There is that classic saying that we have heard countless times, “Content is King”, and it truly IS on the Internet. Content on the Internet informs, entertains, and gains users for us. But how is one to do all that with Twitter when one only has up to 140 characters or less  to get one’s message across the vast web? Well lucky for us, there are tools available that allow you to share photos, videos and even polls with your Twitter audience and beyond. Below are a few tools to consider.

TwitPic allows you to simply post your photos and video in real-time directly to Twitter via their website, email or through your iPhone, Blackberry or Android. You will be provided a unique address to email your photos directly into your TwitPic account from your mobile phone. Location Data stored on your camera or video can also be included.

A photo emailed from my iPhone shows up in real-time on Twitter. TwitPic user names and passwords are the same as the ones you use in Twitter. Comments about photographs are sent as reply tweets. TwitPic URLs are already short, making it unnecessary to use URL shortening.

TwitPic stores your photos on their site and you can easily see who and what they are posting on the TwitPic Timeline. Your profile is automatically created from the information found on your Twitter profile. A users Twitter handle on their TwitPic profile allows you to follow them directly on Twitter from their profile, making it easy to build a greater Twitter audience.

TwitVid is focused on uploading fast Video up to 2 GB. You can actually post both Videos and Photos and choose whether you want to post to Twitter or Facebook when you upload your content. Upload and post from a number of options including your computer, Phone or Webcam and also from your iPhone, Blackbery and iPhone. Keep in mind that messages can only be 117 characters or less to make room for your video URL link.

Similar to TwitPic, you can log into TwitVid via your Twitter user name and password. You can even view your videos before the upload process is complete. Share with all your friends and followers via your Twitter stream and Auto Share video to Facebook. TwitVid can also be used with popular twitter clients such as Echofon, Twittelator, UberTwitter, Twitterrific, or UberSocial for Android.

Twittpoll.com allows you to create polls for your twitter audience who can then vote within a 24 hr. period on your poll. After your 24 hours is up, you will receive the overall results of the poll directly into your twitter account. As the author, you will also see any updates in your Home Timeline.

It is so easy and quick to create a poll, I can’t imagine why you would not create one to add instant content and engagement with your Twitter audience. To get started, all you need to do is authorize use of your Twitter account by Twittpoll.com, fill in the fields to create your poll and there you have it, your very own poll. Below is how your poll is shared on Twitter.

By Julie Blaustein

Have you ever just completed writing a blog post that you are wicked excited to share with the blogosphere, only to hit “publish” and upon reviewing it, discover that it’s a disaster? You find spelling and grammatical errors, and it just doesn’t flow. No doubt you have had that experience at some point in your blogging life.

I am excited to introduce you to The Universal Desk, a copy desk for the rest of the internet — all those bloggers out there who are working on their craft one blog post at a time. Every professional news writer has a hidden team of editors and copy editors that make them shine. The Universal Desk is staffed by copy editors who have worked for Random House, the International Herald Tribune and CNET, among others. They offer fast, professional editing for marketers, companies and students.

The idea for the site grew out of Ryan Singel’s experiences as a writer for Wired.com, where he had a front-row seat to the online publishing revolution. As a professional writer, he’s saved on a weekly, if not daily basis, by having editors tweak and improve his words, including catching embarrassing factual errors and unclear sentences.

Blogging software has put a printing press in the hands of anyone who wants one, democratizing the world of publishing — up to a point. The Universal Desk is meant to bring the power of a newspaper’s copy desk to anyone on the internet, whether they are a blogger, a marketer or a company. Copy editing is not just for professional news writers any more. They also handle heavier editing — such as in-depth tweaks and re-workings of marketing campaigns, press releases or websites. Their slogan is, “Everyone Needs an Editor.”

Check this out! The Universal Desk is offering 30 Bub.blicio.us readers a 1,000 words of copy editing and light editing free for a limited time until October 31st. for small start-ups and freelancers. All you have to do is contact Ryan at ryan@theuniversaldesk.com and say you saw this offer here. You will be provided credit in an account tied to your e-mail address, and you have three months to redeem it. Other businesses can try Universal Desk free for up to 500 words, for a limited time.

I’ve been thinking about the Demand Media IPO story in the context of how it affects the publishing industry and I’ve come to this conclusion. While SEO plays get search traffic, it’s unlikely readers really trust the source.

Think about it. If you’re looking for an answer, would you rather get a penny-per-word article with all the right keywords, or do you want info from the people who offer you useful solutions?

