I have had so much fun writing for you this year, I wanted to get you a little something. It’s not much. Just a couple of podcasts I think you’ll really like. (It’s hard to send anything really big through the Internet.) So here you go, I hope you’ll love them as much as I do.

• The Bugle – a satirical news show featuring John Oliver of the Daily Show with his friend Andy Zaltzman. Andy operates from the U.K., which adds a nice international flair to the weekly podcast. They have me in stitches on a regular basis. I hope you’ll join us. There’s also a blog.
• Risk! – a collection of truth-telling that will make you laugh, snort, gasp and/or cry, depending on the people you know and how you normally spend your time. Kevin Allison, who I know of from The State, is in charge of this operation and narrates the podcast. I became a fan quickly.

That’s it! They are both free (at this time) on iTunes, so download to your heart’s content and donate to the creators if you love them. I hope they make you smile. Happy holidays!

So, you’ve decided to join Twitter.

Welcome. Anyone can tailor their Twitter experience to something they enjoy. You can make friends, communicate with your family, get the latest news, see behind the scenes on movie sets, get out a marketing message, or look for creative inspiration. All of these objectives can be met with Twitter, if you know that’s what you want to do.

1. Twitter is not complicated. Each post can be up to 140 characters long. The site counts the characters for you.
2. Twitter addresses are represented with @ – so my Twitter address is @dcgrrl – that will take you to a Twitter profile page, where you can read someone’s tweets and opt to follow or un-follow anyone on Twitter.
3. To keep posts short and to the point, Twitter shortens web links and people sometimes use the same SMS text shorthand they use with their phones, like omg & thx alot.
4. You only have to read the folks you’ve decided to subscribe to, or follow.
5. Choose to follow people that will bring informative or entertaining value to your Twitter stream. Remember you don’t have to follow everyone that follows you. Beware of scam Twitter bots — those that are simply sending links to credit card or adult sites — they’re probably not real people, you should ignore them like spam e-mail.
6. Feel free to un-follow someone if they’ve gone off topic or are over-tweeting for your reading schedule. You know when you read your tweets, and how many tweets you’re interested in reading.
7. If you especially like someone’s post, or tweet, you can ReTweet it, signified by RT, and share it with your followers. Or save it as a Favorite for later reference. Posts go by in real time from all over the world. That immediacy is part of Twitter’s charm.
8. Be careful of your language. Use a word like ‘p0rn’ in one post and you’ll be surprised by the type of followers you’ll gain. On the other hand, try cupcake + baking and you’ll eventually have the entire recipe contingent on your tail. And depending on your motives, that could be a good thing. (There are a lot of good cooks tweeting!)
9. Topics that get lots of reference earn a hashtag # — such as #SOTU for State of the Union — as an indexing bookmark, so it’s easier to search everyone’s tweets for comments.
10. Your Twitter posts are 100% public and anyone can read them. You can change your privacy: There are options to PROTECT your posts from being seen (under Settings), except from the followers you approve — perfect for kids who want to tweet — and you can BLOCK unwanted followers on individual profile pages. Use these tools to keep the Twittersphere safe for you and your family.

Now for some valuable references…

• http://search.twitter.com/search: You can search for anything on Twitter without having an account.
• Twitter Grader: Here you can find the ‘Elite’ tweeters worldwide and in your area for ideas on whom to start following.
• Localtweeps: Looking for friends? Localtweeps helps you find other folks on Twitter near you geographically, that you can tweet-up with in real life.
• WeFollow: Search for people to follow based on topics you’re interested in.
• Mr. Tweet: Helps by providing personalized recommendations for you.
• Twittervision: It lets you see tweets pop up all over the world, just what’s happening on our planet via Twitter.
• Tagalus: Defines the Hashtags.
• Corporate Avatar: Like Facebook, Linked In and other places, you need an avatar at Twitter. If you’re representing a company, you may want to be a bit strategic about your avatar.
• tinyurl: Twitter automatically shortens many links that people put into their posts. But sometimes you need to shorten your link to make it fit under the 140-character limit. This service is very handy and free (and run by donation).
• SMS language: Another helper in keeping your messages short and to the point is the shorthand you may already be familiar with from text messages. This link will take you to a brief dictionary on Wikipedia in case you get confused.
• #followfriday: This happens every week. Tweeps share some of their favorites with their followers and tag their post #followfriday or #ff. There is also a Wednesday version of this, #women2follow, for the ladies.
• Twitter Guide Book: from Mashable – very comprehensive!

PS: Tweeps I follow, featured in the image above: comedian @MichaelIanBlack, media journalist @HowardKurtz, DC shadow representative @MikePanetta, and homemaker and creative powerhouse @thepioneerwoman. More folks I follow on Twitter on my Tweeps I like page.

UPDATE: You will by default get e-mails from Twitter that notify you when someone starts following you. This includes a link to that person’s Twitter profile. You can turn this notification off at your Twitter settings page under Notices. However, if you take a look at your new followers, you can quickly identify if these folks are obvious spam accounts, and if they are, you can block them. (Actually, you can block anyone.) That helps Twitter keep the Twittersphere clean, and it protects your privacy from these folks.

I am so psyched for the new Paul’s Boutique remaster! And the Beastie Boys have done SUCH a great job with this… once you log in, there is so much wonderful online street team promotional stuff to dig into. Days and days of fun. And how can a Beastie Boys fan say no to picking up this album?

Here’s just one of the ‘trading cards’ fans can pick up and paste onto their page or blog to drive traffic to the site. See ya later, I’ve gotta go back to the site… Hey ladies!

the best in mens clothing
visit paulsboutique.beastieboys.com

UPDATE: I just received this package in the mail. I bought the Ultimate Collectors pack, with the poster and the vinyl and the CD and the T-Shirt and it was so frackin worth it! I LOVE IT! OMG I just have to figure out how to frame the 8-foot long poster of the Paul’s Boutique album cover, it’s amazing! Okay, I admit, I called it PHAT when I pulled it out of the box, it took me back. Beastie Boys are in MY HOUSE!

Here we have two angles of video proliferation, and how you can use video to market somewhere other than a plain old television commercial.

One is Truveo.com, a new indexing platform coming out of AOL, which is bringing in YouTube videos and videos from other sources and allowing you to search them all in one place. Their next step will be monetizing that discovery.

More interesting is NBC Universal, which to me falls along the line of stuff that we’ve seen in those post-apocalyptic movies, where you step up to a counter at your local grocery store and a screen knows you’re you and knows what movies you like and immediately starts advertising that a movie that you want to see is about to start in one hour at a theater one block away.

This is getting much closer to reality, and as an advertiser, sounds very cool! NBC Universal has screens in taxis, at gas pumps, in grocery stores, in sports arenas, in maternity wards, and in commuter trains.

You can (should) customize your message for the medium, and they’re working very closely with creative teams to do so. It’s quite impressive, it’s hyper-local, and it’s getting a lot of results. Their next step is unified metrics so they can really track their results reliably across vendors.

For more: Truveo.com
NBC Universal packages are available through NBC representatives.