Last week the Australian Capital Territory Supreme Court approved a lawyer’s application to serve legal documents via Facebook. Crown Solicitor Simon Moore, SC, said it made perfect sense. “In civil courts, there has always been the facility to apply for substituted service in cases where a defendant may be difficult to find or evidence suggests they are deliberately evading documents being served on them.”

On the same day, another legal first appeared to take place in the United States when a Twitter account allegedly operated by Burger King issued a cease and desist order to another user for “UNAUTHORIZED USE OF TRADEMARK.”

If this were an official order (which I’ll get into in a bit), I have a hard time believing it would stand up on its own. If you look at the Facebook example, it clearly states that the alternative route was selected because the defendant could not to contact by any other normal method. They had tried letters, phone calls, etc. and all had been effective. Then, as a final effort, they went to the court to have the Facebook route approved. Before a C&D order over Twitter could hold any water, I imagine it would need to pass through the same types of legal channels and only be used as a last resort.

Users Swathed in Secrecy

The two accounts in question are @theBKlounge and @whoppervirgins. Let’s dig into some stats on each:

First Tweets

The first tweet from @theBKlounge rolled out on November 14, 2008, telling followers about new gear at the Burger King Studio, described as “part art gallery, part think-tank with a dash of Mad Scientist’s experiments thrown in for good measure.” That site is legit and the tweet would lead you to believe the account was in official connection.

The first tweet from @whoppervirgins came on December 15, 2008, personifying the Whopper and its wait to have its underside charbroiled. This was a humorous spin, but again, nothing to make people think it wasn’t official. The date the account was created seems to throw a flag, as the Whopper Virgins campaign actually launched a few weeks prior.

Profiles

The @theBKlounge username is a toss-up. If you search for any information on “The BK Lounge,” almost everything you pull up is associated with comedian Dane Cook, who wrote a song by the same time. Cook used the term to “dress up” his job at the fast food joint. Using this as a username could show BK stepping up the plate and acknowledging a piece of user generated content, or it could be more evidence against the account being official.

Aside from the username, the account has a nice Burger King image set for a background and profile colors to match the official corporate color scheme. The user’s location is stated as worldwide, illustrating the brand’s global presence, and the bio for the account is written with a sense of humor, something the brand is known for. At this point everything still looks legit.

The @whoppervirgins name is appropriately in line with the campaign, but the account still has the default profile assigned to every new Twitter user. No colors have been changed, no profile information has been added and the only sign of customization is the Whopper image as an avatar. Based on the intense design and perceived strategy behind WhopperVirgins.com, it seems strange the account is still using the default design.

The Meat of the Tweets

With a month more of activity on Twitter, @theBKlounge certainly has a leg up on @whoppervirgins in terms of the amount of content posted. @theBKlounge spends a lot of time of time conversing with other users, but also spits out some content which makes you wonder if there is really a BK employee behind the wheel. Things like:

A Mysterious Situation

After the C&D went out and Twitter users and bloggers caught wind of it, the event spread like wildfire. There was no response from @whoppervirgins, but @theBKlounge offered a few tweets shedding additional light on the situation (and offered more proof to me that the account isn’t officially run by Burger King).

If the C&D were intended to be official it wouldn’t have gone out over Twitter. Second, the issuing user wouldn’t have joked about it afterwards. Third, @theBKlounge wouldn’t “let [@whoppervirgins] off this time.”

Each of these actions, in addition to the other notes pointed out earlier, clearly identify the @theBKlounge and @whoppervirgins accounts as unofficial representations of the Burger King brand, most likely being run by enthusiastic fans wanting to have an impact.

The Tweet Blogged ‘Round the World

Whether or not the accounts are official, this entire event will likely play out well for Burger King. As many have suggested on Twitter and in blogs, the situation almost smells of a PR stunt for publicity, but I just can’t believe that something like this could have been orchestrated by corporate types. Burger King has done well in the past with viral types of campaigns, but they’ve all still been largely based on TV ads and/or website tie-ins. None (that I’m aware of) have played so largely in social media.

