One of the most remarkable aspects of social networking sites—and the internet in general—is the ever-increasing amount of interconnectivity between various sites and services. From RSS feeds that bring personalized news information straight to the never-ending web of social media outlets, there is an incessant drive to keep people connected. No site is as committed to this trend of continuous updates than Twitter, and they have recently made this easier than ever for their users with an official “tweet button.”

Twitter developed the button as a way for internet users to count how many times an article has been retweeted and to give readers an easy means of propagating information. Up until the release of the button, which Mashable.com originally reported on last week, TweetMeme had been the sharing service of choice for Twitter users, with about 750 million retweets per day. The company will now be teaming up with Twitter to improve the functionality of the button and troubleshoot some of the inevitable problems that will arise following its debut.

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With the fluidity of social media, it’s difficult for anyone to effectively predict where the future lies. What is for certain, however, is that social media is incredibly popular and will be around for some time to come. According to a new Nielsen statistics, internet users now spend about one-quarter of their time on the web visiting social networking sites, more than double the nearest competitor (online games).

Part of the reason for this trend, at least in my opinion, is the immense breadth of social networks. Not only are there networking giants like Facebook and Twitter, we also have a litany of smaller, niche sites offering a specific service. These types of sites allow people to personalize many aspects of their online experience, eliminating the need for many traditional channels, such as e-mail, search and general entertainment sites.

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One of the distinct advantages of an online business is that many effective marketing tools, such as social bookmarking and directory submissions, are free and easy-to-use. But manually submitting your website or blog posts to these sites can be tedious and time-consuming, especially if you don’t have a preconceived plan of attack; haphazardly searching the internet for every site that will accept your submissions definitely isn’t the way to go. If you are looking to expand your internet presence through social bookmarking and directory submissions, here are a few things to keep in mind:

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Twitter has launched it’s advertising platform, which many have been anticipating for months.  Obviously, Twitter has to make money some how and today is the day that ad’s are introduced to the site.  And like Biz Stone said back in November, “It’s going to be amazing.” The best part seems to be that the ad platform seems to be well liked in the first hour of it’s debut.

Unlike most ad’s which can take up plenty of room, ad’s on Twitter come in a small box underneath a tweet, saying “Promoted by…” which will come up in search results.  In all honesty, it doesn’t take up to much room and doesn’t make the site look awful, however it’s still noticeable, which is good news for businesses that are going to want to jump on board. (more…)

It’s been a slow week across the social media and search engine world.  Most of the online hype has been about the iPad, which came out over the weekend.  Other than that, nothing.

Mashable.com has been doing a great job of keeping their readers entertained with social media news with a few infographics.  Yesterday, I shared one of those with you, comparing Facebook’s American population to the actual countries population.  Today, I decided to share with you “The History of Location Technology.” (more…)

I always talk about how if Facebook were it’s own nation, it’s population would be larger than the United States. But obviously, not every American is on Facebook. So what would happen if we took just the American’s on Facebook and compared that to the actual US population.

This morning, Mashable published an interesting Infograph. Muhammad Saleem provided the graphic, which show that about a third of all American’s are on the social network. While of course, most of the numbers are estimates, it’s fun to take a look at. (more…)

Ah, the power of Twitter.  We use it to share and learn about breaking news, to express our feelings, to offer and find exclusive deals, and to keep up to date with our friends.  Twitter can be so much more than that though, like making new friends and/or making a difference.

I, myself have met some of my best friends here in Seattle through Twitter.  And I always am using the site to promote things that can make an impact, like Earth Hour happening this weekend.  But wait! Wouldn’t it be a neat concept if myself and all of my Twitter friends and followers could do something to make an impact on the world.  Luckily, there is such an event. (more…)

I’ve been talking about Foursquare a few times this year, and how both companies and consumers are taking advantage of the locationed based social network and app.   Foursquare gain popularity over the past year, and had roughly about 500,000 users last week.  A half-million users isn’t bad, but it looks like the network is growing now at rapid speed.  With the South by SouthWest festival happening right now in Austin, Texas, Foursquare has gained “100,000 users” in the past 11 days. 

The company tweeted right before their new 100,000 user saying they were almost there.  The company also says that there has been a surge of friend requests on Foursquare, so users can see where there friends are actually at.  (more…)

We often here of studies that find consumers who follow or fan companies or brands on a social networking site, like Facebook or Twitter are more likely to purchase products or services from them.  Once again, the latest study from Chadwick Martin Bailey and iModerate Research Technologies confirms that.

Amazingly, the study found that consumers who follow companies or brands on Twitter are 67% more likely to buy from them, while 51% are more likely to buy from a brand that they follow on Facebook. And when it comes to recommending companies and brands to friends, 79% said they were more likely to recommend them if they were on Twitter and 60% if they were on Facebook.  (more…)

We are one day away from the start of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver.  And although social media has been around for a few years, this will be the most Tweeted, Facebooked, YouTubed Olympic games ever.

Soon we could see well-known American speedskater Apollo Ohno or skier Lindsey Vonn breaking world records.  Both athletes have Twitter accounts that they actually run themselves.  However there is a bit of confusion on if the athletes will be able to tweet or use any social media for that matter.  (more…)