RiotFeeds are especially helpful for novice tweeters to find quality, relevant content right away in their realtime Twitter stream.

RiotFeeds a new micro-site powered by OneRiot, offers an easy way to discover the hottest realtime links in your Twitter stream for any topic- tech news, gadgets, sports, green living, food & wine, others (especially for novice tweeters to find quality, relevant content right away in their Twitter stream).

A wide range of topics are covered – from politics to hipster happenings to the latest on green living. Users simply “follow” a particular RiotFeed to start receiving socially-relevant, realtime tweets containing headlines and links to the hottest emerging content on the web.

Each of the feeds has a hand-curated selection of the Internet’s best websites, dishing out juicy news, stories and videos from each. Only the buzziest, highest quality content gets tweeted in a RiotFeed. This is ensured by OneRiot’s PulseRank technology – a PageRank for the realtime web – which gives a high rank to new, fresh content based on the social pulse it’s generating right now.

For example, the FoodiePulse RiotFeed- http://twitter.com/FoodiePulse – finds “gooey desserts, adventurous wines, recipes and gourmet goodies from the net’s yummiest destinations,” as vetted through PulseRank.

More than 20 RiotFeeds for hot topics and lifestyles have been created for this launch but readers can request a custom RiotFeed for a particular industry, hobby, company or organization, by sending a tweet to @OneRiot. Developers interested in extending RiotFeeds, or building additional applications that leverage OneRiot’s realtime web search data, can do so via the OneRiot API.

Enabling a website with mobile multimedia content such as video and images has always been a costly and time-consuming process – expensive video conversion, MMS portals and fast media streaming are out of reach for most website owners. Until now.

Jively – the social media tool that lets you share and tag the world around you has launched a new API enabling all of the sites functionality to be harnessed by third-party website owners. The service allows site designers, developers and content providers to create mobile video and image portals right on their website without the need for costly development, media hosting or streaming servers.

Using the API is free for non-commercial use with wide usage caps. Jively hopes that widening the service to the Internet will enable users to push their content further than the site’s already wide reach, syndicating content to Tumblr, Twitter and Facebook.

Anyone interested in developing with Jively can get started right away – Jively have released a Python library that makes it quick and simple to integrate Jively with django and other python based webapps. The API outputs JSON data for simple JavaScript integration and uses a REST-based architecture to make testing and usage simple and fast.

You know as well as any that micro-messaging is one of the web’s most efficient forms of communication. We’ve got Twitter, Identica and Tumblr just to name a few. Now, let me be the first to introduce you to one of the web’s newest micro-messaging sites, CitySpeek.

CitySpeek allows you to easily stay in contact with your friends, family, teammates, co-workers and customers. Like other micro-messaging sites, CitySpeek gives you 140 characters to tell the world what’s on your mind. But what you need to know about is what makes CitySpeek different.

CitySpeek calls messages speeks. Speeks can include a picture or video. CitySpeek offers both public and private groups. We are also integrated directly with Flickr and YouTube.

The most recent, and we think the most exciting, feature to hit CitySpeek is translation. CitySpeek users now have the ability to translate speeks originally written in any one of over 30 supported languages, into their own native language. CitySpeek is currently the only micro-messaging web site with an integrated translation service.

sfeed.com is a shopping microblog that brings people and products together. Sfeed changes the way you discover new products from the web and share your findings with your friends and followers.

sfeed makes it easy for you to bookmark your favourite items from any webshop and let your friends and followers know of your activities. You can follow other people to see what they bookmark and exchange ideas and comments about products. With set editor you can quickly create visual collections of items, scale items and even remove their background for a more seamless result.

On the same time the service is more than micro blogging. Every item, set and user has connections between them – sfeed has a clever brain that calculates these connections through and clusters related items and similar users together. This means that all connections between items, sets and people in sfeed are powered by people and that relevant items stay together and similar people can find each other more easily.

Connections made through sets provide further insight to the sfeed brain and guarantees fun and interesting product relations.

As millions move to online social networks, so do computer threats.

The messages are sent by friends, family, and trusted acquaintances. Some appear to carry embedded images or videos. Most arrive under innocuous subject lines: “You look just awesome in this new movie,” or “Funny moments.”

