The momentum, was too strong. Real-time search — and Google’s (Google) inability to beatTwitter at it — became a huge trend in 2009. Everyone wanted a piece of it, and Twitter had the goods. When you want to find out what’s happening right now, this very minute, Twitter’s search trumped Google, and Google had no choice but to react. Luckily for Twitter, the reaction came right on time. Both Bing (Bing) and Google signed a deal with Twitter to incorporate real-time results from Twitter into web searches, just as Twitter’s flat traffic figures became impossible to hide. The effect of this deal is still unknown, but when Google sends you traffic, you can bet it’s going to be noticeable.

Twitter’s future is still uncertain. We still don’t know the overall business plan beyond a few hints at at least some current revenue, and we still don’t know if the service’s huge popularity boom in 2009 was just a passing fad. One thing is certain, though: The Google deal was the adrenaline injection Twitter needed. If Twitter is really destined to become the world’s new SMS, 2010 is the time to do it, and we’re happy to be along for the ride.

The API (Application Programming Interface) has been an essential component for creating applications that hook into or utilize web apps such as Twitter and Facebook.  With it, developers have been able to create some amazing mashups and tools.   Some of the most helpful and oft-used applications on the web wouldn’t be possible without APIs.

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1. Google Maps

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Google Maps is one of the hottest APIs on the web.  The ProgrammableWeb API Directory tracks over 1800 mashups for Google Maps, which is more than three and a half times as many as the next most popular API. Google Maps perhaps did more to popularize the concept of web application mashups in the middle part of this decade than any other API.

1. Google’s Official Documentation for the Maps API is probably the best place to start. The site offers a developer’s guide, code samples and demos, case studies, and even a sandbox where you can test stuff out while you learn.

2. Earlier this year, Google abandoned its official Google Maps API blog in favor of a new Google Geo Developers Blog. The new blog encompasses all of Google’s mapping APIs, including both Maps and their Earth program. The blog is filled with useful posts about using the API, frequent news updates about changes and developments with the API itself, and links to creative uses by other developers.

3. The Official Google Maps API Group is probably the first place you should check out if you need help with your Maps-based project. The extremely active group hosts hundreds of thousands of discussions and is frequented by both seasoned and rookie developers, as well as Google Maps API core contributors. It is often the first place that upcoming API changes are made, so if your project hinges on the Google Maps API, then you should definitely keep an eye on the official group.

4. Mapki is an unofficial Google Maps API wiki at which Maps developers come together to discuss and document the API. The site has a huge list of developer’s tools and tutorials, as well as code snippets and FAQs.

5. Mike Williams’ Google Maps API Tutorial is an excellent and up-to-date overview of the API. It’s a great getting started point for anyone trying to get into mashup development with Google Maps or integrating maps into an existing project.

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2. Facebook / Facebook Connect

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Over a million developers have created over 350,000 active applications on the Facebook Platform and Facebook Connect has been adopted by more than 15,000 web sites, according to official stats. That easily makes Facebook’s platform and Connect API among the hottest development platforms on the web today.

1. The Facebook Developers site is one of the most complete and well-made and maintained developer sites on the web. It has a great getting started guide, as well as super active forums, an official blog for developers, and more.

2. If you’re developing anything for the Facebook Platform, then Facebook Developer Tools page is a must-bookmark resource. The tools, including test consoles for the API and FBML, as well as a playground environment for Facebook Connect, are super helpful for anyone working with the app platform or Facebook’s other developer APIs. They also recently released the Facebook Connect Wizard that makes integrating Facebook Connect with your site a snap.

3. Facebook’s Wiki offers a plethora of useful information for developers from guidelines to how-to guides to code examples and more. The site hosts over a thousand articles ensuring that if you need to do it with Facebook’s APIs, there’s a good bet you’ll find the information you need to know to learn how to do it somewhere in the wiki.

4. Though it hasn’t been updated in just over a year, the unofficial Facebook Developer online magazine is still an amazing resource for Facebook developers. It has an incredible archive of useful articles, tutorials, guides, and case studies that are still available for viewing.

5. It may just be a clever marketing tactic to get people to sign up for its hosting services, but Joyent’s popular Facebook Applications Developer Program, which offers free hosting for app developers for one year, is nonetheless a great resource. Especially for developers just getting into Facebook, Joyent’s program offers a no-risk way to test the waters.