When an article gives me the answers I want, I’m happy.  When I’m happy I not only bookmark it, share it and add it to my feeds, but I also return to it again and again. These are the trusted web experiences that leave me open to recommendations.

So for me, content mills get the clicks, and well-curated stories and editorial teams get my advocacy and referral dollars. That being said, there’s stiff competition amongst trusted web properties — and speed and quantity sadly still play a role in who’ll earn the most ad revenue.

I just wrote a post on ways good publishers can increase their output while maintaining their quality. I’d like to continue collecting these sorts of resources and adding to this one. If you’re interested in seeing the superior signals rise above the noise, and you’ve got articles or topics to suggest, ping me (@suzyperplexus) or let us all know about them in the comments below.

Flickr cc: Tramidepain

Robert Polet, CEO Gucci, has famously said:

“We are not selling handbags or shoes. We are selling dreams. That market will always be there.”

While the statement still holds the truth, what’s hot and what’s not in the world of fashion is no longer decided by the few and privileged ones. The social web is changing the rules, by giving independent fashionistas the voice and the tools to get recognized for their own individual taste. As the web and commerce gets more social, so does every step of a decision making process.

Brands are starting to recognize the need of being part of the various stages of decision making process taking place in social networks. Facebook Like button has become the first step to connect with potential customers, and it was only last week Starbucks as the first brand reached more than 10 Million Facebook Likes, and became one of the top ten largest Facebook pages. When it comes to fashion brands, though, one needs to scroll down the list, finding only two fashion brands to make the top 100 list: Victoria’s Secret on place 44 with 5 Million Facebook fans, followed by Converse All Star on place 83 with 3.8 Million fans.

ModCloth, Bloglovin’ and Fashiolista harnessing Likes beyond Facebook

But, not all “liking” happens or is being harnessed on Facebook. ModCloth, San Francisco based indie fashion site featuring vintage-inspired clothing just recently raised $19.8 Million in funding to meet the growing demand of hot fashion items frequently being sold out. ModCloth was early on to recognize and create a marketplace for independent, up and coming designers, reporting $19 Million in sales last year. Influence ranks high among fashionistas, thus by engaging fashion bloggers and fashionistas to become virtual fashion buyers to help ModCloth choose which designs get created, it’s also able to predict the demand much earlier. Watch Eric and Susan Koger, the husband and wife founders of ModCloth, interviewed by Jason Kincaid on TechCrunch TV.

To further interact with fashionistas, ModCloth ran a fashion campaign earlier this year together with Bloglovin’, Swedish blog aggregator startup with 96% female users and 5.5 Million monthly visits. Influential fashion bloggers were chosen by Bloglovin’ to promote fashion items in a transparent and trustworthy way, resulting 5 out 14 items to have been sold out within 24 hours.

Aiming to become the start page for fashion blogging, Bloglovin’ recently also launched a new start page, described as a visual Digg for fashion blogging. By introducing a voting system called “Like”, the most popular blog posts in fashion can now be featured. Bloglovin’ has been picking up steam among fashionistas world wide, overtaking both Style.com and Teenvogue.com with its 1.1 Million monthly unique visitors. Brands like DKNY and Roberto Cavalli have discovered Bloglovin’ to reach out to fashionistas, and H&M has been a frequent advertiser on the site. US fashion bloggers like Fashionchalet and fashiontoast have already created a larger following on Bloglovin’ than for example on Twitter, counting over tens of thousands of followers.

Fashiolista is another European fashion startup from Netherlands, where Likes and “Loves” are everything. It’s a fashion community with a handy bookmarklet tool that lets you collect, save and share all the fashion finds with the rest of the world. One can easily follow other Fashiolistas to get inspired of their fashion sense, as add items from nearly any online fashion shops, such as ModCloth, who has implemented Fashiolista’s bookmarklet. When it will be possible to start subscribing specific tags on Fashiolista, I can see the site getting seriously compelling. Henriette Weber, Danish social media avantgardista and fashionista herself, recently interviewed the founders of Fashiolista.

With help of services like Bloglovin’ and Fashiolista, the life of fashionistas gets easier, when being able to spot the fashion blogs that don’t suck, as to track down the perfect summer season items in the nude.

As for “safe” fashion discovery, I recommend first to head over to Mint Goals to set up your saving plan for all the fashion Likes and Loves. Happy Liking!