But when users of popular social networks Facebook, MySpace, and Bebo click on the link inside the message, they set loose a devastating computer virus called Koobface, which devours their operating systems from the inside out. According to research conducted by Kaspersky Lab, a digital security group, Koobface quickly turns computers into highly infectious “zombies,” which spread the virus outward in an ever-widening spiral.

By December, Koobface had affected thousands of users in dozens of countries, prompting Facebook to release a set of safety instructions. Among them: Download an antivirus scanner, and immediately reset your password. Then on Monday morning, the Web was rocked by a second attack, a “phishing” scam targeting the popular micro blogging network Twitter.

Both incidents have caused widespread alarm among users of social networks, which are generally considered to be relatively safe from crippling malware. In interviews this week, industry analysts say the attacks also raise questions about the ability of network administrators to effectively protect against a fresh wave of faster, smarter computer viruses.

“Security for social media is one of the biggest concerns in 2009,” says Ryan Sherstobitoff, chief corporate evangelist at Panda Security USA, which designs and distributes antiviral applications. “Look at it from a target-rich perspective – social networks are full of interactive applications. Those allow worms to easily self-propagate. And demographically, more and more of us are on [sites such as Facebook].”

Compounding the problem, Mr. Sherstobitoff says, is the implicit trust engendered by social networks. Users know enough not to click on suspicious e-mail messages or annoying pop-up advertisements. But Facebook, which now boasts more than 140 million active users, has until now succumbed to only one major hack, and users are accustomed to roaming freely through the pages of the site.

Furthermore, Koobface is spread from friend to friend, says Dave Marcus, director of security research and communication at McAfee Avert Labs, a leading tech company.

“It really exploits the trust model,” Mr. Marcus says. “People are trained not to bother with unsolicited material. When it comes from someone you know, the situation is different.”

Marcus says the soaring popularity of Twitter and Facebook, now the top social networking site on the Web (it long ago surpassed MySpace), is candy to hackers, who can now cause more damage with less effort.

“That huge amount of traffic solves a big problem the bad guys have always had, which is how to get the malware to you,” Marcus says. “There’s a big onus on the bad guy to take advantage of a high-traffic site.”

The prospect of more high-profile viral attacks, of course, is widely seen as problematic for Facebook, a media giant that has recently jostled with Google for media market dominance. (Facebook did not respond to repeated requests for comment.)

Adam Ostrow, the editor in chief of Mashable, a leading technology blog, recalled that a couple of years ago, MySpace began to suffer from an overload of spam, which clogged users’ mailboxes and comments sections.

“In some sense,” Mr. Ostrow says, “that contributed to [MySpace’s] relative decline. It’s something Facebook needs to work hard to address. They’ve done a decent job, but it’s hard to really educate mainstream users about what these scams are all about.”

In an e-mail message, a spokesman for MySpace says that spam has significantly decreased over the past year and that the networks takes a “holistic approach to providing users with a safe and secure experience.”

Bebo, which was recently bought by AOL, issued a statement urging users to take care when opening suspicious messages. Viruses, the statement read, “can be combated by adhering to a number of simple checks,” including contacting the sender of the message in question.

Marcus says that social network administrators won’t be able to prevent another attack, because viruses typically exist on users’ machines, and not in the networks themselves. Still, he suggested a handful of precautions all users should follow: run regular antivirus scans; invest in prepackaged security suites marketed by companies such as Symantec, McAfee Avert, and Panda; pay attention to site advisories, and track reports of new viruses.

“It comes down to reading,” he says. “I always read the subject line of the e-mail. In many cases, that’ll give you something – sometimes, they just look wrong.”

But things may get much worse before they get any better. Sherstobitoff, of Panda USA, says his company sees approximately 10,000 pieces of malware a day, each one “totally unique and different.” As hackers take aim at the fat target of social networks, users may find themselves under electronic siege.

“It’s an emerging threat,” Sherstobitoff says, “and it’s only going to get worse. We need to bring it to light.”

Thanks to Matthew Shaer, Staff Writer for The Christian Science Monitor.

