During a recent conversation with one of my clients, he raised these concerns and asked me if I thought Twitter was just an “overhyped trend” that would soon disappear. “Why is it,” he asked, “that so many businesses have had poor results using Twitter to promote their products or services?”

In my opinion, the majority of these negative articles reveal either poor practices, a gross misunderstanding of the purpose of social media, or both. One may as well write an article about the fundamental flaws of a hammer when used to brush one’s hair. You’re either using the tool incorrectly, or for the wrong purpose!

Twitter Facilitates Meaningful Relationships

In short, Twitter was developed with the simple purpose of building relationships. It is NOT a platform from which to repeatedly broadcast your products or services, announce your latest sale, or drive traffic to your website.

[Please re-read the paragraph above.]

It IS, however, a simple and effective tool to facilitate legitimate, meaningful, two-way communication.

The businesses and individuals who understand this basic premise are experiencing tremendous success in building their brand, reputation, and interaction with their readers. Those who are truly using social media to build relationships with their audience are discovering its incredible (and relatively untapped) power to supercharge their businesses.

Oh, and those same folks rarely, if ever, promote their own products or services outside the context of a conversation. Instead, they ask questions, solicit input from their readers, respond to customer problems in real-time, and share only relevant information — often from other sources outside of their own offerings.

Thankfully, the good folks at Twitter have just released a brand new tool for businesses seeking to make the most of Twitter (and other social media) to connect with their audience. In addition to a “Twitter 101″ primer on the basics, this microsite also includes pages of case studies and best practices for businesses. A brief excerpt follows:

How to measure the value of Twitter

Before you set up measurement tools, focus on the quality of your engagement, and use your gut to check how things are going. How’s the feedback and interaction with your followers? Are you responding to most or your @messages? Are most tweets about you positive? Or if they started out largely negative, are they coming around? Are more people beginning to engage with you and mention your company?

Next, think about quantifying your experience. Although it can be tricky to add up the value of relationships, Twitter does lend itself to measurement in a few ways, especially if you’ve already defined what you hope will be different for your company in three months, six months or a year if you succeed on Twitter. Tactics like these can then help you assess your progress in meeting that goal:

• Keep a tally of questions answered, customer problems resolved and positive exchanges held on Twitter. Do the percentages change over time?
• When you offer deals via Twitter, use a unique coupon code so that you can tell how many people take you up on that Twitter-based promotion. If you have an online presence, you can also set up a landing page for a promotion, to track not only click-throughs but further behavior and conversions.
• Use third-party tools to figure out how much traffic your websites are receiving from Twitter.
• Track click-throughs on any link you post in a tweet. Some URL shortening services let you track click-throughs.

Check out the Twitter 101 for Business microsite for more information, helpful tips and resources, and inspiring case studies…

Visit the Twitter 101 for Business Site

Months ago, the WordPress folks released the beta version of WP 2.7 and invited thousands of WordPress users from all around the world to submit their own ideas and feedback throughout the entire design and development process. From the release of the initial screenshots to the online voting to determine which set of icons would be used in the final release, this open and collaborative design process should become a model for other online developers.

As for the new look and feel of the WordPress dashboard, there are tons of new features that combine to make this a compelling upgrade for anyone who uses WordPress for their website or blog.

The redesigned dashboard is lighter and cleaner, effectively using AJAX to make the environment feel more like a desktop application than a browser-based tool. The menu has moved to the left side of the screen and is now collapsible, leaving even more room for the modules and tools you use most.

Click any of the module title bars to collapse that module, hiding it until you need it again. Click and drag the module title bars to re-arrange the position of the modules on the page. And best of all, the new “Screen Options” tab at the top of each screen allows you to completely turn off features that you rarely use, creating a highly-personalized set of tools. Don’t care about the WordPress Development Blog headlines? Now you can turn them off entirely!

One really cool feature on the new dashboard is the all-new QuickPress module, which puts a simplified post editor right on the dashboard. Got a quick post to write? Simply enter the title, add some content, add an image if you like, and hit Publish. The new post will be published to your default category and you never even left the dashboard screen!

There are far too many new features to list here, but if you’re interested in upgrading to WordPress 2.7, get in touch and we’ll take care of it for you! Most upgrades can be completed within 24 hours at a cost of just $45.

If you’d like a personalized 1-hour training session to bring you up to speed on the new features, get in touch and let’s schedule a time that works best for you!

You’ll enjoy increased productivity and the ability to update the content on your website even more easily with the all-new WordPress 2.7!

Click here to get in touch with Leftlane Designs!

