Okay, it’s official, Facebook has reached critical mass. A couple young girls in Australia got caught in a drain and instead of dialing 000 (their version of 911), they posted their predicament on Facebook. It was promptly seen by a friend and they were rescued by the fire department. They were only 10 and 12 years old, and used this alternative via their mobile phone rather than calling the police, reflecting a new generation of communication.
We at TK have always said to go where the people are…evidently they are on Facebook, even when in grave danger.
Perhaps when Twitter has reached the same level of adoption these types of situations could be avoided all-together, as friends would receive a minute by minute update of every intricate detail and be able to intervene:
“Floating paper boat down rain gutter…”
“Oh, no! Boat goes down large, menacing drain…”
“…thinking…”
“Lowering little sister into deep, dark storm drain…this should be fun!”
Where WERE you Twitter! Little girls are in DANGER!
Reading about Bing’s new Bing & Ping feature, I had one of those ‘duh, why didn’t they think of this earlier?’ moments. But, then again, I didn’t think of it either.
What is Bing & Ping? Simply, the addition of Twitter and Facebook sharing icons beneath all (or at least most) search results that allow a searcher to quickly redistribute a search result. Just like you see at the bottom of this post, and most well made blogs. It will look like this:
I like it. Obviously, bookmarking sites will be begging to be included as well. Facebook and Twitter seem to be the only social sites that have survived the markets test of longevity (relative here), buzz (both get tons), and user adoption (the obvious winners so far). Bing can hence, confidently add these two icons to their search. I can see both Delicious and StumbleUpon making their case to Bing- claiming to be the winner in their social space. Maybe when we have a declared winner, Bing will expand their share buttons.
I predict this is just the beginning of the blend between search and social sites- stay tuned, they will blend more and more, I’m convinced. In the meantime, we’ll wait for the official launch of Bing & Ping.
Follow Microsoft’s Bing & Ping updates.
Getting retweets is a great way to spread content and getting potential natural links. People like your stuff, send it along, people run into it and link to your content. It’s simply helping the natural link building process, and doing it in a legitimate way. This powerpoint presentation quickly walks you through some of the tips for doing so on twitter. I enjoyed it and thought I’d share.
