Real-Time Search Picking up Steam

Twitter announced last week that it would expand search beyond its own site, not only indexing search terms on its own site but the pages tweets link to as well.

This would transform Twitter into a real-time internet search engine based upon what users are twittering about. Very cool.

Looks like Twitter has some competition on that front, though. Two startups, OneRiot and TweetMeme have already begun searching linked pages on Twitter and indexing text, videos, and images.

URL Shorteners - Twitter Switches From TinyURL To Bit.ly

Finally! Twitter has switched its default URL shortener from TinyURL to Bit.ly. From a marketing perspective, this is much more useful! Bit.ly has killer tracking features, allowing you to look at number of clicks, locations, conversations, and more. If you're running a social marketing campaign, it's essential to be able to track your clicks by source, and bit.ly is one of the best tools for combining URL shortening and tracking all in one. Plus, it allows you to tweet directly from their site using the new URL.

Just for Fun: DickensURL converts your URL into a Charles Dickens quote. He's my favorite author. Here's a link to my blog incorporating a quote from Hard Times:
http://dickensurl.com/a262/There_is_a_wisdom_of_the_Head_and__there_is_a_wisdom_of_the_Heart

Newspaper Bailout Coming?

With the recent threat of the NYT shutting down the Boston Globe, the politicians in Washington are starting to get involved in the newspaper industry. They fear the very freedom of the press is at risk. Joe Weisenthal at Silicon Alley Insider thinks a newspaper bailout is inevitable, at least for some of the top players (NYT, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, and WaPo.)
He brings up the possibility of a national media bank that would provide low-interest bridge loans or grants.
I can't see any other solution for the industry besides a non -profit approach. When I worked at The Christian Science Monitor, our Publisher argued that since we were a non-profit, we should pursue non-proift fund raising techniques. But the Board of Trustees wouldn't buy it. Our Publisher left soon afterwards, and now the paper has converted from a daily paper to a weekly magazine. I still think our Publisher was right, but it will be interesting to see how the Monitor performs under this new approach. Could they have the answer that will save the industry? Probably not, but it just may work for the Monitor's unique style of analytical journalism, which lends itself to a weekly.