.
We will see a lot of consolidation in the mainstream. There were a whole slew of start-ups in the African-American space this year, varying from good to not so much.  Most bootstrapped without any significant investment funding from VC’s.  While the economy has taken a turn for the worse we won’t necessarily see these start-ups die out in a bust like those of 2001.  Because many were bootstrapping they have been operating on very little funds and have the ability to sustain these hard times if they choose to have that stamina and dedication. However, many small blogs may fade out as unemployment rises and publishers have to get serious about making ends meet. Conversely, we will see some consolidation among many of the larger start-ups launched at the tail end of ‘07 and throughout ‘08. Acquiring audience will be hard, making money on that audience will be even harder. Companies that are still standing throughout ‘09 will be forces to be reckoned with.

Old media and new media play nice.
This is not necessarily a new trend, we’ve seen old media dabble in new media over the past year with many sites relaunching and stepping their social media game up.  What we will see happen in 2009 is old media finally playing nice and not trying to recreate the authenticity new media initiatives allow for. Not saying that all Black media will work together in harmony in 2009 but partnerships between smaller sites and larger ones will be a step in the right direction.

Gaps close between niche social networking and mainstream social networking.
With Facebook and Twitter becoming mainstream and more and more people migrating from MySpace to these platforms we will see niche social networks really spread their wings and open up, literally. The use of Open Social and Facebook Connect among others will allow users of niche social platforms (anywhere from blogs to networking) to truly integrate experiences across platforms in ‘09. Social networks won’t operate in silos and will begin to build a truer “web” around the social graph.

On the social media front TrendsSpotting’s predictions from the best of the best influencers in social media is quite interesting and gets into details from people like Charlene Li:

What are your predictions for 2009?

• The internet is universal. Black people can be the designated primary audience but it is impossible to make a site for black people ONLY, even if that is the intent. IPs are race/ethnicity neutral. But remember, in the land of access for everyone there will always be a secondary and tertiary audience that you don’t necessarily have to go out of your way to appeal to, but can still be valuable members of the viewing public of your site.
• Blend Content. While black focused content is marvelous and often overlooked, a majority of sites will not benefit from having only black focused content. In fact, black people care about more than just black content so make sure to determine what blend balances out your site.
• Don’t define blackness. There is no monolithic blackness. That doesn’t mean that there is not a universal black experience/history/etc. that we are all apart of (regardless of ethnicity) be it conscious or unconscious. This universal experience means that there are things you can call on that are more relevant to black people than other populations. It is ok to focus on these things.
• Don’t pander. Know your market. If there is a sub-group of black people you are trying to target, know them. Even more than knowing your market, know your competitors and know that your competitors are not just black sites. Again, the internet has the capability of allowing access to everyone. This means that black people are not going to go to just black sites, and any site that is out there offering something similar or comparable to what you are doing might just end up with the audience you are trying to get.
• Be subtle. There are very few sites where it makes sense to have black in the title and nothing is worse than a site that tries to make everything about itself black. That is just not how the world is for anyone, including black people. If you are targeting black people as your primary audience, there are much more subtle ways to do it. Something as simple as featuring images of black people on the homepage or having black-focused advertisements can differentiate your site from a non-black focused site.
• Be innovative, attractive and intuitive. People like things that convey a shiny newness. They like things that are easy to understand, that have a clear benefit. If someone doesn’t get your relevance in the first minute of visiting your site, you might have lost them forever.
• Be Mobile.  Now, this is the only one that is somewhat optional, emphasis on the somewhat.  However, I think it is important because people are becoming more and more mobile.  There is no point in building something out that isn’t forward thinking.

Have any Black sites you love that are doing it right? What about your own Dos and Don’ts or resolutions for the New Year?  Feel free to leave a comment.

Celebrities and athletes ardent interest in video games is no passing trend; Soulja Boy’s recent Xbox challenge with MTV Multiplayer’s Stephen Totilo, as well as Barack Obama’s pre-election foray into gaming advertisements, shows as much. Other athletes and celebrities, such as Bow Wow and Gilbert Arenas (perhaps more famous for cheating at Halo than pwning n00bs) have also issued similar gaming challenges in the past.

So do you think you’ve got what it takes to beat Ovie? Also, what do you think about the intersection of celebrity and gaming in terms of shaping their media presence?

I spoke with HBCU Connect CEO, William Moss III, a Hampton University alumnus, about how the competition in the market has changed over the years and the future direction of the enterprise. As far as the teamwork within the organization, Moss’ views are clear cut:

“I don’t care how big or small a company is or how poor or rich they are, when it comes to creating a competitive website they are only as good as their best programmer, designer, marketer, etc. I won’t pretend everything we do is the prettiest, but when it comes to online strategy and functionality we know what we’re doing.”

