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Whilst the train operators web sites were creaking and collapsing under the weight of web traffic dumped upon them by the snow falls of the last 24 hours, the social web was generating new ways to share knowledge and information.

For those planning to travel across the country it is useful to see exactly how much snow is really falling and where.  Step forward then Ben March with the latest application to use the wealth of data emerging in real time from the Twitter universe.  Twitter users may be perplexed by the number of messages containing the words ’#uk snow’ followed by a series of digits.  Those digits provide a postcode and a ’severity level’ for the snowfall.  Ben Marsh’s site has been collecting the data giving a live snow fall picture of the UK.

Yes there are flaws, (population density for one) but it shows how Twitter can be harnassed to provide information in new and exciting ways.  Check out the latest at Ben’s site and don’t delay as the thaw is surely on the way.

Before I go any further fairness dictates that if you really want to know whether it will be a white Christmas this year you might want to go to Metcheck, the Weather Channel or BBC Weather.

This weekend The Guardian ran a fascinating spread.  ‘The Most Popular Story in the World’ tackled the subject of search engines and editorial.  Not long ago Charlie Brooker wrote a piece debunking the various 9/11 conspiracy theories.  The Guardian web-site was overun by the masses.  The following week Brooker decided to open his column with the line…Miley Cyrus, Angelina, Israel vs Palestine, iPhone, 9/11 conspiracy, Facebook, MySpace and Britney Spears nude.  The effect on traffic was unspectacular.

Search engine optimization (SEO) and that is essentially what all this is about, depends on using more than just lots of popular keywords.  They might have some impact on hits but visitors will ‘bounce’ (leave the site) as quickly as they entered.  Here at PRMediaBlog towers we’ve had several articles that have resulted in spikes in visitor numbers so we know at first hand what many of the drivers are.  You don’t just need keywords, you need inbound links too - if you have a blog by the way and you are interested in SEO feel free to link to this article!

The content shouldn’t just be link-bait either.  It needs to be engaging in its own right, plus Google and other search engines rank sites so track record is very important too.

So why is White Christmas in the headline?  Well headlines are important and it is just over two weeks to Christmas.  That’s about when long range weather forecasts start to get accurate so that’s when the searches should gather pace. PR has always used the calendar to provide hooks for stories so why should digital PR be any different?  I’ll keep you posted in the comment section on how this blog post does for visits.  I might even let you know if they all bugger off to the weather sites.