Digital Biographer™

Twellow, the ‘yellow pages for Twitter‘, has improved its utility with the ability to create your own biography entry.

As well as being able to claim your twitter profile, and classify yourself in up to 10 categories (although I’m in 14 for some reason), you can also add your own social media links to your profiles on Pownce, LinkedIn, Flickr, FriendFeed, etcetera - as well as creating a brief summary and what’s termed a ‘bio’ or biography entry.

The search facility in Twellow includes the data in your summary and pick ups keywords and links used there, and your biography information can also include basic HTML, so links and visual formatting can be added. The summary is indexed in search - the biography does not appear to be indexed yet.

Apart from being a great way to find people using Twitter with similar interests, and pinpointing interesting people to follow, categorized Twellow profiles are also becoming visible in Google and Yahoo searches. So I’d recommend making sure you claim your profile at Twellow and add your details and social links to ensure your online visibility and credibility stay high. It’s free, and there are over half a million people listed there, so it’s worth spending a few minutes to make sure you’re visible, coherent, and linked up here.

2.0, authority, brand, googlicious, linkedin, microblogging, online identity, search marketing, social media online identity, online reputation management, search marketing, twellow, Twitter, visibility

As someone involved in what I reluctantly term ‘online reputation management’, I carry out a regular search for my own name, and those used by my customers, and I was interested recently to come across my name in relation to twitter, but with the accompanying description of ‘Chef’. *

Now, I use the phrase ‘word chef’ to describe what I do rewriting online profiles, and include the phrase in my Twitter Profile’s brief description, so this was not a huge surprise, but I was surprised to find myself in a ‘Directory of Twitter Chefs‘ when I first came across Twellow.com in July.

Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

I claimed my entry by just entering my twitter password, and then could add various social media profiles, add myself to directory categories that fit my activities, and was also able to find other people in twitter with activities and interests like mine (or, importantly, quite unlike mine).

I was placed into the ‘chef’ category because the word appeared in my twitter description and matched the taxonomy of the search categories. I’d advise you to check that you’re in the most appropriate categories - and have a browse for other twitter members in various categories.

Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

There is also a powerful search facility, which can either be directory-wide, or can focus on a specific ‘vertical’ - so you can find all of the Internet Marketing geeks with Tokyo in their profile, for example. It’s one thing to be able to search for what people are tweeting about, but it’s also very useful to know who the people on twitter are.

Simple and powerful idea

The site is a property of IEntry, known mainly for its advertising sites, but for now, there are few ads appearing on Twellow. I’m sure it doesn’t take too much imagination to see how they might monetize a Twitter Directory, although at present, those with the most followers, default to top of the page, with a filter to swap to showing those with the most recent twitter updates.

So - are you categorised correctly? Go to Twellow now and check your entry! I was amazed to see that in the Geeks Category, Robert Scoble hasn’t yet claimed his profile!

* I will be looking at some tools for monitoring online conversations later this month - make sure you are subscribed to the Digital Biographer RSS feed, or follow me on Twitter.

2.0, brand, commerce, online identity, search marketing, social media directory, twellow, Twitter