Twitter Fizzle

Twitter I’ve been experimenting.

Not the college-student kind of experimenting, goodness no.

I’ve been experimenting with Twitter, trying it out as a publishing platform and getting a feel for the Twitter culture. Here’s my assessment so far.

Quantity vs Quality

A friend who has made zero tweets has been playing the numbers game: he is trying to get as many followers as he can without any automated software. He’s up to 430-ish as of this post.

IMO, it’s a pretty lame sign that 430 people out there will “follow” you even if you haven’t written a single tweet.

The problem is, he’s not alone. While others do actually make tweets, they employ automated software to increase their number of followers. However, the people that are following them are also doing the same thing. So it’s people who want more followers following other people who want more followers. Most of them don’t really care what others are tweeting, as long as they’ll follow them back. In other words, it’s all about quantity, not quality.

These people are all internet marketers of some sort – social media marketers, SEO marketers, email marketers, multi-level marketers, etc. It’s like Twitter is a cyclical inbred ecosystem of marketers.

I don’t mean to generalize here. There are a lot of earnest people sharing their thoughts and trying to write something meaningful. Unfortunately, my experience has been a lot more noise than signal.

Part of my experiment was to follow each person that was kind enough to follow me. At first, I found it flattering to be followed by a random stranger. Then I realized they were just marketers who wanted me to follow them back. If I didn’t, they would unfollow me.

You follow?

They follow me and wait for me to follow them back. If I do, I inflate their follower number. If I don’t, they unfollow me.

What? They didn’t want to genuinely follow me in the first place? I feel so… so used.

As such, I’ve been purging my follower list of the most obvious marketers. And right away, I saw my follower number drop as their automated tools realized I no longer followed them – and automatically unfollowed me. Fine by me. I’d rather have quality over quantity any day.

Built-in Community

Twitter is a publishing platform with a built-in community like Blogger.com (GOOG) and LiveJournal, meaning it is easy to:

  • Discover other users
  • Add them to your list
  • Be added by them
  • View all of their updates on a single page

If you create a blog with your own domain name, getting readers is a slow process of linking to others, promoting your URL, SEO, and other self-promotion tactics. A built-in community makes all of that much easier.

Such is the case with Twitter. You see someone you like, click on the “Follow” link, and voila – you’re done. They can do the same to you just as quickly.

Thinking about this makes me wonder… will micro-blogging services like this go the way of WordPress and MoveableType one day, where you can install your own micro-blogging service on your own domain? Hmm.

Ease of Use

I must admit, it is really easy to use Twitter. I don’t have to sit there and write & rewrite a lengthy blog post all day long. Just a few words and I’m already at my 140-character limit. Then I click “Update” and I’m all done.

That’s both good and bad, of course. There’s no way to go back and edit a tweet once it is sent. Sure, you can delete it from your history. But FriendFeed and other services have captured it already.

The ease of use does encourage tweeting though, especially for writers like me. The character limit can be frustrating as heck, but it is also a creative challenge. How do I say what I want to say within that space? It’s like writing a haiku – the limits imposed upon me force my creativity.

URL Shortening Woes

A friend pointed me to an article on URL shorteners by Joshua Schachter.

Twitter’s 140-character limit has made URL shortening services thrive because many URLs are long. Thus, Twitter users (Tweeters?) employ one of these services when tweeting a URL.

Schachter’s article warns that URL shortening services can be harmful, however:

  1. It’s tough to know if the resulting URL is spam or a legitimate article. Seeing a URL can sometimes offer clues on what the article is about, especially if the publisher made it SEO-friendly. URL shortening services obfuscate those clues.
  2. These services don’t offer any referral credit to the publisher, thereby robbing them of inbound link SEO benefits.
  3. The URL shortening service is now another point of failure. If the service has an outage or goes under, then all of its shortened URLs will no longer work. Of course, if a publisher has an outage or goes under, the same will happen. But Schachter argues that URL shortening services are still an unnecessary point of failure.
  4. Even if there’s no outage, they add an additional step that may slow down the retrieval of the target article.
  5. He adds, with what I like to think is a surreptitious wink, that URL shortening services could one day decide to monetize their services and insert an annoying interstitial ad between you and the target article. How awful would that be?

