White Sox Manager Guillen Joins Twitterverse

Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, whose reputation for speaking his mind has gotten him into trouble before, now has a new platform to share his thoughts with the world. The Chicago Tribune reports that Guillen has started to use Twitter, a move that has already drawn concern from team General Manager Kenny Williams, who spoke publicly about his concerns that it would take Guillen’s attention from baseball.

However, in typical fashion, Guillen told reporters after the team’s workout during spring training in Glendale, Ariz. that the situation was much ado about nothing.

“I guess I can’t have fun,” Guillen said. “I flunked in school five times, and I never had as much trouble as I’m having right now. Why do I have to explain to people why I’m doing this? Like I said, I talked to Kenny about it, it’s not anything that involves the ballclub. There are a lot of people in baseball that have Twitter. Why me? Why do I have to explain why I have Twitter? Obviously, I know I’m the manager of the team and the face of the ballclub, but there are a couple guys out there — I won’t say any names — that have Twitter.

“I guess they’re not famous, or people don’t care about it. The one thing I promise people — well I don’t have to promise — but (chairman) Jerry and Kenny. It’s nothing to do with the White Sox. I hope I don’t have to say I got in a fight with my wife last night.”

Yahoo! Announces Twitter Deal

Yahoo! today announced a partnership with Twitter to integrate the micro-blogging service’s real-time tweets in Yahoo!’s global network. The partnership will allow people to access their personal Twitter feeds across various Yahoo! properties including the homepage and Yahoo! Mail; update their Twitter status and share content from Yahoo! in their Twitter stream; and access Twitter updates across Yahoo! media properties such as News, Finance and Sports.

Co-founder of Twitter Biz Stone wrote in a blog post, “From our perspective, this partnership represents a big opportunity. Tweets may be short, but they have proven over and over again to contain valuable information. As the Twitter information network grows and expands, it becomes more valuable for everyone who participates.”

Yahoo! announced a similar partnership with Facebook in December. Both deals make it possible for anyone with a Yahoo! ID to update both social networking sites simultaneously. And Yahoo! isn’t the only one signing agreements. The Los Angeles Times reports that Twitter is making search deals right and left with nearly everyone including Microsoft, Google, AOL and MySpace, amounting to about $25 million in revenue.

Farmville Monthly Subscription a Hoax

An email claiming that Facebook users will soon have to pay to play the popular game Farmville is a hoax, according to Caroline McCarthy at CNET. A fan site had posted an email that a reader said had come from Farmville parent company Zynga, claiming that the game was moving out of “beta” mode ending March 31, with a new subscription model costing $5.95 month and offering advanced features.

Of course, that also means that the first day of the “new” Farmville would be on April 1, leading McCarthy to speculate that it was an early April Fool’s Day joke. For their part, spokespeople from Zynga have denied that they will be moving out of their current model, which sees the company make money from 75 million monthly users who use real-world money to purchase virtual goods to use in the game.

50 Million Tweets Per Day

Twitter announced today that its micro-blogging service experiences 50 million tweets per day (TPD), an increase of 1,400 percent from 35 million TPD in 2009. In an effort to track the company’s growth over the past few years, the Twitter analytics team has posted a TPD report on the company blog, revealing that people were tweeting only 5,000 TPD back in 2007. According the blog post, the 50 million Tweets per day milestone does not include tweets from accounts identified as spam.

Twitter Benefits from Google Real-Time Search Integration

At first glance, there were few surprises in the most recently released comScore numbers, which showed that Google had solidified its dominance in the search engine market and stabilized in-roads made by competitors (specifically Microsoft Bing). However, a closer look reveals that one of the big winners from the past few months of activity has been social media site Twitter — and they might have Google to thank for it.

Twitter’s site traffic rose nine percent from December 2009 to January 2010 — which happens to be the period when Google integrated real-time search of sites like Twitter into their results. LeeAnn Prescott at Digital Beat doesn’t think this is a coincidence. She also thinks that the numbers bode well for Twitter on the heels of the recent launch of Google Buzz.

“However, this new data is encouraging for Twitter — it is maintaining its US share while growing internationally and growing the use of its service on third-party applications through its APIs,” she wrote. “With a completely open social network where users can have as much control as they want over the amount of personal information they share, Twitter has got a lot going for it over Google Buzz.”

Possible Lawsuit against Facebook and Social Media Sites

CNET News reports that in response to a massive snow ball fight that took place yesterday in Center City Philadelphia, two members of Philadelphia’s city council are requesting that legal action be taken against social media sites, which were reportedly used to organize the event.

