Tag: twitter

Use Twitter for Breaking News

Post Image Are you a news junkie? Do you want to be the first to know about things? Look no further than Twitter. Reliability problems aside, it really is the best place to get the latest, breaking news. When the primaries are on in the US, I find out who wins via Twitter, as soon as they are projected. Today I found out about Heath Ledger right away. Increasingly I get my news via Twitter.

The best part about Twitter is that it can follow you anywhere! You can view it on the web, on your mobile Internet device (like the iPod touch), over instant messaging using Google Talk, or on your mobile phone via SMS.

Here are a few Twitter accounts you should consider following for all news:

  • nytimes – the latest headlines from the New York Times
  • bbcworld – the latest headlines from BBC World News
  • cbcnews – the latest headlines from CBC News
  • cnn – the latest headlines from CNN
  • cnnbrk – breaking news only from CNN

In addition to the above, I’ve found the following accounts to be useful for news about the US Election:

  • politics – lots of political news, as you’d expect
  • davewiner – he’s really quick at posting when the networks declare a winner
  • johnedwards – the official Twitter of John Edwards
  • barackobama – the official Twitter of Barack Obama
  • ronpaul2008 – the official Twitter of Ron Paul

Also useful is the Politweets site, which lists the latest messages mentioning the candidates across all Twitter users.

Enjoy!

Jaiku needs to do something quick!

Post ImageLike many others, I’ve noticed that Jaiku hasn’t been working correctly in recent weeks. It is slow, and the API has been really unreliable, as I noted on Sunday (on Twitter of course). You’ll recall that Google bought Jaiku back in October, and sadly, it hasn’t been the same since.

The main advantage (for me) that Jaiku had over Twitter was that it was incredibly reliable. I coded the "My Status" widget that appears on the right side of my blog to use Twitter originally, but switched to Jaiku after I realized how unreliable Twitter was. This week though, I switched back – because Jaiku is the unreliable one now.

Company founder Jyri posted a note yesterday, acknowledging the neglect and assuring us that good things are on the way. That’s a step in the right direction, and I’m glad the Jaiku team got some R&R over the holidays, but what if it’s too little, too late?

Here’s why Twitter works better for me:

  • There are way more people on Twitter, and it’s pretty easy to discover new people that might be interesting to follow.
  • Twitter’s mobile site is far better than Jaiku’s. I’ve always got Twitter Mobile open on my iPod touch, and it works great.
  • Twitter works with my cell phone. I’ve never been able to get Jaiku to work. Maybe it doesn’t like Canadian numbers or something.
  • Far more third party sites and utilities work with Twitter.
  • I much prefer the @username system that Twitter has over the "proper" comment system that Jaiku has.

I hope the Google/Jaiku team can make progress on Jaiku this year. It would be great for Twitter to have some solid competition (and no, Facebook doesn’t count).

How about you – do you use both? Which do you like better and why?

Read: Jaiku Blog

Google buys Jaiku – why?

Post Image Today microblogging service Jaiku announced that they have been purchased by Google. I came across the news via a barrage of Twitter updates this morning, and it wasn’t long before everyone started wondering why Google chose Jaiku over Twitter. It seems that most people feel Jaiku is the superior platform technology-wise, but the community at Twitter is better. I’d more or less agree with that statement. For instance, I chose Jaiku to display “my status” on the right side of my website instead of Twitter because the reliability and performance of Jaiku was just so much better. It still is.

Marc Orchant has a great post on the topic. Scoble thinks that Google made the move for Jaiku because of Facebook. He suggests that Google is gearing up to launch some major competition for Facebook on November 5th. That may be true, but I like what Ross Mayfield had to say better (though he too mentions Facebook):

But perhaps the greatest direction they can go with this is lifestreaming.

With Google’s savvy around structuring the unstructured, picture lifestreaming evolving into something that infers permalinks for social activity.  One day your Google homepage may be a stream of your friends and what they are doing, sharing, and adopting.

Yes! Enough of this manually updating my lifestream already, let’s make it update automagically. Even better, give everyone a lifestream by default. That idea gets me excited.

