Without a doubt, 2009 has been the year of Twitter. More than billion keystrokes from mainstream media have breathlessly chronicled the 40-person company’s rise to the heights of pop culture. If you’re in media, consume news or surf the Web, think of the last day in which you didn’t hear the word. See what I mean. All the chatter can be easily summarized.

Five simple things to keep in mind if you’re using Twitter or just jumping on the Twitter craze:

1. Listen
2. Share
3. Reply
4. DM
5. Enjoy

With Twit-SPAM and self-proclaimed “social media experts” swarming Twitter to hawk “secrets” and products that promise you thousands of followers, rest assured this tool still comes down to basics on a very human level and communication. People still like knowning that a real person is on the other side — and hears them. If you’re able to hear thousands — or even millions of followers — and make them feel engaged, well, you’re not really human. You’re a bot.

NASCAR has them in the drivers’ cockpits. MLB has them dug into the ground in front of home plate. The NFL has had them in players’ helmets.

In sport, cameras give us a view we’d otherwise never see (unless on the field of play or going 200+ mph in the race car).

Here’s where the next camera advancement needs to happen: In the head tubes of professional cyclists’ race bikes. Not the superstars, mind you. They would likely rail at any aerodynamic effects. During a bunch sprint, riders are going over 40 mph within centimeters of each other, not just inches. Flying elbows, crossed wheels and crashes at this speed while riders are protected only by a helmet, half gloves and lycra makes for spectacular viewing. 

Why not give fans worldwide (especially in Europe) a close-up incredible view that would bring a whole new dimension to the sport and how it is covered and televised? I would allow such a move in a heartbeat if running the UCI. Now is a good time (with Lance Armstrong back racing) to re-ignite passions and recruit new fans.  Mini cameras embedded in the head tubes of a few bikes in the peloton would give new meaning to performance enhancement.

Bike races are performance as much as they are sport. Let’s enhance them any way we can without betraying athletic accomplishment.

Cinco de Mayo used to be dream date for Tequila makers, Mexican beers breweries and margarita mix devisers.

Not this year.

The unfortunate hype around “H1N1″ aka Swine Flu and our friends in Mexico has cast a cloud over Cinco de Mayo. For places like San Diego (just 30 miles north of the border), today’s a barometer to measure if Americans have figured out that erring on the side of caution is, well, erring on the side of caution. In an age where communication is faster and more accessible than ever before, human emotions can still trump the facts. A barrage of images of people wearing masks conjured up memories of SARS, plain and simple.

This is not to downplay that people have gotten sick, and some have died.

But I know what public health hysteria looks like up close.

I stood in Hong Kong’s Kowloon District at the height of the SARS outbreak in 2003. During a 4-day business trip to the mammoth Huawei outside Shenzhen, China, and Beijing (before the SARS penetration was fully disclosed there), people took precautions as best they could.

Hysteria looks like every single man, woman and child both indoors and out wearing a blue mask: Police. Street road construction crews. Flight attendants. Pilots. Hotel workers. Toll booth collectors. All of them.

I remember coming back to San Diego and feeling a little rundown. I had a pesky cough. I was congested.

I stayed out of the office for 2 weeks and telecommuted to my start-up. I slept on the sofa away from my wife just to be safe. I, as the TSA signs instruct today, covered my cough.

Fear is a terrible thing.

Facts are what we need more than ever.

Not opinion. Not hype. Not hope.

Facts.

Hop around on the Web (especially Twitter) and you’ll see a common design trend: Cropped head shots–cropped for bios, avatars, for a lot.

If eyes are the window into the soul, a photo of a cropped human face is the window into Web 2.0 personal, digital branding.

Consider:

There’s the famous top half of a head (Seth Godin, master of blogging and ideas that spread). There are lots of single eyes (Ev, co-founder of Twitter, comes instantly to mind). And there are pairs of eyes (too numerous to count).

Pretty nifty and memorable, but cutting-edge original?

At first glance, it sure feels that way.  If you weren’t around during WW II or the Korean War (I wasn’t either)–or are not a student of graffito and street art (I’m not)–you’d think, hey, the cropping-avatar-biography-image-thing is clever and cool.

Yes, it is.

But it’s already been done. 

“Kilroy” is a bona-fide original. He made his doodling debut in the 1940s. The phrase “Kilroy was here” accompanied a line drawing of Kilroy, two eyes, two hands and a nose peering over a make-believe wall. The image was the U.S. soldiers’ way of marking turf in Europe and other tours of duty. 

