Regardless of what analysts say about the future of Twitter and Microblogging, you can’t help but acknowledge the power of Twitter and its community. But what people don’t realize is that Twitter is already more effective for marketers than FaceBook and is gaining fast on e-mail. Now a NY Journalist is planning to publish a book on Twitter. I personally think it’s absolutely a great idea. Will it succeed? It depend on how it will be done. But one thing is for sure. You sure do get a lot of publicity for doing new things on Twitter, and the book may actually end up having more followers than it would through traditional publishing. Watch this space for more developments.

As you all know by now, hurricane Gustuva was not as bad as it was feared, but nevertheless the damages were significant enough to call for a relief effort by the government. But this year unlike last year, we had people twittering from their homes describing their experience with the hurricane. Now, I never recommend staying and riding out a potentially devastating hurricane like Gustav, but nevertheless sites suchas Twitter now allow us to communicate better and even help the relief effort. It’s good to see that people have taken matters in their own hands when the government is failing. Who says Twitter is useless? Check out this cool story about twittering in hurricane.

FaceBook folks are very smart people. They understand that Twitter and Microblogging as a trend is catching fire. So it was not surprising to see them release their Live Feed service. The Live Feed is not technically a clone of twitter, but you can technically use it as you would Twitter.

The Live Feed feature shows FaceBook’s intention to be more than just a player in the microblogging market. They want to own it, and one wouldn’t be surprised if people switched from Twitter to FaceBook with all the problems that the microblogging has been experiencing lately. Out of curiousity, will you switch to twitter now that they have added Live Feed?

We all heard the story about how Barack Obama tried to use text messaging to announce his VP. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people in this world that are good at nothing but spoiling the party, and a few of those managed to leak out the fact that Barack’s choice was Joe Biden. So the whole experiment failed miserably with Obama campaign having to send text messages 3 in the morning to announce the VP.

But Mccain has a great opportunity now to show that he has mastered the art of Web 2.0 as well. While I don’t think he should copy Barack Obama, he should definitely consider using his twitter account to announce his VP (which we know for 90% is Mitt Romney). Then he can claim that he had the judgement and pragmatism to get what he promised done unlike Barack Obama. I mean if these politicians can’t keep their simplest promises, then how can we trust them to solve our energy or healthcare crises?

Picture courtesy of Uncorelated.com.

VentureBeat is reporting a developing story in the twitter world that has set the web on fire. It seems DMCA and Twitter have dropped hammer on a few Twitter users for using TV character names and acting like them on Twitter. I personally think that the U.S. legal system will finally destroy the Web as we know it by putting too much pressure on users to behave a certain way. It’s a shame that lawsuits and censorship still is the best approach the media companies use to put their sub-par productions down our throats. RIAA and MPAA killed P2P as we know it. And the Internet is next folks. Here is the story.

At least Twitter seems to be coming to its sense by limiting the number of people that you can follow. It’s amazing how people are using twitter for spamming these days. I personally have twitter accounts that I haven’t posted a single tweet to but to my surprise I still have a few fans for those twitter accounts. The limit is on how many people you can follow (around $2000), but you can have a million followers (I think the highest number is a 5 figure). So all is well with Twitter.

You know what happens when you open up a Web 2.0 platform to the folks in the WWW? People will use any way they want. The latest story in the Web 2.0 is the possibility of a lawsuit by Exxon Mobile and other giant companies against individuals who create accounts on Twitter or Digg with the companies’ names. Now I think Exxon Mobile will probably not sue people who have created that now famous twitter account, but I am sure a lot of other companies would. I know major financial companies usually do go in that route regardless of how small or big the entity they are dealing with is. In essence, you can be a teenager and get sued by a major company. I guess the more important question is should Twitter and other social sites prohibit the use of trademarked names in account names. I think they should! That way they will save us all a lot of grief. But when that will happen is a whole other story.

I rememberthe first time I saw twitter, I just didn’t get it. I didn’t realize how powerful Twitter will become. It’s true that Twitter has had its problems with being down and glitches here or there, but it has truly replaced email for some folks. But the art of hacking is about using a powerful tool and use it against you. Twitter if used correctly can be a massive communication and collaboration tool. If used in the wrong way however, it can deadly. Now more than ever it’s important to figure out what people are trying to send you, and avoid on clicking, downloading, or following suspicious items. Here is a very interesting story about hackers and their efforts on Twitter.