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3. Twitter

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Anyone who reads this blog is well-aware of just how fast Twitter is growing. According to Compete, Twitter has grown over 650% this year, and it’s popular with developers too; Twitter application directory oneforty tracks over 1,800 Twitter-based or connected tools and applications.

1. The place to start, of course, is the Official API Wiki, which Twitter has packed with documentation, guides, tutorials, known issues, and FAQs for dealing with the Twitter API and OAuth.

2. Being Twitter, the Twitter API team naturally also has a Twitter account (@twitterapi). The account is updated by 5 core API developers at Twitter with news about the Twitter API and offers support to developers using it to build applications.

3. Twitter also has a blog, on which the company posts updates about their developer tools, as well as links to content that is helpful for developers, and spotlights of exceptional API uses. Also be sure to keep an eye on the service’s status blog to keep track of downtime issues and scheduled maintenance.

4. The Twitter Development Talk group/mailing list, which is hosted by Google Groups, is one of the best places to go to for help when you’re stuck with a Twitter API development problem. The site has had over 20,000 messages posted to it and is frequented by the API team. Twitter also operates a group for API announcements, which is a must-follow for developers craving the latest Twitter API news.

5. A search for Twitter on GitHub will return a ton of useful resources for developers, including over 13,000 code snippets and over 1,300 repositories, including many of the most popular Twitter libraries and wrappers. You can also find some of the open source technologies that actually power Twitter on GitHub.

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4. Flickr

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Flickr just recently passed 4 billion photos, so it’s no wonder that developers are excited to use it. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of mashups that rely on the Flickr API to add a little bit of visual appeal.

1. code.flickr is the home of Flickr’s official developer blog, and their official forum community. There are thousands of discussions in the Flickr API pool, as well as developers sharing screen shots of their creations, and the site also hosts the official SVN and Trac pages for the Flickr API, as well.

2. Yahoo!’s impressive Developer Network hosts a helpful Flickr section with a basic overview of the API, and links to the API key application form and information about rate limits and commercial usage. However, if you want meatier documentation, you’ll need to check out Flickr’s Official Flickr API documentation page, which offers a ton of information about using the API and links to third-party API kits for languages including ActionScript, Java, .NET, Objective-C, PHP, Python, and Ruby, among others.

3. If you’re still stumped, a good place to turn for an answer would be the YWS-Flickr Group on Yahoo! Groups. The active discussion list has over 3,000 Flickr developers that regularly share tips and tricks and help each other out.

4. The Ultimate Guide to Decoding the Flickr API is a very impressive tutorial from Nettuts+. Though just a single tutorial, it is a very good overview that is definitely a good place to start for developers interested in utilizing the Flickr API.

5. GitHub has a collection of over 200 Flickr code repositories including libraries and other helpful tools for developers. Ruby, JavaScript, Python, and PHP are the most popular languages among Flickr developers on the code sharing site.

A study conducted by Harvard Business Review reveals that most Twitter users don’t actually use the service much, or even at all.  In fact, 10% of active users are responsible for over 90% of all Tweets.

According to the research, conducted on a random sample of about 300,000 Twitter (Twitter) users in May 2009, 25% of Twitter users don’t tweet at all, while 50% of users tweet less than once every 74 hours.  Active users, on the other hand, tweet a lot, which makes Twitter a lot more like Wikipedia (Wikipedia) than an average social network (see graph below, courtesy of HBR).

Although this may sound strange at first, Twitter really is more like Wikipedia than, say, Facebook (Facebook). Twitter is not so much about connecting with your friends, it’s about broadcasting information.  Although it doesn’t necessarily take much creativity to create a tweet, only the most creative users actually persist in tweeting every day over a longer time period.

However, Twitter is also similar to a instant messaging tool, which should have a very different curve, with a larger proportion of users contributing to the number of overall tweets. It seems that Twitter’s micropublishing component is winning over its chatting component.

The Harvard Business Review study reveals another interesting tidbit: men seem to follow men more than women on Twitter. There are more women than men on twitter – approximately 55% of all users are female – but an average man will follow a man in 65% of all cases, while a woman will follow a man in 56% of cases. It’s hard to pull any meaningful conclusions from this anomaly, except one: Twitter is different than other social networks. But you already knew that.

