Instant history is a wonderful part of our current society.

Recency obfuscates perspective. And it’s often what gets noticed (and actually remembered) is not always what’s important, but what gets the most eyeballs.

We see it in sports, on the news and now we get to see in your own life with Facebook’s latest update to your profile: Timeline.

In short, Timeline turns our profiles into our very own online autobiography, curating our Facebook-based history of activities, photos and other assorted media into a narrative.

And why?

Because Facebook want users to fill in the blanks. And encourage more usage of Facebook-based apps (also highlighted heavily in today’s f8 developer speech) so users will get in the habit of sharing our actions and producing content around the activities from our lives. And Facebook can track the subsequent data.

In other words, solving their problem.

Because recent data — immediate data — is the best data. And Facebook wants to give advertisers the ability to target users on ever more data sets, specifically on the media users consume.

What wasn’t discussed was the brand pages, how those profiles will change and all the Likes you’ve accumulated mean anything. There is a reason for that. For one, they haven’t figured it out. But also brand Likes do not have same engagement as an app, nor offer the same constant ability for users

Because if you’re not part of Facebook’s Open Graph and adding to the data, you’re invisible. Likes are okay and all, but Zuckerberg wants more. He can’t sell brands on Likes. Certainly, he’s tried over the last 12 months.

Whether this works or not teeters on one very important question: Do users finally feel comfortable publishing even more about their online activities?

When Facebook announced their wildly invasive Beacon program in 2007, the answer to this question was an unequivocal no. Yet just a few years later, with the same smiling Zuck on stage, it appears we’re all jumping on board.

And yet, nothing has changed. Facebook still has the same philosophy about what it wants to do with that data. So it needs to scare you into loading your life onto the Book of Faces and happily provide it.

Scaring you into thinking, without uploading pictures (and likes and video and songs and movies and your life), it didn’t happen. Holding us hostage to add to the Open Graph. Otherwise, our story isn’t being told. Or worse, we’re forgotten.

And when it does happen, and we add more photos or whatever, it goes right to the top. Becoming the most important thing about you. Instantly.

If you missed it, on Monday night, the New York Jets played the New York Giants in a preseason NFL game. While amazing in and of itself, a certain area of the Twitter world exploded in delight.

The reason? Tweets. On. Screen. Oh, and hashtags! They used hashtags!

TV personalities tweeted in delight. Scribes at Reuters typed away furiously at the innovation.  The engagement!

Sarcasm aside, this is not a new concept, nor is it innovative. One needs only to look at ones local TV affiliate’s NBA postgame to watch the ticker of mildly censored, wildly insufferable text messages from fans. Not to mention the many non-sporting events that already do this.

We get the sentiment. By alluring the fan base that you’re engaging them, you’ll get free content, more brand engagement and the like. But what does it add to the final product?

Let me ask the question another way: What does the local sports talk radio show gain from caller John from Lakewood to the final product?

The radio show gets to kill some time. But the audience gets nothing of nutritional value. John from Lakewood is not an expert. He’s a fan. Pretty sure he’s had a few beers.

Similarly, why do we want to read tweets from @giants1111?

One only needs to look at Twitter during Monday Night Football, Thursday Night Football, Sunday Night Football, Sunday Day Football, etc. to see that people are already discussing the games with their friends and followers. The only reason they’d need a hashtag for an NFL game is to measure it for their purposes, not for the audience.

TV and Twitter integration is already happening. This is inevitable. Twitter is even currently searching for a content manager purely for the purposes rapidly integrating the two.

But we need to stop asking questions like: How do we integrate Twitter and TV? because it’s the same terrible question as How do we integrate the internet and TV?

And why get answers like the perpetually forgettable WebTV. And tweets on TV.

Instead, we need to start asking how we make our TV viewers’ (the customers) experience better. Because that’s the type of thing that’ll get the experience to a higher level. And why I’d choose to watch one show over another, or one game over another.

