News report from SouthBySouthWest (#SXSW) going on now in Austin TX.

The conference is a must for those at the forefront of social media technology. It’s the show where Twitter really took off.  Follow the action by searching on SXSW.

But be careful, there are some crazy people out there.

Have you seen people obsessed with texting and tweeting where they shouldn’t?

Share your story in the comments below.

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We’ know that Twitter added location geo tagging to the Twitter API a few months back and has been turning on map buttons for some web based viewers.

With all the tweets coming from Gowalla, Foursquare, Yelp and more, there is a lot of data available. This is one report of what we expect to see a lot more of this year:

The New York Times Reports  Foursquare Introduces New Tools for Businesses

Tristan Walker, director of business development at Foursquare, said that the latest features were intended to help local merchants run their stores by giving them more information about their customers.

“We’re trying to give businesses more retention with current customers and the ability to add new customers with specials,” said Mr. Walker.

Foursquare is a service that allows users to share their location with a group of friends from “checking in” to a restaurant, business or other venue when they arrive. The company encourages the businesses to recognize Foursquare users in some fashion, such as a bar awarding free drinks to their most frequent customers.

With the new tool, businesses will be able to see a range of real-time data about Foursquare usage, including who has “checked in” to the place via Foursquare, when they arrived, the male-to-female customer ratio and which times of day are more active for certain customers. Business owners will also be able to offer instant promotions to try to engage new customers and keep current ones.

“If a restaurant can see one of its loyal customers has dropped off the map and is no longer checking in, the owner could offer them incentives to come back,” said Mr. Walker.

There will also be a Staff page available to each business that will allow employees to interact directly with customers using social networks.

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Tonight on the Profitable Social Media show we address how geotags on Twitter, GPS in your phone, and a myriad of software apps coming out this year will revolutionize the way local businesses interact with customers.

@24k will be our special guest. You may recognize Chris as a past guest. He’s been very active in the Las Vegas scene and one of the most connected people here.

We’ll be talking about many of the ways that marketing is changing through local access and

location aware apps.

Other guest will be stopping by to share their views on video sharing for small business, and local community networks.

Have You Been Getting Local?

Share your best tips, success stories, and plans for adding location aware or localized marketing to your business. Comments and questions below will be reviewed and addressed  during tonight’s show.

Listen to the show here

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Join Coach Deb (@CoachDeb) TONIGHT as she is the guest on David Cooper’s (@askdavidcooper) Internet TV show from the Hopes, Goals & Dreams Studio in Nashville, Tennessee.

7:58 pm CST
8:58 pm EST

Here’s a quick video with Coach Deb & David Cooper in the studio talking about tonight’s LIVE Broadcast’s Topic: Profit with Social Media!

Spread the word, invite your friends, Retweet this link invitation out, because the normal fee for this Webcast has been waived and it’s now easier than ever to join Coach Deb. There are no reservation signups – just go to the following page & have this link open 10 minutes before the show goes LIVE, and that’s where the Broadcast will stream directly to your computer!

“Click here to watch LIVE WebCast with Coach Deb and David Cooper”

(No registration or sign up needed)

PS: Spread the word! and Profit with Social Media!

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I have a bias. I don’t play multiplayer games, finding other ways to waste my time.

I do one fond memory of Facebook Games.. way back in 2007, one of the first discussions I had with @CoachDeb was due to a vampire bite she sent me. That led to an exchange about such message clogging up the mail system on Facebook (thankfully that long since been fixed) and was a common viewpoint that led to us writing Twitter Revolution a few months later.

I don’t mind that a friend asks me to play a game, and now there are ways to turn off all notices about a game. You do not have to put up with hearing about your friends farm, mafia family or great desire to share virtual food and drink on Facebook

First, join the fans of Not Playing Farmville (optional)

There are no rules for this, no posts on the fan page and you’ll never receive any notice from them.. but a few million of us are there to represent the 320,000,000 non-Farmville-playing Facebook users

Next time you see a notification from Farmville, or any other app, just click on REMOVE and you’ll have the option to BLOCK THE APPLICTION

Since I’ve done this, I have no direct knowledge of Farmville.. just as I want it. The same kind of technique is available for many notifications. If there is something in Facebook that annoys you, there is likely a way to avoid it.

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Twitter grew by 1444% in 2009, but still has a tiny fraction of the population.

There’s a good chance the person you are looking for it online.. you just need a wider search to find them

Try WINK

People Search

Free people search at Wink, the world’s largest people search engine. Find people by name and get their phone number,
address, Websites, photos, work, school, more.

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The Twitter.com API (Application Programming Interface) as allow thousands of applications to interact with Twitter and helped to propel Twitter’s rapid growth.

Now Twitter Support for Open Source will allow programmers even more hooks into Twitter for faster development and new features.

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Here’s a guest post via video from @mpdotcom

A fine example of expanding existing relationships, Travis talks about his blog posts, explains why he thinks HootSuite is a smart move, reviews a book tweeps will love and encourages more interaction.

What to you think of his style?

Did you jump over to his blog and subscribe?

Want to see more like this for cool tweeps?

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The uses for Twitter keep expanding.

I’m now reading a blog about “writing procedures”.. mostly went there because I wondering how you can put SOP in 140 characters.

Several gems, including Go Where Your Users Are:

 @2moroDocs

If users are scanning Twitter regularly or using Facebook, that’s where some of your docs should be. If they’re reading your blogs, think about adding procedures there. You can embed Twitter feeds in multiple places: WordPress sites, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google Wave. Also, in Facebook, people can leave comments for each tweet that becomes a status item in Facebook. Look at the Mashable page for an example.

Remember: social media is a primary mode of communication these days. Start using it, if you’re not already. If nothing else, mentions of detailed docs and links to them can easily be integrated into these locations.

If your users are all at Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and the like much of the time, why not go there? If not, you may find yourself standing at an empty storefront.

What new uses for Twitter and social media have you come up with this week?

Are you going where your audience (customers) are?

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