Can the retweet button help you write a better blog?

I have been following Darren regularly since September 2007, shortly after launching my first lifestyle site myBeautyMatch.com in June 2007.  I remember him announcing his new TwiTip site, devoted to using Twitter to promote your blog and your business, and visited immediately.
I’ve been using Twitter to reach a broader audience since late 2008, but it was only in the spring of this year, when I launched my second site (EatSmartAgeSmart), that I really stepped up my Twitter game and started pro-actively interacting with other members. 

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Spammers and scammers surface on Twitter

The popularity of Twitter is proving both a blessing and a curse as the flood of new users draws a voracious crowd of spammers and scammers who are thriving on the anonymity and instantaneous reach of Twitter's vast social network.
It's a pain for the social network and for legitimate Twitter users -- a pain that is growing.
When Twitter was at the leading edge and only had the attention of digirati, it fell below the radar of those who troll the World Wide Web peddling Viagra and bogus get-rich-quick schemes.

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Twitter crashes after Barack Obama awarded Nobel Peace Prize

Social networking site Twitter crashed on Friday as millions of users around the world joined the debate over Barack Obama being awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.  
The site went into meltdown at lunchtime yesterday amid the sheer weight of people commenting on the news, which comes just ten months into his first term in power.

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Twitter Could Turn Tweets into Dollars

With Google and Microsoft both looking to ink a deal with Twitter for its real-time data, the microblogging company could have finally found a way to turn tweets into dollars.
At the same time, the titans of tech may have found a way to boost their real-time search efforts in the midst of their raging search war.
The intense rivals are in separate talks with the new online darling Twitter to set up their own data-mining deals , says a report from The Wall Street Journal 's AllThingsD Web site. The "advanced talks" are said to be over licensing deals that would allow them to integrate real-time Twitter feeds with their search engines, Google's search and Microsoft's Bing.

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Man trying to make Drew Carey give away $1 million

Drew Olanoff, cancer-fighter and blogger, is auctioning off his enviable Twitter username "@drew" to benefit the LiveStrong foundation. Since Tuesday, its value has already been raised to $1 million, thanks to that other Drew -- last name Carey. "I thought we would find a Drew who would bid $10,000 on the last day and that was it," Olanoff said. "I certainly didn't think Drew Carey would get wind of it."

Get wind he did. The Cleveland comedian raised the stakes on Saturday, first tweeting an initial bid of $25,000 only to quadruple it, offering up $100,000 if his Twitter followers totaled 100,000 by the auction's closing at midnight on November 9. Olanoff was taken back by Carey's generosity, whom he's never met nor spoken to, but it seems Carey wasn't done yet.

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Twitter suspends security researcher's account as a threat

Twitter erroneously suspended, and subsequently restored, a prominent researcher’s account two months after he tweeted a security warning intended to inform his audience about an imminent threat.
Aside from poor security handling, this situation offers a case study example of immature customer service and suggests problems with the organization’s corporate culture.

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Twitter and digital censorship

A social worker from New York City was arrested last week while in Pittsburgh to participate in the G-20 protests, then subjected to an FBI raid this week at his home -- all for using Twitter. Elliot Madison faces charges of hindering apprehension or prosecution, criminal use of a communication facility and possession of instruments of crime. He was posting to a Twitter feed (or tweeting, as it is called) publicly available information about police activities around the G-20 protests, including information about where police had been ordered to disperse protesters.

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Xbox 360 Facebook and Twitter Beta Live in October 2009

Ready for Facebook and Twitter updates from millions of Xbox 360s? The beta leads off "middle-towards-end of October," according to Microsoft speaking to MTV.
Microsoft's Larry Hryb recently wrote that the late September Xbox 360 system update was "[in] preparation for additional system enhancements (Facebook/Twitter/Last.FM) that will arrive later this year."

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U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission confirms Twitter got near $100 mil

Twitter Inc. did in fact raise almost all of a $100 million targeted round of capital, according to a filing the company made with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The super hot microblogging service sold $98.2 million worth of stock to 22 investors, leaving $1.8 million left to sell, according to the Form D filing signed by CEO and President Evan Williams on Oct. 8. Twitter has confirmed that mutual fund giant T. Rowe Price and private-equity firm Insight Venture Partners participated in the round, but has not commented on the amount raised or reports that round valued the company at $1.
The company raised $35 million earlier this year in a round led by Menlo Park firms Benchmark Capital and Institutional Venture Partners.

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Twillist helps you build sharing lists of people on Twitter

Twillist helps you build sharing lists of people on Twitter.  You can even search for existing lists on Twillist and follow members of that list. This is similar to TweepML in concept.As described on TechCrunch,
Twillist is easy to use, and can effectively serve as an alternative to Twitter’s web interface. At the top of the page is a box where you can tweet new messages, along with a menu containing all of the lists you’ve created. Clicking one of the lists will bring you to a page that looks similar to your normal Twitter feed, except it only shows tweets from the members of the list. Creating a list is simple too: just enter what it should be titled, as well as their user names (you can add more people to the list later on, too). My only gripe with the process is the lack of an autocomplete function, so you’ll have to make sure you’re spelling each name correctly.

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Miley Cyrus Quits Twitter

Miley Cyrus has left fans fuming after abruptly deleting her page on social networking website Twitter.com.

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Coming Soon: Twitter in More Languages

Twitter is currently available only in English and Japanese. With some help, we will soon be rolling out support for French, Italian, German, and Spanish. These languages are commonly referred to using the acronym FIGS and are often the starting point for services like Twitter when its time for more language support. Later, we hope to offer Twitter in several other languages. No matter how sophisticated technology gets, we're reminded daily that it's about people and that's something we've taken to heart regarding translating Twitter.

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Twitter In Talks With Google And Microsoft About Licensing Data Stream

Twitter is about to become a business. Kara Swisher says the company is in talks with both Microsoft AND Google about licensing its tweet-stream so the companies can include "real-time search" in their search engines.

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