To add more drama to the issue, Digg.com recently released the DiggBar, much to the ire of many a netizen. The DiggBar is yet another URL shortening service, but with a twist. It adds a toolbar at the top of the page and retains it’s shortened URL instead of bouncing the user directly to the target article.

Unfortunately, most users won’t realize that they are still on the Digg.com domain unless they look at the URL. This means they can’t bookmark the target article directly and the publisher gets no SEO benefits (though there’s a debate about this). Fortunately, two developers have offered technical solutions to publishers:

  1. a JavaScript-based solution to remove the DiggBar, which I think is better
  2. a PHP-based solution to display a message to DiggBar users

In any case, it’s tough to get around URL shortening services on Twitter. How else can you share a legitimate & useful URL?

Outages and Glitches

Twitter’s been having outages again. Last month, I lost a few tweets, as did many other Tweeters. After weeks of silence, Twitter fixed it.

Apparently, the Twitter black hole (or Fail Whale) is back again.

The Twitter Virus

Technically, it wasn’t a virus – it was more of a worm. And more specifically, a cross-site scripting (XSS) attack using a client-side language such as JavaScript.

The worm hit Twitter hard. It originated on the StalkDaily website and at best, will modify your About Me section and generate tweet spam. At worst, it will lock you out of your Twitter account.

Fortunately, there’s a way to remove the worm from your account:

  1. Clear your browser cache & cookies
  2. Log out of Twitter & Twitter apps you are using
  3. Change your Twitter password on Twitter.com
  4. Log back into Twitter
  5. Delete any StalkDaily tweets your account has made

This could have been a malicious marketing ploy by StalkDaily, or it could have been committed by a hacker using them as the scapegoat. Whatever the case, this ordeal has shown how vulnerable Twitter can be.

Instant Messenging vs Twitter

Some people use Twitter like a public IM client. Unfortunately, if you haven’t been following the conversation, it can be confusing and end up looking like noise.

You know what I think is especially stupid? Those short useless tweets, like “@so_and_so Yes I totally agree!”

That’s great that you totally agree with @so_and_so, but what are you agreeing about? Why should I care that you agree? Do I really need to click on @so_and_so’s profile and wade through previous tweets to make sense of your conversation? Ugh.

Whenever I reply to someone on Twitter, I make sure my tweet is useful and offers some kind of context. Like this one: “Haha I just set up a “@mikeleeorg” Twitter search too, @Scheinker. My ego is now satiated.”

It’s tough to cram a whole lot in 140 characters, but at least it’s better than a simple “Haha.”

Pay Per Tweet

The blogosphere was once ablaze with blacklash against PayPerPost and similar services that gave money to bloggers for writing product reviews. The fire has somewhat subsided, though repercussions still exist for writing paid reviews, especially from Google.

It seems the parent company of PayPerPost, IZEA, is back again with another product: Magpie. This one pays Tweeters for making sponsored tweets.

While some people like this product, others despise it. Most seem to despise it.

Personally, I am not a fan. Though I’ve written paid reviews in my blog before, paid tweets are different in terms of their utility. It is easier to make a full blog post useful because you can write as much as you want. In my RSS reader, I subscribe to plenty of bloggers who regularly write paid reviews. Since they do so in a useful manner, I don’t mind at all.

But with only 140 characters, it is very tough to make a paid tweet useful.

Seeing a few paid tweets from someone doesn’t motivate me to unfollow them right away, especially if they’ve made many useful & thoughtful tweets too. Unfortunately, people like that are rare. Generally, those that make paid tweets are the same people playing the numbers game.

