Social media monitoring has never been more necessary, or complicated. In the wake of acquiring Seesmic last month, HootSuite is getting more sophisticated — just as Twitter is clamping down on limiting third-party clients. HootSuite's just-launched Command Center, lets users monitor their social media mentions, publish and engage other users, all while analyzing and measuring results in one dashboard.

The goal, CEO Ryan Holmes tells VentureBeat, is “a hub where every social interaction can be seen, studied and spread.” That's the holy grail for marketers looking to wrap their bosses' heads around ROI (or some other kind of object) every time social media enters the conversation. 

A virtual ‘situation room,’ or ‘master control,’ HootSuite enables large enterprise companies to control all social activities real-time with dashboard views that include blocks such as, "Twitter Daily Retweets," "Twitter Follower Growth," and website visits.Continue reading...

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Bill Clinton helps seal Barack Obama nomination at DNC convention.

Billabong attracts $700 million bid from Bain Capital.

BP unveils new technology to boost oil production.Continue reading...

Twitter is emerging as a growing player in financial circles as tweets can be analyzed for “sentiment signals" and used "to predict short-term changes in broad stock market indices.” 

That's from a New York magazine article titled "Investors Slobber Over Cayman Island Hedge Fund That Predicts Stock Market Based on Twitter."

It's not entirely a new idea. StockTwits already touts its Twitter-based service as "Real Investors. Real Ideas. Real Time."Continue reading...