Facebook recently passed 350 million users worldwide, but the lingering question about the social network (and social media in general) is if it’s making any money. According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, the answer seems to be that at the least, revenue, if not profits, at social networking sites is starting to take off.

Using data from NYPPEX, the WSJ reports that Facebook’s estimated to generate $710 million in revenue next year. That would represent more than a 40 percent improvement from this year, where the social network is rumored to be bringing in about $500 million in revenue.

Elsewhere, NYPPEX estimates that LinkedIn will generate more than $200 million in revenue in 2010. The firm also says that four years from now, Facebook could be doing $1.9 billion sales, LinkedIn could be at better than $300 million and Twitter could be at $283 million (how exactly, they’re not sure either).

Of course, all of that is based on the social networking sites mentioned continuing to grow strongly both in terms of users and sales. That’s been anything but a given in the short history of social media, where we’ve seen sites rise and fall quickly. Nonetheless, the report does seem to support other research that indicates money is flowing into social media marketing at an increasing rate.

One of the best (and worst) features on Twitter is the hashtag.  It allows you to find interesting topics, intellectual tweeters and real-time information. It also subjects you to multiple spammings everyday (#RIPKanye anyone?). And with the recent (okay, a couple months ago) integration of the search tool on your Twitter homepage, hashtags are easier to use than ever.

So in order to dig through the clutter and get to the worthwhile tweets, I have compiled a list of 20 hashtags you change-makers will be sure to enjoy. Follow ‘em, use ‘em, search and share ‘em.

#SocEnt: The ultimate tag for social entrepreneurship. Original founder unknown.

#SocEntChat: A Twitter conversation presented by Tom Dawkins (@AshokaTweets) and Nathaniel Whittemore (@SocialEntrprnr) that takes place on the first Wednesday of each month (also supported by me, @writerpollock).

#Nonprofit: Can’t get any more self explanatory than this! Use this tag to show those NGO good works.

#4Change: A Twitter chat and hashtag, #4Change profiles online technology, like social media, used for good.

#NPTech: Use this tag to promote and follow nonprofit technology.

#CharityTuesday: Spread the good word every Tuesday with this Twitter tag.

#MiFiMon: A Twitter chat that focuses on microfinance.

#v4change: Video for Change, simple as that.

#m4change: Just as video can be an important part to spreading awareness of a cause, so can mobile technology. This tag stands for Mobile for Change and is complemented by social entrepreneurs like The Extraordinaries.

#CSR: Use this tag for corporate social responsibility tweets.

#Environment: Use this tag for eco-friendly tweets, along with #green and #sustainable.

#Solar: Clean alternative energy! Also, use #wind, #EV (electric vehicle) and #energy, when applicable.

#SocialGood: Created by Mashable and the Summer of Social Good, this tag works for any socially conscious tweets.

#Microfinance: Like #MiFiMon, but this isn’t a chat, so use it on a daily basis.

#Philanthropy: Want to find out, or spread awareness of, someone who’s doing good? #Philanthropy it is.

#Charity: Similar to philanthropy, but charity focuses more on organizational work.

#Fundraising: Need ideas and help growing donors and funding? Check out this hashtag (and this story on using Twitter to raise funds).

#Poverty: Use this tag to call awareness to, and monitor, stories of those in need.

#ClimateChange: Concerned over the upcoming United Nations climate meeting in Copenhagen? Show your support for climate action by using and following this tag (#GlobalWarming works too).

#Health: Into helping medicinal causes? Make sure to put the #health tag on your list.

Last week launched the social revolution for search. Microsoft’s Bing fired the first shot by announcing search deals with Twitter and Facebook and, at the Web 2.0 Summit, launching its Twitter integration. Google fired back almost immediately though, completing its own deal with Twitter and, perhaps more importantly, announcing a new feature: Social Search.

Social search, demoed at the Web 2.0 Summit by Google’s VP of Search Marissa Mayer, combines results from your friend’s blogs, Flickr, Twitter, FriendFeed and a wide variety of other social media sites (so long as your friends have connected their social accounts to their Google with Google’s regular search results. The feature will go live this afternoon, and can be found within Google Labs.

The experimental feature, once activated, will display relevant search results from your social circle at the bottom of the search results page. This could be travel photos from your friends, a recent blog post, a set of status updates, or other information Google pulls.