On a side note, I can see the allure of this simple game:

  1. Create a Twitter account
  2. Use software to automatically generate thousands of follows (who don’t really care about what you’re tweeting, as long as you follow them back)
  3. Make paid tweets and links back to your affiliate programs
  4. Profit

Easy as it sounds, it is still pure spam, in my opinion. It unnecessarily clutters the Twitterverse with junk mail (junk tweets?) and noise. Unfortunately, it is inevitable. Any lure of easy cash always draws hordes of people.

Conclusions

Twitter is fun and allows me to share short tidbits once in a while. Sometimes, I interact with a friend or two. Occasionally, I’ll see a useful or thoughtful tweet and click on a cool link. For those moments, Twitter is a pleasure.

More often than not, Twitter is a lot of random, useless noise.

I’m sure it will get better though. The Twitter team is earnestly trying hard to improve their product. I’ll keep using it too, for the ease of use and creative challenge the 140-character limit imposes – though I hope a viable solution to the URL shortening issues surfaces soon.

In the meantime, I’ll be unfollowing the noise and following more signal.

Former Yahoos Take Yahoo! Back

Happy Post-April Fools!

Yesterday, we released a press release titled, “Former Yahoos Take Yahoo! Back: WebMocha, a start-up created by former Yahoo engineers, purchases internet giant Yahoo!

It was an April Fool’s joke of course, but a few friends almost believed it. Gotcha! Hehe.

We thought the line, “Effectively immediately, the new company will be renamed WebMochahoo!.” was absurd enough to imply it was a joke, but, heh, maybe not. I’m glad to hear we danced the line of subtlety & irony well.

Writing it was a lot of fun. We had some really far-out ideas, but toned down the final copy wisely. I even searched around for PR article guidelines and looked at a few real ones about past mergers and acquisitions.

In the press release, we listed a Hiro Nakamura as our Media Relations contact, as a nod to Heroes (great first season, this season: meh). I even set up the email address motryingtopeekhuhc.ahcombewwhatareyoudoinghal@orih, in case another Heroes fan wanted to contact us. In my head, I had this whole plan to reply to each person as if I was Hiro and end each email with the exclamation, “Yata!” Alas, only one hardcore fan emailed us. (Props to you, Jason!)

We tweeted this, posted it on Facebook, and spammed a few friends and alumni lists. By the end of the day, we had a significant increase in unique visitors – more than 10,000%! Of course, our site isn’t a traffic destination and we’re not monetizing this traffic, but it’s a neat metric.

I’m not sure when we’ll take the press release down, but I figured I’d record it here for prosperity. The one on the site is better though. It has photos.

Former Yahoos Take Yahoo! Back

WebMocha, a start-up created by former Yahoo engineers, purchases internet giant Yahoo!

Sunnyvale, CA (PRWEB) April 1, 2009 — WebMocha LLC today announced it has agreed to acquire Yahoo! Inc. (Nasdaq: YHOO), a leading global Internet brand and one of the most trafficked Internet destinations worldwide.

WebMocha is a technology and web development services agency founded in 2008 by a group of former Yahoo engineers. Effectively immediately, the new company will be renamed WebMochahoo!. The new logo will be in red.

When asked why this purchase was made, WebMocha co-founder Mike Lee replied, “At this bargain basement stock price, why not?” Under the terms of the merger agreement, WebMocha will acquire all of the outstanding equity interests in Yahoo! for $18 per share, representing a premium of approximately 28% over the current stock price.

“Our first order of business,” added WebMocha co-founder George Diaz, “will be another re-org. After the initial re-org necessary for the transition, that is. Then we’ll have meetings about meetings.” Indeed, Yahoo! has lost numerous employees and executives in the last year, both from attrition and corporate reorganizations. In that time, executives Carol Bartz and Elisa Steele joined as Chief Executive Officer and Chief Marketing Officer, respectively, after Yahoo! co-founder Jerry Yang stepped down from the CEO position in November, 2008.