Why not train sideline reporters to tweet more content (including photos/video) than is already being shared? Why not take a blogger/Twitter personality and ask him to write dry, rather obvious in-game observations? (hint, I do this already) Why not have a personality-driven Twitter chat ready to go for halftime? Oh, and by the way, add some advertising in between tweets and share it with Twitter headquarters.

Is it really that hard to come up with better ways to integrate sports and Twitter than with the brute force of tweets on screen? We’re already watching with our laptops, mobiles and iPads, please keep the TV screen focused on the show at hand. Remind us, yes. Ask us questions, yes. But let’s not give @giants1111 his/her big break.

There’s a reason WebTV has yet to take off, and has been trying to since 1996. Random tweets masquerading as entertainment enhancements won’t either. There is innovation to be had with Twitter and TV, I just wish someone would start asking the right questions so they can find it.

Flickr photo courtesy of foistclub

By now, you’ve certainly heard about Google’s latest venture into the social sphere, Google+.

While Google’s many (failed) ventures into social networks are well-documented, Google+ appears to already gained some traction. Following the Wave and Gmail script, Google utilized a strict invitation-only process for new users to stymie unchecked growth.

And before the majority of actual humans have had a chance to set-up shop and post (and re-post) their cat photos, a number of companies, entities and brands have already elbowed their way through the door.

Most notably Ford.

Ford, led by head of social media and super gentleman Scott Monty, have been praised over for years on their successful social strategies. And rightfully so. In many ways, they’ve been pioneers for big brands utilizing social media, like when Alan Mulally, the CEO, was doing Twitter chats while many large organizations still blocked social websites altogether.

But when Ford showed up on Google+, it was an obvious odd fit. Not too different from when brands jumped into Facebook with human profile pages, Ford had to choose it’s gender and birth date. Awkward.

With the internet equivalent of the Wild West before us, Google VP of Products, Bradley Horowitz, quickly denounced the brand pages very early on in the field trial.

”Let me be clear – and I’m sorry if this wasn’t obvious – we are not currently supporting brands, organizations, and non-human entities in the Google+ field trial.

Supporting these non-human entities is an obviously great feature – we have no allergy to it at all! It’s just not part of the system we are currently testing.”

Yet Ford’s (and others’) brand pages remained. Obviously, Ford wants to tout their social media prowess. They also know their audience and they’ve been very successful integrating social media into marketing for quite some time.

But how social media-friendly can you be when you’ve been told you don’t belong? And is it any different than spamming a LinkedIn group or tweeting about myself all day?

Thankfully, Google is putting an end to the madness. Last night, Christian Oestlien the Ads Leads for Google+ announced all business profiles are kaput, right on his Google+ page.

How users communicate with each other is different from how they communicate with brands, and we want to create an optimal experience for both. We have a great team of engineers actively building an amazing Google+ experience for businesses, and we will have something to show the world later this year.

The business experience we are creating should far exceed the consumer profile in terms of its usefulness to businesses. We just ask for your patience while we build it. In the meantime, we are discouraging businesses from using regular profiles to connect with Google+ users. Our policy team will actively work with profile owners to shut down non-user profiles.

We’re so oblivious to brands infiltrating our lives. And interruptive marketing still rules the day. But as social becomes more sophisticated, my hope is that brand managers will not just replicate their strategy from social site to social site, setting up shop as they go.

In social media, we know it’s incredibly important to be where your customers are. But it’s just as important, actually more so, to know when and where you don’t belong. Ford is going to do the right thing, I just hope other entities follow suit.

Flickr photo courtesy of lukasbenc

Social media’s infancy has come to an end. And left behind is a graveyard filled with the best of intentions, budgets and smart people.

Whereas it was once enough to be a part of the conversation, I think (hope) that we’ve finally grown up.

There’s no better example of this maturity than the Cleveland Indians.

Last year, the Indians went on a limb.  In a shrinking city and a distant third in hearts, minds and wallets of fickle Cleveland pro sports fans, the Tribe needed something (anything) to break through the LeBron-based fog that hovered the Forest City.

With a poor season prior, and the NBA’s best player working next door and deep into the summer, the Indians devised the Social Deck, a section dedicated to fans in the social realm to do what they do best.