New in iTunes 8…

1. Genius playlists and sidebar. Create a playlist of songs that go great together and get recommendations for new songs.
2. HD TV shows. Buy your favorite shows, including Heroes and The Office, in high definition. Episodes cost just $2.99.
3. New ways to browse. Browse your music, movies, and TV shows by cover art. Quickly skim albums by artist and genre.

iTunes 8 also syncs with your iPod or iPhone much faster than previous versions. All in all, a must-have upgrade.

Dynolicious is the first automotive performance meter available for the iPhone and iPod Touch. It uses the hardware built-in to your iPhone to measure the performance characteristics of your vehicle. No external wires or equipment are necessary, simply slip the iPhone into a cradle or cupholder and go!

Some of the performance metrics Dynolicious can measure:

• 0-60 Acceleration
• 1/4 Mile Elapsed Time
• Lateral G’s
• Horsepower

And, unlike other accelerometer-based performance meters, Dynolicious maintains a history of test runs, showing you averages and trends in your results. You can also enter modifications performed to your vehicle, and it will instantly show before-and-after results to easily identify gains or losses.

At just $12.99 on the iTunes App Store, it’s a must-have for any auto enthusiast.

Check our the Dynolicious Auto Performance Meter for iPhone and iPod.

If you use WordPress for your personal or corporate blog, and you own an iPhone, then you’ll want to check out the newly-released WordPress for iPhone.

WP for iPhone lets you write posts, upload photos, and edit your WordPress blog from your iPhone or iPod Touch. With support for both WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress (2.5.1 or higher), users of all experience levels can get going in seconds. Download it now!

The Firefox web browser is probably the best web browser available today, with built-in phishing filters to protect surfers from malicious or phony sites, standard-compliant support for the latest web standards (which makes the life of web designers SO much easier), and significantly faster browsing speeds.

In short, Internet Explorer should take a few notes.

After more than 34 months of active development, and with the contributions of thousands, we’re proud to announce that we’re ready. It is our expectation to ship Firefox 3 this upcoming Tuesday, June 17th. Put on your party hats and get ready to download Firefox 3 — the best web browser, period.

UPDATE: Guinness bestows download record on Firefox

The revamped service, now called MobileMe, offers web versions of Apple’s email, calendar, address book, photo album and remote disk programs. Now, folks everywhere can begin to use Apple’s gorgeous applications, with having to switch to Mac, or even buy a new computer! This is simply ingenious.

Of course, if you already own a Mac, then you’ll be instantly familiar with the look and behavior of the online versions of these applications, because they are simply web versions of the exact same software you’ve been enjoying on your Mac—plus a few extra goodies thrown in.  AJAX goodness makes the programs function more like desktop applications than web sites, including drag-and-drop functionality.

Push email. Push contacts. Push calendar.
MobileMe stores all your email, contacts, and calendars on an online server — or “cloud” — and pushes them down to your iPhone, iPod touch, Mac, and PC. When you make a change on one device, the cloud updates the others. Your changes happen automatically, instantly, and continuously. You don’t have to wait for it or remember to do anything — such as docking your iPhone or syncing manually — to stay up to date.

With this functionality, along with embedded sharing capabilities, the iPhone/MobileMe marriage offers up a serious challenge to the antiquated Microsoft Exchange Server business solution. Goodbye, ridiculous licensing fees, specialized IT personnel and decade-old user interfaces! Hello, gorgeous, intuitive, web-based applications that don’t require a dedicated IT department!

MobileMe will cost $99/year when it launches, but I’d highly recommend the Family Pack, which costs $149/year, and features five licenses. Share the other four with friends and family and the cost per year drops to $30 per person, which is a great price for this productivity suite.

UPDATED! I just found out that you can buy .Mac right now from Amazon for just $69.99, and still get upgraded for FREE when MobileMe launches! Save $29.96 and get MobileMe… what a deal!

Click here to check out .Mac on Amazon for $69.99!

Or click here for the Family Pack for just $124.49!

I anticipate MobileMe will turn out to be one of Apple’s best strategies to date, and will be even bigger than the iPhone itself! Welcome to Mac, PC users everywhere!

Thanks, Jake.

Navigation

The new design cuts the number of navigation options in half, separating the primary functions (writing, managing posts and pages, editing the blog’s design, and managing comments) from secondary functions. This presents information much more intuitively, revealing only the information that’s necessary. Everything you need is still there — just better organized. (Especially for people new to WP.)

Write

The new write screen only displays the information that you’ll use most often. It displays the most common fields in a way that makes writing new content incredibly easy. Additional options are hidden away until you need them. The new Write screen anticipates the natural flow of the way you write, and is smart enough to remember the way you left it so that your preferred writing environment is always quickly available. My personal favorite new feature is the new full-screen mode, which helps block out distractions while composing your newest post.

For a sneak peek of the new features, click here.

Take a look at HEMA’s product page. It’s in Dutch, but just wait 15-20 seconds after the page loads to see what happens. (Turn sound on.)