Twitter has rolled out new functionality, starting today Twitter users will now also receive email notification when someone mentions them, retweets or favourites a tweet.

Twitter for long has already sent out email notifications notifying users of new followers and direct message, but with this new feature one can’t help but wonder how many people will actually welcome this new email notification addition.

Although it might sound like it’s convenient to receive email notifications when someone mentions or retweets you, this can become quite spammy for some users, luckily you can opt out to not receive email notifications by clicking unsubscribe on your first email notification. The options to opt out are yet to be added to your Twitter Settings page it seems.

Rumors has been doing the rounds on the Internet that social networking giant Facebook will be shutting down on March 15 because CEO Mark Zuckerberg allegedly wants his old life back.

If you really think about it, why would Facebook shut down only days after it acquired an additional $500 million funding?

Facebook Director of Corporate Communications Larry Yu has denied the rumor saying that it is false. In an email sent to Mashable, Yu added the following, “The answer is no, so please help us put an end to this silliness. We didn’t get the memo about shutting down and there’s lots to do, so we’ll just keep cranking away like always.”

At the beginning of this year Twitter surpassed the 10 billion tweets marks, now 2010 is at its end and 25 billion tweets later Twitter is giving us a window into what the world was talking about on Twitter over the year.

A massive 25 billion tweets was sent during 2010, and out of those 25 billion Twitter has identified the top 10 tweets of 2010 as well as the leading Trends in eight categories: News Events, People, Movies, Television, Technology, World Cup, Sports and Hashtags.

Top 10 Twitter Trends of 2010

1. Gulf Oil Spill
2. FIFA World Cup
3. Inception
4. Haiti Earthquake
5. Vuvuzela
6. Apple iPad
7. Google Android
8. Justin Bieber
9. Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows
10. Pulpo Paul

Its clear that South Africans made their mark in the social sphere with the Word Cup and Vuvuzela being in the top 10 Twitter trends of 2010.

For a comprehensive list of Twitter trends for 2010 broken up in categories visit the Top Twitter Trends in 2010 website.

Evly.com the first crowdsourcing social network will be launching on Monday 22 November 2010. Evly.com is the brain child of CrowdTech, the company behind the highly popular T-Shirt site Springleap where users enter their designs to win R4,000.00 and the public gets to vote who the winner is and can then buy the winning design.

So what is crowdsourcing exactly? Crowdsourcing is the method of sourcing a solution from a crowd, community or social network as opposed to a single contractor with the understanding that the wisdom of the crowd is greater than the wisdom of the individual. This method not only gives rise to a variety of stimulating solutions but also powerful viral marketing potential.

Evly will provide users wanting to utilize crowdsourcing with a drag drop website builder interface to enable them to build their very own crowdsourcing site where members can interact and provide solutions. In addition, Evly will provide advanced crowdsourcing and social networking features which will enable website owners to easily manage and grow their own community.

Evly will operate on these 3 levels:

1. Level 1: Starter - Individuals and companies can set up crowdsourcing websites and pose challenges for free. All evly websites will benefit from participating through evly.com’s ‘network of networks’ in order to utilize collective knowledge.
2. Level 2: Customisation – Building on from Level 1, the first premium model of evly will give the website owner more control over the design and branding of their website. Website owners will be able to create a fully customized website in minutes.
3. Level 3: Independence – Will afford website owners the option to remove themselves from the evly network. Website owners will also have 100% custom branding, as well as ownership of all member information.

Still not sure what Evly is? Check out this video:

Although Twitter.com has always been the most popular way for users to make use of the micro social networking site, the market has lately been overwhelmed by desktop application that makes the social networking service so much better.

But Twitter is not sitting back, the micro social networking site yesterday launched a brand new and better Twitter.com that is almost an exact replica of their latest iPad App.

The new Twitter.com provides users with an easier, faster and richer experience than before by adding features such as embedded media options, more context and more information regarding tweets.

The new Twitter will maintain the timeline but underneath each tweet is where all the extras are built in. Twitter has also made changes to the design of their new site mimicking that of their new iPad application by adding sliding panels to the site keeping your timeline to the left and scrollable and allowing you to view all other info like profiles, media, replies to tweets etc on the right.

Twitter started rolling out the new changes gradually already and the roll out should be completed within the next few weeks. For more information check out the New Twitter section.

First there was the official Facebook Movie trailer, to premier end of this month, and now there is the the Twitter Movie trailer, or not really but this still is a damn good spoof video.

Can I have a twiskey?

For long TweetMeme ruled the world of ReTweet buttons for sites, you know those buttons next to, above or bellow articles that you use to share it with the world. Well that is about to come to an end for TweetMeme because Twitter is set to launch their own Tweet buttons for publishers.

Bellow I have embedded a Tweet button from Twitter, although it seems to embed fine, clicking on it to share the article just redirects you to a not found page.

