My sporting year looks like the profile of the 20th stage of last year's Tour de France. Flat for the main part with a single majestic peak rising out of the relative flatness.

The Tour itself is the Mont Ventoux of my annual sporting calendar, a monolith event of such epic proportions that its shadow looms large over everything that precedes it.

Like most cyclists I am a details freak. I revel in cadence rates, riders' gear ratios and other banalities that would be bed-wettingly dull to most of you reading this. 15 years ago I would clear my daily calendar between 6pm and 7pm and drink up every scrap of information that the Channel 4 daily Tour highlights could give me but it was never enough to sate my thirst for these details from the Peloton.

Similarly, it would never convey the rider dynamics, the feuds and alliances, the sheer and brutal pain that each rider would endure as the Tour wound its inexorable way towards Paris.

Then came the Social Web.

What social media gives cycling is the means of giving detail-obsessed fans like me an instant hit of the tedious, granular information that I crave. It lets me see Cav's cadence as he rips up the Champs Elysees or Brad Wiggins' heart rate as he goes backwards down the Col de Madeleine.

I can go to my 'Pro Cycling' group on Tweetdeck and see petty squabbles between riders unable to resist the lure of Twitter whilst holed up in a Novotel with nothing but a sponsor's smartphone and a travel kettle for company. Or the Peloton's praise for someone's superhuman feats, such as riding 200km with a broken arm. I can go to Flickr for Hi Resolution images of the day's suffering or stream the race live on my iPhone through the ITV Tour App. In short, there is so much for me to see and do that I am almost certain to do no work for most of July.

A few Tour-based treats for the other bike geeks out there;

1. Keen to show off its capabilities, Microsoft have built an App for Bing Maps that visualises each stage of the tour and provides stage results and weather information. http://mashable.com/2010/07/03/2010-tour-de-france/
   
   
2. Mapmyride have created an App that allows you to 'virtually race' the Tour by uploading data about your own day's ride. The app uses your stats to create a virtual time that you would have achieved if you had actually ridden that day's stage. I havent used it but i imagine it might be quite depressing. http://beta.mapmyride.com/tdf/
   
   
3. This is one for real data lovers. HTC (the smartphone guys) and Team Columbia have joined forces to bring the ultimate cycling Google maps mashup. The App gives realtime information on the Team's riders including speed, power, cadence and heart rate, as well as their real time position on the road. http://www.google.com/intl/en/landing/mytrackstour/
    
4. The ITV iPhone App lets you watch live streams of the Tour on the go as well as providing news and stats around each stage, team and rider. http://www.itv.com/sport/tourdefrance/iphoneapp/
    
5. Stalk your favourite riders on Twitter. http://twittercycling.tumblr.com/

Brizzly is a popular third-party Twitter & Facebook interface, built by Thing Labs, that launched in 2009. We caught up with them at the recent Chirp Twitter conference in San Francisco and demoed our Webcam Snapper application - which they loved! (a demo of the Snapper in our Twitbooth website is in the video above)

So without further ado they bought the widget and integrated it straight into Brizzly. So far it has proved to be a hit with the users as well.

This is the second large platform we have integrated Snapper with after White Label Dating in Autumn 2009. We are also talking to the major Twitter photo sharing websites as well so stay posted for more updates soon!

We are really pleased to announce the re-launch of our popular Twitter application - Twilert - at the SXSW Interactive Conference in Austin Texas as part of the UK Digital Mision.

Twitter search alerts via email

Twilert is a Twitter application that lets you receive regular email updates of tweets containing your brand, product, service... well any keyword you like really! In a nutshell, its like Google Alerts, only on Twitter.

Why the need to re-launch?

Last year Twilert was unfortunately a victim of its own success. It was featured in publications such as Twitter Marketing for Dummies, numerous high profile blogs, as well as being regularly mentioned on Twitter itself and it began to hit issues scaling against the demand of the number of users we had. Sadly we had to switch the service off and rethink the architecture.

The platform has been completely re-built to perform much better and scale efficiently against the Twitter API. We have also developed a more user friendly web interface to help you manage your Twilerts and add new ones really easily.

Have a look for yourself! www.twilert.com

If you have any suggestions or feedback please feel free to get in touch on support@twilert.com and we will do our best to help you out. Thanks to all our users for the support so far and we hope you enjoy using the new service.

Step 1: My name is Luke and I’m a tweetaholic (averaging about 10-20 tweets a day).

