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They say pictures are worth a thousand words, but you only get 140 characters to Tweet it to the world. Just months after a $40 million TweetDeck acquistion, in-the-know tech site, All Things D confirms that Twitter is looking to further expand their offerings and create their own photo-sharing service. Twitter reps are not commenting on the reports, but the social media kings are buzzing with crystal-ball predictions of what the empire’s latest brainchild will look like.

I wanted to add my two cents to the conversation. Currently, users who want to share photos in their tweets have to post them on secondary sights and include links to their photos within tweets. That’s all too time consuming. Let’s cut to the chase. We need those 140 characters to tell everyone just how cute Baby Ali is and include a picture. We can’t just go wasting those precious characters with link space. So, in the spirit of all things twit-tastic, below are my top three photo-sharing sites and what I am looking for in Twitter’s revamp in 140 characters or less.

Twitpic – Share media in real-time. Iphone, email, website platforms using in-site API. CON: Links too lengthy, need more room for text. #nicetry

Yfrog – Served by ImageShack and optimized for mobile viewing. No frills, fast and easy to use. CON: Too many platform bugs make it less reliable. #almostthere

Instagram – Enhances pics with various effects and has seamless social integration on FB, TW, Flickr, Foursquare and Tumblr. CON: Only available for iphones. #Ihaveandroid

What I’m really hoping for in a Twitter platform as an in-house photo-sharing device as clean, quirky, and creative as the namesake’s currently successful products. A hybrid Yfrog, Twitpic, and Instagram will suffice, but I am hoping Twitter will take this opportunity and will go one step further in order to bring us something not even the social media world could have predicted. What are you looking for in the new Twitter photo-sharing service? All Things D reports plans for the platform’s unveiling at the D9 conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., this week. Stay tuned!

This week, Starbucks launched a free Starbucks card app for iPhone, iPod Touch, and Blackberry owners. The app, which is currently accepted in 6,800 Starbucks and 1,000 Target stores in the United States, allows customers to pay with their smartphones in lieu of cash or credit cards. Customers can also add money to their cards, check their balances, locate stores, and earn rewards stars for free drinks.

As a coffee lover and iPhone user, I felt this new app might be a good fit for me (although potentially cause my caffeine addiction to spiral even more out of control, but I digress). Fellow NYC DI member Maya Swedowsky and I decided to test out the app and see if it made our Starbucks experience more efficient.

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One major buzz item in 2010 was designers and developers starting to implement HTML5 and C335 standards into web designs. HTML5 - CSS3 tends to be included when discussing HTML5 - is the next stage in the evolution of HTML, the base language that is used to build the vast majority of the Web.

Going into 2011, as the markup is not yet finalized by the W3C, and certain techniques have not been adopted by all browsers, what does this mean for the PR and social media industry today? Additionally, what does this mean for a site’s visitors and application users in the short and long run?

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I recently came across an interesting study that declared mobile web will be the leading trend in 2015. This is a pretty bold statement but believe it or not there is truth to it. This year we’ve witnessed an explosion in mobile and location based content with cool location based social applications like Foursquare, Gowalla, and BrightKite. Location based services are one of the most powerful ways to personalize one’s mobile experience which can be even more amplified with the integration of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.  An increasing number of brands are experimenting and trying out mobile marketing strategies as a result. Last month, Gowalla partnered with Travel Channel to integrate some of its dining content from the show Food Wars.  When Gowalla users check in to venues visited in Food Wars, they will be able to read show-related information about the restaurant and collect passport-stamp rewards. This is a great way to engage fans and build strong brand awareness and loyalty. Gowalla says users have checked in at 600,000 locations in more than 165 countries to-date.

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