So there has been a lot of buzz this week revolving around the launch of the new Twitter home page, which features trending topics that are hot at the moment, hot for that current day, and hot this week, as well as a hot this month.  But more importantly Twitter’s home page is now dominated by a search feature.  The new focus on search has people talking about Twitter being the next big thing in search when it comes to real time search and discovery engines, but in all honesty I don’t think it means a damn thing.

Sure it’s fancy, it shows trends and it’s NEW, but how many of you are actually using twitter.com to do anything that involves twitter?  Most serious twitter users are using programs like TweetDeck.  I personally use Twitterfox while on the computer and UberTwitter on my Blackberry.  The only time I ever visit Twitter.com is to add or remove people.  Unless you are visiting Twitter’s website everytime you manage your tweets I don’t see this feature being used too often.

Overall I think, much like everything in the search and social community, it’s new, it’s shiny, and it’s something to get overly excited about.  But there really isn’t any true value there yet.  Real time search is only really good for news and entertainment at the moment and even then there is no control over the value and relevance of the content presented.  On the flipside if you’re doing buzz monitoring or monitoring your brand you might find some value in this newly revamped homepage, but honestly I don’t think it’s worth the hype its getting.

What are your thoughts?  Have you used the new Twitter homepage?  Did it add any value to your Twitter experience?

A few months back I took a look at the internet, new media and the music industry and mentioned UK artist Imogen Heap both as an artist I was quite fond of and an artist who was using social media in a way that a lot of artists weren’t.  On August 24th Imogen Heap will release her third studio album, titled Ellipse, which will feature songs and artwork that were significantly influenced through online interaction with fans and followers.

As I mentioned previously Imogen Heap has spent over a year working on her new album and spending a lot of that time interacting with fans through Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and more.  Since then the artist has turned to her fans and followers through these various channels to help her make decisions in the album making process.  Where most artists are using social media to share insight to the process, Imogen Heap took it one step further and asked her fans to be part of the process.

Imogen Heap used crowdsourcing and the image sharing site Flickr to determine which images would be used for the album art on Ellipse.  Asking fans to not only upload their images to be considered for the album, but also to vote for which images made it into the artwork.

The influence of fans didn’t stop there.  While writing the song “Tidal” for the new album, Imogen Heap struggled with the version of the chorus she wanted to use on the song.  Imogen Heap again turned to her fans and followers asking for help to complete the song.  Using YouTube and 12Seconds to broadcast the various versions and Twitter to update fans when new version of the chorus were available to weight in on.  In the end the collective efforts of both the artist and her fans made for a musical creating experience unlike any before.  So much so that her online collaborations made it into the latest issue of WIRED magazine.

She continues to embrace social media and the community of fans around her and recently made the Canvas music video available in exchange for a tweet.  Imogen Heap also made the song ‘First Train Home’ available to listen to on the Imogen Heap YouTube Channel.

With Trent Reznor backing out of the social media race and what seems like maybe even the music race, I am hopeful that artists like Imogen Heap will pick up where he left off and revolutionize the way fans and artists interact in all facets of the musical experience.  I’ve followed the creation of Ellipse off and on and I will tell you that Imogen Heap is both an amazing artist and quite an interesting person.  The two songs that have been fully available to fans are incredible and the pieces of other songs that I have heard over the last year or so have left me eagerly awaiting this release.

I’ve been laying low lately when it comes to Twilight posts since I’ve moved most of my Twilight inspired writing over to Where Is Edward Cullen?  However, I decided to take a moment to jump back over here for the to share something we’re really excited about over at Where Is Edward Cullen.  One of the writers for the site and the writer of the infamous Debunking the Anti-Twilight Propoganda series, came upon an interesting phenomenon on July 22 of this year the solar and lunar events that make up the titles of each of the Twilight books.  We will not only experience the daily “Breaking Dawn” and “Twilight”, but there will also be a “New Moon” and “Eclipse” that day.

To celebrate this rare event we’ve decided to declare July 22, 2009 International Twilight Day.  A day for fans of the series to celebrate their fandom and show their appreciation for author Stephenie Meyer, her books, and the films based on them.  The Where’s Edward site is sure to have more features about this as we get closer to the date.  We’ve also struck up a conversation about the day at most of the major Twilight forums.

We hope you Twilight fans will join in the fun and tell your fellow Twilighters all about it.