There is no question that Twitter and RSS have some things in common. However, they are not the same, and Twitter will not kill the feed reader. This is a concept I have seen come up a number of times, and frankly, I just don’t see it happening, at least not without some dramatic changes in how Twitter is presented to its users.

Note: There are many different feed readers that offer different options. I am not familiar with all of them. There are also many Twitter applications out there that allow for different kinds of integrations, and again I am not familiar with all of them.

There are similarities and differences between the concepts that are RSS and Twitter. Let’s look at a few of them.

How They Are the Same

- One thing they have in common is that there are a lot of people that don’t understand the purpose of either one.

- Both can bring you a wealth of information that you are interested in receiving into one convenient place.

- Both can keep you up to date with news.

- Both can provide a means of discovering new and interesting content.

- From the content provider’s perspective, both can provide a convenient delivery method.

How they Are Different

- Of course, Twitter is a two-way communication tool whereas a feed reader only brings information in. Although some have social features that allow for interaction…Google for example has gotten more social with sharing and commenting features.

- With RSS there is a better chance that content won’t go overlooked. Feed readers put a number on the unread posts. Twitter is a never-ending stream. Granted, you can go to each person’s stream separately, but you won’t see any specific number of unread posts.

- RSS Readers can be organized, broken down into categories…how do you organize Twitter messages (without RSS feeds)?

- With Twitter, you can only subscribe to or “follow” those you find on Twitter. With RSS, you pretty much have the entire web as long as the site offers feeds, which most providing regular content do by now. Most blogging platforms create feeds automatically.

- With feeds, you get a lot more visible content. With Twitter, you get 140 characters. Some feeds allow for full text. With tweets you will always have to follow links to get full content.

- Tweets are real-time. RSS tends to drag behind a bit (at least in my experience).

Jeff Chandler puts it well (if not bluntly):

“To limit yourself to Twitter instead of RSS is a dumb move because your feedreader provides you the opportunity to see the bigger picture. You get to see many viewpoints instead of just one. You get to see trends outside of what people are talking about. Instead of updates or cool posts from here or their on the web, your feedreader serves the purpose of bringing all sorts of great information from across the web to you in one location.”

You can subscribe to Twitter streams as RSS feeds, for better organization, which is another endorsement for RSS. Use a feed reader to organize your Twitter friends’ posts. You can also set up your blog to post to Twitter via RSS.

Will Twitter replace feed readers?

I don’t think so. But it certainly could become more mainstream (if it hasn’t already). You could probably find more people on the street that have heard of Twitter than have RSS at this point. But for those who have already been enjoying RSS, you’re going to have a hard time convincing them that Twitter will replace it in their lives.

While similar in some aspects, they are clearly two very different animals. Like blogs and Twitter, there is no reason why they can’t co-exist, and even feed off of each other.

The best links on Twitter often come from people who acquire those links themselves via feed readers. Likewise, a lot of bloggers are gathering information from Twitter to compose their content.

I do think that RSS and Twitter can be used to explain each other to those who don’t grasp the concept of one or the other. If you describe Twitter as “sort of a feed reader” type service, you may drive (at least part of) the point home. If someone doesn’t understand RSS, you might be able to explain it using Twitter as an example. Just a thought.

Earlier this year, Google laid off about 200 employees in the sales and marketing department. Head of Sales, Tim Armstrong also left the company to become CEO of AOL. Armstrong then got Senior Google sales executive Jeff Levick to go with him.

Now the sales department at Google has some more changes in store according the Wall Street Journal. This includes the elimination of some jobs, although those employees will evidently be offered other opportunities within the company. WSJ reports:

One change, according to Google spokesman Matt Furman, creates a new position of vice president of agency and industry relations, an apparent attempt to streamline and bolster its relations with agencies who control spending from big brands. The job is being filled by long-time Google executive Penry Price, who is being promoted from his previous job of vice president of sales for North America.

The company is also simplifying the complex matrix of sales reps that reported up through Price in the past. Previously, sales executives were organized by regions — East, West and Central — by what industry of advertisers they catered to, such as healthcare and finance. Google said it would abolish those regional distinctions and organize exclusively by industry.

Other positions include:

- John McAteer – retail and technology spending

- Jim Lecinski – CPG, B2B, Local, and Healthcare

- Bonita Stewart – Automotive, Financial Services, Media and Entertainment, and Travel.

Of course, Nikesh Arora recently took over global operations and sales, and Dennis Woodside became the company’s new vice president for the Americas.

Twitter is buzzing and here is a collection of top 10 twitter tools, plugins, widgets and scripts to integrate with your wordpress blog.