A follow-up post from Scoble highlights that Google has built themselves a “very strong position in the RSS ecosystem” as they now own Google Reader, FeedBurner, and Jaiku (which imports/aggregates RSS feeds). Very good point indeed.

Now the question is – who will snap up Twitter?

Read: Ross Mayfield

Tracking Tweets at Twitter

Post ImageTwitter launched a killer new feature last week, the very aptly named “Track.” Sometimes when I am thinking about something, I wonder how many other people are thinking about that something at the same time. With Twitter and the new Track feature, there’s a way to find out:

You can follow friends on your phone through Twitter, but what about concepts? What if you wanted an update anytime anyone mentioned your name, your favorite band, “NYC,” “earthquake,” or “Steve Jobs?” In real-time? What if you were attending an event and wanted to know who else was there?

That’s what Track lets you do. It’s dead simple to setup – just send “track mastermaq” to Twitter, and you’ll start receiving all messages that mention my nickname. This is really powerful stuff. In addition to the usual ego-tracking, I am also tracking edmonton and podcasting. It’s like a whole new world has opened up!

If you’ve been holding off on trying Twitter, I strongly encourage you to do so now. Especially if you’re in the marketing industry. Where else can you get notifications every time someone mentions your product or service? This is the future, today.

Now if only Twitter was more reliable…

Read: Twitter Blog

Do you really need a business plan?

Twitter announced a round of funding last Thursday, from Union Square Ventures and a few others. Michael Arrington did some digging and is fairly certain the amount was $5 million on a $20 million pre-money valuation. That’s not too bad, especially when you consider that Twitter is perhaps most famous for not having a business plan.

No business plan?! It’s true. At least no formal business plan. Biz Stone tried to assure everyone last week that the company has in fact thought about a business model, but I am not sure how many people bought it. The investment started a small “you don’t need a business plan” meme in the blogosphere, and it really got me thinking…do you need a business plan or not?

Paul Kedrosky says you don’t need one, and thinks that “business plans are overrated, and profits perhaps even more so.” Don Dodge says that “investors invest in people not business plans.” Fred Wilson, one of the investors, admits that they “don’t know yet” what the business model will be for Twitter. He claims they have time to figure that out. Charles Hudson says the meme is “crazy talk” and thinks it is worth writing some ideas down. Robert Scoble says that “if you REALLY think you can get funded without having a business plan you’re probably smoking something illegal.”

After reading dozens of these posts, and looking back at what I learned from the business plan competitions we competed in last year, I’ve come to the following conclusion: I think business plans are useful for internal use, and mostly a waste of time otherwise.

I think what Charles says in his post makes a lot of sense. There are certain questions that entrepreneurs should answer and write down. Really though, no one needs to see those pieces of paper. When it comes time to market your business or your idea to someone else, you’ve got to tune your message. And you’ve got to market yourself more than anything else. That’s why it’s a waste of time to have a complete, polished business plan (unless you’re in a competition I guess). If no one is really going to read it but you, does it matter what it looks like?

I think the trick is to remember that investors are people too. You need to relate to them, and you need to excite them. A heavy, thick document is probably not the best way to do that.

We haven’t really updated our business plan since the competitions in 2006. That’s partly due to the fact that it’s tedious, and partly due to the fact that we haven’t had a need to. A smaller executive overview, a quick slide deck, or an actual conversation are far more useful.

There’s a difference between a business plan and a business model, however. I still think it’s important to have some ideas about how you are going to monetize your product or service. And it’s important to know that there really is someone out there willing to pay for whatever it is you’ve created. Even better if you know who that someone is.

The realization that a traditional business plan is useless simply reinforces the idea that getting face time with investors is important. And for technology, that generally means the United States. Or perhaps BC or Ontario, but definitely not Alberta.

Anyway, just some thoughts. Congrats to Twitter on the funding!

Read: Twitter

REVIEW: I think Pownce sucks

Post ImageI mentioned in my last notes post that I’d write about Pownce, so here it goes. Nothing can top the iPhone in the hype department, but Pownce has come close recently. And unfortunately for Kevin Rose and his crew, it doesn’t live up to any of it, unlike the iPhone (note: I don’t have one). Ted was a little mean over at uncov, but for the most part I have to agree with him.

