Internet

Twitter is a powerful micro blogging platform but how do you find people interested in your niche market?

How do you find out what a particular hash tag represents?

How else can you get the most out of Twitter and maximise the time you put into social media?

I've gathered just 5 of a plethora of tools out there to help you answer those questions.

There are many more out there but here are 5 great tools I use regularly.

5 Great Twitter Tools

Twitter Search

Twitter search lets you search twitter!

#Hashtags

Discover what's behind a particular hash tag, which are popular or the latest tags out there in the twitterverse.

Twellow

Twellow is a Twitter Directory, a great way to find other people to follow on Twitter from your industry or who share the same interests as you.

Twopular

Follow Friday is a great way to share top people to follow on Twitter. The brainchild of @micah who also has a blog on Startups and Entrepreneurship.

Instead of searching for people interested in the same topics as yourself #followfriday gives you the chance to find recommendations from friends who they think deserve your attention.

You can waste time following some people who from first glance looked like good tweeple.

Recommendations take away the pain and gives everyone the chance to give their friends a chance to interact with more people.

Follow Friday is a great addition to give everyone a way to find valuable people to follow.

Give a short description of what someone tweets or if they're just a great member of the community simply big them up!

Today is (un)officially Blogger Appreciation day, well Darren Rowse started the worthy cause and Chris Garrett developed it into appreciation of those that comment on your blog.

It's your comments that highlight points missed or subjects to cover so keep them coming.

So here are the great and good that have all so far commented on my blog, it's only a new born monkey creation so props (respect cause I'm hip, on the cutting edge ouch!) to my early adopters:

Ed Rouch
Barry Welford
Rachel Phillips
Rob Safuto
Mel
Patricia Skinner
SexySEO

Just started out? Opened a bank account, registered at Companies House and now want a website but not sure what you need?

Often I have new business owners come to me with wide eyes and bright ideas but soon become tongue tied when the word website is mentioned.

Technology can be a frightening thing for a number of people which is why I've written this post to help explain exactly what is required.

6 Actions To Get Your Website Off The Ground

#1 Domain Name: eg. www.example.com

First off you need a domain name which is the name given to your website and would normally be your company name. Some thought should be given to this and research done into availability.

PayPal, in an interview with Macworld, gave a stark warning about possible security breaches related to the Mac Safari browser and PayPal. Steer clear of Safari or you could become a victim of online fraud.

"Apple, unfortunately, is lagging behind what they need to do, to protect their customers," Michael Barrett, PayPal's chief information security officer said in an interview. "Our recommendation at this point, to our customers, is use Internet Explorer 7 or 8 when it comes out, or Firefox 2 or Firefox 3, or indeed Opera."

Seeing that Safari is the default browser for the Mac it's a big disappointment that it has no built-in phishing filter to warn users when visiting a fraudulent website. Security should be one of the main concerns for any browser software company but when someone recommends Internet Explorer as being safer then you need to think about changing browsers.

Good luck to my cousin in India who was recently married at a monkey wedding in Ghanteswara village in Orissa state India. As reported on the BBC News site Crowds flock to monkey 'wedding' over 3,000 people turned up for the occasion. I didn't realise he had that many family and friends!

Sadly I couldn't make it due to other commitments but I wish Jhumuri and Manu well for the future. Word from the jungle is that they're planning on a long honey moon before having a family which I think is right for such a young couple.

I'm also glad to hear they have been released into the wild as previously they were chained up. All the best Manu, she looks a feisty one!

Whilst the rest of the economy looks shaky online retailers are excited at the thought of grabbing a larger percentage of the retail market. Figures recently out show that during the period of October to December overall sales for 2007 were up by a staggering 54% on the same period in 2006.

The electronics market showed the best growth in December up 60% with the clothing market in second with a 28% increase.

Further proof that customers are becoming more confident about online security measures and are willing to spend their money over the internet. Online reductions and promotions have helped drive this increase which is a welcome boost for those with an online presence.