A media darling locally and nationally, but with no peer in comparison, it was almost certainly a learning process. Who do we invite? What do we want out of this? How do we tie this to revenue? For a lot of 2010, the Indians didn’t know.

Social media infancy at it it’s best.

Which leads us to 2011. Opening Day is a week away, and the Tribe is back at it.

While not a markedly better situation talent-wise, the competition for pro sports dollars in Cleveland certainly is. LeBron skipped town and the Cavs became NBA’s Washington Generals. The Browns fired another coach and wait in limbo for an NFL season that may never happen.

And yesterday, the team unveiled their plan: upgrading the Social Deck to the Social Suite, increasing access to more employees via Twitter and more.

That’s all great. But there is a better story. With lessons, data and C-level buy-in in hand, the Indians’ social strategy grew up.

Like that they’ve tied social activities to revenue with social-specific tickets. Or that they’ve brought sales, advertising, PR and marketing departments together on social. Or that they know they only way to sustain long-term growth is that they need to increase relevant content to break through the thousands of messages consumers receive on a daily basis.

The Cleveland Indians have realized that social media is not to be thought of as some self-contained energy source, nor some whiz bang tool that will save the day.

It is a tool. It has a cost in people, content, time and energy. It needs to pull its own weight.

Like email. Like dollar dog night. Like Travis Hafner.

Most organizations never realize this.

So while many are reporting how great the Indians are at embracing social, it’s about time we stop placing social media on a pedestal.

It can be smart business and it can be bad business. But it’s business, and should be judged accordingly. First and foremost.

After just a year, the Indians know this, why haven’t most practitioners?

Flickr photo courtesy of Jug Jones

One of the classic misfires of social media over the last four years is the method of the hard sell.

Buy this. Half off on that. Et cetera. Ad nauseum.

While this method eventually morphed into a softer sell, i.e. engagement and badges, it’s still a sell. And these examples are what dominate social media examples and monetization strategies.

But what if you’re product is different, when it’s not about the sell? What if the many of those in possession of your products are completely unaware until a problem arises?

Welcome to the world of building products.

When people buy an existing house – that is, one that is already built – they become the owners of a whole lot of specified items they never realized. Stuff like fireplaces, drywall, insulation, tile, flooring, roofing materials, garage doors, HVAC and even paint.

No longer can building products marketers sit behind the adage that social doesn’t apply to their businesses. Everyone uses social media. With the explosion of mobile use, there is no U.S. demographic underrepresented by social any longer.

So how does one get started if the C-level isn’t sold or has no social experience to begin with?

1. Own your customers questions

24-hour customer service via Twitter isn’t for everyone, but developing social content with customer service in mind should be. For example, product managers and marketers know the common issues that customers and specifiers have, so why aren’t they producing answers to these questions in video, blog posts and updates?

If optimized correctly for SEO, these also become long-term assets that bring users to your sites over and over.

2. Get into data

Yes, it’s not about the sale with building product social media, but you can use it to generate better data about usage. Use social media properties to drive people to your sites in order to better understand the who/what/when/where/why of your products.

3. Show off

Every company has success stories, and often these success stories are buried in a PDFs, or worse, in a rep’s head. Not only get them on your site, but use them as content to share with your users. Plus video, photos and interviews are some of the best ways to make a success story come alive.

As mentioned earlier, there is no excuse for not having a social presence, nor should it deviate from existing marketing and communications. If you curious about hearing more about social media and building products, please let us know.

Flickr photo courtesy of Moosicorn

I know, I should have posted this three weeks ago.

But we’re well past a month into Silicon Valley’s love-in for social media darling Quora and the lesson – as always – is that we have learned nothing from our mistakes.

Ever since some late December overkill press and some infighting between uber-early adopters, the Q&A site has been making our eyes bleed for almost 45 days straight.

But as many have stated repeatedly, the idea of posting questions and getting answers isn’t new. So how is Quora  different than Yahoo! Answers or Facebook Questions?

At first, it was relevance. Certain a-listers were hyping (and delivering) the service as something new. And great. And shiny.

