“Wassup, world? My name is Max Armstrong and I just arrived. My Mommy is healthy and so am I!”…

That’s how Max Armstrong introduced himself to the world via Twitter on June 4. In the process, he is on his way to catching up with his Dad, the legendary 7-time Tour de France champion and testicular cancer survivor has more than 1 million followers on Twitter. And I thought my 200+ followers was a lot!

Daddy Lance Armstrong now ranks as number 14 in the world in terms of number of Twitter followers, thanks to Max and his bike, right between The New York Times (number 13) and Cold Play (number 15). Not to be outdone, little Max (full name Maxwell Edward Armstrong) also has his own Twitter account now, with over 3,700 followers. Not bad for a 10-day old baby, eh? He is entertaining his followers with cute tweets on hiccups, poops, and passport application. I’m not surprised if collects followers as fast as his Dad. He definitely has won me over!

Max made his entrance with perfect timing: right after Daddy finished Giro d’Italia but before the start of Tour de France (ah, that’s what the passport is for!). At birth, the little celebrity weighed 7lbs 5oz and measured 20 inches long. His mom Anna Hansen and his daddy Lance Armstrong were so happy to welcome Max who was conceived naturally. After recovering from testicular cancer, the chances of natural reproduction for Lance were slim. Max has one half-brother and two half-sisters from Daddy’s previous marriage to Kristin Richard.

Let’s cheer little Max on as he gives his fast Daddy a run for his money!

There’s a new trend in social media networking. Baby bloggers. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to call them micro-bloggers, as I haven’t seen a full-length post yet. (Would their small size make them “micro micro-bloggers?”)

An adorable infant, two months and two weeks old, named “MeGrowUp” recently followed me on Twitter. I followed him back and, since then, I’ve been enjoying his antics. His “tweets” are written in an adorable babytalk format that is short and to-the-point but far more comprehensible than the speech of most toddlers.

The kid does have a bit of an ego. Last night, he posted: “NEWS: I rolled to my left side. It is only the second time. I’m so smart.”

Then again, if I looked as adorable as he does, I’d be a bit full of myself, too.

Today he is going to Grandma’s house and hopes to see the “cute cat.” Just an hour ago, he was a bit gassy. After going through this with my daughter for the past few days, I can definitely sympathize with him. In fact, I’ve thought about starting an account for my daughter just so she can “talk” back to him.

It does make me wonder, though, how does the parent of a newborn find the time to create a social marketing world for the baby? I have enough challenges keeping up with all my blogs in various industries, forget about blogging and networking for an additional person!

I got another interesting follower on Twitter in the past few days, too, and followed them in return. “HisBoysCanSwim” is the microblog of a couple, who identify themselves as Tarzan and Jane, that chose not to tell their real-life family and friends they are blogging about their pregnancy.

The couple’s avatar is an unidentifiable but decidedly pregnant belly. (I’m looking forward to watching it expand over the coming months). The Twitter account is used primarily to promote their blog.

I find this whole idea intriguing—keeping your pregnancy details private to friends and family yet reveal it to the entire digital world. Just recently, at the 12-month mark, “Jane” did reveal her pregnancy to close family and friends and, at press time, the couple is deciding when to share the news with the rest of their “real life” world. Nonetheless, they will keep their “Tarzan and Jane” identities secret for the duration of the pregnancy, permitting them to be completely open and honest in their blog without fear of offending, hurting or grossing out people they see in every day life. Can they maintain this anonymity for the next nine months? And will they share the news when the baby is born?

I love this idea, as I’ve self-censored while writing my blog posts in the past in order to spare feelings. Similarly, I started blogging here at Babies Online before I told certain very close family members about my pregnancy, (we wanted to share the news in person) and I didn’t even think to write under a pseudonym! Fortunately, no one from that side of our family stumbled upon my posts! I may be unusual in that my “real life” world and my online friends are fairly segregated groups, but I was definitely lucky that I didn’t upset anyone!

Expectant couples, infants… Who else is on Twitter? At the expense of sounding shamelessly self-promotional, you can stay up-to-date on all the latest pregnancy and parenting news, including celebrity births, product recalls and free giveaways by following http://twitter.com/Babiesonline. You’ll see a tweet every time there’s an update to the Babies Online blog, so you’ll never miss a thing!

I remember one particularly difficult holiday season when my ex and I had both lost our jobs and found out that we would have to move from the place we were renting. This would have been hard enough to handle, but the fact that we had 4 children and that the holidays were approaching made the situation even more desperate.

That year, the Salvation Army helped us out financially and they also bought the kids Christmas gifts. I felt very humbled by the whole thing, and yet so very grateful too.

This year, when we were shopping, I saw the familiar red kettle at our local Walmart. The Salvation Army worker standing at the kettle was singing his own jazzed up version of the Christmas carols and ringing the bell loudly. My son stopped and clapped and danced alongside the kettle for a while! I gave him some change to put in the kettle and he was so thrilled! The man stopped his singing and said, ?God bless you child. Have a most wonderful Christmas.? Then he went back to singing and ringing his bell, and we continued on to the store.

