The Digital Week

Welcome to Porter Novelli’s not-very-weekly digital news post.

Twitter is big, and it wants your links. Those are the two big pieces of news from the micro-blogging zeitgeist hogger this week, and of course they fit perfectly together.

According to 140Char, Twitter now gets 190 million unique users a month and they create an impressive 65 million tweets, 75% of which are contributed, via API, through third-party apps.

With a huge and growing userbase, Twitter is continuing to look at possible methods of monetisation, and one such method might just be possible thanks to the forthcoming launch of its own link shortening service. One of Twitter’s most valuable functions is the sharing of news and content and is carried out through links – lots of them – and due to the 140-character limit they are routinely shortened.

By bringing this in house, Twitter (as Patricio Robles of Econsultancy points out) owns those links and all the data that comes with them. Clever.

Bletchley Park records to go online

Bletchley Park, the crucial WWII code-breaking centre and darling of the English social media set, has been the focus of a lot of attention – and indeed affection – in recent years. The important part its technology and the brilliant people using it played in the Allied war effort hasn’t been forgotten and many 21st Century techies are keen supporters of the Buckinghamshire site.

Now, with some help from HP, millions of documents at Bletchley Park are going to be scanned, digitised and made available online. Such is the volume of documents involved that I think the most interesting point here is that the task of combing through this previously impossible amount of information will now be faced collaboratively rather than by a few hardcore enthusiasts.

Foursquare blocked in China

There was interesting news at the end of last week from Caroline McCarthy at The Social. According to first-hand suggestions, Chinese users of the location-based gaming app Foursqaure (if I were Mashable, these brackets would surround a smiley face) have been blocked from using its check-in function:

Foursquare is still looking into the issue, co-founders Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai told CNET. Namely, they aren’t sure whether this will be a permanent block or temporary. But it appears to be linked to the 21st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, the 1989 incident in which the Chinese military attacked and arrested thousands of pro-democracy protesters. Chinese users of Foursquare appear to have been using the service as a protest vehicle.

They’ve been doing so by checking in to Tiananmen Square and posting protest messages as ‘tips’, says co-founder Naveen Selvadurai. Although unconfirmed, it has been speculated that this might be the reason for the block, so no mayorships of Merton Park Tram Station for Foursquare users in China anytime soon (sad face).

Daily Mail hates the internet, #382,399

Get this. Did you know that some brands know what the internet is? And some even listen to it and use analytics for their own evil ends?! Our old pals at the Daily Mail have (deliberately?) whipped up another storm with yet more web-hating, claiming that some brands “admitted” to listening in on disgruntled conversations online – spying, as the Mail puts it. Next we’ll be hearing that some of them try to act on those conversations and actually try to fix problems!

The irony – as pointed out by my friend Tim Hoang on Twitter and Stephen Waddington on his blog – is that the Mail is rather good at web analytics, understands SEO and has mastered certain aspects of linkbaiting. In fact, that’s just about all many web users will give it credit for, and how’s it all done? By tracking, understanding and monitoring web users.

Greencoat Boy in LBGT Labour row

I’ve my own negative memories of the Greencoat Boy pub near Victoria Station, but they’re not worthy of the kind of uproar caused by its manager over the weekend. LBGT Labour held its AGM nearby and turned up to honour its booking at the Greencoat Boy, bought some drinks and apparently put up a small banner.

Long story short, not through laziness but because I’m going to link to someone who can tell the story better, the group were eventually thrown out because of their sexuality and told that the booking would not have been accepted if the pub’s manager had known it was made by a gay group.

PR blogger Ade Bradley was there and was rightly mortified by his experience, and decided to use his social media nous and following to whip up a bit of noise. Here’s his account of the events and their aftermath.

World Cup in two days! Hurrah!