WebMocha executives will be enacting changes to raise morale and streamline productivity while a deep analysis of now WebMochahoo!’s business model takes place. This analysis will culminate into a 100 Day Plan that will be delivered in exactly one hundred days, give or take a few.

This step is just the first in a series of major acquisitions WebMocha will be making this year. Many others are also in the works. Webmoogle? Microcha? Webay? Facemocha? Webazon? The possibilities abound.

Effective immediately: foosball tables will be placed in every break room on every floor. All Year End Parties will be canceled until the company is back on the track of significant profitability and shareholder value.

When asked about the traditional Yahoo! yodel, WebMocha co-founder Barney Mok said, “Yeah…that’s gotta go. We’re bringing back the Arsenio Hall fist pump to instill fear in our competition.”

About WebMocha LLC

WebMocha LLC is a California-based web development and technology services company that builds optimized, high-performance, enterprise-level web applications.

Contact:

WebMocha LLC
Hiro Nakamura, 415-555-4180 (Media Relations)
motryingtopeekhuhc.ahcombewwhatareyoudoinghal@orih

About Yahoo!

Yahoo! Inc. is a leading global Internet brand and one of the most trafficked Internet destinations worldwide. Yahoo! is focused on powering its communities of users, advertisers, publishers, and developers by creating indispensable experiences built on trust. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California.

Contact:

Yahoo! Inc.
David Yang, 408-555-7426 (Media Relations)
yangmeister@yahoo-inc.com
Jerry Filo, 408-555-4110 (Investor Relations)
f@yahoo-inc.com

###

April Fools, obviously.

What Kind of Tech User Are You?

Tokyo Shopping in Akihabara Are you a heavy tech user that paradoxically hates being so digitally connected? You’re not alone, according to The Mobile Difference, a new report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

According to this organization’s website, they are a “non-partisan, non-profit ‘fact tank’ that produces reports exploring the impact of the internet on families, communities, work and home, daily life, education, health care, and civic and political life” that was started in late 1999.

Their researchers surveyed a random & representative sample of 2,054 US residents in 2007. From that survey, they came up with ten categories of people grouped by their usage of technology.

One group of heavy technology users – the Ambivalent Networkers – don’t actually like their level of connectedness. And no, these people aren’t who you think they are. Ambivalent Networkers are mostly males in their late 20s, the post-college working-professional crowd. Not quite what you’d expect, huh? Or, perhaps, exactly what you would expect.

The ten groups identified by this report are:

Digital Collaborators – 8%
People using technology to collaborate with others and share their creativity with the world. This group has the greatest number of information gadgets of any group, the widest scope of online activities, and the most frequent internet habits.
Ambivalent Networkers – 7%
People using mobile devices heavily to connect with others and entertain themselves, but they don’t always like it when the cell phone rings. They rely on mobile devices to connect socially with others or to entertain themselves. Yet, they feel that this connectivity can be intrusive at times.
Media Movers – 7%
People using online access to seek out information, then happily pass them along to others via desktop and mobile access. They do not see information & communication technology as a key part of their personal productivity, but as a way to keep in touch with family and friends.
Roving Nodes – 9%
People using their mobile devices to connect with others and share information with them. They use social networking sites to mediate communication among their crowd, but are not much into blogging or maintaining their own web pages.
Mobile Newbies – 8%
People lacking robust access to the internet but like having their cell phones. They mostly use the plain old fashion voice capability of the mobile device, although occasionally they will fire off a text message to someone. The internet is very much on the periphery for this group of people.
Desktop Veterans – 13%
People dedicated to wireline access to digital information and enjoy how it opens up the pipeline to information for them. They use the internet actively for information gathering, staying in touch with others and enhancing their productivity. However, they are not heavily cell phone users.
Drifting Surfers – 14%
People who are light users and say they could do without modern gadgets and services. They will skip a day of using the internet without worry, and are likely to be emailing or checking news headlines when they do log on. Blogs and online video are not much of a concern for them.
Information Encumbered – 10%
People who feel overwhelmed by information and inadequate to troubleshoot modern information & communication technologies. Most often feeling information overload, they also need help in getting their devices and services to work. Old media such as the TV or landline telephone suit them fine.
The Tech Indifferent – 10%
People who are unenthusiastic about the internet and cell phone. They are infrequent online users and do the majority of phone calling on their home landlines. Not many in this group would care if they had to give up their cell phone or online connection.
Off the Network – 14%
People who neither use cell phones or the internet. This is a group of older, low-income Americans. While some have computers, they are not currently connected to the network (although some used to be).

