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One of the more interesting, albeit not necessarily press-stopping, stories making the rounds in the blogosphere and Twitterverse currently is sure to make you scratch your head or raise your eyebrow in bewilderment.

Twitter officially applied to trademark “Tweet” on April 16, 2009 according to Robin Wauters at TechCrunch.

The confusion erupted when developers received the following email (h/t to Andy Beal)

In its post, “May the Tweets Be With You,” Twitter explains its position this way, “as the ecosystem grows there is also the possibility that confusing and potentially damaging projects could emerge.”

The company already prevents and enforces against the use of the word “Twitter” in products and services. More...

Traditional influence has followed a systematic top-down process of developing and pushing “controlled” messages to audiences for decades, rooted in one-to-many, faceless broadcast campaigns.

Personality wasn’t absent is certain mediums, it was missing from day-to-day communications.

For the most part, this pattern seemingly served its purposes, fueling the belief that brands were in control of their messages, from delivery to dissemination, among the demographics to which they were targeted.

It scaled very well over the years, until it didn’t…

Unbeknownst to many companies, a quiet revolution was amassing over the last two decades. More...

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While social and citizen media expand in influence and reach, we can’t ignore or neglect the prominence, credibility, and authority of traditional media – no matter how dearly we’re enamored with shiny new objects.

BurrellesLuce recently published its 2009 Top Media List for 2009, which includes newspapers, blogs, consumer magazines and social networks. I’ve included all but social networks below as the rankings are outdated and inaccurate. I’ll publish an updated list shortly.

Top 100 U.S. Daily Newspapers

Rank, Newspaper, Daily, Sunday:

1 – USA Today, 2,113,725, N/A
2 – The Wall Street Journal, 2,082,189, N/A
3 – The New York Times, 1,039,031, 1,451,233
4 – Los Angeles Times, 723,181, 1,019,388
5 – The Washington Post, 665,383, 868,965
7 – New York Post, 558,140, 357, 168
8 – Chicago Tribune, 501,202, 858,256
9 – The Houston Chronicle, 425 More...

Every now and then I discover something that is so captivating, that I have to stop what I’m working on to share it with everyone I know. This is one of them.

For those veterans who continue to define Twitter’s role in how we communicate, share and learn, those who have recently made its acquaintance, and those just finding their stride, we all linked through common threads and context that pique our curiosity, stimulate our quest for adventure,  expand our networks beyond our real world network, and feed our desire for attention.

We contribute to the expansion of the Twitterverse. More...

Perhaps Lewis Carroll was peering into the looking glass when he wrote “Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There.” In it, we were introduced to Tweetle Dum and Tweetle Dee, a curious duo that always shared a fruitful, entertaining, and complementary conversational exchange even though they always agreed to battle each other.

Some suggest that the significance of Alice’s encounter with the twins explores how curiosity leads to the unknown and therefore, may not be worthy of pursuit.

It’s just not safe right? These encounters either remind us why we’ve created a comfort zone or they challenge us to venture outside of it. More...

What follows is the unabridged version of my latest post on TechCrunch, “Is Twitter the CNN of the New Media Generation?“

This past weekend the Twitterverse spoke-out in exasperation and opposition against traditional media networks (CNN specifically) and the absence of instantaneous coverage of the Iranian election and the resulting fallout. “We the people” wanted real-time information regarding the violent protests that erupted on the streets of Iran and the stories probing potential foul play in the results. We took to Twitter to express discontent and to also uncover the real story as it was unfolding live through citizen journalism. More...

Twitter continues to amaze us. Its constantly evolving examples of change and connectivity persevere and reinforce how the “little microblog that could” is transforming media and communications while also silencing the most dubious of critics.

At the same time, I’m confident that through our pioneering efforts and innovative  developments, we also continue to amaze the team behind Twitter itself.

As Jack Dorsey shared in his keynote today at the 140 Characters Conference in New York, “Expect the unexpected. Sometimes, be the unexpected.”

Twitter is making the news and it is also serving as the foundation for how we publish, share and discover news today and tomorrow. More...

© Tyler E Nixon (This is a striking photograph)

While I was traveling in NY for InternetWeek and DC for the Vocus conference recently, Mark Olson sent a note inviting my thoughts on a post he was authoring on the subject of authenticity versus authority. I immediately replied, “I’m in.”

This is a subject that is garnering much of my attention and contemplation as they are among the key words that orbit the social media marketing universe and are in danger of spinning off course and into a black hole of obscurity.

In his post, “Authenticity vs. Authority,” Olson featured an industry-leading ensemble of leading minds and voices in the new media marketing landscape including, Seth Godin, Chris Brogan, David Meerman Scott, Mike Volpe and yours truly. More...

Good friend Richard Binhammer of Dell (@richardatdell) reached out to let me know that the company is releasing the latest financial figures for its @DellOutlet account on Twitter tonight.

Last December, the company generated over $1 million in revenue through @delloutlet by posting special offers and also nurturing customer relationships on Twitter. Today Dell reported over $2 million in sales through its popular @delloutlet presence.  @delloutlet currently boasts close to 625,000 followers seeking exclusive deals available only on the micro community.

As Dell notes, “We’ve surpassed $2 million in revenue in terms of Dell Outlet sales, but we’re also seeing that it’s driving interest in new product as well. More...

Are we seeing the Twitterverse through rose colored glasses?

In January 2009 I pondered whether or not Twitter was a viable conversation platform. After all, Twitter is one of the darlings of Social Media and it is conversations and the democratization of content that fuel the rapid expansion and adoption of social tools and services.

Just ask any social media "expert" and they'll tell you that you must absolutely establish a Twitter account and commence the process of responding to everyone who Tweets about your company, market, or competition. But the more I observe interaction on social networks, and in this case Twitter, I believe that sometimes it's effective to also maintain a presence simply by reading, listening, and sharing relevant and timely information without yet having to directly respond to each and every tweet - perhaps replying to only the critical or influential individuals that may need immediate in More...