Let me get this out of the way right now – I really like Twitter, but I’ve been just as annoyed as everyone else with their crappy service at times. It has gotten much better lately though. And my first impression upon hearing about Pownce was – what does it do for me that Twitter or Facebook or instant messaging doesn’t already do?

Here are some thoughts on Pownce:

  • It works kind of awkwardly in Opera. Scrolling is not smooth, and clicking on the “home” button at the top takes way too much effort (you have to be right on the text or something).
  • Spam. By default, Pownce thinks it’s cool to send an email to your inbox each time something happens. Problem is, you have to click through to see any details.
  • Crazy invites! Who are all these people that have requested to be my friend? I have accepted them all, but I only know a few of them. This hasn’t happened to me with Twitter.
  • Maybe I am blind, but I don’t think Pownce has ever heard of RSS. I’m surprised their blog has an RSS feed. Seriously, why can’t I subscribe to anything?
  • Lack of mobile support. That’s the second best thing about Twitter as far as I am concerned, so it sucks that Pownce is web/desktop-only.
  • The best thing about Twitter is the API – Pownce doesn’t have one.
  • The file sharing feature of Pownce strikes me as a solution looking for a problem.

Honestly, Pownce is a horrible attempt to aggregate the functionality of a bunch of services into one place. Twitter is better for messaging (heck so is IM). Email/IM is better for sending files to individuals, services like box.net do multiple people. Facebook is better for creating a network of friends, and for creating and sharing events. del.icio.us is better for sharing links.

And here’s the thing: I already use all of those services, so why would I switch to Pownce? It would have to be ten times better than all of those services to make it worthwhile. It’s clearly not.

Sorry folks, but if it weren’t for Kevin Rose, Pownce wouldn’t have received a fraction of the attention it has thus far. I realize I am contributing to that attention, but I see this post as a sane reply to these idiotic ones. Two of the authors of those posts admitted their gut feeling was to hate Pownce. My advice? Learn to trust your gut.

Another thing: who gives a shit what technology Pownce was written in? Only the very geeky will know what django is. Twitter had the same problem – who cares that it’s written using RoR? Make it work dammit. And to anyone who thinks Pownce will get tons of people to install Adobe AIR – get a grip! AIR will be installed very widely, yes, but it won’t be because of Pownce. I’m all for getting my geek on, but shiny new web frameworks distract from having a solid, usable product.

One more thing (heh I sound like Steve Jobs…): why not use Leah Culver (Pownce’s lead developer) to your advantage, Pownce? If her photo appeared in every Pownce review I’ve read, or on every page of the site, I might feel better about the service. Heh, sorry for getting chauvinistic, but come on, I’m trying to find something that would get me to use Pownce. And besides, would you rather look at Leah or Kevin? Thought so. Maybe that’s what we need for Podcast Spot – an attractive, female lead developer. Hmm…

Okay, that’s it. If for some reason you’re dying to try Pownce, I have some invites left, just send me your email.

UPDATE: I just found some feeds! Turns out you have to visit someone’s public profile to see an RSS icon of any kind. Dumb!

Read: Pownce

What to do when technology fails?

Post ImageLike most people, I rely on technology all day, every day. I consider myself a fairly heavy text messaging user (I send almost 1000 texts a month) and I always have Outlook and Opera open. Oh and instant messaging, though I find myself using that less. Usually things work great, but sometimes things go wrong.

Take today for example. Last night after the movie my text messaging appeared to stop working. I couldn’t send or receive. This is a big deal for me but since it was almost 2 AM, I figured I’d see if it sorted itself out over night. Turns out it did for the most part, but service today has been slow and sporadic. It still isn’t working correctly.

Also last night, Twitter had some unscheduled downtime. Not the end of the world, but I definitely noticed it. And for some reason, Twitter doesn’t recognize symbols (like @ or $) from my phone properly. No one has responded to my tech support request.

Then there was Facebook. Around 8:30 this morning I tried to get into Facebook – no dice. I don’t ever recall having issues with Facebook, but for whatever reason it was down earlier today. I am guessing it was a small glitch of some sort, and it probably didn’t affect everyone.