Are you an Ambivalent Networker? Or a Drifting Surfer? Or a Desktop Veteran? Take this survey and find out.

Here are my results:

You are an Digital Collaborator

“If you are a Digital Collaborator, you use information technology to work with and share your creations with others. You are enthusiastic about how ICTs help you connect with others and confident in how to manage digital devices and information. For you, the digital commons can be a camp, a lab, or a theater group – places to gather with others to develop something new.”

That sounds about right. I like being connected and feel pretty confident that technology enables me to be more productive. With this blog, my writing blog, a Twitter account, a Flickr account, a Facebook account, a LinkedIn account, and a many more, I’m definitely sharing information.

What kind of tech user are you?

Biz Idea: Video Game Shops with Tournaments

This idea almost seems too obvious. It has already been done here and there, but I wonder why it isn’t done more regularly.

If you are thinking about opening up a video game store – either as a franchisee or independent shop – why not harness the enthusiasm of the community to help you sell more games? This idea hit me while reading about the Play N Trade video game franchise in Entrepreneur Magazine.

Franchises are one way for operationally-minded entrepreneurs to start a business without having to come up with a business model themselves. It suits such business owners extremely well. I’ve played with the idea myself, though you need a fair bit of capital for some franchises. Plus, I like coming up with business models myself.

This idea is somewhat related to the Board Game Cafe idea in that it uses tournaments to create a loyal customer base. The presentation would differ, however.

In this video game store, tournaments would be held in a marked-off section of the store. Other shoppers would be able to see the gamers in action easily – both giving the gamers an audience (great for those with big egos) and customers a chance to see how much fun a particular game is (enthusiastic gamers can be great game promoters). Skill levels would be needed so beginners aren’t demoralized by experts, of course.

Registration could be free to encourage participants. Perhaps it could even include a discount on the game itself too. Small prizes could be offered as an incentive, such as a plaque on the wall or coupons. If there is a significant monetary prize, a registration fee could be imposed. Partnerships and sponsorships with game manufacturers could also be made, since this helps them as much as it helps the shop.

The goal is to draw crowds into the store with the hope that onlookers would be motivated to make some purchases. At the very least, those that register will definitely purchase the game so they can practice it at home.

A challenge would be convincing parents to allow their kids to participate in such seemingly time-wasting, homework-deterring, mind-numbing tournaments though. How do you change their minds? Hmmm…

  • If a game manufacturer will agree to sponsor the event, maybe a large monetary prize would change their minds. (“Look honey, little Bobby made $10,000 for us today!”)
  • Tournaments could be offered to parents as well, perhaps on gaming systems such as the Nintendo Wii (NTDOY.PK). (“Honey, I totally kicked butt on the Wii Fit today!”)
  • These tournaments could take place during the summer and offer meals and a safe place for kids to hang out all day.
  • The shop could participate in local community service activities to give back to their community and create goodwill.

Admittedly, this idea works better as a marketing tactic for an existing video game shop than a whole new one. But as a marketing tactic, if it can draw in more customers, perhaps it is worth trying. What do you think?

Photo by: nickstone333

Biz Idea: Tupperware Parties for Dog Products

What a Cute Dog This idea makes me totally want a dog. Well, I plan on getting a dog already. With this idea, I want one even more now.