More Bub.blicio.us reading on Fashion

Paula is online strategist and startup evangelist. She blogs at paulamarttila.com and here at Bub.blicio.us.
Connect with her on Twitter: @paulamarttila
Drop her email at paula.marttila[at]gmail[dot]com

It’s official. The FTC has released guidelines requiring bloggers to fully disclose when they are being paid for reviews. If they don’t, they are chancing up to an $11,000 fine, according to the Associated Press. (Note – The FTC press release does not mention the amount of the fine.) Blogs or not, these guidelines apparently haven’t been updated since around 1980. It was time. The Guides, however, affect more than bloggers. The new updates apply to advertising across the board.

According to the FTC, the revised Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising require a reviewer or ad to clearly disclose the results that consumers can expect from the product. In other words, that old “results not typical” isn’t going to fly any more. The Guides also ask for clear disclosure:

The revised Guides also add new examples to illustrate the long standing principle that “material connections” (sometimes payments or free products) between advertisers and endorsers – connections that consumers would not expect – must be disclosed. These examples address what constitutes an endorsement when the message is conveyed by bloggers or other “word-of-mouth” marketers. The revised Guides specify that while decisions will be reached on a case-by-case basis, the post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement. Thus, bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service. Likewise, if a company refers in an advertisement to the findings of a research organization that conducted research sponsored by the company, the advertisement must disclose the connection between the advertiser and the research organization. And a paid endorsement – like any other advertisement – is deceptive if it makes false or misleading claims.

Additionally, the Guides now address celebrity endorsements, holding both the company and the endorsers responsible for false claims. The revisions require that celebrities must make their affiliation clear when making endorsements outside of traditional marketing, including talk shows and social media.

I don’t see that this will be too much of a problem. Most of the bloggers I know (and myself included) always reveal when we receive free samples, whether technology or wine. Those of us who review technology often have to give the technology back. With wine and food, that’s not possible, but most wine bloggers reveal complimentary samples without a second thought. I suspect this will have more impact on bloggers who accept payment in cash or merchandise for reviewing a product. As Mashable points out, the Ford Fiesta and General Mills bloggers (amongst others) are going to have to be crystal clear about disclosing their relationship.

While I know some bloggers will be ranting about the unfairness of this, I think it’s a great idea. I’m glad that the FTC has seen blogs as part of legitimate advertising campaigns. It’s what we wanted, right?

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Cheers!
Tweet Michelle @writetechnology, send her technology news at michelle[at]writetech[dot]net, visit her wine blog when you’re thirsty, and drop by her day job.

I was lucky enough to be asked to speak at the first annual BlogHer Food. For those of you who remember my BlogHer ’09 posts from July, you might be surprised I so willingly attended. I was surprised myself, but curiosity got the better of me, and I’m glad it did.

Continuing the motif, I was also surprised that I enjoyed myself so thoroughly. I had intended on staying through my session, which was before lunch, and then heading out to explore San Francisco. I ended up remaining at the conference for the entire day. I found the sessions, while geared towards recipe-oriented food bloggers, were still relevant for review and wine blogs as well. The whole attitude of the day was different from what I expected, and I was thrilled. It was the perfect size (I believe it was around 300 people) and the programming struck just the right note.

My panel focused on blogging best practices. Not only was I on a panel with an impressive group of women, we actually talked about blogging. It was refreshing. I also attended a session on photography basics, as well as a fantastic session on protecting your work and copyright. I learned something in every session I attended. I’m a terrible conference attendee, and often my attention easily wanders, so BlogHer Food’s programming impressed me.

In fact, the only complaint I heard from anyone (myself included) was about the lunch. It was a hyper Rocco diSpirito and Bertolli. Yep, they served a bunch of food bloggers thawed Bertolli. This isn’t a food blog, but when the people at the table are complaining that the ravioli alfredo was more reminiscent of biscuits and gravy, you know there’s a problem.

Perhaps it was because we were all coalescing around a common topic – the love of food and wine – but I found the entire environment to be a lot more friendly than my previous BlogHer experiences. I hunted down folks I knew, people I hadn’t seen in a long time, and even met several impressive authors who were more than friendly. I gladly attended a party in the evening, looking forward to seeing some people again. I discovered that food bloggers are food bloggers, no matter their genre. Recipe bloggers were interested in hearing from review bloggers (and wine bloggers!) and I was interested to talk to the recipe folks. It was just such a different experience – for me – than the larger BlogHer conference I attended in July.

