We noticed something interesting recently…

Twitter has ads on their site. Where it used to be app names it’s now cycling the same 4 or 5 ads, mostly related to NBC and the Olympics. Here are a couple of examples:

Just a quick update today.

It has come to our attention that some sites are claiming to have OAUTH security without actually having it.

We thought we’d go over it…

How Do I know if the Tool I bought uses OAuth?

Tools which don’t use Oauth require you to input your Twitter username and password directly into the tool, which they then store (doesn’t sound very secure does it? Giving away your private details to someone else) – Tools which use Oauth, require you to ’sign in with twitter’ which opens up a secure connection to twitter. OAuth secure web tools allow you to sign in and connect the tool. Desktop applications require you to sign in a obtain a pin, which you enter into the tool, so you never give away your password. Here is what it looks like:

You can test if your existing tool is using OAuth by logging into Twitter yourself and changing your password. Your tool will cease to work.

We decided not to say which ones are saying this, but if you want to know please comment and we’ll link you up.

Comment to let us know which tools you know are OAUTH secure.

We’ll start. MarketMeTweet is 100% Oauth Secure.

Been working to hard lately and a slip of the finger made us accidentally delete our development blog. Woops!

We’re adding some posts back, but some of them are quite outdated so for the most part we’re starting with a clean slate right now.

Oh well!

~Alan and Tammy

PS we’re releasing an update to MarketMeTweet this evening

It’s been a LONNNNG journey but it’s finally here – MARKET ME TWEET IS NOW LIVE!

Grab your copy at http://www.marketmetweet.com/marketmetweet-tour.html

First 1000 people get it at $39.99!

Market Me Tweet promises to be a game changer.

When you post your messages to Twitter, no matter which of the
popular applications you use, did you realise that you’re giving
away valuable real estate and backlinks to someone else?

If you use TweetDeck, Seesmic, Hootsuite, or virtually any other
application, go check your Twitter feed now and you’ll see what I
mean. Every single tweet you post on YOUR page has THEIR name on
it, plus a link back to THEIR website.

And organizing yourself on twitter is time consuming. Did you ever just want
something that will help you grow your following, without seeming spammy?

Something that makes you a twitter superstar in your OWN NICHE?

Well, this is it.

Grab your copy at http://www.marketmetweet.com/marketmetweet-tour.html

Big changes are happening at Twitter. In our lengthy discussions getting Branding Back this week we were able to find out a bunch of stuff.

And it seems Twitter has recently updating their own pages to confirm what we already knew:

OAUTH is going to be required for ALL Twitter tools in June 2010.

From Twitter Site:

What does this mean?

Twitter will now have a say in what type of tools access their site. Whereas before tools could break the rules and they had no idea where it was coming from, now they will know, and systematically shut those tools down.

How Do I know if the Tool I bought uses OAuth?

Tools which don’t use Oauth require you to input your Twitter username and password directly into the tool, which they then store (doesn’t sound very secure does it? Giving away your private details to someone else) – Tools which use Oauth, require you to ’sign in with twitter’ which opens up a secure connection to twitter. OAuth secure web tools allow you to sign in and connect the tool. Desktop applications require you to sign in a obtain a pin, which you enter into the tool, so you never give away your password. Here is what it looks like:

You can test if your existing tool is using OAuth by logging into Twitter yourself and changing your password. Your tool will cease to work.

Here’s Twitter’s explanation of OAuth…

What is OAuth?

OAuth is an authentication protocol that allows users to approve application to act on their behalf without sharing their password. More information can be found at oauth.net or in the excellent Beginner’s Guide to OAuth from Hueniverse.

OAuth Made Easy?

Now, you may be familiar with OAuth from creating applications with Market Me Tweet. We devised a way to allow you to create an application without actually going through the difficult programming. That’s how you get your brand. We should note that we are doing white label apps as well if anyone is interested.

How can Twitter monitor apps now?

You can see the post twitter does here about OAuth Token Revocation. And that’s exactly it. They can revoke a token for any application that doesn’t follow their  list of rules for marketing tools.

What are some of these rules the vast majority of marketing tools ignore?

Automation.  Plain and simple. Twitter HATES “set it and forget it.” They want it to be user initiated and user controlled. They are very serious about taking automation out of twitter with the exception of Scheduled Tweets and Reciprocal Following. They really want it all done at the hand of a human being. Mass following in a short period of time is also a big no no.

You can read all of these Rules here.

So where does that leave things?

Well… we’ve set out to design a tool that follows every single rule. Some people have asked “Why don’t you automate more like TweetAdder?”  And our answer has always been this.

“Because in a few month’s time, we want  the money you spent to be on a tool that still exists.”

And as it turns out, we were dead on. June 2010 is OAuth Roll out. And when we asked Twitter if everyone has to be on it, even the popular management tools? They replied. “OAuth is 100%. EVERYONE.”

Have something to say on the issue? We want to hear your comments. (It may take 24 hours for comments to show up)

You hear all about Twitter and Tweeting, but what are the Key Terms you just HAVE to know to get started?

Tweet:

This is the actual message you post to your newsfeed on Twitter. Anything you post to your tweet profile is a “Tweet”

RT or Retweet

This means you echo what someone else says. The way this is done is you take the exact tweet someone sent out, you put RT @theirtwittername before it, and Tweet it out yourself. This a very powerful tool for viral marketing.