Also, as a result of this activity, Burger King will likely be getting some great placements in the search engines, something Ad Age (@adage) openly criticized them for not having with the launch of the Whopper Virgins campaign. Because of the way blogs work, many of these posts about the C&D will bubble up to the front pages, causing more people to get caught up in the scenario and leverage the ever-powerful word of mouth.

A Plan for Burger King

Before this gets too far out of hand, Burger King must get on Twitter and join the conversation. Here are the steps we would take:

1. Get the @burgerking account (we have a great article explaining how to get brandjacked accounts on Twitter back).
   Though Burger King likes to use the BK monniker, that account (@bk) is already in use.
2. Contact the operators of @theBKlounge and @whoppervirgins.
   If they are willing to cooperate, consider working with them to adopt the accounts under the brand’s umbrella.
3. Set up keyword queries to listen for mentions of brand names and products.
4. Join conversations and provide value where possible.
5. Hire Microblink to help incorporate Twitter into their overall marketing strategy.
   Though the number of Twitter users pales in comparison to other social networking sites, its users can make a tremendous impact on the web.

[Twitterrific bird image © Iconfactory]

Wayne Sutton (@waynesutton) certainly thinks so. Recently Wayne sent a message to his followers on Twitter asking them to participate in a poll about his tweets:

The poll, available here, says “Twitter is about conversations, collaboration, sharing & community. To make sure I’m adding valuable content to your twitter stream, please take [my] poll.”

The options in Wayne’s poll ranged from social media and online community building to iPhone news and African-American issues. Personally, I voted for social media, online community building, microblogging in the enterprise, as those are the topics I’m most interested in, but I also threw in a “just tweet what you want,” as I feel Wayne ought not let the masses dictate everything he can talk about.

At the closing of the poll, Wayne’s top three topics were:

• more tweets on social media (13%)
• just tweet whatever you want (13%)
• more tweets on online community building (12%)

Should You Poll Your Audience?

For Individuals

Its your call. If you’ve got thousands upon thousands of followers and are concerned with maintaining that following, you have a vested interest in knowing their opinions. After all, most people are probably following you to hear about more than what you had for lunch. If you’re a casual microblogger and are just in it for fun, I wouldn’t bother.

For Businesses

You should definitely be engaging your followers for feedback. While individuals can build followings fairly quickly based on personal, emotional and/or psychological connections, businesses are much more tricky. If the only thing you’re posting is a twitterfeed from your blog, you won’t see many latching on to your account. If you are always microblogging with a bullhorn, you’ll most certainly turn people off. The key is to find the perfect blend of promotion and conversation, and that’s where your followers come in.

Examine What Your Competitors are Doing

Before you even begin microblogging, take a look at what competitors in your space are doing. Try reaching out with a poll, like Wayne did, and gauge what your customers or prospects are interested in hearing about. If you can’t come up with the options or topics (you may be in even bigger trouble), crowdsource them. Gather suggestions from your audience and then run them all in a poll where users can vote.

If you take the time to engage your followers and involve them in your conversations, they’ll feel more willing to participate and you’ll be much more successful in your efforts.

You may not be microblogging yet (maybe you’re here to learn why you should be), but your customers are.

In my opinion, registering usernames in the name of your business ought to become second nature these days, just as it has with registering domain names.

Google Search is Out, Twitter Search is In

At Highlight Midwest in October I sat next to Kristi Colvin (@kriscolvin), creator of soon-to-be-released Twitterface, in a presentation from Adam Coomes about Social Radar, a product from Infegy that tracks mentions of keywords and brands in social media. As we were listening to his presentation, we did what any tech saavy, multi-tasking audience members would do: tried to find more information about him and his product.

However, these days I don’t go to Google to search for things, I search Twitter or reach out to my network there. Kristi fired up Twitterific on her iPod Touch and I launched Hahlo on my iPhone, each of us searching Twitter for an account named Social Radar or Infegy. To our surprise, neither account had been registered yet.

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Microblogging is all about sharing media - be it text, images, or videos. We’ve never talked about video microblogging, but there are a couple good platforms for participating in the video world. There’s 12seconds.tv, Viddler 15s, and Seesmic, just to name a few.