• TweetSuite -  a Twitter-WordPress integration plugin that includes server-side TweetBacks, ReTweet-This buttons, digg-like Tweet-This Button, automatic tweeting of new posts and some widgets.
• Tweet This – A plugin that adds a Twitter icon to every post and page, so your readers can share your blog entries on their Twitter accounts with ease.
• WP Twitip ID – Plugin adds an extra field to the comment form for user to enter their twitter username
• Twitter Badge – Official javascript codes that display badges showing what you are posting on Twitter.
• The Twitter Updater – a wordpress plugin that automatically sends a Twitter status update to your Twitter account when you create, publish, or edit your WordPress post. You can specify the text for the updates, and also have the option to turn the auto update on/off for the different post actions in the admin panel.
• TwitThis is an easy way for people to send Twitter messages about your blog post or website. When visitors to your website click on the TwitThis button or link, it takes the URL of the webpage and creates a shorter URL using TinyURL. Then visitors can send this shortened URL and a description of the web page to all of their friends on Twitter.
• Twitter Tools – This wordpress plugin creates an integration between your WordPress blog and your Twitter account. Pull your tweets into your blog and create new tweets on blog posts and from within WordPress.
• Twitter Wordpress Sidebar Widget – Customise the number of updates shown in your sidebar, individual links to each status update on Twitter, style your Twitterings using CSS, choose whether to display your Twitter name before each post and customise text between the post text and the relative time.
• Twitter Feed – Posts your blog updates to your twitter account. Login to twitterfeed using your OpenID, provide the URL for your blog RSS feed, and how often to post to Twitter.
• Twitt-Twoo – is a simple little plugin that will allow you to update your Twitter status right from your blog’s sidebar. It is AJAX powered and allows for quick and easy status updates.
• Twitter Sharts – ‘Shart’ your twitter status anywhere within your wordpress blog posts or pages.

I hope these Twitter tools will help you integrate Twitter in your wordpress blog and vice versa. Found a Twitter tool for this list? Post it in comments. This list is regularly updated.

Today April 1 — is D-Day for Conficker, as whatever nasty payload it’s packing is currently set to activate. What happens come midnight is a mystery: Will it turn the millions of infected computers into spam-sending zombie robots? Or will it start capturing everything you type — passwords, credit card numbers, etc. — and send that information back to its masters?

No one knows, but we’ll probably find out soon.

Or not. As Slate notes, Conficker is scheduled to go “live” on April 1, but whoever’s controlling it could choose not to wreak havoc but instead do absolutely nothing, waiting for a time when there’s less heat. They can do this because the way Conficker is designed is extremely clever: Rather than containing a list of specific, static instructions, Conficker reaches out to the web to receive updated marching orders via a huge list of websites it creates. Conficker.C — the latest bad boy — will start checking 50,000 different semi-randomly-generated sites a day looking for instructions, so there’s no way to shut down all of them. If just one of those sites goes live with legitimate instructions, Conficker keeps on trucking.

Conficker’s a nasty little worm that takes serious efforts to bypass your security defenses, but you aren’t without some tools in your arsenal to protect yourself.

Your first step should be the tools you already have: Windows Update, to make sure your computer is fully patched, and your current antivirus software, to make sure anything that slips through the cracks is caught.

But if Conficker’s already on your machine, it may bypass certain subsystems and updating Windows and your antivirus at this point may not work. If you are worried about anything being amiss — try booting into Safe Mode, which Conficker prevents, to check — you should run a specialized tool to get rid of Conficker.

Microsoft offers a web-based scanner (note that some users have reported it crashed their machines; I had no trouble with it), so you might try one of these downloadable options instead: Symantec’s Conficker (aka Downadup) tool, Trend Micro’s Cleanup Engine, or Malwarebytes. Conficker may prevent your machine from accessing any of these websites, so you may have to download these tools from a known non-infected computer if you need them. Follow the instructions given on each site to run them successfully. (Also note: None of these tools should harm your computer if you don’t have Conficker.)

As a final safety note, all users — whether they’re worried about an infection or know for sure they’re clean — are also wise to make a full data backup today.

What won’t work? Turning your PC off tonight and back on on April 2 will not protect you from the worm (sorry to the dozens of people who wrote me asking if this would do the trick). Temporarily disconnecting your computer from the web won’t help if the malware is already on your machine — it will simply activate once you connect again. Changing the date on your PC will likely have no helpful effect, either. And yes, Macs are immune this time out. Follow the above instructions to detect and remove the worm.

Thanks in part to a quarter-million-dollar bounty on the head of the writer of the worm, offered by Microsoft, security researchers are aggressively digging into the worm’s code as they attempt to engineer a cure or find the writer before the deadline.