Seems everybody is “Twittering” these days, from CEOs of major companies like Whole Foods to the office of the President-Elect. It isn’t unusual, either, for business owners and others with multiple interests on the Internet to have more than one Twitter account, each assigned to a different marketing purpose.

While using Twitter is simple and doesn’t require too much time or energy, eventually the burden of having to sign in and out of accounts can be cumbersome. Luckily there is a new plug-in for Firefox users that can cut Twittering time in half.

Twitterfox installs in the lower right hand corner of your Firefox browser, and pops up a small box of recent “Tweets” to your account. What is good about this plugin is that you don’t have to view your Twitter account page to catch up on recent postings. Every time you consult the pop-up box then leave, the number of new Tweets will refresh. A small text box at the bottom allows you to post while you are elsewhere on the Internet, allowing for great multi-tasking.

If you operate multiple Twitter accounts, you can adjust the settings to add all of them to your Twitterfox plug-in. Then, when you wish to jump accounts to post, simple click on the profile name at the top right corner of the box and a drop-down menu with your account names will appear. Marketing your products and services via Twitter doesn’t come any easier.

You can set multiple accounts on preference panel and change the accounts with context menu of the TwitterFox icon or click an account name on top of the TwitterFox popup window.

The one caveat to using this plugin is that is it only available for use with Firefox at this time. If you are using a different browser, this gadget will unfortunately not work for you. If you are an avid Twitter user, however, it may be worth the browser switch to make good use of this micro-blogging tool.

About the Author : Kathryn A. Lively is a freelance writer specializing in search engine optimization and social media optimization. She also assists with Virginia Beach website design.

Question : When I use Twitter, should I be following everyone who follows me, or should I carefully screen people before I follow them back? I’ve seen strong cases made for both and I’m not sure which way to go.

Answer : This dilemma of whether to follow everyone who follows you on Twitter or not is one that comes up a lot regarding this hot social media site. I’ll let you know what I do, but you should keep in mind that there is no true right or wrong (unless it comes from the site’s owners).

When I first started using the site, I used to be very selective about it, and I just wasn’t getting a lot of followers and the interaction I wanted. I decided to do an experiment, and I started following everyone back who followed me (except for those “strange activity” people, of course). My follower numbers soared.

People talk about viral video all the time, and then they forget that Twitter is viral. When you follow someone back, it exposes you to their followers, and some people will check you out solely because they see something interesting you’ve said to that person. Others like to check out followers, and those being followed, by someone they are connected to as well, so you can get picked up by people you actually would have wanted to target anyway, simply in that fashion.

I decided that even if not everyone is a direct connection to what I’m about, and the topics I cover on this social media site, so what? Everyone on Twitter is impressed with people who have a lot of followers. Come on, admit it, haven’t you thought twice about following someone back, or not even followed them at all because they hardly had any followers (again, except those who are obviously not for real)?

You just never know who will be associated with someone who just might be a key connection for you And the person who you think on the surface might not be an obvious match today, suddenly could end up being interested in your topic tomorrow, as their own circumstances, or the ones of someone they know, change.

Some facts : Twitter is dominated by newer users – 70% of Twitter users joined in 2008. An estimated 5-10 thousand new accounts are opened per day. 35% of Twitter users have 10 or fewer followers, 9% of Twitter users follow no one at all. There is a strong correlation between the number of followers you have and the number of people you follow.

About the Author : Melanie Jordan (@melaniejor), Infopreneur, Marketing Coach and produce “What You Know Is Worth More Than You Know“, the Podcast which teaches infopreneuring from a unique perspective.

Wondering how Twitter can be used for business? Wonder no more. “Twitter Means Business: How Microblogging can Help or Hurt your Company,” a new book by Julio Ojeda-Zapata (@jojeda), tells all.

See how Twitter – the fastest-growing social network, according to Nielsen Online – is used by corporations like Comcast, Dell and JetBlue. This book profiles dozens of businesses of all sizes on Twitter. These are tracking what is said about their brands in the “twitterverse,” and are interacting with customers in Twitter’s conversational style.

Find out how businesses are using Twitter in innovative ways – such as responding to complaints, nurturing online relationships, posting hot deals and recruiting evangelists – with “tweets” that are just 140 characters or less.