12seconds.tv

This is the platform that’s most like a true microblog. It’s laid out just like you’ve grown to love; you have friends who create videos that show up in your timeline. Though I feel 12 seconds is not enough time to convey a message, the interface will make most people feel at home. Another nice thing this service provides is a shortened URL (such as http://tiny12.tv/DHI9I) that comes with each video.

Viddler 15s

With Viddler 15s, you can use your Viddler account to record 15 second clips. Those clips show up with the rest of your videos, which makes it less like a true microblogging platform. Viddler integrates with Twitter to send a message with a link to your video when you’ve finished recording it. An alternate method of uploading a video is to tag it with the ’15seconds’ tag.

On a curious side note, neither of the two videos I’ve recorded have actually been saved anywhere. I don’t think I’m doing anything wrong other than choosing not to send it to Twitter.

Seesmic

Seesmic allows you to follow other people to see their videos or send videos directly to another user. You can also create a video reply to someone else’s video. All videos must be at least 5 seconds long.

I was immediately replied to by a couple people I didn’t know. You can see from the embedded video that replies to my original are pretty easy to view. As the couple guys in the reply said, it’s easy to get into conversations with new people and meet people on Seesmic.

Recommendation

If you want the typical microblogging feel, I’d suggest 12seconds.tv, though each service has their own niches. Seesmic is more of a community of its own, and the other two services feel like they complement your Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku, etc accounts.

If you’re into video microblogging and use a service not listed above, leave a comment and let us know why you like it.

Part of the appeal to microblogging is that it enables people to send and receive information quickly. Sometimes messages and memes take on viral momentum due to the simplicity of the medium, including a case where a young girl from South Carolina went missing and users utilized their networks to spread the word.

How Do You Structure a ‘Retweeted’ Message?

This idea of people posting messages and reposting others’ brings up a great question about retweet formatting. What is the best (or right) way to share information with your network that someone else has shared with you? Here are a few things to consider:

• do you include the name of the person who sent you the message, or the name of the original poster?
• do you reuse the hyperlink (or shortened URL) provided, or create your own?
• do you use the verb “retweeting,” or will “RT” suffice?
• if you want to include a comment with the message, where and how do you do that?

I try to retweet information to my network of followers when I come across something I find interesting, but I also often find myself wanting to add my own thoughts to the message, adding some unique personal value to what I am sharing. I can add my comments at the beginning, but the retweet message might be seen as my own. I can add them to the end, but then it is difficult to distinguish where the original message stops and my message begins. Using parentheses around my contribution seems to help, but it can still be confusing.

Are There Legal Implications Behind Sharing Someone Else’s Content?

Outside of formatting, I’ve also begun to think about the legal ramifications of using others’ content and sharing it under our own names. I reached out to one of our followers on Twitter, Brett J. Trout (@BrettTrout), P.C., an Iowa patent attorney, to talk about this issue:

Lots of intellectual property rights re retweeting tweets. We’ll have to wait ’til enough $$’s at stake to see what a court says - November 17, 2008

How do you retweet items you find interesting? Do you take any precautions when adding comments or your own thoughts? Please reply in the comments.

UPDATE 11/23/08, 4:04pm: Jeremiah Owyang (@jowyang) shared some of his own thoughts on the infectious power of retweeting today, as well as a link to “the Art and Science of Retweeting“, from AJ Vaynerchuk (@ajv).

On June 12, 1924, the world said hello to Kleenex. It’s original intention was as a facial tissue, though there have been many other uses and spinoffs since then. There have been many like it, but it was the first and foremost inventor and brand of facial tissue.

Eighty-two years later, another brand that revolutionized a market was introduced. This time, the market was microblogging. In the last two years, this brand has grown exponentially and now hosts millions of users. Like Kleenex, there are many other brands like this one, but none of them are the face of microblogging. Of course, this brand is Twitter.

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In the three months or so that we’ve been running we’ve never taken the time to outline our take on microblogging. Today you finally get to see our definition.

Our Definition of Microblogging

microblogging [mahy-kroh-blŏg-ing] verb
A small-scale form of blogging, generally made up of short, succinct messages, used by both consumers and businesses to share news, post status updates and carry on conversations.