Now? It’s because it’s not cool to like something that grazes the mainstream. We’ve become social media hipsters.

However, Quora represents all that is wrong with our shiny object syndrome. The never ending cycle of unknown – next big thing – deadpool is tireless, but the most valuable lesson is wasted in all of the shouting.

Why are we spending time developing valuable content for others (that someone else now owns) on sites like Quora when we neglect our own sites, blogs and other known social quantities?

The Quora business model is a social media-infused play on SEO and content. And we’re all suckers, helping Quora out for free. And for what?

If you have an amazing amount of collateral, both personal and professional, play with Quora to your heart’s content. But for most of us, this is not the case. If you’ve been developing content on a regular basis, one should know the value of doing one more blog post, case study or white paper. You should also know how expensive it is. Why give it away?

I hope Quora does well. I do see some value in the site, specifically in promotion, but not at the expense of time spent on content I can own. And unless you have more of it than I do, I suggest waiting for now.

Flickr photo courtesy of Amy Loves Yah

Maybe you heard about it. Maybe you didn’t. But this is important.

The quick and easy blogging platform Tumblr was down parts of Sunday and finally restored on Monday evening. While Tumbling is not as common as the Book of Face, for those who do utilize one of my favorite social platforms (including those by many major media outlets) the outage is no different than your standard Facebook, Twitter or Gmail failure: Unmitigated disaster. New York Magazine even rated where the Tumblr blackout stands in relation to other social media outages in 2010 (No. 2, if you are wondering).

Yes, people hyperbole up a storm when these types of things happen. The social sphere was full of those complaining about the downtime and, of course, the inevitable backlash on said complainers. But what is being ignored is what happens if all of that content (posts, images, community) disappeared overnight?

Where would your social content strategy be if, for example, your entire social media strategy rested (and disappeared) in the Tumblr cloud? Or the Twitter cloud? Or the Blogger cloud?

Oops.

The 18-hour Tumblr data hostage should be a wake-up call for those utilizing third-party sites for social content strategy purposes about two very important things.

The cloud will go down.

As much as platforms would think they can prevent wholesale outages, nothing is guaranteed. Content that is stored solely in the cloud can and does get lost. I am not saying that Tumblr could lose Garfield Minus Garfield forever, but it is more possible for those who rely on the free versions of the platform.

If you use free social media platforms as part of a content strategy, plan for the inevitable downtime (or lost data) and reduce risk by identifying backup options (when possible).

Don’t bet your strategy solely on the cloud.

As a function of content, I’ve always felt your own website should be the hub of your social media activity. While it’s entirely possible one could lose all of their onsite content via a comedy of errors, it should be far less likely. With the high cost and attention paid to content, it’s too valuable to leave it all to the cloud. Get it your on your site whenever possible where you have greater control, better analytics, increased conversion and more freedom.

Obviously, I’m not saying to abandon Tumblr or Facebook or Twitter or YouTube, but think of them as tools for promotion and dialogue rather than the basis of your social content strategy.

Let’s bring content back from the cloud to your site, or at least, understand how they can work together.

Flickr photo courtesy of JKönig

Are we there yet?

After about three years, the view of social media as some sort of free, magical money making machine is dying a painfully slow death.

Platforms and systems have become far too sophisticated for the gurus and ninjas, and tracking/acting upon the resulting data has become far too important for one marketing silo. No one department owns this stuff.

But don’t take my word for it.

Meet Rick Wion, McDonald’s first director of social media. He’ll tell you the same.

Recently, we were able to connect with Wion and asked him about that very topic. Amazingly, he actually responded (below).

As director, Wion has been developing and executing McDonald’s social media programs since he began his post in March. As you can imagine, this is no small task. Prior to that, Wion consulted with Fortune 500 clients (including Mickey D’s) as Vice President of Interactive Media at GolinHarris. He is also a self-professed beer snob, to which we send an ol’ tip of the cap in his direction.

Wion answered our questions via email, and his unedited responses are included below in their entirety. If you happen to see him at your next conference, send him a Great Lakes Brewing Company Dortmunder on me (and pass along the tab).

