I may get more value out of Twitter than anyone else on the planet because I use Twitter as a tool—specifically as a marketing tool—for my website Alltop and my book, Reality Check.

BusinessWeek's Stephen Baker discusses the cover story he co-wrote in May, 2008, on online social networks, an update of the May, 2005, cover story, "Blogs Will Change Your Business."

Here's information about Facebook, blogs, and other forms of electronic communication that business communicators should know about.

Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, has a full plate. Besides his basketball team, the busy billionaire also owns part of a media company, and serves as chairman of the TV channel HDNet. He recently competed for five weeks on “Dancing With the Stars” on ABC. How on earth does he find time to blog?

Now that you know a little more about what constitutes social media, how do you use them for your business? What communications skills are needed?

Now you can send a friend or coworker a text message without typing. If you have a blackberry, there is an application that allows you to talk to your phone,and it understands you. Just speak, verify, and send.

This 54-slide presentation discusses how to handle a crisis in this YouTube age. It includes some fascinating case studies of communication that has gone awry.

A fact-paced presentation on how to use Twitter for maximum effectiveness.

One way to think about online video is to consider how big a chunk it takes out of our daily lives. The amount of time U.S. Internet users spend watching video is up an impressive 40 percent year over year. Watchers tuned in for 273.1 minutes of online video in the month of November 2008, up from 195 minutes in November 2007, according to comScore.

Studying social media in a business communication class isn't important? Right?

Wrong! The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research recently conducted one of the first statistically significant, longitudinal studies on the usage of social media in corporations.

The new study compares corporate adoption of social media between 2007 and 2008 by the Inc. 500, a list of the fastest-growing private U.S. companies compiled annually by Inc. . For details about the 2007 Inc. 500 and the complete directory of the included companies, please visit Inc. Magazine's website at www.Inc.com.