I have gained semi-notoriety this week because of my online-based apology tour, having said stupid things, apologized and my idiocy was well-documented and forgiven on CareerDiva.net, the New York Times, and I even did an interview yesterday with the Washington Business Journal (no link yet because it will be a couple of weeks, but you can count on my self-promotional side to pimp that too).

I have a semi-foul mouth, which has been curbed only through my parenthood, but for those of you who have read this blog, you’ll note that when I become particularly exasperated by something that I think is inane, my usual response is:

“Jesus.”

Well, now I have either an outlet for that, or an e-portal which may just ensure my eternal damnation.  Tech Crunch reported recently on the launch of Gospelr,

…a microblogging platform for people who want to share thoughts, ideas, words of encouragement, prayer requests, daily scripture readings, and oh so much more.”

I am honestly not here to praise or condemn this, but one of the questions that I get asked frequently and was asked yesterday during the interview was “What is the next BIG THING?”  Some people B.S. (there’s that foul mouth again), their way through this, but my answer was simple:  Anyone who tells you what the NEXT BIG THING is is lying.

An example of this is the fact that Gospelr is based upon the Twitter platform and represents a segmentation of the Twitter audience.  A year ago, who predicted that Twitter would launch, crash (literally), an then crawl back into our waiting arms?  And what about that stupid whale?

I think that Gospelr represents the fact that microblogging has now become so intertwined with our lives, we’ll begin to see more and more platforms that are targeted towards a particular segment of the of the  population who share common interests.  Now THAT’S interesting.

I’ll avoid all other commentary as to minimize the flaming comments that are undoubtedly headed my way.

Mark

POne of the main challenges that public relations and communications professionals face is that when something new comes out that we “get” as a legitimate way to spread the word, we often face at best, blank stares, and at worst, derision.

Hence, Twitter.

The first time I heard of Twitter, I too thought that it was someone describing my stereo speakers that play treble. Not so. Sure, a lot of people use it to talk about what their cat had for dinner, but it is undoubtedly a tool with legitimate business applications.

Marketing Vox says it better than I can:

Enterprise blogging has been lauded for its ability to “humanize” a company and make distant executives feel available to ground-floor customers. Twitter can serve the same purpose much more quickly.

Twitter spearheads the “microblogging” trend, where people air thoughts and share information in real-time while observing a 140-character limit. Here are tips for getting the most out of it:

Subscribe generously. Twitter is among the only social media brands where the subscriber:subscribed ratio is reversed. Most users follow a higher number of people than the number following them.

Don’t just be casual; be personal. Enterprise blogging works best when a blogger is frank about what’s happening in his company. But it is generally understood that the blogger will not discuss his personal life.

There’s a lot more to learn about Twitter (and I am still learning), including Dan York’s blog post about how Twitter needs to deal with its outages.

But for those of you who are pushing a new media rock up an old media hill, remember that making the case for business applications is critical.

Mark

P.S. You can follow my Twitter page here.