The 140 character post has taken the world by storm. Twitter growth is currently trending at 965% year over year and predicted to be at 100 million users by end of 2009. This is a uniquely valuable channel to marketers, for both broadcasting your message and mining data to gauge your position in the market. It is more important than ever to understand the Twitter audience, both the Tweeters and the consumers of tweets.

A few interesting facts about user behavior from a analysis done by Sysmos:
- 85% of Twitter users post less than one tweet per day
- 93.6% of users have less than 100 followers, while 92.4% follow less than 100 people
- 5% of Twitter users account for 75% of all activity
- More than 50% of all updates are published using tools, mobile and Web-based, other than Twitter.com. TweetDeck is the most popular non-Twitter.com tool with 19.7% market share.

The Los Angeles wildfires have burned 105,000 acres with no end in site. Social Media is emerging as an incredible resource for aggregating and pushing information to the residents of Los Angeles affected by this tragedy. Updates from todays social web:

The #station #stationfire #lafire #socalfire tags continue to pop with observations on the ground. New users @latimescitydesk @passtarnews @angelesnf and @socalincidents are climbing the ranks and seeing much more activity. Quick analysis of one of the top users @latimesfires, currently has 2,900 followers, sending out about 2 tweets per hour which are being retweeted at 76%.  Looking at @latimesfires tweetstats gives a quick piucture of the influencers on twitter involved in the fires: @lanow, @socalincidents, @latimeslocal, @lafd, @ktla, @abc7 to name a few.

There is a Flick Stream of photos tagged with the Station Fire as well as youtube footage of Mt Wilson. The UCLA Mt Wilson webcam which updates every two minutes url has been picked up by major media outlets like the New York Times, the traffic spike is overloading their servers.

There is also a Facebook Group for the Station Fire. The group currently has 415 Fans, 2 Albums containing user submitted photos annd maps, 19 Links toVolunteer Opportunities, Photos, and Donations, along with 3 Notes Showing Evacuation updates, Angeles National Forest Evacuation Updates, Line of Duty Injuries.

The blogosphere is using the post format to ahre information and aggregate links. ThisisBrandX is following the fires from the blogosphere and compiled links to the top local sites. IndieSocal has a list of resources for the Station Fire.

Youtube is full of user generated footage, coverage replays, timelapse, and action videos. There are 267 new videos averaging about 200 views per video today.

Los Angeles is on fire. Currently there are over 35,000 acres burning and minimal containment. Mike Dietrich the on scene commander said last night in a press conference that the people of LA are just as important to putting out these fires and defending the city as the 2,200 fire fighters from around the state who are coming to the rescue. Enter the 140 character superhero, Twitter, who is empowering observers on the gound to pass information in real time to decision makers and people looking for help.

In the last 48 hours the tags  #lafire #calfire #stationfire @latimes @lanow and @latimesfires have been popping with tweets which paint a picture of the situation at hand. Doing a quick search of twitter you can see the current state of the fire, and gain situational awareness that is helping emergency personell and citizens make the right decisions.

Some highlights from the last 24 hours on Twitter:

- AM 640 is using twitter to get updates from citizen journalists and recruit listeners to come on the air and give updates.

- LA Times created the username @latimesfires to consilidate user generated news content. They are aggregating some of this content on LA Time Your Scene hosted on thier site.

-@lanow has layered goverment and user generated observations over google maps showing affected areas and evacuation centers.

Tweets From the Field:

- birdiebreeze damn the winds are picking up !! best to everyone in Glendale, AltaDena, La Canada Flintridge, et al Evacuations have been ordered

- douglaswelch RT @anodyne2art: To see motion of fire: http://www.geomac.gov/viewer/viewer.htm Select Modis & HMS Ther Sat #calfire #lafire #Cottonwfire

- AlBoeBNO RT @latimesnystrom: @latimesfire Map of Rancho Palos Verdes area http://bit.ly/LZaAH | #lafire http://bit.ly/tz2qL

The PGA of America is not immune to the effects of the economic downturn. This weekend at Hazeltine for the 2009 PGA Championships there will be less corporate fanfare and less revenue coming in from sponsorships and corporate chalets. According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune “financial considerations are forcing some companies to downsize their presence. A handful of companies went from 100 person chalets to 50 person chalets. Some companies are partnering wiht other companies. Corporate participation is down from 140 companies in 2002 to about 110 this year”. This means one thing for those looking at the bottom line, less revenue.

Enter new media monetizaton oppurtunities. Turner Sports and the PGA are bringing in social media with things like twittter and user generated content. PGA Championship weekend tweeters like Ian Baker-Finch and Ernie Johnson will offer real time updates from the course. They also launched an iPhone application sponsored by ING which is going for $1.99 in the app store. This is the first major where they are charging for coverage, Augusta, the British and US Open were all free. Judging from the success of top PGA twitter star Sewart Cink who is currently at 705,000 followers, the 140th ranked personality on twitter this new media should bring in quite a crowd.

Will social media bring the boost in advertising revenue to make up for the loss of corporate sponsorship? Keep your eye on the ball and follow the #pga twitter tag this weekend and find out!

Last night marked the peak of the Perseids Meteor Shower and the first worldwide meteor shower party hosted via twitter. Twitter opens up a new medium we can use to provide real time situational awareness. It has enabled the rise of the citizen journalist in record time. Some examples from last night’s tweets tagged with #meteorwatch are listed below. After a quick read see if you can give an update on the weather across the United States last night. The stream below is only a minute fraction of the data produced by the 80 million plus Twitter users daily. That means there are 80 million observers, promoters, focus group members, callaborators, and creators standing at the ready for you and your brand to empower them. Time to tune in and put them to work.

CharlesCrosbie @olis_mum Yes, Ottawa here. Have seen 3 or 4 so far. Am expecting to be able to see more in the next little bit, if I’m awake. #meteorwatch

earthsalts #Meteorwatch comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle left debris in space in 1610 that we should see burn up in our atmosphere at 4am CDT

dannyhoyt #meteorwatch I’ve seen about 7 already from the Nebraska cornfields. Pretty sweet.

webaddict I’m bummed it’s so cloudy in San Diego. Even if a drive way out east it’s still mostly cloudy. DOH! #Meteorwatch

jasminelovesjoe #Meteorwatch im in Virginia! ive seen 2 or 3 meteors! anyone else??

Carlitosway311 #Meteorwatch, its super hard to find anything in brooklyn.

uber_cake Its poring down rain here in Oregon. I wish I could see the meteors #meteorwatch

ijbdiaz #meteorwatch a little bit cloudy here in mckinney, tx. So far nothing in the sky.