Last year's top stories on alexguest.me

Along with everyone else who runs a blog of some sort, I had a look at the most popular posts on alexguest.me for 2009. It seems the topic area that attracted most visitors was Twitter and related platforms. Here are the top five.

Still sceptical about Twitter: three ways in which Twitter has made a difference to my life and working practices. Just three examples but very indicative of the many possibilities.

Bing - Microsoft restarts search engine: a look at Microsoft's relaunched search service, Bing. I speculate that market share in search is closely tied to browser market share.

Sky earnings undermine ad-funded online TV: BSkyB's earnings report reveals the extent to which satellite broadcasting is set to remain far more lucrative and profitable than online TV for years to come.

Tweetdeck v Seesmic: ten deciding features was just that, a comparison of Tweetdeck and Seesmic. So similar in many ways but ultimately the bugginess of Seesmic led me back to Tweetdeck.

#Moonfruit marketing on Twitter: both an entry into the Moonfruit Twitter competition (by virtue of using the hashtag in the title) and a criticism of the campaign, which ultimately was stopped by Twitter itself.



In 2010 I fully intend to spend more time writing about the London/UK/European start-up scene and also share some of my learnings and experiences of building my business.

#Moonfruit marketing on Twitter

#moonfruit has rapidly jumped up the Twitter trending topics. Moonfruit is the latest company to make use of hashtag-based promotions and is offering a MacBook Pro to ten lucky winners over ten days. To be eligible to win, simply tweet #moonfruit. Mashable reckons it's an example of Twitter promotion done right.

Sitting at the top of the trending topics list reflects massive awareness of the campaign. I wonder, however, how many people actually know what Moonfruit actually does.

I'm also already tired of #moonfruit tweets and, having posted both a haiku and a cocktail recipe, have got bored of participating: there is no reward for creativity.

And that's a shame. Moonfruit has chosen it's prize well but the mechanism is surely wrong, for a company which helps people build websites. The MacBook Pro is ideal for web designers but creativity is also a vital component.

Sadly for Moonfruit, although celebrating its tenth anniversary, it wasn't quick enough to grab the Twitter handle @moonfruit. It belongs instead to one Ashleigh Hart of Maine and Upstate NY, whose updates are blocked. And they are left with @moontweet.

Now, please can I have a MacBook Pro?