Twitter has made some revisions to its terms of service, to address issues like advertising, tweet ownership, APIs, and spam. There’s not as much news in this as one might expect, but there are some things worth noting.

“The revisions more appropriately reflect the nature of Twitter and convey key issues such as ownership. For example, your tweets belong to you, not to Twitter,” says Twitter Co-founder Biz Stone.

With regards to advertising, they’re leaving “the door wide open.” Stone says they want to “keep their options open.” So nothing concrete there.

As far as APIs, Stone says developers using Twitter APIs authorize Twitter to make content available. There is a separate set of guidelines for APIs that can be found here. It is still a work in progress. Current guidelines are as follows:

- Identify the user that authored or provided the Tweet, unless you are providing Tweets in an aggregate form or in anonymous form in those exceptional cases where concerns over user security and anonymity are involved.

- Maintain the integrity of Tweets and not edit or revise them. Tweets may be abbreviated for display purposes and as necessary due to technical limitations or requirements of any networks, devices, services or media.

- Get each user’s consent before sending Tweets or other messages on their behalf. A user authenticating with your application does not constitute consent to send a message.

- Get permission from the user that created the Tweet if you want to make their Tweet into a commercial good or product, like using a Tweet on a t-shirt or a poster or making a book based on someone’s Tweets.

Spam guidelines are the same and can be found here.

The Tweet ownership stuff has already received some criticism for further clouding an already unclear subject. “If Twitter can do what they want with ‘our’ tweets, including reproduction for their own (financial) gain, what do we actually ‘own’?” asks Shéa Bennett at Twittercism. “If Twitter loses our data, closes our accounts or goes out of business, do we still own those tweets? Or are they retrievable in any way?”

Twitter’s terms of service are not necessarily finalized though. Stone made it quite clear that they are still open to feedback, and will make adjustments if they deem them necessary. There is even a feedback link right on the terms page. So if you have concerns about anything within, don’t hesitate to let Twitter know.

Check out this post about top 10 twitter tools for wordpress.

Britney’s back!  But even more importantly, she’s now on Twitter! The immediate exposure Britney will bring to Twitter, along with the vast reach the service will bring provide Britney, is a win-win situation for both parties! It looks like the marketing and branding team behind Britney Spears are finally getting it. After a complete re-branding of herself, from the hottest celebrity icon in the world, to the most crazy… then back again… this may be her best move yet. In addition to her making the move to Twitter (which is most likely her management team), her new Britney Spears web site has a web 2.0 feel about it as well, and seems to be in a new blog format. Already with only a few posts at her new site, each are receiving hundreds of comments. For Twitter… this is simply a dream come true! Already Britney Spears’ new twitter account also has 2,323 followers and 16 updates (UPDATE: Just a few hours after this post going live, Britney’s twitter account is now up to 3,574 followers). While this isn’t a lot of followers compared to other big name marketers on Twitter, this is a sure to be one of the fastest growing accounts. Not to mention the free exposure Twitter will get out out it. Having Britney Spears on board will not on bring massive exposure, but will open up the site to a whole new audience of fans and users. Should any other celebrities jump onto the bandwagon and create Twitter accounts, we all know Twitter will soon be on the buying block or start generating revenue sooner than later.