Twitter Valuing Tweets, AllThingsD May End, Web Design at It’s Best

The Strategist picks the day’s most relevant and interesting stories about the world of content from around the web. Here’s what you should be reading today:

Twitter Judging the Value of Tweets

According to Mashable, Twitter is now determining how valuable tweets are on its website.

Sam Laird writes, “The value judgements will be assigned to the public metadata of tweeters’ posts, and used by Twitter’s streaming API to help developers more selectively curate massive amounts of status updates.” The new feature, which will reportedly debut on Feb. 20, will likely rank tweets based on level of engagement from users with a large amount of followers.

The End of AllThingsD and News Corp?

According to PaidContent, News Corp might be giving up its technology blog, AllThingsD.

The contract is up at the end of 2013, but relations between the blog team and the company are reportedly “stressed.” Hearst, Yahoo, AOL, and Conde Nast might be interested in purchasing the blog.

Web Design at its Best

Pamela Wilson of CopyBlogger writes about what types of web design work.

She says that there has to be an interactive introduction on the first page, and that it should be easy to navigate. For example, the About page should not be called “Full Disclosure” or “Dispatch from Headquarters.” She says that colors should go well together (like dark on light or vice versa) and that there should be white space so that words have “room to breathe.”

30 Percent of Display Ads Not Seen By Consumers

According to ClickZ and a report from comScore, 3 out of 10 display ads weren’t seen by consumers in 2012.

The survey revealed that because of smartphones and tablets, ads and media are more fragmented than ever. Facebook is also seeing huge engagement with consumers as well: “Five out of every six minutes spent on a social networking site is on Facebook.”

Branded Storytelling from Ron Howard

Content Marketing Institute covers storytelling according to Ron Howard’s career.

Following his lead, marketers should add color to their stories (as was done with “The Andy Griffith Show” in the ’60s) while still sticking to the overall brand message. Howard was a guest star on M*A*S*H; Brands should add guest parties to their overall stories since it offers “credibility to your stories.” Marketers have to test out brands on different channels of media, just like Howard did with “Arrested Development.” When Fox didn’t work out, he tried DVDs, and then gained an ally through Netflix.

He proves that if at first brands don’t succeed to try and try again: “Brand storytelling requires an approach that uses each of the channels in your arsenal to tell your stories. If a channel doesn’t seem to be working, content marketers must experiment with other mediums for storytelling.”

Staying on Top of Freelancing Gigs

According to Freelance Switch, in order to stay on top of freelance work, writers should keep an article idea bank and write a few paragraphs for each idea.

Mind maps should be created to organize exactly how work will be completed. Writers have to pinpoint when their creative and productive times are, and go with the flow to get the work completed then. If they’re in a rut, that’s where the inspiring idea bank can come in handy.

Image courtesy of The Daring Librarian/flickr