For now, the feature is opt-in, only affects certain searches, and appear at the bottom of the search results page. However, we won’t be surprised if Social Search results start blending into regular search higher up the page. After all, your social circle is often far more relevant than even the top Wikipedia article on a subject. Google seems to betting on it in a big way.

Here’s a demo of social search from Google:

Social media resumes are important for attracting hiring managers directly to you, without you having to submit your resume, blindly, to them.  The problem with submitting your resume online to job postings is that most job postings aren’t even vacant, might not exist, and 80% of jobs offers are received through networking.

With a social media resume, you’re able to paint a completely different portrait of yourself for hiring managers and customize it to reflect your personal brand. With the inclusion of various multimedia elements, sharing options, integrated social networking feeds and the same elements you’d find in a traditional resume, you are better equipped for success.

Social media has allowed us to reverse the recruiting process. Instead of submitting our resume, it becomes a billboard that can be shared, distributed to hiring managers, searched and more. In one sense it showcases your talents and what you’re looking for in a job and in the other, recruiters become attracted to it and will approach you with the opportunities that you desire.

Here is the social media resume process:

1.  Start With A Website

Depending on who you are, how much time you have, how you deal with criticism and your technological competency, you’ll either want to start a website or a blog. With both, there are free and easy to use services out there, as well as services that cost money and require experience.

Options for websites

Free: Bravenet.com is a free solution with many different tools, such as a polling feature and guest book to help you get started. They’ve been around since I started building web pages in middle school.

Paid: I recommend you use Bluehost or Godaddy to host and build your website. You can also use Microsoft Expression Web (), which is an easy to use website building software program, much like using Microsoft Word to build your website.

Options for blogs

Free: I recommend Wordpress.com or Google Blogger. Both are easy to use and don’t require much web knowledge. I would touch up your skills in HMTL before even getting involved with a blog. There are various sites such as W3 Schools that can serve as tutorials for you.

Paid: I recommend loading Wordpress.org into Bluehost. I just went through this process and Godaddy can’t comply, but Bluehost is easy to work with and understands how to install Wordpress () blogs onto their hosts. Another option is using Typepad.com, which costs money and is great for the beginner blogger.

2.  Your URL is Key

Depending on your strategy, your URL is going to be extremely important. Of course I would recommend that you purchase your domain name, yourname.com. If that isn’t available, try for yournameRESUME.com or the .net or .org equivalents, in that order.

The objective of the URL is to have something you can freely promote and that people can remember.

- Use the URL on your paper resume.
- Use the URL on all of your social networks.
- Use the URL on your business cards and any other marketing materials.

You can get free domain names when you sign up for Bluehost, Godaddy and others. They typically come in a package with the hosting space.

3.  Decide on Format and Design

Depending on what job you’re looking for, you’ll want to change the blog/website format accordingly. I think it makes a lot of sense to take your paper resume and break it apart into its different sections. Once you do this, you can have separate tabs and pages for each, so it’s easy to crawl, navigate and makes a lot of sense to the recruiter.  Depending on how you want to brand yourself, you’ll want to design your blog accordingly. Using a color wheel to choose colors that match is very important, especially if you aren’t a graphic designer or artist. Remember to use a consistent font, headings and colors, while keeping your frame/format intact.

4.  Enhance Your Resume with Multimedia

Traditional resumes can’t include multimedia because they are on paper. Multimedia makes your website/blog much more interesting and interactive. It allows you to emotionally connect with recruiters and all other observers. It also puts a resume to a face and is another great method for people to consume your content. We’ve discussed video resumes before on Mashable, but you do have other options.

As WebWorkerDaily explains, you can enhance your multimedia resume in the following ways:

- A video or MP3 of you answering basic interview questions.
- Video of a talk or seminar you recently conducted.
- Photos of you meeting industry celebrities or business people.
- Audio testimonials from previous clients and coworkers.
- A podcast you’ve started.

Out of everything, I think a basic introduction to the brand called you is the most valuable for the observer. I would give a thirty second pitch for why someone should hire you. Depending on the company you’re targeting, you’ll want to dress formally or informally. Don’t act like you’re reading from a card and try to have a natural sounding voice. You can upload your video or audio to sharing sites, such as Vimeo or YouTube and then embed them on your website or blog. This typically works the best because then the video can have movement, going from one hiring manager to the next.