Digital cameras? No way. Not then. Hand-drawn. An idea that could onlly spread as fast as G.I.’s could draw and write.

Today, thanks to social media, the “Kilroy” style may be one of the most viral design elements out there, a visual idea worth spreading. Kilroy is the foundation for a popular way to brand your face (and yourself) on Twitter, your blog or Facebook.

Nearly seven decades after he debuted, Kilroy remains here among us, but his name has been changed to Personal Digital Branding.

Living in Southern California, the word “killer” is part of surfing lingo. Something “killer” is considered really good and harmless. It works, as in “that pair of Oakley Radars is killer, dude!”

But when a brand assumes a different type of killer association, reputation damage is quick, the need for proactive PR immediate.

The phrase “Craigslist Killer” has entered our lexicon. News headline writers love alliteration and brevity to frame a story. The hook becomes the news industry’s very own brand signal for an ongoing saga. It’s a marketing cue or tagline for readers and viewers to follow since ad rates are set by number of subscribers or viewers. Sensationalism sells.

Killer tags are usually tied to a personality trait or calling card of the accused.

Remember the “Preppy Murder” case?

Or the Zodiac Killer? Son of Sam? John Wayne Gacy, the “Killer Clown”? Nortorious cases, all, forever cataloged in simple, easy-to-remember code.

Unfortunately for Craiglist, the alleged crimes of a Boston University medical student are linked with how victims were reportedly selected: through online advertisements they had posted offering services.

Craigslist has hired a PR agency to help “manage” the onslaught of media attention. Spin as the PR pros may, they’ll never alter the storyline, plot, and likely the ending.

It’s not hard to see that printed news will go the way of dinosaurs, typewriters and 8-Track Tapes. Much has been written about the demise of newspapers. Much more will be debated as daily “print” journalism craters and moves to electronic only. Disastrous quarterly earnings of publicly held newspaper companies not only reflect the downturn in advertising, they illustrate how quickly the industry’s distribution model is becoming obsolete.

Is it sad? I suppose if you work for a newspaper, or don’t own a P.C. or mobile device.

Should print newspapers be saved? Not in a free-market economy.

Will we be worse off without printed news? I doubt it.

There is more news and commentary now than ever before. More avenues for whistle blowers to blow whistles. More blogs to provide micro-local reportage and shine lights.

Yes, original reporting is primarily a domain of professional journalists, but raw feeds and tweets are getting noticed. Will the quality of these rise to the level of pro journalism? Only at well-run operations that earn customers’ subscription fees and deliver full context, not just breaking missives, complete with typos and grammar errors. That’s the price of progress when everyone can have their own broadcast channel on the Web.

How have we gotten here? Look at what you’re holding in your hand, or typing on atop your desk or lap.

Today, with the exception of Sunday morning, I carry a “newspaper” in my pocket. It’s my iPhone. Inside it is nearly everything that has come to replace or enhance what I used to glean from daily newspapers. Instantly. Not just in 24-hour intervals.

• nytimes.com (replaces The San Diego Union-Tribune)
• usatoday.com (ditto)
• voiceofsandiego.org (ditto)
• weatherchannel.com (replaces Weather page)
• Yahoo! Stocks (replaces Financial page)
• espn.com (replaces the Sports page)
• mlb.com (ditto)
• padres.com (replaces the Padres beat writer)
• yelp.com (replaces the restaurant reviews)
• craigslist.com and ebay.com (replace the classified ads)
• cyclingnews.com (gives me what newspapers only did around Tour de France time)
• velonews.com (ditto)
• techcrunch.com (replaces Business section)
• businessweek.com (ditto)
• time.com, newsweek.com, cnn.com (supplants National news section)
• youtube.com (local T.V. posts supplant Local news section)
• rottentomatoes.com (replaces Movie reviews)
• i.TV (replaces Television listings)
• twitter.com (replaces a bit of everything, including Crime Blotter and public school news)
• comments on any Web content (replaces Letters to the Editor)

I don’t do crosswords. And I gave up on food coupons long ago. I subscribe to more than a dozen printed magazine because they can provide context, originality and typically higher quality writing. Magazines will be the next to suffer in the digital revolution, despite their format, frequency and ability to entertain loyalists. It’s inevitable.

How did this all happen?

The question is really the reverse: how could it not?

April 15 is dreaded in America.

