You probably know that YouTube is, by far, the top video destination on the Web.

Here are some things about YouTube, though, that you probably don’t know:

Retweeting is an integral part of the Twitter experience. The retweet (or “RT”) allows Twitter users to share the best links, tweets, and gems they find from others using the service. But for beginners, it’s not immediately obvious what retweets are, or what tools to use to make retweeting easier. Learn what you need to know here.

Sticks and stones can break your bones, but tweets could break your bank account.

It's a lesson being brought home south of the border where incautious outbursts on the micro-blogging service Twitter are landing their authors in court.

It's amazing the trouble 140 characters can cause you.

Businesses can form instant direct relationships with their customer bases simply by signing up and using the service regularly, and according to the models Twitter is trying out, they will soon be able to advertise to the Twitter community as well. It has grown into a behemoth that is hard to get your hands around, which is why we’ve put this article together for you.

New media has changed the way we communicate today, both personally and professionally. Gone are the days when corporations could dictate messages how they saw fit. Today, organizations have to engage their employees in new conversations while providing context and rationale.

These issues took center stage at Edelman’s 2009 New Media Academic Summit in Washington, D.C. this month where academics from around the nation gathered to learn from those practicing in the field.

The “Encouraging New Conversations” panel, moderated by Gary Grates, focused on ways companies use new media to engage employees, whether it is through knowledge sharing, storytelling, or connecting a network to increase the sense of community. Participants included Jason Greenspan, strategic communications director at McDonald’s Corporation, Susan Bishop, director of employee marketing at General Electric and Jack Berger, vice president of communications at Alcoa, Inc. (You can watch the webcast here.)

Insights included:

You probably don't think twice about sending personal messages through your work e-mail. But sending e-mails about a seemingly innocuous hobby cost one financial advisor his job when his employer tapped into his work account and read his messages.

Cameron Pettigrew, who worked as a client relations manager at Fidelity Investments in Texas, was fired after supervisors found out he was sending messages about a fantasy football league that he ran.

"Firing a guy for being in a $20 fantasy league?" Pettigrew told the Fort Worth Star Telegram. "Let's be honest: that's a complete overreaction."

The growing number of disputes between employers and employees over cyberspace privacy has caught the attention of the Supreme Court, which decided this week to review a lawsuit between a California cop and supervisors who read his racy text messages.

This is a guide to Twitter for both personal and business use.

Despite recent indications that large corporations are not understanding social media sites such as Twitter, it’s clear that there are some that are finally getting it. A recent benchmarking study by Business.com followed up by a post by friend and cohort Joe Turner demonstrates how social media has gone corporate.

. . . e-mail is soon to become a dinosaur. It had been a wonderful tool, but it has had its shortcomings. The main one being that anyone can send you any message at no cost to them. This allowed spammers to send 100 billion emails per day in April of 2008 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junk_email). Internet users have become sick of this and they are starting to do something about it.

In 2009, Boston College stopped distributing e-mail addresses to incoming freshmen. So that must mean that students and professors are going to communicate another way. My guess is that it will be through blogs and other social media that can be closed to unwanted participants.

According to the same study, 80 percent of all companies surveyed already increased their use of electronic communication in the last two years. Fifty percent of the companies have also reduced their use of printed communication materials in the workplace.

This survey simply shows the growing significance of social media in business and how social media are really set to change the way people communicate.