• Book Title: Twitter Means Business
• Subtitle: How Microblogging can Help or Hurt your Company
• Author: Julio Ojeda-Zapata
• Publication date: November 14, 2008
• Prices: Paperback $19.95, e-Book $11.95
• ISBN: Paperback: 1-60005-118-9 (978-1-60005-118-0)
• ISBN: E-book: 1-60005-119-7 (978-1-60005-119-7)

Public-relations agencies are also on Twitter, showing their business clients how to use the service. “Twitter Means Business” devotes a chapter to such P.R. agencies, ranging from giants to tiny P.R. shops.

Learn how businesses that don’t understand the Twitter culture can be blindsided. “Twitter Means Business” shows how ignoring Twitter can hurt a company. “Twitter means Business” has tips, tricks and tools so businesses will understand Twitter and use it effectively. The book examines rival micro blogging services used by companies, too.

Julio also identifies Twitter thought leaders, like social-media authorities Laura Fitton of Pistachio Consulting and Chris Brogan of chrisbrogan.com . These have praised “Twitter Means Business.”

Chris Brogan says, “Julio’s book on Twitter is the first business-minded book about the topic that I feel comfortable recommending to companies wondering why they should consider the tool for their organization. I’ve found a resource that I will share effusively.” “Twitter Means Business” is a unique blend of professional reportage and social-media insight. It is the one book to buy for anyone needing to master Twitter.

Twitter has become a place to burnish a corporation’s reputation, drum up new business, get ideas from customers and find those who wield influence online. “Twitter Means Business” documents these trends, and more.

Book Summary :

Millions of Internet users have fallen in love with the Twitter “microblogging” service, which lets them swap brief text “tweets.” Now companies are embracing the service to engage customers, promote products and monitor what is being said about their brands.

Given the passion and high profiles of “Twitterverse” denizens, the service has evolved into a vital early-warning system for businesses seeking to stave off criticism, and as a way to build better relationships with customers. That is why companies need to know Twitter. Embracing it can help a business thrive; ignoring the service could well hurt it.

For companies unfamiliar with Twitter, this book serves as a field guide. They will get a Twitterverse tour, and learn about the dozens of firms big and small that have harnessed Twitter as a powerful, flexible business tool. The bottom line: Twitter means business.

Preview : Twitter Means Business :

Google has just announced a new development, that Google Friend Connect integrates Twitter, the famous micro-blogging social network. Now you can sign into friend connect sites with your Twitter ID. Friend Connect also supports IDs from Google, Yahoo, AIM, and OpenID.

According to Google, integration with Twitter is an example of the improvements that will be promoted in Friend Connect, bringing new social features to the most diverse places on the internet.

If any of the people you follow on Twitter are also members of the third-party site, they will automatically be added as your friends.

Friend Connect’s goal is to facilitate an open social web and makes it simple for people to instantly interact with one another on the sites that they already love to visit. Additionally, websites that use Friend Connect become OpenSocial containers, capable of running applications created by the OpenSocial developer community.

Tumblr, a publishing platform and social network offering mixed-media blogs that uniquely reflect the author’s interests and that is closing the gap between social networks and online publishing, has closed a Series B round of financing. Union Square Ventures and Spark Capital led the $4.5 million round.

In conjunction with the financing, the company has added John Maloney as President. Mr. Maloney is an established new media executive and startup entrepreneur with 20 years of digital and media experience, including most recently senior-level positions at CNET Networks and UrbanBaby.com.

Union Square and Spark also led Tumblr’s Series A round of $775,000 financing that was joined by Betaworks and individual investors including Vimeo Founder Jakob Lodwick; Albert Wenger, Former President of Delicious; and Martin Varsavsky, BioTech entrepreneur.

Tumblr was founded in 2007 by 22-year-old web entrepreneur David Karp. The Series B investment enables the company to leverage its tremendous first year momentum. Traffic has grown 6x in the past year and now reaches over 15 million monthly uniques through more than 500,000 publishers. Tumblr has rapidly evolved from its initial early adoption in the creative community to broad-based consumer acceptance in the U.S. and abroad.

Our Tumblelogs : http://sociableblog.tumblr.com/