Check it out right here and read all about it on PSFK. (via Alina)

Some first thoughts on Twitter's new web interface - I don't think it changes that many things for most of us (I, for one, use the API for most of my tweets), but I guess these are still worth pointing out.

• it feels like the interface's evolution is very natural - essentially the sidebar is larger in width and more functional
  
• due to that increased width, custom backgrounds are likely to become a thing of the past - although there may be some potential in the sidebar's slight transparency
  
• AJAX is certainly slowing things down a bit
• noticed some new keyboard shortcuts ('r' to reply, 't' to retweet, etc)
• new interface for DMs (including threaded view)

Just one more (perhaps questionable) observation: this version makes the old Twitter look like a Pre-K dropout on crack.

Venture capitalist and web A-lister Guy Kawasaki recently got back the publishing rights for his very first book - The Macintosh Way - (the first of 9) and he's giving it out for free to whoever follows him on Twitter. Brilliant.

Aside from the obvious instant-follower-base-growing factor, I think it's a good lesson on the fact that it's nice to somehow reward your existing followers every now and then...

I have recently been playing with some new Twitter management apps and it got me thinking whether most people are using such tools to properly manage their brands' accounts. Now, as far as I've seen, most corporate accounts may have up to several contributors, but there usually is one person there responsible of overseeing its activity (whether it's someone from the PR agency or from the in-house comms team) - and if you're that person, you should already know what I'm about to describe below.

Now, I'm not going to cover the basics such as creating a proper strategy and having a lot of content on your hands and ready to send out before launching that Twitter account - this has been extensively explained over and over again all around the web. No, I'm going to focus on how you should always be able to stay on top of things.

Just as the title suggests, Twitter is a 24/7 job. Unless you have clearly posted the account's "opening hours" (like BofA for example), you should be able to somehow react to (or at least become aware of) a situation at any given time. Because Twitter is real-time.

I have seen too many cases where things tend to go horribly wrong because of such omissions. So here are some tips:

• Get to know Twitter: this one is for those who don't have personal accounts but think they can handle managing a corporate one anyway. So if this is the case, before jumping in, take a week or two to familiarise yourself with things - set up a personal account, follow some people, start tweeting regularly and just get the flow of things.
• Use solid apps: I recommend setting up CoTweet, but also have TweetDeck handy for quick desktop alerts.
• Set up keyword searches: when people tweet about your brand, chances are that they won't always be mentioning the appropriate Twitter handle. Set desktop alerts for these as well.
• Set up the account on your own computer as well - you never know when this could come in handy.
• Most PR people already have smartphones anyway - so why not use them? Set up the account on your phone as well, so you can get instant push notifications anywhere. Twitter now offers native apps for three of the main mobile platforms - Android, iPhone and BlackBerry - and if these won't do the trick, you can always rely on solid third-party apps such as Seesmic.
• And last but certainly not least, make sure you keep your accounts separated. You'll find that most of these apps offer multiple account management - which means that you can easily have your brand's account and your personal account set up in the same place. Now unless you want to pull a Vodafone, I recommend just using separate apps for each account type (i.e. on your desktop use TweetDeck for the corporate account and Tweetie for Mac for your personal one, on your phone use both Twitter for Android and Seesmic for Android, etc).

Apparently, BP does seem to care. Well mostly because their stocks are currently plummeting. So here's how the story goes:

• there's a huge oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, thanks to BP
• someone opens up a fake BP Twitter account: @BPGlobalPR
• the fake Twitter account currently has about 10x more followers than the official BP account

Now, I've been watching BP's official Twitter activity ever since reading this article. What they have done in the meantime:

• they managed to get the Verified Account badge
• tweeting several times per day - not too much interaction but it's still good that they're quite active
• they're using the page's background to keep people updated on the spill (as of this writing, the last update was on June 1st)
• they're also using it to promote their official social pages
• apparently their CEO Tony Hayward also tweets from this account

So what else should BP do? Have the fake account shut down? Or perhaps start working with the authors the way Coca-Cola did with that Facebook page? Here's an interesting opinion...

I was Googling myself earlier (yes, I'll openly admit to doing that) and I also tried entering "Mihnea".  Now, when I searched for my Romanian name (which isn't that common but a search on it still generated almost 450k results), I wouldn't have expected my Twitter account to turn up as the first result, but it did.

I guess this just goes to show how much Google Juice Twitter can be responsible for in the case of any individual or brand...