Twittering away | Weekly Roundup

• Twitter’s very first developer conference was this week, and the air has been thick with Twitter news. One of the big headlines: sponsored tweets are here (not ads, they insist). Will they fundamentally change the service we know and (sometimes) love? Will anyone click? And when will they roll out a grant program for nonprofits?

• Google has rolled out some interesting new Twitter search tools: Follow Finder uses public data about followers and followees to recommend cool Tweeple you might like to follow, and Google Replay combs the Twitter archives to tell you what was being said about a particular topic on a particular day and time. Want to see what the Twitterverse had to say about health care reform right before passage as opposed to right after? Well, now there’s an app for that.

• Speaking of Twitter history, the Library of Congress has announced plans to incorporate Twitter’s digital archive into its collection. That’s every breakfast food update, every off-color spam message, every drunken rant preserved for posterity in all its 140-character glory. So before you hit the button, remember: tweets are forever.

• Does your organization have a technology succession plan? Andrea Berry on Idealware’s blog shares some tips for making sure your organization’s technological know-how–from database maintenance to email software–doesn’t walk out the door with your intern.

• And for those of you who are dismayed by the orgy of oversharing that already takes place on Twitter and Facebook, enter Blippy: a growing social networking platform that allows users to publicly share information about credit card transactions. Sounds crazy, but as Sarah Hartshorn points out on Social Media Today, there are plenty of interesting opportunities–what if every time a donor gave to your organization, they could automatically share details of the transaction with all of their friends?

A weekly roundup of interesting reads from the online world of nonprofit communications. Follow me on Twitter @elizabethricca or check out my Delicious bookmarks for more noteworthy links.