Which is not to say that every meme is a lie…But when dealing with information that can’t necessarily be verified, how can you be sure which is which? For those of you who have ever found yourself questioning whether the Tweet you’re reading is truth or meme, help is on the way. Researchers at Indiana University have developed a tool called Truthy, which analyzes the diffusion of Tweets in order to detect whether they are genuine groundswells of social sentiment or intentional spreading of misinformation.

The tool’s algorithms are complex and use several data input streams, including Truthy-user feedback, to identify misleading memes – a great use of Web 2.0 to improve data analysis system architecture. Check out the tool and see if you can spot any fishy memes!

I’ve created a version from the W5 twitter feed and it’s an easy way to browse all the stuff I miss during the day.

Today is the apparent unveiling of its advertising plan, which Twitter calls “Promoted Tweets” (although after searching for 30 minutes and not being able to find an ad I promptly gave up).  With Promoted Tweets, Twitter plans on incorporating advertisements into the Twitter live stream that relate to the personal search choices of its users.  The promoted Tweet advertising plan, however, differs from that of Google, Yahoo, and even Facebook, which all place their advertisements on the right side of their web page.  Unlike other social networking sites, Twitter only plans to display one ad at a time and plans to place the individual ads, which resemble normal Tweets, above the search results Twitter feed.

Advertisers will initially have to purchase key words that allow their ads to be displayed at the top of the Twitter feed when users use that key word in their searches.  Twitter is also in the process of developing a performance model called ‘resonance’ to determine pricing for its Promoted Tweets.  Similar to the pay per click model, Twitter’s resonance model will attempt to judge the impact of a particular ad by measuring the amount of times the ad is passed around, marked as a favorite, or how often users click the posted links on the advertisement, in order to determine price for ads.  The more demand and popularity for an ad, the longer it will stay around.

I was skeptical at first about Twitter’s Promoted Tweet’s plan, and not able to recognize the difference between a Starbucks Promoted Tweet and the normal tweets Starbucks puts out daily to promote its brand and products.  Why would a brand pay for something that it is already doing for free?  However, it is important to recognize the fluidity of Twitter.  Twitter is constantly being updated by its users, and as a result individual Tweets do not remain in one place for long.  The Promoted Tweet plan allows advertisers to display a message without fear of it being engulfed in the constantly updated stream of Tweets.  While Twitter’s advertising strategy is certainly unique, it is up to Twitter to convince advertisers, who will still have access to the promotional capabilities of a Twitter account free of charge, that its Promoted Tweets plan is worth the investment.

At each destination there was over 300 tickets waiting for each crowd. Within minutes each time after the release, they were gone. Clever, I must say. This can obviously be risky business, but I actually like this form of marketing. If you can engage people, make something good, get a smile or two back – you have won so much more than new business. I would argue that your reputation is by far more important than the profit, even in shorter terms. Have a look at  JetBlue’s Twitter account, apparently the journey continues. This is exactly what Twitter is for in my opinion – to connect people and to connect businesses, to enlighten us but also to engage us on a daily basis. Give something, and you’ll receive something back.

• The ability to de-clutter and organize those you’re following
• The ability to get updates without having to follow someone in your main stream
• A great way to see what others are doing and find new people

In a sense, this move has made Twitter more useful and immediate. It gives the user the ability to switch views from the immediate and constant to custom streams that can be viewed occasionally. Twitter was a great tool at the recent Planningness event (check out the twitter search results to see how it unfolded). A tool like lists would let you isolate all those people and view it in a stream without also hearing from your other friends, news sources, and misc. tweeple you might follow.

The New York Times jumped on the bandwagon early and developed all kinds of lists from a complete list of their tweeting staff (@nytimes/staff) to specialized lists on technology (@nytimes/nyt-technology-bits-blog) and the World Series (@nytimes/nyt-world-series-2009). I’ve seen plenty of other lists out there as well.

W5 hasn’t created any lists yet. While we will, I think it would be more interesting to see what our followers might want to see from us. Any ideas for the types of lists you’d like to see?  Leave them in the comments or send me at e-mail mmolloy@w5insight.com if you’re shy.

A few summer films expected to be hits were panned by early audiences leading to consumers shunning the films later that weekend. It appears that Bruno suffered from a rather acute form negative word of mouth catching fire. This past weekend, however, a success story was in the works as Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds actually picked up steam from Twitter, despite mixed initial reviews from traditional news sources and critics.

