Ivybean104 is not your average Twitter user. She regularly tweets about her favorite TV shows and what she eats for dinner (chicken casserole if you’re interested). Ivy Bean has been bestowed as the UK’s oldest Twitter user at 104 years old.

Ivy has helped pave the way for Web 2.0 while living at Hillside Manor in Bradford. She first registered on Facebook two years ago and has grown her friends list to 4,800. Her example has led several of her friends to register for “computer-college” to learn the basics.

What’s interesting about the The Daily Telegraph story is that it seems like the Geek Squad helped register Ivy and issued a press release. Why else would Ivy’s first Tweet say, “I’m enjoying Twitter for the first time and having my photo taken” if they weren’t setting her up?

Ivy should be spending her day Tweeting her grandchildren and knitting fail whales, not being used for a photo op with the Geek Squad.

While I praise Ivy for learning how to use new technologies, I condemn the Geek Squad for exploiting Ivy Bean for press.

Today Roger Moore, founder and CEO of the firm, refreshed its analysis of Twitter takeup and usage, explaining that it had seen a boom in user numbers and was signing up some 6.2 million new users per month.

However, not all of these twitterers are contributing to the babble on the Internet, and in fact Moore found that roughly 25 per cent of accounts have no followers and about 40 per cent have never made a single tweet. Four-fifths of the user base have tweeted less than ten times, and just 17 per cent of Twitter users sent a message in the month of December.

Most of the non-tweeters appear to be new users, those who signed up after 2008, and Moore said that they are skewing the results. He explained that early adopters of the service were most likely to use it frequently, and more than made up for those who signed up and then realised that they actually couldn’t be arsed to do anything with it.

Summarising, Moore added, “When you look at new account registrations, no one can deny that Twitter is still growing like a rocketship (that’s good). However, upon closer inspection, the rate of new user signups has dropped meaningfully from its peak and many new users never do anything with their accounts (that’s bad). Furthermore, the percentage of accounts sending out tweets has steadily declined over the past six months (that’s worse).”

He added that with 75 million accounts, an active user base of around 20 per cent left roughly, “15 million highly active tweeters.”

My interest was piqued, however, by today’s TechCrunch report on Web services coming to Twitter. Apparently, a tweak to the Twitter API will make it possible to set up a Twitter account that allows an automated service to respond to queries such as “d weather 14202″ with an appropriate answer — in this example, the weather forecast for zipcode 14202. It’s pretty obvious that this has enormous potential, since similar services are already available via mobile phone networks, which any startup could now undercut by using the Twitter service, as TechCrunch’s writer explained:

“Currently, it costs a lot of money to launch a start-up in the SMS/mobile space — you have to license a shortcode monthly ($500-$1000/mo), pay a SMS gateway provider, and then pay anywhere from $0.03 – $0.05 per inbound or outbound text message. It adds up. But now, if a start-up chooses to use Twitter as a command line to their web service, it’s free (until Twitter starts charging for it).”

Twitter’s own 40404 SMS address is itself a shortcode, for which Twitter presumably pays up to a $1000 per month plus a few cents per message. The new API tweak allows Twitter to piggyback any number of separate direct response services within its own shortcode. That’s a potentially very valuable service offering.

But it also set me wondering about Twitter’s own business model, and how it has to be making a ton of money already (unless its founders really are clueless). Because none of those shortcode services are charitable concerns; they’re all money-making ventures. They’re premium-rate text destinations, for which users normally pay to receive a response. They make money because the service provider gets paid a cut of the charge your telco puts on your phone bill.

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As a user who has taken the Twitter pill hook, line and sinker, I’ve been mulling this question for some time now. I came up with a few strategies, but then I figured: why not run them by the Twitter crew themselves? The least they could say was ‘no comment,’ but fortunately Evan Williams, one of Obvious and Twitter’s founders, responded with a few of his own. Read on for my attempts at making Twitter some money (I’m waiting for my job offer Ev), as well as some choice words and ideas of his own from Evan.

If you get a direct message on Twitter looking like this:

Lol. this you?? http://divinelink.net/?rid=http://twitter.verify.bzpharma.net/login

Do not click on the link!

The attack appears to be utilizing the SmartName domain parking service, which allows redirects to third-party sites. The DMs appear in the form of a legit URL, followed by something to the effect of ?rid=http://twitter.verify.bzpharma.net/login in the URL. Those URLs redirect to the latter URL, which is a phished site that looks like the Twitter login page.

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Ever wondered how much your Twitter account is worth? Tweeter Value can put a price tag on your Twitter account. It is more for fun than for anything else. But we all like a bit of fun, don’t we?

What exactly does Tweeter Value do? It puts a theoretical value on a Twitter account, and that’s it. Keep in mind that buying and selling Twitter accounts is against Twitter Terms of Service, so don’t get any ideas. It’s meant to be used for fun.

How does it work? It uses an algorithm to estimate how much Twitter account could be worth. Many things are taken into consideration, including: followers, following and tweets.