I was surprised to learn that the Salvation Army is also using other methods to boost donations. In Atlanta, GA and Columbus, OH, donors can use cell phones to text $5 to the Salvation Army. Text the letters TSA to 90999 in Atlanta; in Columbus, text KETTLE to 90999.

The Online Red Kettle program allows anyone to set up a virtual kettle on their website and gather donations from friend, family, and website visitors. Facebook members can add widgets to their pages to solicit donations too. You can also follow the Red Kettle Campaign progress on Twitter. Of course, you can always go old school and donate in person like we did.

In 2007, the Salvation Army helped 29 million people in the United States alone with over $118 million it received from the Red Kettle Campaign. This year, requests for help have increased and officials are hoping to be able to help as many people as possible.

Do you think using social networking like Twitter and Facebook is a good way to increase donations? Would you donate via these methods? Have you every donated to a cause via texting?

Motrin’s new ad campaign, “Mom-alogue,” has in a way, done exactly what it was intended to do: get mothers talking. However I don’t think they quite expected this.

Moms, dads, and other Tweeters are spittin’ mad for what they believe is a degrading commercial video at Motrin.com. What did they do about it? They took it to the net. Twitter to be exact. Through this popular new communication tool, “telling two friends” has made the “motrinmoms” topic the most discussed conversation on the internet.

“AMassofHumanity: Yikes! Moms starting a revolution against Motrin over their latest commercial. PR nightmare. #motrinmoms“

There are thousands of comments like this on Twitter, commonly referred to as tweets, and new ones are being added every single second.

What is a Twitter you say? It’s only the most awesome way to communicate online, like, EVER! Yes, I’m what you would call twiddicted. And for good reason. Twitter is a free, fun, and efficient way to keep up with your friends and associates (in 140 character or less increments). It is fast becoming the most popular way for social groups, business, and organizations to communicate rapidly and easily. If you want to know more about it, check out Twitterhandbook.com – or heck, just ask me! I love teaching people how to use Twitter. It’s fast becoming my hobby.

And yes, you will find @Babiesonline there too

Ok, I should stop gushing about Twitter and get back to the story … I heard about the Motrin debacle from someone I follow: @AlohaArleen – she heard about it from her friends and tweeted the news, I picked it up from her and retweeted the news to my followers, who in turn retweeted to theirs, and so on, and so on. It has hit such mass proportions that I’d be surprised if the video is still there by the time you read this post. I’ll also be surprised if the PR Department for Motrin isn’t popping their product by the handful come Monday morning when the backlash hits the corporate offices.

But that’s the risk you take when you mess with moms who tweet!

This article was written in part by Arleen Anderson

I have to warn you upfront that Twitter is hopelessly addictive. It’s one of those internet inventions that it’s hard to see the point of at first, but after using it for a while, you’ll be hooked.

Twitter is a social networking website. it’s like a personal mini-blog, but one that has extra neat features like social networking, and chatting.

Twitter is used for posting short messages, called “tweets” on your Twitter page. You can either use Twitter as just a personal blog, but where Twitter really gets good is when you link up with your friends’ Twitter pages. Your friends can read what you are posting, and you can read what they are posting. You can see all your tweets and all your friends’ tweets together on one page, so it’s great for communicating with a group of friends.

Lots of moms would love to blog, but don’t have time to write blog posts. Here’s where Twitter is so perfect: tweets are a maximum of 140 letters long, so you can post short messages in those free seconds inbetween diaper changes. And it’s much easier to type a little message one-handed while your sleeping baby is lying on your other arm.

All you need to do is to open a Twitter account, it’s really easy, and it’s free. Then, you can start tweeting. Search for your friends on Twitter, and click on the “Follow” button on their Twitter pages to follow what they are doing.

What are you going to write about? Well, Twitter asks you: “What are you doing?” so just type in what you are doing right now. Check out some of these cool moms who use Twitter to see what they are tweeting about.

You can use Twitter to chat and network too. We had an unexpected free afternoon earlier this week, so I tweeted “anyone wanna go to the park this afternoon?” and within 20 minutes later, a couple of friends tweeted back and we had a playdate.

As well as linking with your friends, you can do lots of other things on Twitter. If you are not completely sick of the election, you can follow politics. Barack Obama has the world’s most popular Twitter page, and then there’s Sarah Palin and John McCain… actually, those are two spoof sites mocking the Republican candidates. The real ones don’t seem to have embraced Twitter yet.

News sites like the New York Times and CNN post breaking news on Twitter. Many blogs also automatically send their latest blog posts to their Twitter site so you can keep up to date with your favorites. You can get a Bible verse sent to you every day by following ESV Daily Verse. You can follow celebrity shenanigans by following Britney Spears‘ Twitter Feed, and find out what Dave Matthews is doing at his.

You’ll be able to see tweets from all the sites you follow on one page, so it’s perfect for keeping up to date with, well, everything!

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