The time for watching and waiting is over. Twitter is a cultural phenomenon and more and more financial advisors are setting up Twitter profiles and testing the waters to connect with existing clients, promote their services to potential new clients and share industry news and insight with their peers. Here's what you need to know.

TJ Gilsenan, the Web Savvy Advisor, says it's time for advisors (if they haven't already) to start tweeting. Here are some tips to help you and your firm start taking advantage of this powerful social media tool.

Market volatility is pushing fund managers to look for robust investment risk management systems, says a report from financial consultancy Celent.

Here’s one way RIA firms can measure their firms’ success: they can see everything from where their revenue is coming from to total assets under management — benchmarked to other firms — the same way you’d look at dials on a car dashboard.

Nasdaq OMX Group and a European provider of direct access to securities markets said they will provide “dynamic” pre-trade, at-trade and post-trade controls to broker-dealers serving high-speed trading firms.

Cloud computing, software-as-a-service and Big Data cited by Fidelity’s technology portfolio managers as the high-tech trends to watch.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch said it will market a broker-neutral trading platform named Thunder, to institutional customers in Asia.

Fidelity Investments has added an automated, end-to-end, web-based validation and notification service to its corporate actions service, ActionsXchange.

Financial data, analytics and disclosure management services provider Edgar Online has launched I-Metrix Enterprise, the latest version of its I-Metrix professional risk analysis technology.

LPL Financial said it has added more than 500 net new advisors this year, bringing it close to 13,000. The additions came as the company prepared hikes in the fees it charges them.

Financial advisors looking to save costs, improve productivity and meet compliance standards recognize the importance of an effective document management application that goes above beyond Adobe Acrobat – but thus far the options remain fairly limited.

Whether you're a sophisticated early adopter or a newbie to all the latest technology available to you and your firm, these stories should bring you up to speed about everything any financial advisor or firm needs to know about information technology to improve productivity and increase assets under management.

The Principal has launched the Dreamcatcher mobile application for iPhones, a companion to the Dreamcatcher web tool. This is part of Principal’s “Dream Again with The Principal” financial educational campaign aimed at helping people envision their financial goals and putting them into clear focus.

National Financial, Fidelity Investment’s clearing and custody company, announced a new myStreetscape portal for investors working with brokers who use the Streetscape platform.

TD Ameritrade this week will roll out an upgrade of its open architecture platform’s integration with cloud-based electronic signature system DocuSign, as it streamlines DocuSign’s pairing with financial form-filling software Laser App.

BATS Europe said it has resolved the “hardware issue” that shut off all trading on Tuesday.

Microsoft Outlook moved down to second place — overtaken by Redtail — in the CRM software category for advisors this year. It was the first time in the history of Financial Planning’s annual tech survey that Outlook was not in first place.

BATS Europe is confronting “system issues.” The pan-European trading venue operated by BATS Global Markets went down at 9:36 a.m. Greenwich Mean Time.

Tablets have fundamentally changed the way financial advisors do their work and there’s every reason to believe they will continue to be the dominant tool of choice in the advisory community for years to come.

Fidelity Charitable has rolled out GivingCentral, an online advisor platform, and a dedicated advisor service team.