For some people, summer's a time to live at the pool.  For others, it's a season better spent vacationing in another state or country.  But as it turns out, a lot of people used this summer to become better acquainted with Twitter, increasing the overall number of tweets by 33 percent.

A post on the Royal Pingdom blog stated today, "Twitter processed 2.64 billion tweets this August, an increase of 33% over May.  Not a bad increase over just a summer.  In August, an average of 85 million tweets passed through Twitter every day."

Then the blog post noted, "And if you look at the whole year so far, the increase is even more impressive.  Activity on Twitter has already more than doubled this year (August had 115% more tweets than January)."

That's quite a lot of growth, as the graph below shows.

It should be interesting to see if Twitter's rate of growth drops off as everybody returns to the usual grind, setting aside frivolous things.  Or perhaps it'll pick up as people tell all their friends and coworkers about the fun social network/indispensable tool.

Of course, other factors - like the fail whale or the recurring idea that Facebook might launch a full-scale attack - could also influence the statistics.

Consumer Watchdog has created a new anti-Google video portraying Google CEO Eric Schmidt has some kind of evil ice cream man. The video is a commentary on what the group perceives to be Google's lack of regard for consumer privacy. 

Google and Facebook are two of the biggest companies on the web, whatever you think about the privacy practices of either company, both have received a great deal of criticism in this area (though some think the concern about Facebook has been sensationalized by the media). Which do you trust more - Google or Facebook? Comment here.

The Associated Press has revealed some new guidelines for its reporters with regards to credit and attribution. The guidelines come in the form of a letter from AP Senior Managing Editor Mike Oreskes.

Is the AP asking its reporters to do what it has frowned upon in the past? Share your thoughts.

The guidelines apply to AP reports in print, broadcast, and online news, and stress the importance of giving proper attribution to other publications that break stories.

"We should provide attribution whether the other organization is a newspaper, website, broadcaster or blog; whether or not it's U.S. based; and whether or not it's an AP member or subscriber," writes Oreskes. "This policy applies to all reports in all media, from short pieces, such as NewsNows and initial broadcast reports, to longer pieces aimed at print publication."

Oreskes says attribution doesn't have to be at the beginning of a story, and that sometimes it can be two or three paragraphs down.

"If some information comes from another organization and some is ours, we should credit ourselves for what's ours and the other organization for what's theirs," he writes, adding that if material from another source turns out to be wrong, that will be cited in corrections later. (emphasis added)

The AP is one organization that has famously expressed disdain with blogs in the past (ones that quoted AP stories and gave credit), and was cited among various other publications earlier this year by Danny Sullivan as one that failed to credit where it got its information (most likely his article, at least somewhere in the chain) about a particular story.

It is interesting however that these guidelines appear to suggest that its reporters can freely do what the AP has in the past complained about others doing - using snippets of content. Now, the guidelines don't exactly say anything about using "snippets", but it's either that, rewriting, or regurgitating something that's already been discussed elsewhere (even with some additional original content added). Am I wrong? It's a matter of fair use, and the AP's stance on fair use in the past has basically been that there isn't any when it comes to the AP's content. Is it a double standard? Clearly, this is admission that the AP has participated in this same type of reporting.

It's good to know that they're recognizing that this is just part of how it works in this age of online news, but you still have to wonder what side of the fence they come down on with regards to their own content. I guess we'll see if AP reporters abide by these guidelines and whether or not the AP attacks anybody for using the same methods with AP content.

The whole thing is very related to the AP's stance on search engines and aggregators as well. These sites do, after all, provide snippets, links, and credit to the sources. The AP just reignited a deal with Google, by the way. 

While stressing the importance of attribution, Oreskes does also make a note of telling reporters not to use other sources so much that it appears they're "free riding" on another organization's work, and stresses matching or further development of the story. 

What is not mentioned once in the guidelines is the word "link". There is no mention of linking whatsoever. It is unclear whether linking is included it in the proper attribution described or whether they deem simple credit to be sufficient. While obviously you can't link in print or broadcast (one reason why online content is more valuable to readers), linking has become commonly looked upon as necessary to attribution in online news, so those who deserve credit for breaking a story can in turn get traffic to that story.

The letter does say that it will continue to use "information from" lines with URLs, but that attribution should be in the body of the story as well. However, it is unclear whether or not this attribution will actually include links.

It will be interesting to see how the AP proceeds in this regard. Without links, the organization is setting itself up for a great deal of criticism.

Thoughts on the AP's guidelines? Let's hear them. 

ABC and CafePress have introduced a new ABC Online Store where of fans of the TV networks shows will be able to buy official merchandise along with merchandise designed by other fans.

