Taweet (beta) is a unique Twitter application that adds a whole new dimension to your Twitter experience: the future. The casual format of Taweet allows users to answer one simple question: “What are you doing in the future?” …and search the future to see what others are doing.

You create posts on Taweet in the same way you would add items to a calendar or timeline. You describe a future event and add the date and time it will occur. Your post is then added to your “Future Tweets” and is visible on your Taweet profile. You can view the profile of any Twitter user on Taweet.

When a future tweet is created it also posts to Twitter, with the date included, to let your followers know you have a new event coming up. At the date and time each of your posts is scheduled they also appear on your Twitter profile. The short-URL at the end of each Twitter post links to your topic page on Taweet where others can add comments. When a comment is made it posts to the Twitter account of the commenter, again linking back to the original topic.

You can use the “Post Now” feature to override scheduling. Tweets sent with the “Post Now” feature also include a short-URL to allow all of your Twitter posts to have threaded comments.

All future tweets are visible on the Taweet search page. Taweet’s future search is novel solution for promoting future events or searching the future to see what others are doing.

Some promising news from the MySpace camp comes with the pending acquisition of the number one music application on Facebook, iLike. The deal is set to close around $20 million and puts Facebook in an uncomfortable position, with it’s number one social media competitor owning one of the top applications on the Facebook platform.

In a recent SWOT analysis MySpace recognized music and entertainment as a strength, declining market share as a weakness, iLike as an opportunity, and Facebook as it’s number one threat. Going back to business basics has allowed MySpace to make a very smart move while biting it’s thumb in the direction of Palo Alto, CA.

How Facebook plans to respond once the deal goes through is anyone’s guess. Banning the music application will probably be a bad move with over 30 million iLike users on Facebook. Allowing MySpace to have internal influence over a portion of Facebook users may not be a good option either. It will be interesting to see how this one plays out.

Does social computing really deliver significantly better business performance? Or is it merely a minor incremental improvement? While many cases have shown successful implementations of collaborative social media style applications in the workplace, the benefit of Enterprise 2.0 is still a hotly debated topic. While the core concept is the integration of Web 2.0 and social networking workflow models into business processes, there are still a wide range of interpretations and outcomes that make it difficult to hone in on measurable returns.

Here are ten issues that commonly arise when mixing business with social media…

1. Lack of social media literacy amongst workers.

2. A perception that social tools won’t work well in a particular industry.

3. Social software is still perceived as too risky to use for core business activities.

4. Can’t get enough senior executives engaged with social tools.

5. There is vapor lock between IT and the social computing initiative.

6. Need to prove ROI before there will be support for social software.

7. Security concerns are holding up pilot projects/adoption plans.

8. The needs around community management have come as a surprise.

9. Difficulties sustaining external engagement.

10. Struggling to survive due to unexpected success.

Source: Enterprise Web 2.0

The top story on the social Web this week is Facebook’s acquisition of social media aggregator FriendFeed. The transaction is reported around $50 million. FriendFeed’s traffic is an estimated 1 million visitors per month which is minute compared to Facebook’s 250 million. With a recent Facebook valuation of $10 billion though, the numbers make sense.

Forrester Research analyst Jeremiah Owyang says it was “a good move for Facebook,” but it may have been a little premature for FriendFeed. “They could have given it a couple more years. With some marketing, they could have developed into a viable social media competitor,” says Owyang.

Others seem to have a difference of opinion. PC World reporter David Coursey states, “Purchasing FriendFeed, which seemed to be going nowhere, seems like an enlightened act of charity. The four … former Google stars that founded the company get a graceful exit from FriendFeed and an excuse when the service eventually shuts down.”

In my opinion this was a win-win situation for FriendFeed and Facebook; a lucrative deal for FriendFeed’s former Google engineer founders; and Facebook scoops up a so-far proven service that contains valuable insight into social media features that Facebook has yet to explore on it’s own platform.

If you are having trouble accessing Twitter today the service is apparently under heavy denial-of-service (DoS) attacks since around 9am EST. Twitter co-founder Biz Stone states, “We are defending against this attack now and will continue to update our status blog as we continue to … investigate.”

A denial-of-service attack is characterized by an explicit attempt by attackers to prevent legitimate users of a service from accessing that service, commonly carried out by groups within the hacking community. The basic idea is to cripple servers by flooding them with more requests then they can handle.

By the powers vested in me by the blogosphere I hereby declare this MySpace Charity Week! I urge everyone (who still has an active MySpace account) to login for a few minutes and post a bulletin, a few recent pictures or say hello to a friend you haven’t spoken to in a while. The “Forgot your password?” link may come in handy.
 
