Stone posted:

We've just activated a feature called retweet on a very small percentage of accounts in order to see how it works in the wild. Retweet is a button that makes forwarding a particularly interesting tweet to all your followers very easy. In turn, we hope interesting, newsworthy or even just plain funny information will spread quickly through the network making its way efficiently to the people who want or need to know.

You may remember that we shared the mechanics of this feature with developers a while back so they could think about how to work it into Twitter apps. Now we're ready to start trying it on Twitter. The plan is to see how it goes first with this small release. If it needs more work, then we'll know right away. If things look good, we'll proceed with releasing the feature in stages eventually arriving at 100%.

Dawn wrote:

As Twitter grows and the number of tweets each day continues to astound us, we've noticed an increasing amount of clutter in the public timeline, especially with trending topics. Trends began as a useful way to find out what's going on but has grown less interesting due to the noisiness of the conversation.

So today we're starting to experiment with improvements to trends that will help you find more relevant tweets. Specifically, we're working to show higher quality results for trend queries by returning tweets that are more useful. The improvement won't be very noticeable at first, but this is a small step toward unearthing more value in search and getting you more relevant results.

Among the Mashable Twitter Lists:

Media Thinkers: media thinkers and commentators.

Social Media Linkers: social media experts, thinkers and linkers.

News Orgs: news organizations on Twitter, breaking news.

Marketing Experts: marketers who Tweet, digital marketing insights and links.

If some of these lists look a little, well, light, founder Pete Cashmore explains:

These are nowhere near finished, of course: just a starting point. We'll be adding more and more names over the coming weeks. If you see people you'd like to include (and there are many, many more to add - sorry if we missed you!), just send a Tweet to @mashable with your suggestions.

Now don't be shy, marketing experts.

Brizzly co-founder Jason Shellen told TechCrunch the Groups to Lists transition is nearly done, adding in an email:

We display, sync, create and navigate Twitter lists; we provide an infinite scroll view of lists so you can scroll as far back as you like into a list; users who had created Brizzly Groups will see their groups migrated to Twitter Lists marked as "private," but of course users can change that to "public" at any time; we expect the migration to be done for all users by sometime (Friday) night; lists can be viewed by "tweets" or by "members"; and Lists are easy to create within Brizzly and make use of our auto-fill for users you are already following for easy creation.

Someone did: Bettween, according to TechCrunch, which added that since the results feature dedicated URLs, conversations can easily be shared.

From Gianos' post:

As part of an ongoing effort we've had underway to address the quality of third-party ads running inside applications, we wanted to offer some clarifications, reminders and information on our actions.

First, deceptive ads are a widespread issue on the Web and one we fight aggressively. This battle is not new and it's far from over. We faced stimulus scam ads on our own system earlier this year and pushed them off the site with rigorous enforcement. We did the same months later when deceptive ads from third-party ad networks appeared in applications. We're doing that again now as we see them appear in the form of offers.

Since introducing updated policies for third-party ads on Facebook Platform in July, we have disabled two entire ad networks and suspended or brought into compliance over 100 applications for ad-related violations in regions around the world, over one-half of which had more than 1 million monthly active users.

In addition to legal notices that have been sent to many ad networks to mandate ongoing compliance on Facebook Platform, today we are disabling two additional offer and ad networks that have repeatedly violated our policies.

In addition to steps we've taken to build teams and technologies devoted to this issue and continual outreach to work with members of the ecosystem on ways to improve their practices, it is the responsibility of both developers and ad networks to make sure the content running in third-party applications is appropriate.

If you have an advertising-related inquiry, please use the Platform Advertising Contact Form.

The newspaper previewed the fourth installment of the video series, set to debut later this month, and the final two were produced by pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, for which Cutler is a spokesman.

Cutler said in the latest video, as reported by the Tribune:

The worst thing imaginable is to get really low and pass out in the middle of a play or in the huddle or something. I think that would scare a lot of people—not only myself, but fans and the public in general. We try to avoid it as much as possible but it's still a reality.

Living with diabetes in the public eye, it makes it harder. There is no real room for error. Every day I have to be on. If I go out and have a bad game and my numbers are way off, I'm going to get criticized for it. I can get real low and not know exactly what's going on and get hit the wrong way and hurt myself. There are definitely dangers out there.

I'd love to use my story to inspire kids who get diabetes at four or five years old and they think it's the end of the world, they can't have dreams or do what they want to do in life. It's entirely false.

And Cutler told the Tribune in an interview:

It was a very personal battle so I needed to take some time. I knew there would be a time when I would want to do something, especially with kids. It's hard enough growing up these days without having to worry about an insulin pump or pricking your finger. I wanted those kids to know I was like them.

I miss a lot of foods. I used to love desserts. I miss sweet tea, lemonade. Do I ever cheat? Yes, I do. Reese's peanut-butter cups are my cheating food.

According to AdAge.com, IAC is in talks to fold Connected Ventures into Silverman's Electus entertainment company. Connected Ventures is the parent of CollegeHumor and TV-production arm Notional.

CollegeHumor president and co-founder Josh Abramson told AdAge.com:

We are certainly going to be working with Ben, and we are focused on trying to blow up CollegeHumor. How that's going to pan out is still up in the air.

Former YouTube head of content Jordan Hoffner recently joined Electus, and AdAge.com believes IAC chairman Barry Diller is trying to mine Silverman's connections in the TV industry.

