One such example was just a couple of days ago. A relatively small group of Twitter users got fed up with the endless talk about Twitter’s Fail Whale (the default page graphic that displays when Twitter is overcapacity or down for maintenance). This small group of positive thinkers decided instead to celebrate Twitter’s success and openly pimped the Twitter Prevail Whale.

The positive attitude wasn’t a resounding success — there were those who continued to bring up Twitter’s downtime — but it was a shift in thinking for many of us to actually appreciate the success of Twitter, and by extension ourselves in social networks.

Another example comes this morning from Joel Postman, Principal of Socialized. He tells about his own experience of negative and controversial conversations in social networks. And among other things, he has personally chosen to stop criticizing others on blogs simply to make a point. He calls this contrarian philosophy a Social Media Love Manifesto.

Is the social network community ready to play nice? Are we ready to quit jumping on the FAIL bandwagon whenever someone starts to get attacked in social networks? Personally, I’m with Joel. Sometimes, the Tweets coming through Twitter are so inflammatory and reputation damaging that I simply have to turn it off for a while until the flames die down. I’m not a pussy and can take care of myself, but I also have a strong sense, like I think most of us do, of what is fair. So as of today, I’m advocating Joel’s Social Media Love Manifesto. For those of you that haven’t read it yet, here it is:

“The people we “meet” in our online interactions are real people. They probably own a computer or two, write a blog or participate in a social network, and through the social media filter we see only glimpse of them, but that does not mean that they are not real, or that we are in any way excused from treating them like any other person we would meet.

I have therefore resolved that when writing on my blog, or when using any other form of social media, when calling into question the conduct of a specific, identifiable person, I will:

• Base my comments on the facts, and make reasonable efforts to gather all of the relevant facts before weighing in on a controversial discussion.
• Weigh carefully the value of any comments I choose to make against the potential for harm.

And I will not:

• Make assumptions about people’s motivations.
• Generate controversy for its own sake.
• Join others by superficially “piling on” when someone is under attack

I will always strive to:

• Treat people online with the respect and kindness I would extend to a friend or colleague.
• Take time regularly to leave a supportive comment on a blog or acknowledge someone positively in a public forum.”

I’m going to give this a try. Are you game for playing nice in social media networks? Tell me about your views, positive or negative.

You can follow me on Twitter under the username ghennipher

While this is a great list, I’m adding 3 more tools that I’ve found indespensible:

1 . Remember the Milk for Twitter

Remember the Milk is a great task management tool that utilizes the Twitter API so you can add and interact with your tasks by direct message (and get reminders too!) Just add rtm as your friend to get started.

2. Twinkle

This is one app that I really love. Though it’s not specifically a power tool, I find that it helps me connect with otherwise unknown Twitter users within a 50 mile radius. It’s been the impetus behind our first local Tweetup, and is a lot of fun to use. I really like the ease of uploading a photo of your location/activity and having the location remain as part of the photo description. I highly recommend Twinkle.

3. Yelp

A great way to find, review and talk about what’s great and maybe not so great in your area. Saves me tons of time trying to figure out what to do in this city.

So there you have it, my 3 additions to the great Twitter power user tips. Send me a tweet at Twitter.com/ghennipher if you have more Twitter power tools you’d like to share.

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