MySpace has seen some tough times lately. This May Facebook trumped MySpace as the number one social network in the U.S. and shortly after MySpace laid off 400 employees in an effort to stay afloat.
 
To pay tribute to MySpace as one of the driving forces of the social media revolution I think this movement is well worth five minutes of our time this week. MySpace is also still a great place to hear a plethora of new music from your favorite bands and artists.
 
Here is a 140 character friendly message you can send out on Twitter and Facebook…
 
MySpace Charity Week! Give MySpace a helping hand in slow times by making a few posts this week. Pass the word on!

I give credit to newly appointed CEO Owen Van Natta for captain-ing a sinking ship so let’s toss him a lifeline and maybe keep MySpace above water while they compose a strategy to turn things around.

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) is considering blocking all access to social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace from military computers. The concern is that these platforms “make it way too easy for people with bad intentions to push malicious code to unsuspecting users,” says a U.S. Strategic Command (Stratcom) source.

Price Floyd, the new Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs social media czar for the Pentagon, states that embracing these technologies is the reason Secretary of Defense Robert Gates hired him. The goal is to “enable [Gates] to engage and hear from people in a way and manner that wasn’t possible before,” says Floyd.

Despite concerns, Floyd is moving forward with several Web 2.0 projects. You can find the Pentagon Channel on Twitter @pentagonchannel and you can also become a fan of the Pentagon Channel on Facebook. Other initiatives include involving blogs in the military’s “Early Bird” clipping service and a new Department of Defense website launching this month that will include links to Facebook and Twitter accounts along with a section that will allow visitors to propose questions for the Secretary of Defense.

Source: Wired

Twitter rolls out a stylish new homepage this week and is finally promoting real-time search front and center. Up until now, when talking with friends about the true power of Twitter lying in it’s real-time search capabilities, some seemed to not fully grasp the concept. Hopefully the new design will help more users understand how it works.

“See what people are saying about…” are the instructions above the new search box, and appropriately so. Twitter allows you to search what users are tweeting about up to the second.

A search for “social media” displays the latest post from @CrystalGibson, “Social media may well be the pain reliever we have all needed-the medicine that makes advertising relevant and welcome in our lives.”

The new Twitter tagline reads, “Share and discover what’s happening right now, anywhere in the world.”

Below the search bar we find popular topics displayed by the minute, day and week.

Viewing search.twitter.com still displays the old design but you can anticipate they will be updating that soon too.

A little buzz has been stirring this past week originating from a post on consultant Cheryl Smith’s blog describing how her husband [Peter Smith] received a dating advertisement through Facebook displaying her photo along with the text, “Hey Peter, Hot singles are waiting for you!”

Facebook allows third-party advertisers to use your pictures and “relevant social actions” within advertisements targeted towards your friends.

“Facebook Ads make advertisements more interesting and more tailored to you and your friends.”

If you want to avoid dating your husband or force your friends to view boring generic advertisements then you can change this setting by navigating to…

Settings > Privacy Settings > News Feed and Wall > Facebook Ads

Change to…

Appearance in Facebook Ads [No one]

For now I’ve decided to keep my setting on [Only my friends] because I enjoy being a cheap poster boy for unscrupulous Facebook apps.

This weekend I was glancing at the television and took in a Best Buy commercial that I know I’ve seen heard before. Obviously I wasn’t really paying attention prior because this time I noticed the Twitter URL plain as day on the screen. I’m the type of person who does more listening to the TV than watching due to the fact that my face is usually buried between two computer screens.

[Taking a minute to watch commercials one and two again on YouTube]

Now that I’ve had a chance to scrutinize the commercials I see they are acting out the Twitter reference. I “get it” because I actually use Twitter, but I can guarantee very few who have never tweeted will make the connection, even with the URL on the screen. The name Twelpforce will definitely have several people confused. If they made at least one vocal reference to Twitter during the commercial they would most likely see stronger results.

For the first time we see a major brand promoting a Twitter based service on network television commercials. Corporate websites taking a backseat to social media is a trending topic this year. Not too long ago we talked about Volkswagen promoting their Facebook fan page on their commercials.

Here is how Twelpforce works: consumers tweet a question @twelpforce or include the #twelpforce hash tag in their post and a pool of Best Buy employees can answer via any Twitter enabled device. What’s interesting is how Best Buy is generating a strong buzz around their efforts to use Twitter as a customer service platform. What’s flat out amazing is they have what are probably mostly hourly wage employees participating in customer service off the clock. @dustinbby tweets, “Having a blast helping customers with @twelpforce! Answered many questions in the last 2 days. Time flew by at my second job today.” Well at least off Best Buy’s clock.