The Tonight Show host offered an apology to Sarah Palin's Wasilla nemesis after learning that the Twitter account from which William Shatner recited tweets on Wednesday night's show was created by an imposter. Made out of loin whole cloth, as it were.

WebNewser earlier today featured the Shatner segment in a video. Sadly, the clip, like many things in the media today, was entertaining but not based on fact. Here's O'Brien from last night's show:

"We'd been following Levi on Twitter and felt his gift for the written word needed to be shared with the world," he explained. "Today...I got some shocking news: Apparently the tweets that we read are counterfeit. They were written by a clever imposter posing as the witty Levi Johnston. And the real Levi is very angry with us."

"I would like to personally apologize to Levi Johnston and his lawyer and publicist for misrepresenting him in any way," he continued.

No doubt this pains the former Alaska governor even more than it does O'Brien, who, in retrospect, shouldn't have crossed swords with the pending Playgirl pin-up. WebNewser is trying to confirm rumors that, as part of an out-of-court settlement, O'Brien will have to "whip it out" on tonight's show.

Funnyordie.com was founded three years ago by Ferrell and McKay and backed by Sequoia Capital and HBO, according to AdAge.com.

Ferrell and McKay on the move to YouTube:

Beyond the expected deluge of articles and videos, news organizations are deploying a brand-new tool: Twitter Lists, the microblogging site's new feature that was rolled out last week.

Among the news organizations that have quickly compiled Fort Hood-related Twitter Lists are:

New York Times: http://twitter.com/nytimes/fort-hood-shootings

CNN: http://twitter.com/cnnbrk/fort-hood

NBC's The Today Show: http://twitter.com/todayshow/forthood

Los Angeles Times: http://twitter.com/LATimes/fort-hood-shootings

Washington Post: http://twitter.com/washingtonpost/forthood

Dallas Morning News: http://twitter.com/DallasCrime/fort-hood-shootings

The Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/05/fort-hood-shooting---live_n_347623.html

The New York Times Twitter List in particular is proving very popular, with 400 followers (and counting). In contrast, the Washington Post's list has only three followers as of this writing.

Also, the Austin-American Statesman created a separate Twitter account (not a list) specifically for the Fort Hood shooting that now has more than 3,400 followers.

Update: The Statesman has created a Twitter List from its new @FtHoodShootings Twitter account: http://twitter.com/FtHoodShootings/fort-hood

We'll add more Lists as we find them. If you're aware of any not mentioned above, please drop us a line in the Anonymous Tips box.

Here's a video of William Shatner on The Tonight Show Wednesday, reading tweets from Levi Johnston's Twitter feed. Or at least his alleged Twitter feed: HuffPost reports Johnston's attorney has demanded NBC retract the skit (how do you "retract" a skit?), maintaining that those tweets were posted by a Johnston imposter trying to make Sarah Palin's beloved almost-son-in-law look bad. As if he needed the help. I hear that if NBC doesn't comply, Johnston has threatened to "whip it out." You've been warned.

I'll give you a few here (there are seven), along with my usual 2 cents, but it's worth clicking on the link to read them all.

1. Set One Specific Social Media Objective

Before you see any return on your time investment in social media, you need know what your business can get out of it.

This can be easier said than done, and it's probably the main reason most organizations have no idea how to measure social media success. After all, if you don't know your objectives, how can you develop and implement a strategy, to say nothing about assessing its effectiveness? Many organizations get panicked into social media because "everyone else is doing it." That's not an objective, that's a reaction. Instead, figure out first what your organization's social media objectives are. Once you've done that, King writes, you can proceed to:

2) Find the Right Social Media Strategy for Your Business

[Y]our social media strategy needs to be tailored to the particular message you want to convey to your audience.

Again, this is about your objectives and strategy, not, "Our competitors are on Facebook and Twitter, so obviously we need to be too!" I touched on this in a post yesterday about newspapers using social networking tools ("There's no magic formula for social media. You've got to find what works for your publication.")

3. Make Your Presence Social

Once you have defined your social media strategy, the process does not end there. It will only work if your presence is truly social and, as Rebecca Leaman says, you need to also "focus on being good online neighbors."

Relentless marketers, are you taking notes?

King has the rest of her tips here.

OK, it isn't just any blog, as Dupuy points out, but the popular Gawker. Rushfield is now Gawker's West Coast editor. In this entertaining interview, Rushfield discusses his bold career move as well as his book, a memoir titled Don't Follow Me, I'm Lost.

You can read the entire interview at FishbowlLA, but here's one snippet:

FBLA: So how is the switch from traditional media to new media?

RR: Ah yes. The switch is invigorating. This is where the conversation is.

FBLA: New media is where the conversation is?

RR: There were so many times when you'd write a wonderful article for the LATimes, or break some news and it would just be met by the sound of crickets. When you are at the LAT you're at a place where even the website isn't in the central flow of the nation's cultural conversation. But at Gawker one is very much in and a part of that conversation and as one who is writing, in part at least to communicate, that's where you want to be.

And most of us react to Twitter's bottom-feeders in a predictable way. We either ignore, complain about, mock or block them. But really, when you think about it, doesn't the path of least resistance enable these shameless hucksters?

Ike Pigott, a communications professional who runs a blog called Occam's RazR, isn't having it. After receiving fawning comments from a guy named Matthew Duggan, who runs a site called buildyourfollowers.com (link not included on purpose), Pigott figured out what was going on and decided to teach "Fake Twitter Guru Matthew Duggan" a lesson he shan't soon forget.