Even though we have taxes withheld from our paychecks year-round, the symbolic midnight tax deadline to “pay” Uncle Sam causes melancholy, dejection and resignation.

But there is a flip side.

Consider: Those expecting tax refunds file early — long before the grousing starts. April 15 means little them (unless they’ve yet to get their refund check or direct deposit).

Plus this: taxes actually do something. 

What if taxes were marketed? What if they were positioned just like a product, complete with features and benefits — or an emotional tie that tugged at the heart?

If you saw in a positive, compelling way that your tax dollars kept crime down and made kids smarter, would you feel better about paying them?

If you met seniors who received prescriptions and quality health care, or watched up-close as less fortunate toddlers went to Head Start, would you still loathe taxes?  

The news media are quick to cover protesters and entertaining visuals at “tea parties” and other large group events. These are designed to draw attention, and much less else.

Yet, on tax day, do reporters ever interview the widowed octogenarian who lives on a fixed income and needs a little help? Do we stop for a moment and realize that the armed forces deployed around the world and at home are supported by tax dollars, and not private donations or corporate America? Are the TSA screenings at airports that bad? No one’s seen a calamity since 9/11/2001. I hate removing my shoes, belt and laptop from briefcase as much as anyone. But hey, it’s working. Hard to slam success. 

I just wonder if marketing could help taxes. Really. If just one year, a full campaign — complete with user-generated content, i.e. Social Meida — could soften the edges just a bit.

Jamba Juice started out as a very happening place. Bright colors and blended smoothies with great sounding names and vitamins or energy mixes work well in California. Especially near gyms. 

Over time, though, the thrill can wear off. So Jamba was forced to introduce oatmeal. They’ve also got pretzels.

But what caught my eye (and heart) today during an infrequent visit to Jamba Juice was a poster. It’s part of a cause marketing campaign where Jamba Juice will donate 20% of each transaction that accompanied by a coupon from the local high school to benefit, you guessed it, the local high school.

In a big state where a budget shortfall has inviserated the ranks of new teaching talent, it’s nice to see the private sector step up — even if it can never fully plug the hole left by the loss of billions of tax dollars.

Do you have a cause that your brand or company supports? Everyone expects brands to promote themselves.

But sometimes it’s far more powerful (and memorable) when brands promote someone or something that is bigger than themselves.

Public education is a nice place to start.

So much has been written about Twitter, it’s a bit silly. Here’s a small private company with annual revenue surely south of $100 million, and headcount well below 100.

Many companies meet these criteria. Many companies are barely known.

Twitter is not one of those. It fits a perfect profile. It’s about talking, sharing and spreading ideas. The mainstream media has picked up the trail with gusto. Professionals athletes are tweeting. Members of Congress. Actors. Comedians. And, yes, regular folks like us.

The attraction? Easy: free and instant gratification.

The human mind responds to responses, right? We love when people listen to us. And sometimes we even listen to them. Twitter is wanting to be heard as much as it is hearing others.

Can you speak? Then you can Tweet. It’s only natural. 

Consider: Texting in many ways has replaced cellphone calls, which were pretty much displaced by email, which killed the memo and letter-writing. The one constant in each of these changes is speed. Give it to me now, please.  

Twitter is fast and chaotic, yet can be gratifying at times. It’s addictive, yet can disappoint. It doesn’t work well for linear, process-driven minds. It’s self-regulated. It’s hardly perfect. Plus it’s got a wimpy (but memorable) name.

And it keeps growing — even when bashed, trashed and multilated by those who decry its self-absorption and brevity. Only 140 characters? For lightweights!

Twitter works because of the people who use it. Twitter is not so much a tool but connective tissue of a few million minds. The tool is a turbo-charged way to talk to more people faster. Or watch them with fascination.

Who hasn’t strained to overhear a conversation while in line for coffee? Who hasn’t gossiped at least once? Who hasn’t struck up a discussion with a stranger?

When WordPress decides to create a new Twitter widget, or Facebook adopts a Twitter-esque update tool, you know something’s happening. 

Does Twitter need more PR?

Hardly. At least not today.

What will be most interesting is when Twitter begins “charging” for its service. As with Facebook, any changes the Twitter community doesn’t want will be met with vitriol. Guaranteed.

The bigger questions of whether Twitter works for brands, is the new marketing or will replace “traditional” forms of advertising has yet to be fully seen.

Even in an instant gratification world.