I signed up for the micro blogging service back when it was still in its infancy. Initially I didn’t use it much as hardly anyone I knew was using it. That changed when we organized the first BarCamp in Bangkok and every name tag had a place for people to put their twitter name. Being a small community, once a few people start using something it spreads like wild fire. Since then Twitter has been a major catalyst for the growth of both the tech and expat communities here in Thailand.

Twitter proved its worth during the recent political turmoils that battered this country. It was the only place where you could hear the opinions of both sides and follow unfolding events in real time. I recall when tanks were rolling down the streets, we knew exactly where they were and what direction they were headed thanks to friends tweeting (and retweeting) updates. When the “red shirt” gangs took over the streets in protests there was a constant stream of photos and videos from the ground. People were concerned but at the same time there was a good community feeling of bonding. We made jokes about what was going on, debated possible outcomes, and prayed they wouldn’t shut Twitter down.

On TV the political problems playing out on the streets of Bangkok made @breakingnews on both CNN and BBC. Unfortunately they reported the same dumbed down “edited” version of the story that failed to convey an accurate picture. This made me realise that if you are following the right set of sources on Twitter you can get a broader spectrum of news than you get by taking as gospel what old media decides to spoon feed you.

Nothing travels faster on Twitter than news of an earthquake. Back in 2009 there was a 8.7 earthquake off the cost of New Zealand. My mom lives in New Plymouth, so it immediately grabbed my attention. Seeing there was risk of a tsunami “expected to hit the cost in about 15 minutes” I called my mom on Skype right away...

“Hi mom, sorry I haven’t called in a while. I don’t want to cause alarm but there might be a tsunami heading your way... Perhaps you should turn on the telly.”

The online simulation showed the tsunami was unlikely to reach the north island. So the purpose of the call was really about breaking news rather than delivering a warning to run for the hills. But nether the less it makes one wonder, had Twitter been around when the 2004 Asian tsunami struck, how many lives could have been saved?

I think its clear twitter has real value. Over the past year I’ve made good friends, connected with the industry, recruited staff, and kept abreast on the latest breaking news. There is no disputing Twitter is changing how we do business and how we interact with customers online. By all accounts the trend will only accelerate, 2010 is poised to be the year the “real time” wave breaks. Armed with this information, I’ve decided to head for the hills.

Last night while coding I listened to Jason Fried’s talk on the negative effect of distractions on your workflow.

He suggested “spending Thursday without talking to anyone in the office”, the less distractions, the more work you will get done. This along with the enduring voice of Gary Vaynerchuk in my head made me stop and think: I’ve got the passion, I’ve got the skills, really all I need is enough time “in the zone” (coders will know what I mean) to deliver on the vision. Life has thrown me a bone, an opportunity to “crush it”, in order to make the most of that opportunity its time to make some sacrifices. Here is my New Year's resolution.

I’m going cold turkey on Twitter, restricting Skype to a certain time per day, and reducing the torrent of news to a trickle. Unless there's a tsunami headed for Bangkok, I don’t need to know. If there are tanks on the street, and I happen to leave the office, I’m sure I will notice.

How long do I intend to keep this up? I’ve set a target of 64 days before I come up for air. Hopefully when I surface we will surprise the world with our rocking new app.

You can wish me luck on Twitter (@lukeinth) but come 00:00 GMT+8 on 01/01/2010 don’t expect any @repiles

Cold Turkey three weeks on – the update:

Three weeks on and how am I holding up? The first couple of days without twitter were ‘odd’. I kept coming across things that I wanted to rant or rave about but there was no outlet available. Like anyone who gives up something they have become reliant on, you have those moments when you feel a relapse coming on. And I have to admit that I have had one so far, tweeting to tell the world about a Thai ISP which I discovered had been hacked to host Russian malware. Nobody seemed to care and so I quickly deleted the tweet. Generally it’s been OK, there was life before twitter and there is life after it.

If I'm not feeling productive, rather than tweet or read news sites, now I try to either get away from the computer and do some exercise.

Work on our new app is going well, nothing to show the world yet, but if you are interested you can sign-up for updates on the website. http://www.getdash.com

Getting something quickly is not the same as getting something of quality, more often than not the 2 things are directly opposed. Equally true is that unedited or unqualified information has little value in the long term. So why is the real time web getting everyone so excited?