During your presentation at Mobile Social Communications, you were quoted as saying your Foursquare Day campaign increased foot traffic 33% in one day. You later clarified in a tweet that, “the 33% increase was in the number of check-ins. We consider check-ins the same as a person entering the restaurant.” What were the actual goals for the Foursquare Day campaign, and did it have anything to do with sales?

The Foursquare campaign was a test pilot program—a one-day campaign to try out a new platform. We frequently conduct test pilots to gauge how social communities respond to our involvement while also seeking to understand how we can use these tools within our systems.

While increasing sales is always the ultimate goal, to judge a pilot program only on sales misses the point of testing out new systems. As anyone with an IT background can attest, you don’t see a return on investment for new technologies the day that they roll out.

The original pilot, given its limited nature, was a success in that we saw a 33% increase in check-ins…and that was when the user base of Foursquare was about one quarter of what it is today.

Moving on from the test pilot we are looking at several location based services as well as different engagement methods as we formulate our longer term strategy for this area.

With your own initial success with Foursquare, if you could change anything about the platform from an advertiser/partner standpoint, what would it be?  How about as an individual user?

As an individual user, I enjoy using several location-based services. While I personally use Foursquare most often, I also really like Facebook Places, Gowalla and MyTown. While I am not a product designer, my general hope for all of these services is for them to develop wonderfully user-friendly apps across all platforms (iPhone, Android and Blackberry) so that they provide a rich experience to a wide variety of users.

On a day-to-day basis, you work with the McDonald’s media relations team and report to the director-external communications and public relations. What is your take on which marketing discipline “owns” social media and the eternal battle between advertising, PR and marketing departments trying to lay claim?

There is a ton of discussion about who “owns” social media. I think that the idea of ownership is an outcome of trying to apply an outdated command and control media structure to new media. At McDonald’s, we have created a very collaborative method of alignment when it comes to social media. The team that manages overall strategy is a small working group that includes the directors of social media, public relations and marketing. We work together to determine top-level strategies and then lead tactical execution of various channels such as Facebook and Twitter. We also charge our agencies to be collaborative in these spaces and look for any and all opportunities to leverage their various creative and storytelling strengths to maximize any opportunities that present themselves.

Prior to McDonald’s, you worked at GolinHarris in Chicago as VP of Social Media. How would you characterize the difference between working with clients on social media strategy vs. working in-house? Has your outlook on the medium changed in any way?

I was heavily involved in the McDonald’s business on the agency side for nearly four years before coming in-house to McDonald’s–which has been a great help in my transition. I was able to develop an understanding of the business and the relationships on both sides, which has allowed me to hit the ground running. Being on the inside, I have gained a new appreciation for the complexity of working for a large organization in an entirely new space.

It was reported by Red Cross that 74% of social media users expect cries for help to be answered within an hour. While forgetting two of my McNuggets is certainly not life or death, how does McDonald’s manage customer complaints and do you have any internal goals/metrics for the elapsed time for customer outreach on Twitter?

Our Twitter team includes four folks from our customer service team that answer hundreds of customer inquiries each month. To help manage customer expectations, we post our “hours of operation” on our Twitter page and if folks tweet to us after hours, we get back to them the next business day. We do not set goals for response time but rather measure efforts in terms of number of customer service inquiries identified and the number of resolutions. We even augment our online response by sending hand-written thank you notes to customers from time to time. It is a high touch method that really brings our dedication to customer service home.

McDonald’s is developing local Twitter handles for city-based promotional activities such as in Cincinnati. How difficult is it to scale for brand consistency, metrics and goals?

Integrated national and local marketing has long been a part of McDonald’s success. We have created a framework to replicate that in social media by developing guidelines for local markets to create geo-specific information and offers and engagement opportunities through Facebook, Twitter and blogger relations. This helps us provide information that is both consistent nationwide and also locally tuned and relevant. It requires a certain amount of work to develop this level of alignment and consistency, but it creates a better experience for customers.