Clearly, teamwork is not a buzzword to Moss but a value that has held true to form as HBCU Connect has grown over the years. And that growth has not been easy with old rivals as well as new ones such as Alumni Roundup, who have arguably overtaken HBCU Connect in viewership. Recent numbers show Roundup’s page views exceed 100,000 daily with a membership of 80,000. Roundup includes over 15 sites dedicated to various HBCUs, of which the flagship site was Bison Roundup, dedicated to Howard University, where the founders and brothers Bryndan and Rustin Moore are alums.

“Growing your core market is much much more challenging now than it was when I started, but when it comes to the larger competitors, the idea is not to compete with them at what they do best, you stick to what you do best and who you know”, Moss said. And it is that singular focus on the HBCU network and its environs that has catapulted HBCU Connect to be a formiddable player in the social networking space in which they compete. Connect began in 1995 - before Myspace and Facebook , and even before direct competitors like Blackplanet.

Moss went on to say, “Think about it… We wrote 100% of our own social networking software from day one.  Of course we had the idea to do a general market ‘facebook’ for non-black students and alumni, but guess what? It was not my passion and I can’t pretend I know that market inside and out.” Which is what distinguishes Connect from its direct and indirect competitors. Other social networking sites were focused on niche markets as well, Facebook for college students and Myspace for high school and college students. It wasn’t until later that both not only expanded but began to market themselves toward a general audience. Where Connect differs is in the amount of brands it has and the leverage it can wield. Brands include Connect Platform, which is a Ning-like social networking platform that allows users to create their own social networks without any coding or previous tech experience; African American Careers, a recruiting and job community site for diverse populations; the recently acquired HBCU Network, which started around the same time as Connect and was previously its main competition; and Lee Moss Media, a joint venture with Dante Lee, that has even more web properties most notably, Black Women Connect. Collectively these sites draw over 2 million visitors a month.

What has and will continue to propel Connect to success is its ability to strategically look forward and position itself in the right manner. When it comes to strategy Moss feels “By us making strategic acquisitions, partnerships, and launching [innovative] market offerings, if we do it right, we should be serving [and benefiting] our recruitment partners.” In regard to the future of Connect and his other ventures, Moss exudes confidence when he considers the future, “…when it comes to growing revenue, it’s easy when you consider the fact that we are just scratching the surface of what kind of revenue exists for what we do.  I doubt any of our competitors know the breadth of monetization opportunities there are for a social network.  We just exploit these opportunities behind the scenes.”

@aroundharlem @sistory @iluvblackwomen @soulpwr Check out my #blk group on Tweetworks!

You may even do this yourself. The problem is that everyone after @aroundharlem in the above example is not going to get the message under normal circumstances.

Groups and Threaded Conversations

This is where Tweetworks comes in. You can create and join groups around the topics that interest you. I created a #blk group that you can join as an example.

When you send a message to a group or reply to a message in a group, the message can also be sent out to Twitter as usual. It will include a link back to the original conversation. This allows anyone following you to click the link and join the discussion on Tweetworks. The conversations in Tweetworks are threaded, so it’s simple to follow what’s going on even when multiple people are involved.

In addition to posting to groups, you can also post public messages to Tweetworks to take advantage of it’s threading feature. You also have the option to moderate comments and give props by clicking the “BINGO!” star next to each comment.

Make Twitter Manageable

My mom recently informed me that she didn’t see the point of Twitter. The fact that the conversations had no context made it useless for her. Nobody was talking about anything interesting. Tweetworks makes Twitter more useful for those of us that are sometimes overwhelmed by things we don’t care about, AKA the noise. Just browse the groups, join one you like, and tweet away. You’re still participating on Twitter, but you’re only seeing what you want to see, having the discussions you want to have.

In a system that doesn’t allow for the creation of communities, an easy search for robust profiles, the “#blck is a tag created at first with the idea that you can identify yourself as a “black person” on Twitter… [I]t can also be use for black-related news and links.” source.

The progress of the tag can be tracked at hashtags.org. While it started out strong early last week, it has died down a bit. Let’s hope it picks up again now that the holidays have passed as we think this is a neat way to find new people on Twitter.

While the tag was originally created to be used as a way to identify yourself on Twitter many have been using as a way to tag relevant tweets like so:

iluvblackwomen: @queenuniquemvp Nas put his foot in his last cd “Untitled” and AMAZINGLY the GreenLantern/Russell Simmons Obama Mixtape was a 9 #blck

Others have been using it in a more random way that has no context like so:

IngridHolliday: Good Morning! We got more snow. #blck

You can find out more about the #blck hashtag and see the 100 most recent updates at http://www.blck.me. To see the most recent updates through twitter just go to the #blck search results page.