Social Media is now an alternative news source! Social Media offers ways for people to get their message out, to acquire and share information. We are the reporters and news aggregators! We’re helping others. I’m going to quickly cover how Twitter has become one alternative news source.

Broadcasting Twitter News

Twitter is a microblogging platform where people, world-wide, are communicating and broadcasting news. News is sent out as “tweets,” messages sent to Twitter. Each tweet is like a bird chirping, short and hopefully sweet – 140-characters or less. The conversation on Twitter may be as simple as updating what you are doing, posting links about informative or fun website articles, to providing information about fire and evacuations.

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I had so many plans for this blog, for regular updates, SEO tips and findings, etc. But… I never imagined I would be writing about a devastating fire in Big Sur, California that is, as of July 4, 2008, so horrific that it has burned over 64,000 acres. Containment is currently only at 5% and is not anticipated to be 100% until the end of July.

Hundreds of homes and business owners are preparing for impending flames. The Basin Complex fire merged with the Indian Fire and is moving closer to Big Sur Village. More than 900 residents have been evacuated. Homes burned. What they know of freedom and independence is gone, only with hopes of starting over.

Darby Marshall, spokesman for the Monterey County Office of Emergency Services, states:

“The fire is just a big raging animal right now.”

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Announcing Google Trends for Websites! Save gas! NEW Google Trends reduces your need to drive around spying to gain competitive intelligence data. Get FREE access to your competition’s website traffic, geographic information and keywords people use to visit these sites.

Google Trends: Get 5 gallons for the price of 1!

Google Trends for Websites give you valuable data on five competitive sites during each visit.

1. Visit www.google.com/trends.
Look toward the bottom to “Explore…Trends for Websites” as shown:

2. Determine your top competitors.
Suggestion: Choose 4 competitors and your website. That’s 5 gallons of gas for the price of 1, all for free!

3. Determine the “leader” in your niche or your closest competitor. Enter this domain name first in the Search Trends box. The data displayed will be shown based on the first website listed. Vary data by changing the order of domains listed. Imagine your site provides news about cycling…

Example shown above compares trends for cyclingnews.com, velonews.com, pezcyclingnews.com, dailypeloton.com.

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