Unfortunately, this new ability also brings new challenges: misinformation and disinformation, which are very hard to detect with current technologies. In response, certification of content trustworthiness, detection and reply to errors, lies and negative opinions, albeit very people-intensive,are very much needed by organizations large and small.

At a personal level, Twitter allows to establish personal relationships with thousands or even millions of others. By opening to others truthfully and contributing to the communities we join, we stand to gain support, get quick answers to our questions and make unplanned, fortunate discoveries. The flows of tweets offer many perspectives instantaneously that we can explore to better understand our current situation. For that, we need to adapt our mindset and raise our awareness of the present.

The dangers: we need to watch what we write and re-transmit to avoid damage to our personal brand; we also need to deal with criticism.

How should you tweet? Listen more than you tweet, tweet emotional headlines, use humor.

What could the future of Twitter look like? Twitter use is likely to become more private and Facebook more public, social graphs should open up. The tools of the Twitter-verse need to evolve significantly, become more transparent and easier to use (Loic Le Meur’s complete prediction list here).

Many other interesting points were made, but “better timely than perfect” as one of the speakers said. I count on you, readers and fellow participants, to improve this draft with your comments…

Note: many of the points above were expressed by several presenters, so the list of references is a large subset of the 140 presenters list… Post a comment if you want me to give you a specific reference.

Anything you would like to add?

Watching the flow of tweets suggest as many paths of exploration, I feel the limits of my own personal filters and an urge to widen them: I don’t understand that tweet, what am I missing?

Some of the tweets are annoying (why should I care if XYZ joined such or such group? Or please don’t sell my your stuff so directly…), but fairly easy to recognize and skip. Some of the messages repeat themselves from time to time and it’s OK, it makes me feel like I’ve been around for a while.

I feel I’m monitoring the world of social media in real time and it’s pretty cool. Tweets lead to blogs, blogs lead to sites, and sites lead to books. The whole domain opens itself very easily.