5.  Integrate Your Social Network Platforms

Before you think of even linking to any of your social networks in your webpage or blog, please consider how the profiles would appear to recruiters. For instance, if you want to highlight your Facebook profile, ensure that it doesn’t have profanity or explicit pictures on it first. You should review your wall postings, picture, profile information and more to see if it would be appropriate for hiring managers.

If your Facebook profile passes your examination, then feel free to build a profile badge that you can embed on your website.

Other social networks you may want to crosslink with:

LinkedInYour professional profile on this social network is extremely important because it takes into account everything a recruiter would desire from an applicant: cover letter, references list and resume. You can use a LinkedIn badge on your website or blog as well.

Twitter: Your Twitter stream can be a huge asset to you on your social media resume because it’s easy to update and recruiters can get a better feeling about who you are from reading it. There are Twitter badges you can include on your site as well.

YouTube: Storing your videos on YouTube makes a lot of sense because it’s easy to embed on your site, organize your videos into playlists and you can even have your own YouTube channel widget.

This is important if you want potential clients and employers to get a feel of what your personality and work ethic is like. The most important thing is to use social networks that people are most familiar with, such as the ones above and to keep them all fresh and updated. They HAVE TO best represent your personal brand to be included on your social media resume.

To read the other 5 ways to build your social media resume, read on Mashable

You NEED a Social Strategy! Even a basic one!

Your top recruits are already using sites like LinkedIn, FaceBook, and Twitter.
They’re out there looking for you!

What are they finding?

We are here!
We are a great company to work for!
Come, see for yourself!

or

We don’t get it!”
We don’t care!”

Even if you have a company presence on LinkedIn, Twitter, or FaceBook, Do you know what it says? Or who wrote it?

Social Media Recruiting is “Social”. (That’s the hardest part to understand)
It’s not about writing the bigger check than you competitors.
And, it’s not JUST about how many hires you generate.   It’s about getting your message out and engaging your Top Recruits, on their terms, on the sites they use, how they want it, when they want it.

It’s not about writing a check to the site with the best ads on the SuperBowl!  Or most aggressive sales people.

What good does it really do if you have a $20,000 “Branding Presence” on a national job board, when you know your Top Recruits never visited those sites?

What’s you message on FaceBook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, where your Top Recruits are?  Do you even know?

If you don’t have a social strategy, don’t be surprised when it gets harder and harder to attract and retain to top candidates.

At the moment, social media sites may not be the primary driver of candidates applying for jobs, but they can definitely make the difference during the “Why Work With Us” phase of recruiting.

Social media sites like LinkedIn and FaceBook are quickly becoming the go-to portals for all kinds of information, including company information, product research, consumer reviews, etc. LinkedIn now even embeds company information from BusinessWeek and CNBC into company profiles.

A poorly planned, duct-tape social media recruiting campaign might have worked in the past, but the competition is quickly starting to heat up. Top employers like Starbucks, Addidas, Ernst & Young, and McGladrey are all using social media in their recruitment marketing.

If you know your Top Hires are individuals that know your company, products, clients and markets, and even your existing employees, don’t you think these are the candidates you should be spending the most resources on?

This is what Social Media Recruiting is all about.   If you engage and help educate your Top Recruits, you stand a better chance at getting their attention.  You can do this with social media… or you can just say “We don’t care!”

Unfortunately you aren’t going to get a phone call from some FaceBook sales rep, who for $25,000, will wave his wand and make the problem go away.

You need to know what to do. Where to start! What sites should we be on? And what are the best practices that others have implemented.

This is where having the help of an experienced and knowledgeable consultant can help you get the ball rolling.
• Someone who has 10+ years in the Internet Recruiting Industry, so they know the ropes.
• Someone who knows LinkedIn, FaceBook, and Twitter, and has a proven track record.
• Someone who knows technical web design and how to integrate job postings into multiple websites.
• Someone who know how to build, implement and maintain a social media marketing strategy.
• Someone who knows how Social Media and Search Engine Optimization can be used to build a social recruiting brand.

I highly recommend starting with a 3-6 month pilot project. It’s easier to digest, you and your recruiting team get to learn the sites, and your recruiting message is clear. From the pilot project, you can then decide which social campaigns make the most sense to you and your recruiting team.