Our friends over at Sitewire have a really great article on how the deals between Facebook, Twitter and Google are going to change the way your site is indexed, and more importantly how users will get their results.

To make a long story short – everyone’s Google results for a specific term, say the TV show “Lost” will be different when using real-time search. Everyone’s. This is because if you are selecting Latest Results, you’re jumping into the world of real-time which will include updates from Facebook and Twitter that are using those keywords. Check out this sample query for AT&T.

Notice anything? If you guessed that ‘sentiment is now reflected in Google results’ – you win. Who doesn’t win in this situation? AT&T. Regardless of what AT&T does with any of their PPC buys or SEO their search results page now is going to be trumped by sentiment in large part gathered from Social Media networks. And right now, sentiment towards AT&T is at almost an all-time low. If I were someone who was making a purchasing decision regarding a new cell phone, checking Google’s real-time search would certainly have an influence in that choice. And that’s big.

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image from Toothpaste for Dinner

Everyone keeps talking about Twitter. Love it or hate it, it’s a really powerful tool to connect to people around the world.  And like lots of new technologies it has its spammers, its haters, and a huge group of people who just don’t understand how it can connect them to the global conversation that’s happening in 140 character chunks.

I was reading an article from Leonard Pitts whose columns I usually really enjoy. Except for this one. Here’s a quick excerpt:

“In the ’90s, you often heard people complain of how memoir writers and afternoon talk shows had turned our public spaces into a communal confessional, intimate secrets once necessary for whispering now shouted into the ether like an order at a fast-food joint. Ten years later, we are not just sharing secrets; we are sharing lives. And not the good parts, either, but the banal, the mundane, the everyday. I’m darned if I can see the fascination.  I mean, I’m not surprised that technology allows this. But I am surprised that people — by the thousands — buy in to it.” (more…)

Joe and his wife Susan are proud to have gotten involved with Equitas, Inc on a project to build clean-water wells in Malawi.

Equitas, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization in Charlotte, North Carolina that exists to be the catalyst for grassroots movements focused on providing relief and advocacy in three primary areas: poverty, clean water, and HIV/AIDS. Currently Steven Cook, the founder of Equitas is in Malawi to oversee the construction of three new wells in three separate villages.

Over on the official Equitas blog, you can read about how Joe and Susan as well as Mike and Kelly Parsons got involved in the project starting with some interactions on Twitter and a simple cup of coffee. What a difference 10 minutes can make.

If you would like to get involved with Equitas or donate to one of their projects visit their website.