I know I’ve said this before, but it’s another great example of the conversation taking place independent of traditional media or the intent of marketing managers. Consumers are discussing everything from products to brands to customer service. Knowing what they’re saying is becoming increasingly important to keeping them satisfied.

As was seen in the wake of Michael Jackson’s death, Twitter has become the new go-to place for news. It was one of the first to report Jackson’s death, it was correct, and it was significantly faster than most of the main news sources. So what’s the problem with this? Well according to Twitter, Rick Astley, Britney Spears, Natalie Portman, and Jeff Goldblum are all dead.  Clearly, this is not true.

It seems that people are more concerned with obtaining information quickly than worrying about the validity of the content. What people are forgetting is that, despite delivering compelling hearsay, Twitter is not a legitimate news source.

Perhaps Twitter’s only positive affect on the news industry has been restoring faith in fact-based news reporting of the New York Times, CNN and Fox News. Still, it is a shame that it’s now the job of reputable news sources to clean up Twitter’s mess.

The recently launched Tinker.com responds to this issue. (Check out Adage coverage of the ANA Brand Innovation Conference.) Tinker is linked to users’ Twitter accounts. It compiles all of the Twitter tweets about a specific topic, brand or event, such as Apple Computers or the American Idol Finale. Tinker then filters through tweets to find only the positive remarks (excluding competitor mentions, profanity, and other negative publicity), and displays them as a stand-alone feature. Marketers can connect their Tinker display to their webpage, Facebook page, etc.

It will be interesting to see how Tinker will develop as users catch on to the trend. But despite new marketing options, I still feel like Twitter is the way to go. The internet is full of brand messages crafted by the brand, delivered to the consumer. What consumers ultimately care about (and what Twitter could provide if used correctly) are consumer messages about the brand. Imagine the possibilities if advertisers could influence users to tweet 140 character blurbs to the effect of: “This Coke is better than–,” or “The Carolina Hurricanes are the best thing that ever happened to the triangle.” How to get users to mention products in their tweets is the real challenge.

I recently discovered (thanks to my wife) Posterous. A blogging tool that is so simple, it seems infinitely powerful. The site bills itself as “a dead simple place to post everything.” Essentially all a user has to do to set up and blog is e-mail their thoughts, pictures, files, etc. to Posterous and they’re off and blogging.

While part of it will mean more meaningless pictures from last night or odd bigfoot-style celebrity photos, I wonder if this kind of blogging will result in more and more instant complaint sites. Didn’t get satisfaction at the local fast food chain, don’t call 911, instantly complain via your not-so-microblog. Brands thought Twitter was rough, imagine what one would be able to do with more than 140 characters.

An article from one of the New York Times’ blogs points out that people have been involved in the Face Book fad since 1902. In reality, the idea of people getting together socially and then sharing tidbits of information and memory that they could take with them isn’t all that new. Bryan Benilous, the historical newspaper specialist who found this (along with a 1942 mention of Twitter and a 1903 mention of a pocket telephone) compared the old Face Book to the new version as “having friends write on your wall in a much less tech-savvy way.”

So what does this mean? As our friend Mark has said, shaping the behavior of an individual is hard, shaping the behavior of the mass is even more difficult. Maybe social networking hasn’t actually created a new craze but actually just given more people an opportunity to engage in a behavior that they’ve been doing all along. They can just do it in real time and across the great divides more easily. 

As a former history major it makes me wonder (again), is anything really new?

Gareth Kay wrote a great op-ed piece for Agency Spy that got me thinking. It’s all about having a conversation instead of a lecture. What’s interesting is that social media seems to be becoming less and less about having a conversation with everyone, more anti-social in a sense. A few sites I’ve come across recently have pointed that way for me:

• HP came out with Gabble recently. As the New York Times puts it, the NotForYouTube. Essentially, it’s a social media site that limits the social. The user controls who sees their video and the scope of the conversation. Instead of seeing how many hits you can get to become the internet star of tomorrow, it lets you have a conversation.
• Another site I’ve learned about (thanks to my wife Shannon) is Yammer. Essentially, instead of using Twitter to have a public discourse about the mundane details of your life, Yammer is about a closed circle of co-workers having a private conversation. 

Subtle inward twists on ideas that are typically used to broadcast and all of the sudden social media is more about using technology to converse than finding a way to self-broadcast. When you look at sites like these in combination with the forthcoming Google Voice, it’s becoming clearer to me that the social media revolution is going to be more of a shift in how we have conversations than a revolution in what we’re saying.