The reason we don’t include anything about a specific character limit for messages is because some platforms don’t limit the number of characters you can use (Pownce, Kwippy, Rejaw). The thing that all microblogging platforms share is the concept of limited overhead and ease of entry. There are no databases to build or themes to install. Starting a microblogging account on any of these websites is as easy as choosing a username and password. From there you just start typing. Continue Reading

One area of microblogging that hasn’t gotten much attention from us is location-based microblogging. The term location-based means that the service you’re using to post updates is aware of your geographic location, whether it’s accurate to a city, neighborhood, or your actual location. There are a few top competitors in the space, including Brightkite, Loopt and Fire Eagle.

The concept of location aware microblogging introduces many privacy implications. The major one is that everyone you send your update to knows where you are when you send it. Brightkite in particular allows you to view other users who have checked in near your area, which was intended as a way to find and meet other people around you. There are also fairly sophisticated privacy filters inside Brightkite that protects your location from being seen by people you don’t trust.

Integration with Microblogging

Depending on the network you’re using, you may already be participating in microblogging. Brightkite, for example, has its own friend stream and functionality that other microblogging networks have. Fire Eagle, on the other hand, is just a platform that other services can tie into (in fact you can integrate Fire Eagle into your Brightkite and Pownce accounts).

Twitter in particular is known for its mobile capabilities. Brightkite is integrated with Twitter to send check-ins to your Twitter account that contains text and links to your photos (if you took one).  Here’s an example of how Mike used Brightkite last week at Highlight Midwest:

The link to bkite.com is a shortened URL which leads to the actual Brightkite check-in:

There’s no reason you couldn’t microblog your Brightkite check-ins on other networks - it just doesn’t have the automatic bridge like it does with Twitter.

Sounds like a niche market to me…

This type of microblogging is generally accessible to most people in one way or another. Some networks have dedicated iPhone apps, some have a mobile web interface, and some can operate by SMS. SMS is generally considered the least common denominator when it comes to mobile phone technology, so many platforms integrate it as their “mobility effort”. Brightkite in particular has multiple ways its users can interact with the servers, but some of the SMS commands for checking in and sending updates can be tough to remember. Luckily, they have a pocket guide (PDF) to interacting while going mobile.

Who, What, When - and now Where

The three big questions that microblogging answers are who, what, and when. This info can be gleaned just by looking at a status update. Location-based microblogging adds and answers the where question in addition to the previous three. When you upload a photo, it also sends along your location (if you want it to) so you can show others where you found something of interest. A perfect example is taking a photo of a landmark and letting Brightkite remember where you were, thus making it simple for you (and others) to find that location again.

Accounts To Follow

@brightkite, @loopt (both on Twitter)

With Twitter being the first major microblogging platform, they were also the first one to implement the “everyone stream”, a warp-speed listing of the most recent messages on the system, constantly being updated. As other platforms have popped up, they’ve each addressed the everyone stream in a different way.

Today we’ll take a look at several popular microblogging platforms (Twitter, Pownce, Plurk) and how they handle the everyone stream.

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Now that you know to identify spam from Rob’s article, 5 Key Microblogging Spam Indicators, here are two options you have to actively deal with spammers:

1. Block the offending user - This action prevents the user from being able to see your updates, and also removes them from your followers list. The main reason for doing this is so that they don’t show up as a follower. Should someone peruse your followers and see a bunch of spammers, they may not want to follow you.
2. Report the offending user - The more proactive approach to fighting spam, reporting offending users sends a message to people who have power to remove the user from the system. To report a spammer, go to twitter.com/help and fill out the form, selecting “Spam Request” in the selection menu at the top of the form. If you want to be lazy, go here and enter the spammer’s username in the top box with a short message like “user x followed me”.
3. Send a reply to @spam - Twitter’s added a new way recently to report spam publicly. You can send a message formatted like “@spam @spammer” and they’ll get the message. This way is much easier than any other method I’ve found.

Reporting spammers to Twitter gives them a chance to review the offender and remove them from the system when necessary. The fewer spammers there are, the better off we are as a whole.

These two options are focused specifically on Twitter, but if you know about ways to help defeat spam on other platforms, please share them with us in the comments.

How often do you have to block or report spam/unwanted accounts?