I have always used the internet to research and learn, it is my first port of call when I need information. More often than not I begin my hunt for information on a search engine, hardly revolutionary I know. Being barraged by unedited opinion isn’t high on my list of wants when I’m trying to find information, so I wasn’t thrilled when I heard that Google, Bing and Yahoo were all falling over each other to be the first to provide real time search results. Needless to say, I for one was not immediately convinced by the value or power of the real time web.

It wasn’t until I watched @QueenRania speak about the power and influence of real time web, at the Le Web 09 conference in Paris, that I was forced to re-think. She spoke of how being a queen is ‘clouded in protocol’ that prevents her from being able to talk to people (or rather, people being able to talk to her) on an equal level. She espoused the virtue of the internet for making all equal, it is a forum where titles mean little and content is everything. So why not use this powerful medium to evoke change? It is not radical to suggest that the web can be used to change the world for the better, but can the real time web actually save someone’s life in just a matter of hours, or even minutes? Or can it rally the internet’s vast population of dormant, armchair spectators to turn their "analogue activism" into physical change? Queen Rania thinks so.

She cited the Ketsana typhoon and subsequent floods that struck the Philippines. This was a devastating natural disaster that left many people in life threatening danger. With the help of social networks, quick thinking locals were able to send real time information on the worst affected areas, directing aid to those desperately in need faster than would otherwise have been possible, probably saving numerous lives. What’s more, the sense of urgency borne out of seeing the situation unfurl in real time prompted people to donate money and volunteer their time through the likes of Twitter, Plurk and Facebook. This is without question, an example of the unique benefit of real time information being disseminated to a vast and proactive audience.

Queen Rania also talked about the recent post-election protests in Iran, a subject that was widely reported in traditional media, but only truly tangible when viewed through Tweets and live video footage from the streets of Tehran, seen in real time. The immediacy and importance of the situation was evident to all, and people from all over the world were spectators of live events as they unfolded in a country not commonly associated with media freedom. The real-time audience were able to feel a connection to these events that would not otherwise have been possible.

But people do not have long term memories, especially when it comes to online. And in the same way that real-time can cast a spotlight on a subject, it can take it away equally as quickly. A few weeks after the protests in Iran began, Michael Jackson died. Suddenly the web was awash with information on the King of Pop, Iran was old news.

Never before had a subject changed the digital landscape so quickly, rumour turned into speculation which turned into fact, all within minutes and all played out before our eyes. Proof, if it was needed, that real time information is a powerful force.

We just have to learn to harness this force, according to Queen Rania. She gave a rousing speech which I watched via a live stream. Seeing it live made it all the more impactful. She was there to ask the audience of Le Web to lend their online support to her charity, 1 Goal, which campaigns for the right of every child in the world to have access to an education. After her speech, I went straight to 1Goal and signed up, something I would not have done if I hadn’t felt so part of the moment. Whether I, and the countless others who signed up as a result of Queen Rania’s speech, go on to actively support the charity remains to be seen.

If nothing else, real time web can bring information from anywhere in the world to a diverse and receptive audience. But the information that is out there does not become valuable or important until there are subsequent physical and positive actions. We are privileged to have the world at our fingertips and up to the minute information at our disposal, however, as Queen Rania so eloquently put it "[…] online activism is fleeting when there is no personal effort involved."

Stephen Fry’s now famous “wobble” where he announced to the world that he was going to retire from using Twitter after someone accused him of being boring was discussed last week by the great man himself at the IAB conference.

So it has finally happened… The non-tech world has realised that the way we consume news has changed irrevocably. Well maybe the Wider World is a bit of an overstatement, but just ask the Grey Suits at Carter Ruck and they will confirm what the cool kids have known for a while; Old Media is not dead but it simply cannot compete with the immediacy and the omnipotence of a million tweets when it comes to reporting events in real time. 

There was a time, not too long ago, where carrying a late edition of The Standard put you at the bleeding edge of the day’s news. Then came the evolution of mainstream media onto the web. Some (The Guardian & The Economist for example) achieved this better than others, but ultimately a lunchtime fix of the headlines moved from the Café to the desktop. As immediacy goes this was a big step forward. Allied with newsgroups and rss feeds bringing updates straight to you, with minimum effort and no cost, the thirst for immediate news was quenched if not sated. 

But we were still reliant on our chosen news providers or a limited number of bloggers to actually report on the news in a timely fashion. We were also restricted to one or, at best, a few opinions and viewpoints. Political leanings and personal agenda were present in the same way they had traditionally been with news agencies. There were also considerations such as time difference and legal restrictions that meant we weren’t receiving news on our own terms. 