And how much is your Twitter profile worth?

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With Twitter going mainstream and gaining masses of newcomers on a daily basis, I see more and more senseless messages floating around. To be completely honest, it’s not only the new guys, but some seasoned twitters as well. People say “Social media is 90% common sense”. In regard to that, the “rules” I will list in this post, you have probably already figured out on your own, I hope. Apparently not all did, tho’.

In this article I will try to explain you some basic principles that you use when you socialize.  Think about what you tweet – on the other side is a person and not a Twitter account. Unfortunately, some people on Twitter and online in general, do things they would not do in person. For instance, when I search on Twitter for a specific topic, I get so many spam like tweets that have nothing to do with the subject. By doing that, you waste your and other people’s time.

The following is a list of 7 common sense rules you should use on Twitter

1. Get rid of useless ReTweets. Remember #followfriday recommendations? They used to be cool, but these days all you see is people retweeting list of names that has no meaning. I usually ignore these huge RTs. Sometimes people greet multiple friends at once – OK I understand this – but why do ten people have to retweet this?
2. Don’t be pushy. Don’t know how to exactly explain or name this one, but I will try my best. Sometimes people try to promote their product, which is fine by me, but they take wrong approach. I have seen they send their tweets (with the link to their product) to many users at once, usually those who have many followers, with the tweet containing no real information what the link is about. It is annoying and most of us just ignore such tweets.
3. Be nice. I think this one is self explanatory. People enjoy pleasant conversations. Say hi sometimes or thank or reply to a question – not every tweet has to contain a link to your website. If you only post information your followers will feel like you don’t care about them. Also, don’t ignore it when people tweet you, take time and reply to them.
4. Do not repeat yourself. I know you want your blog or product be seen by everyone, but if you repeatedly tweet that link to your followers, they might just ignore or unfollow you. Try to limit that to a few times a day.
5. People have names. It feels good if people actually address you by your real name sometimes and gives you a feeling you interact with a human being. You don’t have to do it every time, but once in a while is nice.
6. And they have short memory. Since Twitter lacks threaded conversations, it is sometimes difficult to know what a certain tweet was a response to. Try to include some sort of indication what question you are referring to. I sometimes RT the message in my reply to make it obvious to what I was replying.
7. Give credit and share. If you find something you like, share it and tell where it comes from. If someone tweets something interesting that you want to retweet, thank him and mention him in your retweet. Again, I know this is hard to do every time, especially if you follow many people, but once in a while is nice.

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If you use Twitter search, you probably noticed that all tweets do not show up. That is because Twitter started filtering out certain tweets from Twitter search. And there are not many worse things than your tweets not showing up in the search results, especially if you use Twitter for business. Being filtered out is not good for your social presence either.

What kind of tweets are being filtered you ask? Recurring tweets, meaning if you post same sentence a few times in a row it will only show up once among the search results. Tweets from people who are often blocked by others. And of course, tweets sent from accounts marked as spam will also be filtered. And believe me people use Twitter search a lot, I do on a daily basis. Being filtered out, you will have a hard time connecting with other people.

A few tips to not get filtered from Twitter search

1. Don’t spam. That one’s easy.
2. Don’t post the same thing every few seconds. If you want to promote your website or whatever, better do it over a couple of hours. It’s also annoying to see your product or blog linked five times in a row.
3. Don’t retweet spammers. You’ll have to learn how to spot spammers. Check out people’s profiles, watch their tweets.
4. Mix the words. If you really have to tweet about the same thing many times in a short period of time, you can mix the words to avoid filtering.

Oh, there’s one more thing you can do. Check if your profile is showing up in Twitter search. Go to Twitter search and type in your username without the @. Or better yet, type in from:yourusername. Make sure your last tweets are shown. That’s about it. If you have any more ideas, post them below in the comments.

Related posts:

1. How to get the most out of Twitter search

Twitter is getting so huge and gaining new users by the minute, so I thought I would make a list of the most read posts on my blog from the last few months. These could be very handy for new Twitter users and may as well help more seasoned tweeters too. Below you will find a recap of the most read and retweeted Twitter tips and tutorials of this blog for the quarter 3 of 2009.

1. 20 Twitter Directories to Find More Friends and Followers – Join these and you are bound to get many followers.
2. How to get the most out of Twitter search – Tips on using Twitter’s powerful search engine.
3. 10 tips to get more Twitter followers – Find out how to get followers and not scare them away.
4. Top 7 Photo Sharing Tools for Twitter – Find out where to share photos on Twitter.
5. Optimize Your Twitter Bio to Get More Followers – Even the 160 characters short bio is important.
6. General Twitter tips for starters – A must read for every beginner.

For more Twitter tips follow me on Twitter and subscribe to my RSS feed.

Related posts:

1. A Better Way to Share Photos on Twitter
2. 7 Best Ways to Share Videos on Twitter
3. Top 7 Photo Sharing Tools for Twitter