Interesting Twitter update - Changes to ToS and Privacy Policy

Just received an interesting update from Twitter - changes to ToS and the privacy policy. It sounds like they're being more open (and I do have a lot of respect for the lengths Twitter will go to to protect their users), but what do you think?  Message follows: Hi Paul Darigan, New things are always happening here at Twitter HQ. We're growing at a rapid pace, and our commitment to simplicity, transparency, and reaching every person on the planet continues. We thought you might be interested in knowing about some of our most recent developments:

A new weekly email that delivers the most interesting news and items you might have missed from the people you're connected to on Twitter. Now Twitter is in more languages than ever. Check for your preferred language and change your setting. Download the latest Twitter mobile apps at twitter.com/download. There's more to Discover on Twitter.com - try out the new Discover tab.

In addition, we've made a number of updates to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.

Here are some of the main changes to our Privacy Policy, with links for more information:

We've provided more details about the information we collect and how we use it to deliver our services and to improve Twitter. One example: our new tailored suggestions feature, which is based on your recent visits to websites that integrate Twitter buttons or widgets, is an experiment that we're beginning to roll out to some users in a number of countries. Learn more here. We've noted the many ways you can set your preferences to limit, modify or remove the information we collect. For example, we now support the Do Not Track (DNT) browser setting, which stops the collection of information used for tailored suggestions. We've clarified the limited circumstances in which your information may be shared with others (for example, when you've given us permission to do so, or when the data itself is not private or personal). Importantly, our privacy policy is not intended to limit your rights to object to a third party's request for your information.

In our Terms of Service, we've clarified how your relationship with Twitter works and made a number of small changes and formatting improvements, such as new headings for easy reference and updated descriptions of our services.

Take a moment to read our new Privacy Policy and Terms of Service, and thanks for using Twitter.

The Twitter Team

Twitter Basics: Counting your click-throughs

Here we go, the first of a series of posts covering some social media basics.

There are lots of great tools for posting and measuring clicks on links in tweets, the free versions of which often provide a good but limited service - I fully recommend checking out Buffer and Hootsuite.

However, if you don't have any budget, but need to record these statistics, Tweetdeck and Bitly work really well together. Here's how you sync them:

1. Create a Tweetdeck account and add your profile/s to it. You can download Tweetdeck to your desktop, use the Tweetdeck web app, or install Tweetdeck for Chrome (my personal favourite).

2. Create a Bitly account.

3. When you've created your Bitly account, click on 'Settings', scroll down the page and find your API key (a long combination of letters and numbers). Copy this and open Tweetdeck.

4. When you're in Tweetdeck, click on 'Settings' and then 'Services':

• Set your 'Link Shortening' service to 'bit.ly'
• Enter your Bitly username
• Paste in your Bitly API key

5. When you've saved those changes, any links that you tweet from Tweetdeck will automatically be shortened using your Bitly account (yay).You can measure the click-throughs on these links by logging in to your Bitly account.

So, what do you think - Is that useful, do you have any other/betters tools, tips or solutions? I've got a feeling that some people will flag-up Google Analytics as a solution, and it certainly is a really strong, free tool - Have you got any Google Analytics tips for measuring the impact of your social media presence?