When is Wikipedia going to be released in audio format, in whole or in part? Might be a worthwhile project for someone.

Yes, cats are manipulative. In fact, when cats purr, it means they are premeditating nefarious machinations with intent to destroy not only you, BUT ALL MANKIND!!1!

Get a grip people.

It would seem the credit crisis and subsequent economic downturn have stripped the last vestiges of hype and glitz from Ford's image. They're now engaging brand fans and prospective buyers in a very dressed-down, straight forward way (headed by the likable companyman Scott Monty). Social media is a perfect way to do it, and they've got the demeanor down-pat.

Will it result in more sales? Probably. The more consumer touchpoints you have, the more opportunities you'll have to listen to the customer and pitch to them.

Dying in a fire wouldn't be so bad, actually. Believe it or not, I've had worse things happen to me in my life.

I frickin' love the letter b. I tried to slip another one by you guys, get you thinking about b's all the time, but youse caught me.

Personally, I don't care if my followers pitch me now and then, but

a) mix it up. make the ratio one advert per 10 quality, humanistic, value-oriented tweets

b) be transparent. Some of those magpie ads in the article were a little misleading I thought.

b) be clever about it. I've never felt even remotely interested in any paid tweet because they're so crappy, or reduntant, or irrelevant.

I have personally used magpie for advertising, and with success. It's not as potent as pay-per-click (ala Adwords) because the intent to purchase typically isn't there. That's why marketing on Facebook is such a lame idea. Brands are only getting inbetween conversations with loved ones. Not cool.

Twitter has the advantage of having real-time search, so intent can be captured as it's happening.

You definitely can use contextual marketing on twitter and still look at yourself in the mirror each morning. You just gotta know how.

Clever idea. But it's not Twitter.

While there are many mimickers on the scene (Plurk and Yapp come immediately to mind), Twitter seems to have reached critical mass - the Bandwagon effect so to speak. Everyone is on it, and if you're not, you're a crusty, cantankerous old person (no matter what age you really are). Big brands and small businesses are leveraging Twitter as a cost effective social media tool. News media like CNN are amassing huge followings. Pre-teens are on it. It has a more dynamic interface than instant messengers as well (heck, Facebook copied it).

And of course, the Twitter API is open source, so you're seeing funky new apps, hacks and features appear every day.

Google is king of search, but Twitter owns realtime search, and that's where the future is headed. It's what people want.

Totally agree. Yahoo's front page has to go, and they need to bring their awesome properties like delicious, Yahoo pipes and flickr to the forefront. That's where the coolness is.

Twitter.

Twitter provides realtime search. It shows intent realtime. It shows trends. It's faster than the news media and blogs, and, with a 140 character limit, it cuts to the chase. And it's growing like crazy.

MS and / or Yahoo should be looking at Twitter seriously. It's the real deal.

Where's my Cowboy NULL option?