Finally, while there was swag, it was both excellent and controlled. I believe there were only five sponsors in the expo/demo area (Healthy Choice, Campbell’s, Pur, Cuisinart, and Pillsbury) as well as the Bertolli lunch and the California Milk-sponsored breakfast. I have no complaints with the goodies with which I came home. The organization even set up an easy and obvious area to donate unwanted foodstuffs from the goodie bags to a local shelter.

Even if I don’t speak next year, I’ll gladly return to BlogHer Food. Among other things, it was just great to be in a room with other people who all whip out their cameras to take a photo of their food. Camaraderie wins every time.

Update: Live blogs from the sessions are now available.

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Cheers!
Tweet Michelle @writetechnology, send her technology news at michelle[at]writetech[dot]net, visit her wine blog when you’re thirsty, and drop by her day job.

According to Mashable, popular blogging site Tumblr is launching two new features today: hashtag and Facebook integration.

Their use of hashtags will happen in “Tag Channels,” which allow bloggers to tag their content that turns up in the most popular place on the web right now: real-time search. Tumblr is getting into the real-time search area. Their search includes a sliding filter that lets you narrow down results.

Additionally, Tumblr is releasing Facebook integration that ensures all of your posts – no matter what media or format – will post correctly and prettily to Facebook.

By Julie Blaustein

Girls in Tech Attendees and Venture Beat's Camille Ricketts

Girls in Tech hosted another sold out evening at the MySpace trendy offices in San Francisco. The event, coined Journalism 2.0 Round Table included a crowd of about 100 eager gals and a few guys too. They were there to learn more about the ever-evolving world of journalism. Brian Solis, Principal of Future Works PR and blogger at PR 2.0, set the tone to the evening by talking with The Wall Street Journal‘s Kara Swisher about PR and how its evolved in the last decade. If you weren’t aware, Brian has recently published the much anticipated, ‘Putting the Public back in Public Relations‘. When Kara asked Brian, “What do you need to be in PR?” Brian responded, “You need to start rethinking whatever it is that you know.” Perhaps suggesting that if you want to know about PR, its all in the book. Brian also mentioned that if you want to learn more about PR, check out the Conversation Prism, the Art of Listening, Learning and Sharing.

The impressive panel included former SF Chronicle Tech Editor Deborah Gage, ZdNet’s Jennifer Leggio, Ubergizmo Editor Eliane Fiolet, VentureBeat‘s Camille Ricketts and Techie Diva’s Gina Hughes and did not disappoint the audience with its lively discussion. Topics discussed were about blogging and how its changed the face of journalism, how citizen journalism and how it is impacting traditional journalism, and also the impact of being a woman in the male-dominated world of tech.

Kara kept the conversation moving rapid-fire, without missing a beat; even making some pretty amusing remarks. When talking about how women can find themselves in this male dominated techie world, the panel had all experienced discrimination and blatant sexism at some points in their career. Gina of TechieDiva shared how while at Yahoo! her professional picture that was waist up and seemed to focus on her breasts, solicited many unwanted comments. She would have preferred more professional comments. ZdNet’s Jennifer Leggio felt there was a belief that she wasn’t all that Techie because she worked in the marketing department and as a result she felt compelled to always be on the defensive to prove them wrong.

Some Great Advice about becoming and being a blogger:

• Just Blog! If you are passionate about it, then you will be successful. Do not worry if you don’t have any experience, it will come.
• If you have an opportunity to do a free internship, Do it!
• Always say YES to any task presented to you. Kara Started delivering mail to folks that she has come to manage.
• Follow your Instincts. If you have this crazy dream to start a blog, Do it!
• Do not burn any bridges – you never know when that person will be the Hiring Manager
• Be Knowledgeable. If you need to learn more, take classes, network, get involved
• Utilize as many tools as possible in addition to your blogging platform to stay connected with your audience – Facebook, Twitter, Friend Feed, iPhones, Blackberry’s, etc
• Link to higher ranking blog sites to help build up your own traffic. If possible, become part of a site’s Blog Roll
• Accept that Traditional Journalism is being replace by Journalism 2.0 – the big difference is you can get things done more quickly and at times may have even more more resources

Kara Swisher of Wall Street Journal and Brian Solis of Future Works

Former SF Chronicle's Deborah Gage , Venture Beat's Camille Ricketts and Kara Swisher of the Wall Street Journal

The Sold Out Girls in Tech Audience Listens Closely to the Panel.

Panelists Ubergizmo's Editor Elaine Fiolet, ZdNet's Jennifer Leggio and Gina of Techie Diva