Then came Twitter.

On Monday night The Guardian released the ultimate ‘anti-story’ informing their readership of an injunction that had been placed on them that was preventing them telling the world about a scandal involving an MP that they couldn’t name asking a question they couldn’t print of a Minister they were not allowed to identify. Crucially this amounted to a denial of a centuries-old and hard-fought right to report on the goings on within parliament. Quite a big deal.

The injunction was served by Carter Ruck, a law firm specialising in privacy cases in the press. They market themselves as ‘the UK’s pre-eminent media law practice’ but it turns out their expertise lies in Old Media, not Media of the New variety. 

That evening Alan Rusbridger, the Guardian’s Editor-in-Chief, fired out a single tweet linking to the piece. He had in the region of 500 ‘followers’ – a pittance in Twitter currency. By the time he returned from dinner, the Twitterverse had gone into overdrive. By the following morning #carterruck, #trafigura, the company that turned out to be at the centre of the controversy, and the #guardian were all top trending topics. The majority of Tweeters were simply outraged at the attempted blockade of an ancient journalistic right, others had taken it upon themselves to sniff out the truth and publish it, free from the binds of legal injunction. Twitter heroes such as Stephen Fry added their considerable voices to the cause (c. 850k followers) and by lunchtime on the Tuesday, an hour before the Guardian were due in court to contest the gagging order, Carter Ruck had rescinded the injunction due, almost entirely, to the weight of public opinion coming straight out of the Twitter.

What the Guardian did was crowd source the freeing of information that would otherwise have taken them days in a courtroom and enormous amounts of money to release. And it happened in the space of a few hours. 

It is for this very reason that today, if something captures my interest, my first port of call is a Twitter search. I know that on there will be countless others interested and talking about the same thing right then, at the very moment that I want to discover more. This is fundamentally changing how people consume news. Anyone with access to the internet can now legitimately broadcast information, free from the restrictions that bind traditional media in the form of legal tethering and time (time difference, editorial lag etc) and countless others can consume it and make up their own minds as to it’s legitimacy in the context of the general noise around the same topic.

But how do the powers at be, the police, lawyers, politicians – people with a vested interest in protecting certain information – deal with this new world order? It is now almost impossible for them to control information because there will always be someone, somewhere with a laptop and a cause.

The reality is they can’t control it. The only long-term option open to them is increased openness. A global broadcast network of millions cuts through the PR and the spin and when viewed collectively and objectively presents the new media news consumer with the facts.

In this age of transition between the old and the new there are those who are adapting well and those who are struggling. The channels of truth have been multiplied a millionfold and the Politicians, Companies and Celebrities have now 2 choices; voluntary honesty or involuntary discovery. Power to the Tweeple indeed.

"It is not that the internet is a particularly recent invention. It has even had its very own economic crisis. So why are companies still struggling to engage with it?

Of course, every company worth its salt has a website, not least those who have sent their executives to the World Economic Forum in Davos.

But the discussions here suggest that many companies are still struggling to move beyond having a colourful website towards really using the internet to their advantage.

And to make things worse, hardly any company knows how to cope with the rise of social media - the Facebooks, Twitters, blogs and YouTubes of the digital world."

The above comes from an article on BBC News written by Tim Weber during the World Economic Forum. Weber reports that most companies simply haven't got a clue about social media, and either bore, ignore or upset their potential audiences. Even if there are some great examples to prove to the contrary - Zappos on Twitter, Blendtec on Youtube, MyStarbucksIdea to get consumer feedback or Southwest Airlines on Facebook - I agree with Weber that most companies are struggling to enter the social media world and are not properly using the power of the network to gain opportunities and build relationships.

Does your company really get what social media is all about?

Social Media is people having conversations online. These may be your customers, employees or investors. It is the shift from a broadcast and unidirectional mechanic to a many-to-many model. Conversations are facilitated by online tools that people use to share content, stories, opinions, insights, experiences. These tools include blogging, social networking, micro-blogging, video-sharing, bookmarking, photo sharing, wikis...

Social Media is empowering people. They are now able to create, select, share and converse on any topic they like. As already discussed in a previous article, there is nothing you can do about these conversations happening online. You don’t have control anymore! However, you can certainly participate and engage with people using these Social Media tools. The key is to start now.

Well, that being said, you might be one of those who don’t know where to begin to join the conversation. That’s not a problem at all; it is never too late to connect. What you do need are some guidelines. The thoughts and links below will help you have a better idea about where to start.