CafePress technology will allow visitors to the site to design their own t-shirts, posters, water bottles and other custom products. These fan-designed products will live alongside official merchandise in the ABC Online Store.

“In keeping with ABC’s ongoing commitment to technological innovation, we sought a merchandising solution that would fully leverage the power of the internet to significantly enhance and deepen our relationship with the ABC viewer,” said Mia Rondinella, VP of Business Planning & Development at ABCEG.

“Embracing the voices and enthusiasm of our fans is very important to us. Of equal importance to us was the ability to incorporate the latest in supply chain optimization technologies to enable us to more nimbly execute our retail strategy,” “We selected CafePress based on its proven experience engaging and monetizing mass consumer audiences online.”

This new arrangement expands upon a licensing agreement announced earlier this year which allowed fans of selected ABC television shows to design and sell authorized show merchandise on CafePress.com.
 

AllFacebook has discovered that Facebook is now testing showing all liked news articles in its search results. This would obviously be a significant move as the company competes with Google. Nick O'Neill writes:

Mashable founder Pete Cashmore says in a CNN piece, "iTunes Ping is a worthy concept: By adding social interaction to the music-buying experience, Apple could see a significant increase in sales, and artists could form a more direct connection to their fans. But until the majority of artists are able to create official accounts, iTunes Ping merely benefits the privileged few."

Besides hinting at new features and talking about user stats, Twitter also made a couple announcements this week. One is that all Twitter apps use OAuth. The other is that it will start tracking every t.co link users click. This is Twitter's own default URL-shortener. 

Twitter sent an email to users saying, "In the coming weeks, we will be expanding the roll-out of our link wrapping service t.co, which wraps links in Tweets with a new, simplified link... When this happens, all links shared on Twitter.com or third-party apps will be wrapped with a t.co URL."

"When you click on these links from Twitter.com or a Twitter application, Twitter will log that click. We hope to use this data to provide better and more relevant content to you over time."

This may be a good thing for users from a security standpoint. Symantec says that short URL spam and phishing attacks are rising sharply. "With the announcement that Twitter will be rolling-out its own short URL service, many malicious attacks through this route will be thwarted," says Amanda Grady, Senior Analyst at Symantec. "Through Twitter's added analysis, they will be able to check if the short URL is directing users towards a site with malware and alert them in advance. This should reduce phishing attacks on Twitter accounts and prevent criminals from directing users to infected websites.

 What about other URL-shortening services? Well, Bit.ly Twitter's old favorite, has posted an update on the matter. "Following this week's OAuth and apps announcements, some of our users have inquired about how bit.ly will work with Twitter's new link-wrapping service," says Bit.ly's Matt LeMay. "Link-wrapping will enable Twitter to collect traffic data and block spam, but it will not interfere with bit.ly analytics, bit.ly Pro custom domains, or bit.ly Enterprise usage — you will be able to shorten, share and track links with bit.ly exactly as you do now."
 

"Many of our partners are already using their bit.ly Pro short links with t.co, since all links shared via the Twitter Tweet Button have been wrapped in t.co since the button launched last month," he adds. "Link-wrapping will happen automatically and invisibly in the background."

Bit.ly says its been working closely with Twitter and other social media platforms to continue improvements across the web.

Google announced that it is updating its privacy policies to make them simpler. They don't appear to have any changes involving CEO Eric Schmidt driving around neighborhoods in an ice cream truck, luckily.

Google isn't actually changing any of its privacy practices. It's just trying to make the language more understandable. Google Associate General Counsel Mike Yang outlines the updates:

1. Most of our products and services are covered by our main Google Privacy Policy. Some, however, also have their own supplementary individual policies. Since there is a lot of repetition, we are deleting 12 of these product-specific policies. These changes are also in line with the way information is used between certain products—for example, since contacts are shared between services like Gmail, Talk, Calendar and Docs, it makes sense for those services to be governed by one privacy policy as well.
2. We’re also simplifying our main Google Privacy Policy to make it more user-friendly by cutting down the parts that are redundant and rewriting the more legalistic bits so people can understand them more easily. For example, we’re deleting a sentence that reads, “The affiliated sites through which our services are offered may have different privacy practices and we encourage you to read their privacy policies,” since it seems obvious that sites not owned by Google might have their own privacy policies.
   
   In addition, we’re adding:
   

• More content to some of our product Help Centers so people will be able to find information about protecting their privacy more easily; and
• A new privacy tools page to the Google Privacy Center. This will mean that our most popular privacy tools are now all in one place.

Google says the updates will take effect on October 3. The company's main privacy policy can be found here. There is also an FAQ here. We'll see what Consumer Watchdog, who is running the above satircal video in Times Square, has to say about it.