Weekend read: My weekly share on Twitter

Ready to stack up those chairs and call an end to this week?  While you're packing up, check out my list of what I've been sharing this week on Twitter (where you can find me as @dontgetcaught).  Lots of good reads, tips and finds caught my eye this week:

• Place yourself: You should be reading Mashable! anyway, but in case you missed it, here's Mashable's take on 5 important new trends in location-focused social media, rethought in the wake of Facebook Places and more.
• Auto-follow, or fan ban? Facebook has quietly implemented a de facto follow feature; TechCrunch has the details.  You need to make sure your privacy settings are tailored to meet this change.  And Facebook now lets page administrators ban fans and remove spammers. It's a useful tool, but one you need to think through so you're not just removing people who don't agree with you.
• Go with the flow: Louis Gray, another must-read, looks at how marketers are upset about changes to Twitter that make the background--once a palette for your online business card--less visible.  It's a good reminder that, having adapted to social media, you need to be braced for changes, tweaks, and upgrades, rather than propping your communications strategy solely on one feature.
• Scientist, explain thyself: NPR "Science Friday" host Ira Flatow urged scientists to learn how to explain what they do to the rest of us, something I can always get behind.
• Pumped-up reads: Mediabistro tells us enhanced ebooks are taking off (think books with films and video incorporated).
• Follow the money: Even if you still have a local paper, it's the ads you need to keep an eye on, and this report tells us that 1 in 4 local firms are planning to cut the advertising they do in newspapers.
• Make your own brainstorming room: Love this low-tech idea:  Paint that makes any wall into an erasable whiteboard--in colors, even.
• Function follows format? Design can sometimes tell you where the content's headed.  If you logged on to the New York Times op-ed section online, you saw a nice clean design this week. Nieman Lab saw something else: the harbinger of an iPad app.
• Big news for event planners: Eventbrite, an online registration service, is meshing even more closely with Facebook (which doesn't offer a way to process paid registrations). Could be a great benefit if you put on paid events.

I offer communications and social media strategy consultation; content development; and training in public speaking, social media and related skills--and I welcome your referrals, at info[at]dontgetcaught[dot]biz.

Check out don't get caught on Facebook, where I'm floating ideas and discussing them before they appear on the blog.  It's shaping up as a great networking community for communicators.

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