@Username

This is a way that you can contact any other Twitter user, and show the world you are contact them. Think of it like public email. This also shows up in a special section for the person you are mentioning. It’s a great way to get a lot of new followers if you have a lot of people “at replying” to you as their entire list of followers sees your name!

DM or Direct Message

This is Twitter’s private way to contact people. The problem is that a lot of marketers have hijacked it with auto DM’s so there is a lot of spam. Whenever possible, the best marketing strategy is @replies, but there are some sensitive things that you wouldn’t want to broadcast to the world, like your personal email address!

#Hashtag

This is a way to label your tweet with clickable information that comes up in searches. So if i wanted to get people to talk about something and i create a hashtag #marketmetweet, other people can put that on THEIR tweets and when someone clicked it, it would bring them to a list of all those tweets using that hashtag.

Trending Topics

This is on the right side of the twitter page and it shows you what’s “hot” on twitter at that exact moment. Remember, Twitter is real time so you’re seeing exactly what people are interested at that EXACT moment in time. It’s pretty neat!

(All screen shots are from our great tool, MarketMeTweet! Grab your copy today  )

Hi Everyone,

As promised after our lenghtly chat with Twitter, Brands are now back!

A quick note about brands. We give you the function to be able to brand, but Twitter has the ultimate say. If they feel the brand you chose breaks any twitter terms and conditions they will not let you register it. Likewise, if your account has ever been flagged in the past for abuse, well that could be another reason you may not be able to brand. However, Market Me Tweet will work with or without branding, so no worries, and more info can be found in our FAQS:
http://marketmetweet.com/tutorials/market-me-tweet-frequently-asked-questions/

Please close your application, open it again, and download the app.

To make this update as seemless and trouble free as possible –  you will have to readd all your accounts.  When you get the update, please re-add your twitter accounts and set up and everything will work great. We apologize for the inconvenience, but this is the best way for everyone. We’ve also increased the speed and added a few little tweaks to make everything work better for you!

We should also note… we got the “inside scoop” from twitter. They are switching all apps over to OAuth, and we are one of the ONLY marketing apps right now that complies with their rules. Essentially, your money has been well spent on an app that is going to REMAIN active after the switch! Remember, the way the app functions now is COMPLETELY approved by twitter and this is going to be the ONLY way to use marketing functionality once the big switch to OAUTH happens for all apps very soon.
If you haven’t already grabbed your copy of MarketMeTweet, you still can at $39.99 before the price goes up.

Thanks!

Alan, Tammy, and an exhausted Dev Team.

Hi!  You asked for a video explaining  a bit more about how to use tweetbrand, so here it is!

We also wanted to go over a few ‘TweetBrand Best Practices”

Remember, when you use tweetbrand you still have to abide by all the the twitter rules, one of which is not to put any affiliate advertising without saying it is affiliate advertising. So this means no affiliate links as landing pages on tweetbrand! It’s one sure fire way to get tweetbrand to stop working for ya!  Just use your homepage, and make sure the title of your brand has to do with the landing page. For example, if my site is wuup.co.uk, that would be a great brand “Tweet from “wuup.co.uk” 

~Alan and Tammy 

PS – if you’re looking for MORE functionality…. stay tuned!

http://marketmetweet.com/tweetbrand-faqs.html

Quenten, the name of our logo mascot, is a gentleman. He never spams, and he’s an ethical little bird. Here are 6 things you should NEVER do on Twitter. Enjoy!

1. Direct Message Spam. “Thanks for following me, make a million dollars in an hour…. link”  Never a good idea. It’s an instant way to get someone to click the unfollow or even the BLOCK button. If you do direct message, you can say “Hi, Thanks for the follow, this is my site if you’re interested” but honestly, most people are so wary of DM spam that it’s become a fairly useless function at this point.
2. Post constant links with no real updates. People want to know they are tweeting with a real person. It’s perfectly fine to tweet about your business and make connections, network, etc, but bear in mind, your account will get much more mileage if you take the time to engage your followers. Tell them about something new you’re working on. Wish all your followers a Merry Christmas. Reply to people who @ message you. Mix it up! Then….when you casually throw in some links here and there, people are far more receptive and your click rate goes way up!
3. Tweet the same thing over and over again. Please don’t do this. Every 10 minutes tweet the same thing. Not only will twitter themselves get annoyed and potentially block you but your followers will soon cease to be followers. There’s a lot of different ways to say something, so get creative. We know you’re not THAT boring anyway. 
4. Link to your own twitter profile on twitter. We’ve seen this so many times. People have a golden opportunity to actually put a web site, and they choose to link to their own twitter profile. Even your personal account, link to a facebook page if need be, but it just seems like wasted traffic to redirect people to where they already are. Don’t discount twitter traffic. Soon it will be showing up in google results, the effects could be huge. Don’t waste it!
5. Tell people how much money they can make using twitter. Ok, we all know affiliate programs when we see them, and there’s nothing more tiresome than seeing “make a fortune with twitter” nonsense all over the site. However, if you take the time to build up a relevant, targetted following, there’s no reason why twitter couldn’t be a tremendous tool for generating affiliate incomes!
6. Ignore the @ message function. Never ignore this. It’s a very powerful way to engage your followers. If you see someone tweeting about something you have something to say about, let them know. It opens up dialogue, gives them exposure, they’re more likely to RT for you, and so on!

Woooo! Thanks to our nice contact at twitter!  We are bringing branding back tomorrow along with a couple of other tweaks for you!  If you had deactivated your account and would like to repurchase you can do that tomorrow

Yayyyyy! Pass it around.