Twitter has launched its first value-add to the location sharing function of its application.  Now, when you share your location you can get local trending topics for a limited set of markets in addition to the national trending topics. Minneapolis wasn’t on the list of local markets, so I chose Chicago and there weren’t any

Are you using your Facebook feeds optimally?  Facebook provides two different feeds, the news feed and the live feed.  What’s the difference?  The news feed is an intelligent collection of what Facebook thinks you will like to see based on your past interaction with the site, but doesn’t include everything that goes on.  The live

Facebook has released its Community Council application to a select few with permission to moderate material flagged as objectionable. Facebook hasn’t commented on the application, which currently requires an invitation to install on your account.  Eyewitness accounts of the application describe a version of the existing moderation tools which has been made available to the

We talked last week about who owns our tweets and discovered that ultimately, the creator of a tweet owns that tweet.  In Twitter’s terms of service, they recommend that you license your tweets using a creative commons license. Doing this could cut down on legal ambiguity in the future and provide others with the ability

Many websites with user-generated content use an implied terms of service contract which grants ownership of  user’s content to the website owners.  Twitter’s terms of service is different in that it doesn’t provide Twitter ownership over your content, but provides Twitter with a “worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense).”  So, it gives

Bit.ly has finally started to leverage the vast quantity of links and clicks through its url shortening service with the launch of its new bitly.tv service out of its labs linking the most popular videos on the bit.ly service over a given time period. Bit.ly has the ability to collect a huge amount of data

Twitter has a new feature currently in beta testing.  This feature will allow you to change the voice of a brand from an individual representation to that of a community.  Employees of large organizations would be able to tweet under the company’s profile with a mention of the individuals name as well below it. With

Google and Facebook have both announced URL shortening services today.  Shortening URL’s is becoming increasingly popular as a way of saving time consuming keystrokes on mobile devices. Google Google has added a URL shortener called goo.gl that works with The Google Toolbar and its Feedburner service to provide shortened URLs that leverage the Google architecture. Some

In an obvious effort to catch up with Facebook and Twitter, LinkedIn has finally released its API, which has been in the works for quite some time. The API allows access to profiles, connections, invitations, and status updates. An Early Success? Not quite.  A gander through the developer forums shows a cluster of frustrated new

Twitter’s announcement of opening up the Twitter people search to developers through its API has added powerful functionality for its developers.  Similar to its find on Twitter end-user functionality, this allows developers to programmatically search for people based on profile information. We can’t wait to see how this will impact the creativity of Twitter apps