What’s common between the three? They are consumer facing applications. They are free (well text messaging isn’t, but it’s dirt cheap at $10/mo for unlimited). Generally speaking, consumer facing + free means that support is either not very good or non-existent. Furthermore, there’s not really any agreement on the part of the service to ensure that it performs well and is reliable.

I suppose that’s fine for unimportant communication, but what happens when we use them for something more critical? It used to be that there was a clear distinction between corporate and consumer – lately I think the line is fading. I use text messaging, Twitter, and Facebook for both purposes.

I don’t know how, but eventually this problem is going to need to be addressed.

UPDATE: Apparently the Facebook issue this morning was related to power.

We need someone to complain to!

Post ImageTwitter is in the news again (at least in the blogosphere). Yesterday Jason Calacanis posted that he’d be willing to pay for a premium account on Twitter. Dave Winer then chimed in and said that it could be accomplished without Twitter’s help at all. And then Boris Mann posted a bit of a rant saying that Twitter is Jabber. Boris says:

My only explanation for the Twitter craze is that North Americans are still enamored of anything that can do the tiniest bit of mobile integration.

No Boris, there’s a very simple reason that Twitter is all the rage right now and Jabber is not (and never has been except among geeks) – we need someone to complain to. XMPP is great, but when something goes wrong, what do you do? Who do you turn to? At least when Twitter breaks I know who to contact.

It’s a fundamental problem with almost all open source projects – accountability is lost. This is especially true when you want to use the project for something serious, like Jason does. That’s why companies like Red Hat, IBM and Bryght are the ones we turn to for integrating open source technology. If something goes awry, I know there’s someone out there who will take my money to get it fixed.

Twitter doesn’t have that many users. It doesn’t have really impressive technology, as Boris has pointed out. Twitter is where it is today because it was created by and continues to be run by a corporate entity.

Read: Boris Mann

Hey Facebook – integrate Twitter!

Post ImageDear Facebook,

You’re a great website, and I love you. In fact, I spend far more time with you than I should. As a result, I have started to notice your wrinkles. You know, the little things that stick out. Sometimes they are endearing, other times they are annoying.

The way you change my status updates is annoying.

Why must you change the point of view of my updates? Stop it, please. You’re cramping my creative style with your darn status update restrictions.

Earlier tonight I sent the following status update:

Lately I check Facebook for new stuff before I check my blog for new comments. Sad.

You butchered it. You converted my perfectly good update to:

Mack is lately he check Facebook for new stuff before he check his blog for new comments. Sad.

What the hell is that?! The way you ruined a perfectly good update is what’s sad. And I’m not the only one who feels this way. I mean, the over 6600 people in this group clearly agree with me.

You should take a page out of your younger cousin‘s playbook*. Better yet, integrate! I mean, Twitter is clearly ahead of you in the status updates department. You know that status update of mine that you butchered? Twitter accepted it just fine. And Twitter even gave me a permalink!

Please Facebook, think about it. I’d ask you to add status updating to your API as well, but let’s go one step at a time. The first step is simple: stop screwing with my status updates.

Your Friend,

Mack

* – younger cousin in the great family of Web 2.0 applications…

My love-hate relationship with Twitter

Post ImageI have a love-hate relationship with Twitter going on. Actually, in a lot of ways, it’s quite similar to my love-hate relationship with Outlook 2007. They’re both extremely useful, yet both horribly slow. Let me explain.

Twitter is great for quick status messages, or jotting down thoughts that don’t deserve an entire blog post. I love that Twitter allows me to use it however I want to. For example, I went to get my free coffee from Starbucks earlier, and wanted to Twitter it. Except I couldn’t. The first problem is that for some reason, Twitter seems to ignore my cell phone. Then it will magically start working, only to stop again a couple days later. Worse still, the Twitter website is inaccessible far too often. Like right now, I can’t get the site to load. It totally sucks, I hate it.

The question of whether Twitter would be useful during an earthquake makes me laugh – it can’t be useful if it’s not up! And thus far, it seems to have a hard time accepting my random coffee-related messages, let alone important messages sent during a disaster.

I would use Twitter so much more if it actually worked as expected.