The Big Money’s Chad Matlin recently announced the Twitter 12 and explains his selection criteria for choosing 12 American corporations who are getting the most out of Twitter.

The process only considered US corporate Twitter profiles with over a million followers, their growth from September to November 09, the number and regularity of tweets and content - if the account is doing more than reprinting an existing feed. The Big Money indicate the results are influenced by whom Twitter recommends as a friend - so some companies are easier to find than others, and how much more meaningful and easier it is to have a tweeted two-way conversation with real people. How fed up are you phoning the bank listening to lists and lists of options when all you want to ask someone is how much an international bank transfer costs?

The top 12 are:
12. Amazon Mp3
11. Dell Outlet
10. Silicon Alley Insider
9. JetBlue
8. Health Magazine
7. Etsy
6. BNO News
5. Whole Foods
4. CNN Breaking News
3. NBA
2. E! Online
1. Find out who the finalist was by reading the original article.

‘njoy.

Openface is about to issue a 2009 update to the Chairty Benchmark Report, looking at the original 120 charities uptake and participation on Twitter….
How many UK charities do you think use Twitter?
Results coming in December.

Thank you Mashable for pointing out that following the Spanish version, Twitter is now available in French. Simply select your language preference in the settings menu.
Bon chance.

Have you heard all the buzz of the internet turning 40 just a moment ago? Seems a bit older than you think doesn’t it? Well technically they are right. And so are you.

On the 2nd of September in 1969 somewhere in a lab at the University of California there was an exchange of data over a cable. Then on the 29th of October 1969, UC exchanged data off site with Stanford University. Only part of the data was exchanged as the system promptlly crashed.

Several other US universities joined in and the first nodes in ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), the computer network were formed - which in turn gave birth to the internet.

But for the likes of you and I… the internet as we know it; the world wide web (www) was released and announced on August 6, 1991 when Tim Berners-Lee announced the phenonemon publicly for the first time.

So that’s more like 18 years old, rather than 40! See not that old after all. If you’d like to read more I recommend this article in The Guardian.

A reminder to UK charities with an online presence that we still undertake the research for personalised charity benchmark reports.

The reports compare your site to five competitors from our benchmark against the established tried and tested set of criteria. The criteria get’s updated as the industry adapts to more tools, for instance we look at in particular a charities uptake to the popular micro-blogging site Twitter this year.

The process takes up to four weeks to provide you a report that will help you justify your marketing budget and provide valuable insights as to how your site performs, identifing areas of greatness and opportunity - which ever is applicable.

The personalised report is £1650.00.

Please contact us by email if you’d like more information; mcarmichael@openface.com.

P.S. returning customers get a ‘welcome back’ discount.

Openface Montreal is currently seeking candidates for a Customer Service Representative position in Technical Service Centre.

We are looking for an individual whose skill set falls in the ‘high level one’ to ‘level two range’. Aside from technical skills, the ideal candidate will need to be able to communicate effectively in English and French. The right person will enjoy doing tech support and have the essential good time-management and organisational skills for this role.

Please contact Roger Dawson, Sys. Admin. at Openface Internet for more details.
Telephone: 514-281-8585 ext.583 or email your cv and covering letter to him at: voidoid@openface.com.

P.S. Please mention you found out about the role on our blog.

LinkedIn announced yesterday that they have achieved the 50 million registered user mark!

NB Facebook just hit 300 million users.

You can almost picture the adoption curve; on launch in ‘03, it took 477 days for the first million members to join. I remember getting the stamp ‘1st Million User stamp’ for my profile. The last million took only 12 days!

Everyone said success of social networking would be in niche sites. Linkedin is pure a business site. Most notably mentioned for background verification in recruitment. It’s got a lot of grief for not allowing any old API to do anything they’d like ala Facebook. But with it’s steadfast approach it has earned great respect and the range of ‘high net worth individuals’ registered is enviable.

Congratulations Linkedin on your 50th Million user. May you continue to grow.

Facebook announced last week (15th Septebmer 2009) their news that they are ahead of schedule. Instead of becoming cash positive some time in 2010, this has already been achieved in quarter 3 of 2009. User registrations have now surpassed the 300 million mark too.

So what are the income sources? Silicone Alley Insider estimates the following:
$125 million from brand ads
$150 million from Facebook’s ad deal with Microsoft (will this ever be renewed?)
$75 million from virtual goods
$200 million from self-service ads.

Of the profiles, we don’t know how many are real or active. We also don’t know if someone out there is developing a social network that will surpass facebook, as it did to MySpace and the many others.

Despite the

Last December the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission ruled Bell Canada and Telus need not allow small competitors access to their broadband Ethernet infrastructure. The furor is enormous as companies realise that they may be squeezed and priced out of the market as the Telecoms giants are not stopped from domination. Read the CBC news.

Activists, here are two sites that help support and get your voice heard. Your country needs you! Log on and join in with petitions and letters available here:
http://www.competitivebroadband.com
http://dissolvethecrtc.ca/

Do you need to reference other companies social media campaigns to see what tools they used and what they set out to achieve in order to work out your online strategy? Peter Kim has provided a great list of examples, complied in the last quarter of 2008, so relatively up to date.

‘njoy.