In an interview earlier this year, you said you were tasked with “beef(ing) up outreach to target groups” such as mommy bloggers. What sort of outreach has been done to these target audiences, and how do you measure the success of such a moving target?

We work with influencers at all levels. Earlier this year, we had a three phase partnership with the Blogher network that included a visit to our headquarters by 12 top bloggers, a widget to drive donations for Ronald McDonald House Charities and then a fun presence at the Blogher annual conference where we had an exclusive premier of our new Oatmeal that won’t be widely available until January. For such efforts we use a combination of quantitative and qualitative metrics. Think of it as a minds and hearts approach. We of course want to reach as wide an audience as possible, but it is also extremely important that we are changing perceptions by sharing information about our menu balance such as our commitment to kids’ nutrition, our 32 menu combos that are under 600 calories, and more. As a brand, there are tons of great stories that we want to share and influencers, such as bloggers, are a great way to do that.

Another example of such efforts is a recent meetup hosted at our test kitchens with a dozen fitness bloggers, our Executive Chef Coudreaut and our staff Registered Dietician Dr. Cindy Goody. Amongst many key sharing moments, the one that stands out for me is the reaction folks have when we talk about the nutritional content of the Egg McMuffin…at less than 300 calories it is a far better choice that a bagel with low-fat cream cheese.

But such efforts are really just the tip of the iceberg. We are constantly monitoring and evaluating conversation opportunities with all types of online influencers to determine the best opportunities to engage.

Back in May, AdAge reported that McDonald’s was building a location-based application or game with Facebook to allow users to check in. In lieu of the Foursquare promotion success, was there any truth to that report or can we have an update?

McDonald’s recently participated in the Facebook Places Deals rollout as a prime sponsor. Our program donated $1 to Ronald McDonald House Charities for any check-in at a McDonald’s.

As for your social media usage it’s obvious you blend the personal and professional with your Twitter and Posterous accounts. We’re curious how much time each week do you spend using social media for personal use vs. professional use?  Can such a distinction be made?

Some folks draw distinct lines between their personal and professional use of social media. I really think it should be the choice of the individual and the organization of how those lines are drawn. Amongst the Twitter team, we really encourage folks to show their own character because it helps infuse a different level of personality to our brand.

For me, I blend professional and personal on my Twitter page because that is who I am. I love my job and want to share my enthusiasm to my peeps. I also like sharing my affinity for craft beer and video games (very excited about Call of Duty Black Ops) because it is who I am, and it just so happens that many other tech pro’s are beer geeks and gamers, so it allows me to professionally connect at a different level.

You obviously work with a social media team and consultants, and meet a lot of people on the road at the multitude of social media conferences. What types of skills, qualities, attributes, etc. do you feel are necessary to be successful in the social media marketing world?

To be successful in social media, you need to be a learning shark: always swimming, always learning. Learning the new tools that are available while also learning how those tools can be applied to your organization. Not all tools are useful to all brands and developing your own good judgment for making those strategic and tactical decisions will really differentiate a true social media business professional from those that just enjoy using the tools. Networking is also very important. Unfortunately, too many focus on personal brand building and increasing their friend/follower counts and lose site of what it means to be a real professional in this space.

Last evening, I was fortunate enough to sit on a panel at the first Tribe Social Forum, an event focused “on the increasing trend of social media usage in our society.” And by “sit on a panel,” I mean, “the Indians made the mistake of giving me a microphone and an audience to test my bad jokes.”

Without getting into too many details of the panel (and food) you can read elsewhere, the entire event was first class. Moderated by VP of PR Bob DiBiasio, it was obvious the team spared no internal resource to show attendees they were prepared and that social media is going to be a growing part of their marketing plans (not just PR) in 2011. I also hope to think the audience got some knowledge out of our panel discussion.

But by far, the highlight of the discussion was the “introduction” by Executive Vice President and General Manager Mark Shapiro, which turned into a a lengthy discussion and subsequent Q&A on all things Indians.

Shapiro, who will be be abdicating his GM throne and into the president’s role at the end of the season, made it very clear he receives and discusses reports on social media sentiment regularly. They are well aware of how they are perceived in the marketplace and the league.