You may have already started to enter the social world. After all it is shiny, new and so many people are using it. It’s the ideal channel for advertising! But that is the wrong purpose, you need some direction! Why don’t you read on as well?

Fundamentals of a Social Media Strategy

"We need to be on Twitter", "Oh, and we want a blog" Don't jump into social media just because everyone else is doing it. Take a step back and take a closer look at the POST method invented by Forrester’s analysts Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li authors of Groundswell, one of the most important books on the phenomenon of Social Media. POST stands for People, Objectives, Strategy and Technologies. It’s a four-step process for social strategy which will help you define the appropriate tools to implement in order to get the most of Social Media.

Firstly, People. Know your customers and assess their social activities. You should already have a rough idea of who you are targeting but most importantly you should identify how they use social media technologies. The Forrester’s Social Technographics™ Ladder classifies consumers into six overlapping levels of participation: Creators, Critics, Collectors, Joiners, Spectators and Inactives.



If you are not sure how to profile your customers, you can use the Social Technology Profile Tool. This free tool will allow you to define your audience’s social computing behaviour. Just select age, country and gender to see the result.

Beyond Forrester’s Social Technographics™ Ladder it is highly recommended to listen and monitor the good, the bad and the ugly. The list below offers some great FREE tools to listen and learn what your consumers are saying about your brand, how they participate, the tone of voice they employ, the information they are looking for etc. The only advice I could give is to be prepared for what you might discover.

Google Blog Search - Google's index of blog posts.
Google Trends - shows amount of searches and Google news stories.
TECHNORATI Search - search the blogosphere.
WhosTalkin - social media search tool that allows you to search for conversations surrounding the topics that you care about most.
SocialMention - social media search engine that searches user-generated content such as blogs, comments, bookmarks, events, news, videos, and microblogging services.
HowSociable? - provides a simple way for you to begin measuring your brand’s visibility on the social web across 22 metrics.
Twitter Search - Search keywords on Twitter which "self-refreshes".
TweetScan – search for words on Twitter.
Twitrratr - distinguish negative from positive tweets surrounding a brand, product, person or topic.
Twilert - Twitter application that lets you receive regular email updates of tweets containing your brand, product, service.
Hashtags - Realtime Tracking of Twitter Hashtags.
Friendfeed Search - Conversation tracker.

Objectives - Ask yourself what you want to accomplish. What are you trying to achieve with Social Media? No, getting rich is not the answer! Although an effective strategy should pay off financially in the long run with increased brand awareness and customer loyalty. So do you want to:

• Listen to your customers?
• Talk to them?
• Support them?
• Energize your best customers to evangelize others?
• Embrace them and their ideas?

If you don’t know where you want to go, how can you know the direction to take? Stop utilising Social Media because it’s cool, slick and popular and use it because it is effective in helping you to reach your goals. Deciding what you want from Social Media will directly determine the best strategy to adopt and the right tools to use.

Strategy - plan for how relationships with customers will change. Start figuring out what will be different after you have implemented the tools. Determine the strategy for achieving your objectives.

Technologies - Despite the impressive number of social media tools available, you should only join and participate in the platforms that matter to you, and make sure you don’t waste your time in the ones that don’t. (ie: Building a blog just because it's trendy and because your competitor has a blog) But honestly, if you have properly determined your people, objectives, and strategy, then you can easily decide what tools are appropriate to you: wikis, blogs, podcasts, content communities, micro-blogging, social networks...

Some final tips before you really join the conversation

• Always be yourself, real, human, transparent, helpful, and give more than you get.
• Try to humanise your brand as much as you can.
• To really see the result, invest time into it and to resource it properly. It takes time to develop relationships in the social media world. Finding your BBF (British Best Friend) in one tweet is exceptional. Think of Social Media as a long-term strategy!
• Remember that you’re not in control anymore. Members are.
• Relationships are the new currency in Social Media (see The Essential Guide to Social Media)
• Stay connected on a constant basis and be responsive.
• Don’t broadcast yourself, instead contribute to the conversation and provide something of value.
• Finally, keeping it simple is sometimes the best route.

At codegent we have been helping to develop our clients’ social media strategy as well as benchmarking them against their competitors and tracking their reach and results. Drop us an email if you would like to find out more.

I hope this post will give you a better idea on how to develop a successful Social Media strategy. Please feel free to share your own experience on entering the Social Media world.

Next time, we will look at how to measure your social media effort.