More than 150 teenagers rampaged through Macy’s department store at the Market East mall, knocking over displays and causing nearly $700 worth of damage, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Although no one was reportedly hurt, some pedestrians were knocked over including a Center City attorney and a doctor.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports the event was organized through text messages and possibly Facebook, but is not clear whether Facebook or any other social networking site was used. CNET News reports that council members Frank DiCicco and James F. Kenney wrote a letter to Mayor Michael Nutter requesting the permission to “pursue the possibility” of a lawsuit.

“While they certainly owe this city an apology and deserve to be punished under the fullest extent of the law, we believe that social media outlets should also bear some of the blame.”

However, CNET News staff writer Caroline McCarthy disagrees. She writes, “On one hand, suing Facebook in this case is like suing the phone company if telephone calls were used to plot a bank robbery. It’s not the responsibility of a social network with 400 million members around the world to monitor conversations between mischievous high schoolers.”

Fat Flight Fiasco Leaves “Clerks” Director Kevin Smith Fuming on Twitter

The Los Angeles Times reports that director Kevin Smith, known for his shocking comedies like “Clerks” and “Chasing Amy,” received a shock of his own earlier this week when he was kicked off of a Southwest Airlines flight for “being too fat.” Now Smith has taken to his Twitter account to tell his side of the story and rail against Southwest’s policies.

Smith was on a flight from Oakland to Burbank on February 13 after Southwest officials determined that he was a “safety risk” because he could not put down the armrest on his seat. Southwest offered Smith an apology and a $100 flight voucher (which he refused). His treatment left Smith fuming on his popular Twitter page:

“I know I’m fat, but was (the pilot) really justified in throwing me off a flight for which I was already seated?” he tweeted. “I broke no regulation, offered no ’safety risk’ (what, was I gonna roll on a fellow passenger?). I saw someone bigger than me on THAT flight! But I wasn’t about to throw a fellow Fatty under the plane as I’m being profiled. But he & I made eye contact, & he was like ‘Please don’t tell…’”

Facebook and Twitter Growth Reach Triple Digits in 2009

Marketing Charts reports that Facebook and Twitter both experienced triple-digit growth in 2009, according to the comScore’s Digital Year in Review.

For the first time in May 2009, Facebook rose to the top spot among social networks and maintained the position throughout the year, ending with 112 million visitors in December of 2009. The impressive figures represent a 105 percent increase from 2008. According to the report, Facebook grew in nearly every performance metric in 2009, including unique visitors, page views and total time spent.

Twitter ended the year with nearly 20 million visitors to its website, accounting for a whopping 900 percent increase from only 2 million visitors in 2008.

The report also found that nearly 80 percent of U.S. Internet users visited a social networking site in 2009. In total, social networking accounted for 11 percent of all time spent online in the U.S., “making it one of the most popular online activities.”

Facebook Chat Integrated with AOL Instant Messaging

InformationWeek reports that AOL has integrated its instant messenger service with Facebook, utilizing the social media giant’s new Chat application program and allowing users of either platform to chat with each other. Starting on Wednesday, Facebook users could send instant messages through their Chat window to the AOL IM accounts of friends while AOL IM users could communicate directly with other people who are signed into Facebook Chat.

“Integrating AIM and Facebook Chat is a great step on the path we’re pursuing to offer universal access through AIM across a variety of communications platforms — and users can look forward to more innovations to come,” Michelle Trainor, VP of AIM, said in a statement.

AOL has embraced Facebook recently, including allowing people to connect to Facebook directly through their AOL home page.

Facebook Mobile Reaches New Heights

Less than six months after announcing that 65 million people actively use its services on their cell phones, the popular social networking site has reached a new milestone: 100 million people now use Facebook on their mobile devices every month, accounting for nearly 1/3 of its total population of 350 million active users worldwide.

According to Facebook, this impressive usage happens on almost every carrier in the world. The company recently released updates for Facebook applications on Android, Blackberry, iPhone, Nokia and Samsung.

“With every new feature or product we bring to mobile, our goal is to offer the same value and user experience that people know on Facebook,” wrote Chamath Palihapitiya, Facebook’s vice president of user growth, mobile and international.

Other recent updates include new designs for mobile sites m.facebook.com and touch.facebook.com, allowing users to access Facebook from any mobile browser in more than 70 languages. The social networking company also unveiled a URL-shortening service called FB that makes it easier for users to share content through SMS text messaging.

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