Now, take a moment and imagine how many leaders of large corporations personally read similar reports. It’s not many, especially in organizations that had not really embraced social media until the last six months like the Indians.

He was also sure that it was only a matter of time before the role of president and/or GM in sports will have to include Twitter (much like Mark Cuban) in order to interact with fans and receive feedback. Social media users demand this type of access to the team and players in order to stay involved, otherwise, they don’t want to consume your brand in lean times.

Social media nerddom aside, the beauty of this was obvious: The attendees, while mostly social media-friendly, were not hand-picked. Anyone off the street could have attended this event and asked the GM of a Major League Baseball team a question. He was literally answering attendees’ questions until no one had any left. This is the exact access that Shapiro just claimed fans desire, and they’re already doing it.

While this access may have never occurred during the Indians run of the mid-1990s, Shapiro was also adamant that things like the social forum event (which they expect to do more of in 2011) and the Tribe Social Deck are not going away, but will be a growing part of their strategy moving forward.

The Indians are not a very good baseball team right now. This is not in dispute. The “success” of their social media and other marketing activities is probably negligible considering their attendance is near the bottom of the league for this season.

Additionally, it’ll be very easy to judge them if, during a good run, the social deck and events disappear. But in this market, where a decade of success is desired, but unlikely, the Indians have identified that social media is a good way to be proactive with their key audiences and increase their inbound marketing efforts, especially in a year that was going to be a disaster anyway.

While “it could have been worse” is not a battle cry, the deck and events are part of long-term marketing strategy and down a road many, many other professional sports teams are going to embrace to compete for entertainment dollars.

Full disclosure: Dear FCC and Google paid link gods, while the event was $50 to attend, I was not required to pay as I was on the panel. I did, however, eat a lot of the buffalo chicken macaroni and cheese and a sundae as big as my head. This had no influence on my blog post, however, it did influence my blood pressure, raising it a few notches.

Confused? So was I. At first.

While the speculation about today’s press conference at Twitter headquarters focused on analytics or a business subscription model, we got something we didn’t realize we needed: a new interface that looks a lot like it was tailored for the iPad.

Gone from prominence when you login is your background. But in its stead Twitter users will have two panes/columns, one of which is the traditional firehose feed. The second, more prominent right-hand side is filled with lots o’stuff. This is the land of trending topic information, user information and more depending on what you’ve clicked on, including tweets, lists, hashtags and embedded media.

And by embedded media do I mean like the photos, video, etc that desktop apps Tweetdeck and Hootsuite already provide users?

Why yes.  Yes I do.

To do this, Twitter secured partnerships with the top media destinations of its users (Dailybooth, DeviantArt, Etsy, Flickr, Justin.TV, Kickstarter, Kiva, Photozou, Plixi, Twitgoo, TwitPic, Twitvid, USTREAM, Vimeo, Yfrog, and YouTube) to view embedded media within the Twitter.com.

The good news is, Twitter was kind enough to give us a video to preview everything:

The goal, obviously, is to keep users on Twitter.com, as opposed to using the desktop apps we know and love. While the features are supposed to be viewed as a more user-friendly experience, it’s an obvious ploy to keep user on the site making it more advertiser-friendly. Imagine Google and Facebook trying to monetize ads when power users never interacted with Google.com or Facebook.com. It would have been a massive failure.

Of course, the wild card in all of this is: Will Twitter.com be able to handle this rush of users on the site and not produce recurring nightmares of the fail whale?

At any rate, the new Twitter will roll out gradually worldwide starting at 7 p.m. PDT. For more information, visit the New Twitter home page.

Some other places to read about the changes:

At Twitter, a Web Site Is Revamped and Simplified (New York Times)

Twitter.com Gets a Revamp To Look Like a Twitter App (Gizmodo)

Twitter Bringing Photos and Videos to the Stream (Mashable)

I hope this keeps us all occupied until Google Me is unveiled “sometime this fall.”

Photo courtesy of Mashable.com.