Illustration credit: Matt Hamm

We have just given Apprentice winner Michelle Dewberry's latest online project Chiconomise a quick web make-over to coincide with her increased PR exposure this week.

Chiconomise is a weekly mailshot aimed at women with exclusive deals and offers on fashion, beauty, dining, travel and socialising. The plan is to grow the subscriber base whilst development occurs on a full website which, "will be your one stop shop for all things desirable at fantastic prices. It will be bursting with sample sales listings, beautylicious deals, promotional codes, thrifty tips and expert advice."
Her words not mine, I rarely say beautylicious.

It looks like the client is pretty pleased with what we managed to turn around in 1 day! She tweeted...

"A massive THANK YOU to @davidhart @codegent for building @chiconomise micro site. I highly recommend these guys for anyone needing a site."

You can follow her @MichelleDewbs

Have heard about our latest development?!! Don't tell me you have never heard of Twilert, I won't believe you! Twilert has been a real buzz machine since its launch a few weeks ago and in this world where empowered users can express anything they like, you had better start using it straight away! Before looking at Twilert world’s coverage, let’s first explain how it works and how it can help you...

Twilert stands for Twitter + alert.

In a prior post, I mentioned the manual monitoring tools like Twitter Search or Tweetscan. But wouldn’t it be far better to receive regular email updates of tweets containing any keyword you want to monitor?

Twilert is an email alert/notification service for Twitter. It’s like Google Alerts but for Twitter! This Twitter application, built by the Codegent Team in less than 3 weeks, is an amazing tool for people who need to listen what is being said about their name, brand, products, services, industry, employees...

Twilert is much more than a mere search alert service. By using the "Advanced settings", you can filter relevant tweets by keywords, author, recipient, location, link-location, and attitude (positive, negative or neutral). For a bit more insight on the features, here is a video created by a Twilert user:

Today, Twilert has 2000 users in 70 countries, receiving more than 5000 Twilerts. Many people are talking about Twilert on Twitter and on their blogs both here and abroad! Google Blog search shows that there are over 7,000 blog posts about Twilert. Below you can appreciate a small bit of this amazing global buzz:

English:

• Chatting with the man behind Twilert - the new Twitter alert service
• Twilert makes it easy to follow tweets about your clients. (And your agency.)
• Twilert: Tweet alerts via e-mail
• Two ways to track brand buzz on Twitter to suit your information diet
• Twilert: digital data mining and identifying motivated audiences

Spanish:

• Twilert: Alertas de Twitter para seguimiento de marcas o parejas
• Twilert: Alertas por correo de Tweet interesantes
• Twilert: Recibir alertas para determinadas palabras en Twitter

French:

• Twilert, un Google Alert dédié à Twitter
• Twilert - Alerte par mail de certains Tweets
• Twilert : Alerte mail Twitter

Brazilian:

• Acompanhe a opinião do pessoal do Twitter por e-mail
• Twilert, um aplicativo Twitter que rastreia palavras-chave escolhidas por você
• Twilert: Receba por e-mail tweets relevantes

Deutsch:

• Twilert: Benachrichtigungen, wenn bestimmte Begriffe getwittert werden
• Themen-Monitoring bei Twitter mit Twilert
• Twilert schickt Twitter-Mails

Italian:

• Scopri se su Twitter viene citata una determinata parola con Twilert
• Twilert, monitora una parola su Twitter e ricevi degli alert quando viene citata!
• Twilert: Rimanere aggiornati in Twitter via email

Japanese:

• www.socialmedia.jp
• web-marketing.zako.org

Amongst all these blog posts about Twilert, 3 of them in particular drew my attention:

Firstly, KidTechGuru, a 14-year-old boy from Singapore, who’s probably one of the world's youngest professional bloggers and technology expert, explains in a great post what Twilert is all about and how it works.

Then, Twilert was recently cited in a post on Mashable as a tool to help you focus on the signal rather than all the Twitter noise.

Finally, The social media guru Guy Kawasaki, author of Reality Check, wrote a really interesting post on How to Use Twitter as a Twool listing Twilert as a tool to monitor what people are saying about you, your company, and your product.

In addition to this great coverage on blogs, Twilert was named Mashup of the day on the 5 December 2008.

Via word-of-mouth the news is spreading fast; the tool is powerful, so why don’t you give it a try at www.twilert.com? Set-up any keywords you would like to receive alerts about and start interacting with other twitter users discussing topics aligned to your keywords.