How about a business that helps dog product vendors set up Tupperware party-esque gatherings?

The Tupperware party concept was the brainchild of Brownie Wise, a customer who held Tupperware parties on her own just because she loved the product so much. She was later hired by Tupperware after they discovered she was outselling their local retail distributors.

This wise marketing tactic (pun intended), known as a party plan, hinges on intimate social interactions and a relaxed atmosphere to inform participants of a product’s value. The event is hosted by a commissioned salesperson. Participants are given a nominal token gift to attend, though many come along just for the fun of it. Through such an environment, most attendees end up making a purchase, either because they have been won over by the product’s value, or because of the subtle social pressure to do what everyone else is doing.

With that in mind, I thought: what other kinds of products could be sold in such an environment? There already are party plans for kitchen utensils, home decor items, jewelry, skincare, cosmetics, lingerie, and sex toys. What else would make sense?

Ah, dog products!

Dog owners love to socialize. You can see this at dog parks. Dog owners love to have their dogs socialize with other dogs. And dog owners are willing to spend money buying fun and useful new products for their beloved canines. Selling dog products via a party plan seems like an obvious idea, doesn’t it?

Although this idea could be extended to other pets, such as cats, birds, hamsters, fish, ferrets, etc, the camaraderie just isn’t the same. Owners of such pets don’t regularly get together, though it is certainly a possibility. Dogs and dog products, in my opinion, have the most potential for a party plan.

Dog product parties could be held at dog parks or the sales representative’s house. Various dog treats could be laid out like appetizers. Water bowls too. Pooper scoopers would need to be easily accessible, and perhaps some paper towels too. Colorful catalogs of the dog products could be offered along with free treats in “doggie bags.”

For the dog owners, their dogs would have a chance to taste-test various products before buying them. That alone is worth the trek to a dog product party. How many times have you purchased a seemingly tasty dog treat, only to find Fido spitting it out in disgust?

As a business that helps dog product vendors set up such parties, it would need a detailed How-To guide and package of reference materials to get a client set up. The business would recruit sales representatives in various target markets, help prepare the necessary materials (catalog, order forms, invitations, doggie bags, pooper scoopers, etc), track the number of participants & sales to offer success metrics, offer tips and best practices, etc.

By outsourcing these marketing efforts, a small dog products vendor wouldn’t need to hire a full marketing & sales staff. It could be a cost-effective way to earn potentially massive sales, especially for boutique vendors like Three Dog Bakery or Polkadog Bakery. (If you guys want to do this, drop me a line!)

Large pet shop retailers like PetSmart and Petco, however, probably already have the marketing muscle to pull this off alone. But the market could support quite a few dog product parties right now, especially since they are tied to geographic social networks.

If this party planning business took off, it could begin offering such services to other products too. I’m sure you can think of a bunch right now. Off the top of my head: environmental products, spices, snacks, wine, toys, wedding favors, scrapbooking materials, school supplies… What do you think?

Lots of Chatter About the Kindle Lately

Amazon Kindle 2 Have you noticed? There’s been a lot of chatter about the Amazon Kindle (AMZN) on Techmeme lately. I love seeing buzz like this.

It’s not just early adopters and technologists enthusing about the Kindle either. Oprah Winfrey’s endorsement has also spurred demand.

Some of the more notable articles:

Analyst: Apple turns its back on e-book market
A Gartner analyst sees Amazon’s new Kindle e-book app on Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone as evidence of Apple’s lack of interest in the e-book market. Steve Jobs apparently doesn’t think people read anymore. I strongly disagree with that; reading habits have evolved perhaps, but not gone away.
Kindle is not the best iPhone e-reader
Two other e-book reader iPhone apps are compared against the Kindle app, eReader and Stanza, as well as individual e-books sold as stand-alone apps. I don’t see this as hurtful criticism against the Kindle app, as much as it is validation of e-book demand by iPhone users.
Salacious content driving the adoption of ebooks?
Of the top e-book genres being sold, all are tagged “erotica” or “dark fantasy,” apparently because these readers are embarrassed to purchase such books and their flamboyant covers. Sex sells, right?
Atiz turns books digital without help from Google
Los Angeles-based Atiz is a new company that scans and creates digital copies of books (basically, e-books), similar to Google Books and Project Gutenberg. More ways to digitize books means more content for the Kindle.
How Amazon’s Kindle brought technology to book
Just as iPhone’s software, UI, and iTunes integration made the iPhone a success, the Kindle’s software, UI, and Kindle Store integration will make the Kindle a success. I totally agree; the Kindle itself isn’t enough, it has to be the complete packaged solution.

Amazon to Sell E-books on the iPhone Too

Amazon Kindle 2 I love it when smart deals are made. Yesterday, Amazon (AMZN) announced plans to offer e-books for sale on the Apple (AAPL) iPhone and iPod Touch. The e-books will be accessible via a free Amazon iPhone application which hasn’t been released yet.

You might see this move as making the iPhone a direct competitor of the Kindle, but they wisely don’t see that as the case:

[Amazon Kindle VP Ian Freed] said he is “not at all concerned” that making e-books available on other devices will cannibalize sales of the $359 Kindle. Instead, it will increase sales of digital books and the Kindle, he says.

That’s smart. As a customer, I want the convenience of reading my e-book anywhere I want. Maybe it’s on my Kindle, which I can take on the plane or train comfortably. Maybe it’s on my laptop, while I wait for a program to compile. Or maybe it’s on my iPhone, while I’m on line buying groceries.

Amazon has plans to release e-book reader apps for other devices too. My guess is: BlackBerry (RIMM) and Google Android (GOOG).

In my opinion, Amazon’s success in the e-book market doesn’t hinge on Kindle sales. It ultimately hinges e-book sales. Arguably, this is similar to to the iPod + iTunes + MP3 strategy. In Amazon’s case, it’s Kindle + Kindle Store + e-books. The Kindle alone is a fine device, but coupled with everything else and it’s a business viable strategy.

Smart move, Amazon!

Get Your Name Before Somebody Else Does

This Way to Monnette If you don’t get your name now, someone else might get it later. Username, I mean. And on a social media site like Twitter, FriendFeed, Digg, Flickr (which uses Yahoo!’s (YHOO) ID system), or YouTube (which can use Google’s (GOOG) ID system).

A friend recommended this to me a few months ago. (Thanks Eric!)

In other words, if you can come up with a fairly catchy and unique username, you could make it your consistent identity on every social media site that you use – or may use in the future.

For example, say you like the username MrMediaMuppet. You already have MrMediaMuppet@gmail.com and www.MrMediaMuppet.com. You also use this username on YouTube too, giving you youtube.com/user/MrMediaMuppet as your profile URL. What you should do next – especially if you are a social media marketer – is to reserve this name on other social media sites as well. This means getting twitter.com/MrMediaMuppet, friendfeed.com/MrMediaMuppet, and flickr.com/photos/MrMediaMuppet too, even if you don’t regularly use these services yet.

(BTW, MrMediaMuppet is an available username, if you want it!)

Dave Evans, a social media consultant, recommends this not only to individual users, but to corporate marketers as well. For instance, say you’re a marketer for Apple’s (AAPL) new product, the iCar. You decide that iCar and AppleiCar will be your social media usernames. The next thing you should do is reserve these names on various social media sites before someone else does. Hopefully soon thereafter, you’ll be able to use them actively; after all, that’s why you’re reserving them, right?

Not only will you be able to lock in a social media marketing venue, but you may prevent an unscrupulous detractor from potentially damaging your brand image. For any professional internet marketer, this should be a must.

UPDATE 2/12/2009 noon: Eric just pointed me to this cool service – UserNameCheck.com. Nice!

UPDATE 6/11/2009: Another cool service – namechk.