The functionality is currently only available to certain Twitter account holders, what should happen when you click the Tweet button is that a window will pop up asking you to log into Twitter and then enables you to customise the message to send with the URL.

Rumor has it that the new Tweet buttons should be activated sometime this week. For more information about embedding the official Twitter Tweet buttons on your site see the document bellow.

Android OS’s popularity have steadily been on the rise since it was released into the market, and since it has become a serious contender for the likes of Apple and Blackberry. Since the launch of Android, app numbers have been increasing tremendous with over 500000 applications currently available in the Android Market.

With social media being part of our daily lives nowadays, the need for Facebooking or Tweeting on the go is increasing and having the perfect application to accomplish your task is what matters. Here is a list of what I deem is the three best Twitter clients available for the Android platform.

Twitter for Android

Twitter for Android is the official Twitter for Android developed by Twitter themselves. The app has everything one would need from a Twitter client and then some more, this was developed by Twitter themselves so it should be good.

When it comes to speed Twitter for Android is lightening fast, but this may be due to the fact that the timeline does not get updated when you open up the application. The downside about Twitter for Android is that it’s unfortunately only available for Android 2.1 (Eclair) and up.

It looks sleek, works great, is fast and free, everything one would want from a Twitter client.

Twidroyd

Twidroyd is known as the ultimate Twitter client for Android, something big to live up to, but Twidroyd does it well being packed with features.

Twitdroyd has support for plugins, list edits, native bit.ly support and a offline outbox should your network connection drop while sending that all important tweet. This all however comes at a small price, to get your hands on all these features you will have to fork out a few bucks. There is a free version available but forget about multiple accounts and the fancy things above, the free version however is still a great product.

The interface is easy to navigate and lightweight, everything is where it should be and with plugin support you can easily expand Twidroyd for extra functionality like showing locations on a map.

Seesmic

Seesmic is my new favorite Twitter app for Android, Seesmic recently released a new version of their application for Android adding some great new features like Google Buzz support.

Seesmic has support for multiple accounts and its interface is clean and easy to navigate. Out of the box it has support for an array of third party api’s for URL shortening and video and photo uploading. This all can be done right from where you type your tweet. Also the new in-line image preview functions is a nice addition to Seesmic, now you do not have to click on a image URL to see whats behind it, it will show a thumbnail in your timeline.

It has native support for Geolocation, enabling you to see who of your friends tweet nearby you on a map. Seesmic also comes with a nice widget you can place on one of your homescreens and notification alert when someone mentions or DM you while you are not using the application.

The nice thing about Seesmic is that all these features are available to you in a free application on any Android smartphone.

Conclusion

All of the above Twitter clients have the basic functionality that allows you to send out a tweet, but they also have their own unique features that makes them outshine the rest. If you are into nice looking applications with all the functionality needed for tweeting then I’d say go for Twitter for Android. If you are a power user wanting all that extras and do not mind forking out a few buck then go for Twidroyd, it possibly is the best application out there for Twitter if you don’t mind paying.

If I had to choose a winner out of the three I would with out a doubt choose Seesmic, I have used their desktop client before and ditched it after a month or two, but the new Android client is really a great app. It comes with everything a normal user would need and then some more for the power users, and the best thing is all its features are free.

It was evident that this was to happen in the future, with Twitter clients like Seesmic already offering inline media, Twitter is slowly losing those valuable pageviews to innovative Twitter clients. It seems Twitter is starting to realise this and some users have reported seeing a new setting called “Tweet Media” in their profiles.

Tweet Media which some users had access to, seems Twitter removed it now again, gives users the option to view inline photos and videos in their Twitter streams. It came with the following description in the profile.

“By default, you’ll only see images and videos shared by people you’re following, and reveal those by people you’re not. Check this box to see media from everyone on Twitter.”

Twitter confirmed to Mashable that they are indeed testing out inline media by issuing the following statement.

“We’re constantly exploring features and settings. What you saw was a small test of a potential consumption setting for inline media. We show inline media on our own iPhone and Android apps.”

Earlier today Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and Co Founder of popular social networking site Facebook, announced that they have officially hit the 500 million user mark.

The 500 million users includes people from around the work that have been active on the social networking site for at least the last month.

Facebook has revolutionised the way we connect with friends and family by building an interactive social network whereby we can keep in touch.

To celebrate this great milestone, Facebook launched a new site called Facebook Stories. The idea behind Facebook Stories is to provide a platform where users of the social networking site can share their stories on how Facebook impacted their life and that of their friends.

With Facebook Stories you can share your own or read that of hundreds of others categorised by themes and locations around the world.

Currently there is only one story submitted by an South African named Susan Ettmayr, which got what she wanted through the power of Facebook.

Now that Facebook is 500 million users strong, do you think we will ever see another social network dominate like this and dethrone Facebook in our day and age?