The Dalai Lama is on Twitter @OHHDL. At the time I am writing this, his office has posted 15 updates, and he has more than 1,800 followers.
According to his tweet, “His Holiness thought it was prudent to make his office open and assessable to a more youth and technologically advancing audience.”

I am intrigued to see how his office will use Twitter to promote their website, education and inspirational content.

UPDATE 2/10/09

Ok, we were mislead. That Dalai Lama on Twitter was exposed as a fake. See:  http://www.nowpublic.com/tech-biz/dalai-lama-twitter-ohhdl-impersonator for details.

This week I noticed a few things on twitter worth sharing: best practices for disclosure, a glimpse into Guy Kawasaki’s tweeting life and Little, Brown and Co.’s exceptional use of the channel.

1. Disclosure
I noticed that my friend (and PR strategy expert) Todd Van Hoosear offered a disclaimer when he tweeted about his own blog.

Here’s the tweet:
[On Todd's Blog] Do you have a community manager? http://tinyurl.com/759rvh

In Todd’s words, “it’s all about disclosure.”

2. The Guy Kawasaki Network
I asked if Guy had people helping him tweet. He replied, “Does it matter as long as the content of my tweets is good?”.

On the one hand, it doesn’t matter. Just as a CEO certainly does not write every blog entry but is responsible for the overall blog, the same might be true with Guy and his twitter account.

There are two aspects of subscribing Guy Kawasaki’s tweets.
A. Guy: the person. Access to his personal comments, feedback, insights, humor, etc.
B. Guy: the network. Access to articles, links and cool stuff (a mix of Alltop + Truemors)

I expect that a support staff might help him with the second. It’s the former that would not be ideal for an intern to impersonate.

3. Little, Brown and Co. – @LittleBrown – Do What You Know. A Best Practice.
This famous book publisher offered to help anyone on twitter by offering a personalized book recommendation. @ChrisBrogan picked up on the offer and broadcast it to his followers. Great example of using twitter to help prospective customers and stay on brand message.

Did you spot a twitter best practice this week? Please share it in the comments.

(Image: “Round-Up Room” by Whalt, on Flickr)

Favorite sites, articles and resources this week:

1. Superlist of What NOT To Do In Social Media (UPDATED)

2. I need an interview: “To help me get the job of my dreams I will be volunteering 5 hours to non-profits for each interview that I receive and an additional 1 minute for each unique visitor to my site.”

3. Why Intel’s social media policy is a really big deal. Really.

4. Where is Your Username registered?

5. Propaganda leaflets

6. Quarlo, Street photos of New York.

Favorite Tweets this week:

1. @amoxcalli RT @meshugavi: “For every follower I get, I will be donating a dollar to the Susan G. Komen Foundation.” Follow @mrsrosey! (pls RT)

2. @jowyang When you look closely, you probably know and can recognize more brands than you do people –Do you agree with that theory?
3. @McMatt Serious knowledge from @THE_REAL_SHAQ: B kinder than necessary because everyone u meet is fighting some kind of battle.

Gennefer Snowfield’s recent blog post “There’s Too Many ‘Me, Me, Me’s in ‘Follow Me” spurred an impacting conversation on who we follow on Twitter and why. More than 30 people commented, and the discussion that started on her blog carried into many twitter conversations. Gennefer emphasized the importance of quality over quantity, complementing the relationship builders and disparaging “friend collectors and wannabe gurus.”

People who wear their friend count like a badge of honor are annoying, and there is no prize for attaining a target number of friends. However, I do not think the situation is so black and white.

I like adding “random,” people on twitter not to increase my friend count but to add to the diversity of my tweet stream. I often use twitter’s search tool to find keywords that suggest people I may want to follow. Recently, I’ve used these keywords and phrases:

• Salman Rushdie
• James Joyce
• CPM
• “Check this out”
• Brazil

I have found that people who uses these keywords are often people I enjoy following. And when I am wrong, I simply unfollow them.
When in doubt, I follow first and unsubscribe later. That method works well for me. Other methods I use are described here.

I have found that my experience of twitter is different with more friends and followers than it was with fewer friends and followers. If I ask a question now, not only do my friends respond—I also receive responses from unexpected people with completely different backgrounds and experiences.

I confess. I’m completely addicted to cool ideas, spectacular links, and fresh insight. Following 100s of people has deeply satisfied my information addiction.

I personally agree that it’s ideal to connect to a network of people whose insights you value. However, I have no problem with people arbitrarily “friending” folks to find those people.

A few weeks ago I posted my criteria for following people back on twitter.

Do check out Gennefer Snowfield’s blog post. The conversation there is spectacular.

Mr. Tweet, the personal networking assistant for twitter, has all the twitterati talking. According to the website, “Mr. Tweet looks through your extended network to help you build effective relationships on Twitter.”

I used and enjoyed the service. Recently, I interviewed its founder, Steve Ming Yeow Ng, over email. Our discussion is below.

Have you actively marketed yourself? If so, how?
We are almost at 14,000 [followers] now, gaining at about 1000 a day. The amazing thing is that all our users came almost exclusively from word of mouth, as opposed to active marketing, or even PR. Even all of PR came from users who used us and love the service.

Who are 3 of your most memorable Twitter friends and what makes them memorable?
Haha, I keep close track of the conversations, and I have to say it is these 3:

1) Gary V – cause his personality is so amazingly outsized yet endearing at the same time.

2) Marta Strickland – cause she is smart and sassy, and generous with ideas

3) Acclimedia – cause she is very critical, w/o ever being negative. Very hard balance to achieve, but she does it

4) KrisColvin – I was blown away when I read her blog (as part of user research), because she shares so much of her valuable thought process in such detail. She is actually a classic case where I felt that the world would be a much more valuable place if more people could learn from her, as opposed to being obsessed with the same few people all the time. And that kind of granularity of connecting is what we will be gunning for soon

If I use Twitter Grader do I need Mr. Tweet?
We are a very different ball game. We do not offer a universal grading statistic, because we think that is very misleading. Influence is an attribute of the audience, not an attribute of the person. IE, it really is personalized. My kid is highly influential to me, but he is probably has zero influence on you. On a similar note, Werner Vogels cannot be compared to Scoble when you try to apply a universal ranking, but as the is probably the leading thought leader when it comes to Cloud Computing, his thoughts are immensely influential for technologists and backend engineers. Hence, influence depends much less on the person being graded, but who he is being graded for.

Can you share a few interesting stats with us (your growth, what features people use, stats that marketers may find compelling)?
Haha, we do not have many features, and we are not ready to publish some of the stats yet, although we will do so at some point.
That said, I can say one thing with confidence: People are not interested in subscribing to marketing messages, or celebrities/companies who follow random people. They are interested in personalities who value relationships.
I know this sounds like common knowledge, but both the stats and the user feedback back these up ->People are really a lot more interested in listening to people who are building relationships. There is a very strong reciprocal effect here.

What has been the most interesting part of launching Mr. Tweet?
Definitely the enthusiastic user feedback, and seeing the diversity of ways we add value. It is an amazing feeling.

A recent presentation from Mr. Tweet’s founder:

Discovery Is The New Cocaine – Going Beyond Engagement

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: discovery ux)