Twitter in the Classroom?

Dr. Monica Rankin of the University of Texas at Dallas experimented with Twitter in the classroom to find that it actually increased student engagement.

Watch her story:

Brandweek: Big Biz Embracing Twitter

From Brandweek:

Fortune 500 companies got into the Twittering act in a big way last year, according to a study released by the Society for New Communications Research.

Thirty-five percent of Fortune 500 corporations had an active Twitter account as of last year (i.e., one with a post within the past 30 days), according to the study. Among the top 100 companies on the roster, 47 percent had a Twitter account. Twenty-two percent of all Fortune 500 companies had a "public-facing corporate blog," and more than eight in 10 of those linked directly to a corporate Twitter account.

Four of the top five corporations -- Walmart, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and General Electric -- "consistently post on their Twitter accounts," according to the study, titled "The Fortune 500 and Social Media: A Longitudinal Study of Blogging and Twitter Usage by America's Largest Companies." (ExxonMobil was the exception.)

In a breakdown by industry, 13 of the Fortune 500 insurance companies had an active Twitter account, making that sector the most likely to tweet. Eleven of the food-related companies used Twitter.

Elsewhere on the new-media front, the study found 19 percent of Fortune 500 corporations using podcasting and 31 percent using video blogging. The rise in podcasting from the previous year was fairly modest (up from 16 percent). But the rise in video blogging was steep (from 21 percent in 2008). The study did not include comparative data from 2008 for companies' Twitter usage.

The study was conducted by Nora Ganim Barnes, senior fellow and research chair of the Society for New Communications Research (as well as a marketing professor at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth), and Eric Mattson, CEO of Financial Insite, a Seattle-based research firm.

Google Adds Facebook Pages to its Real-time Search

Back in December, when Google originally launched real-time search, it only provided a real-time feed from Yahoo Answers, Twitter, blogs, news websites, and a few other sources of trending search results. Two weeks ago, Google added MySpace updates to its stream.

Today, Facebook Pages were added.

What does this mean? It means that your Facebook Pages updates will appear in Google's real-time search results! That means if you are updating your Facebook Fan Page with current trending topics that people are searching for, your Page will show up in Google's search results, which could drive a lot of traffic to your Page.

Why Social Media Means Big Opportunities for Women

Check out this great post from Mashable on Why Social Media Means Big Opportunities for Women:

Women have firmly established their presence on the social web, and account for the majority of users on many popular social media sites. But what does this mean for the future of women in social media?

One word: Opportunity.

Companies looking to reach women — whether as consumers, entrepreneurs, employees, or advocates — have an unprecedented opportunity through social media to engage them. For women, social media presents abundant opportunities to lead, effect change, innovate, and build relationships across sectors, locally, nationally, and globally...

Read the full post at Mashable.

You Asked: What is the ideal application for aggregating news feeds on a particular subject in order to Tweet them out?

@Curt_Montague asks:

What is the ideal application for aggregating news feeds on a particular subject in order to Tweet them out?

To be honest, my favorite RSS aggregator is Google Reader.  With Google reader, you can create and follow an RSS feed of a Twitter search.  And, it really is not too difficult to set up.

First, you need to go to Twitter and search for your hashtag or term.  Once you have the results, find the "RSS feed for this query" link at the bottom of the right sidebar on Twitter.  Once you have this link, go to Google Reader and enter it as a feed.

It's that simple!  Now you are following a real-time RSS feed of your search query on Twitter!  From here, you can retweet or look into interesting news and further your social media influence.

What's your favorite RSS aggregator?

I Got Google Buzz Today...My Thoughts

I logged onto Gmail to discover that Google Buzz had been rolled out to me.  So, I logged in and began to set up my account.  First, take note that you must have a Google Public Profile in order to use the Google Buzz service.  Also, I noticed that Google has not only integrated Gchat status updates, but Google Reader, Picasa, Blogger, YouTube, and even Twitter has been integrated into the service.

Overall, Google Buzz may be pretty cool once it has been rolled out to everyone, but it may eventually just become additional clutter to the inboxes of some users.  Stay posted, because only time will tell if this takes of...

Ogilvy is Spearheading a Campaign to Eliminate Homophobia in Football

A tweet from Ogilvy:

Gays Shouldn't Be Allowed To Play Football: Ogilvy's film spearheading the FA and Kick It Out's campaign to tackle homophobia in football http://bit.ly/9yMPJC

Watch the ad from this campaign: