Twitter - Here to Stay

This blog will be a response to Chad and Tyson's blog on the subject of Twitter.

Twitter is a social networking site that is a mix of blogging and instant messaging, it's sending texts out to the masses instead of just one friend. You have 140 characters to say "What's on your mind?". It can be totally useless... but it's totally addicting.

I think that twitter has staying power, for many reasons. These are the top features on Twitter that make it so it wont share the fate of AOL Mail.

1. Twitter Search - being able to search what's on every one's mind is quite useful for anyone from Businesses, Celebrities, and the general public. I can search for Eee PCs and find a bunch of people who are working on, or thinking about their computer, then I can make a little network of Eee PC owners so that when my computer goes down, I can consult someone who is bound to know more than me. Or I can search for #24 when I'm watching the show and get others peoples thoughts on what's going on in the show, I know that sounds very very lonely, but it brings enjoyment to others.

2. Twitterfall (or the like) - Twitterfall shows you what everyone is twittering about. It lists the top 10 tweeted about items and then has a running list of things that include that item. For instance, apparently Ellen Degeneres got a twitter account, and she's all the craze. You can also put in your own search terms and watch those, so it's like Twitter Search but current tweets and not past.

3. Potential - There are so many options of cool ways to use this, people are creating an account where you can tweet @weather 84094 and you will get a reply on the current weather in that zip. There are many different apps written for computers to follow your tweets like Twirl. Not to mention that there are 8 different apps at my count written for the iPhone. 8! With this many different ways to access one social resource, you get more and more users as well as easy access.

4. Following - The way that twitter differs from Facebook or Myspace (gurgle) is that you can follow people who are really popular, like Al Gore (340,049 followers) or MC Hammer (247,360 followers) and they can't block you from what's going on in their mind. But seriously you can follow all the things that you want with out any blocks or restrictions.

5. TwitterAdium - Twitter Adium allows you to add a plug in to Adium so you can use it in a chat program. So twitter IS chat.



In conclusion I believe that Twitter will be around for a while, and people will find many more uses for it. All things on the Internet eventually will become obsolete, maybe when we can just think and it will be posted on the inter web collective brain, then Twitter will die and we will all know everything anyway. I hope for that day, but until then I'm stuck with Twitter.

"Inter Web Brain"

Follow me on twitter: AwkwardlyBlake

Communicating Through Smoke Signals

Remember the days of High School? Get home from school, eat some random snack out of the fridge and hop on the computer. That was my normal activity (I know it's pretty dorky) but I had a point of getting on, it was to talk to all of my friends on MSN and work out what we were going to do that day, or what everyone was doing. That carried on until I left for my mission. When I got back somehow MSN had been outdated, or so it seemed. Everyone was using this new "Facebook" thing to communicate with one another. But it wasn't the same. A wall post here, a picture comment there, a private message in a blue moon, that was the form of online communication. Then Facebook chat came on, finally a way to talk with other people who were online who were surfing the web or "doing homework". But as I familiarized myself with the chat I realized that it was more of a hassle to try to use the chat that just to use the private message system. Lost messages, timed out websites, friends being online who really weren't, and many other obstacles made it too big of a hassle. So this leads me to the purpose of the blog, I for one am not happy with the communication on the web. So I'm going through the options in my head and thought I might put my head onto this, so others might add there thoughts in their head and maybe we as a friendship can figure out the best possible solution.
Option 1
Keep things the way they are:

Seriously, the picture is a screen shot of the first person I tried to talk to that Facebook said was online as you can see, it's not quite cutting it. Facebook chat just isn't a substitute for an instant messenger, it's a good way to say "Hey, did you see that picture that John just posted that has me with a gopher skin coat on?", but not a good way of holding a conversation.

Option 2:
Google Talk:
Now I've always been a fan of all things Google, because they work and they work well. For example: G-mail, lots of space, no spam. Google calendar, well organized, easy to use, still has functionality. Google Maps, revolutionized the mapping industry... you get the idea. The point is, I've never used Google Talk but I'm sure it's good just because it's from Google. Plus look at that snazzy logo, I'll be the red talk bubble, you can be green.(Download 1.5MB http://www.google.com/talk/)

Option 3:
Revert back to MSN (Windows Live Messenger)
Maybe the main reason I have always been a fan of Google things is because before that I had to use Windows things, their old search killed me, don't even get me started on Hotmail... gah. I'm guessing, unless they've updated their message system, you'll still get spam messages from time to time and someone trying to sending you a virus; there used to be MSN messenger virus epidemics! Then there's their logo, I don't really want to be a fat blue person and I don't want to talk to a tubby green person either. (Download 2.3MB http://get.live.com/messenger)

Option 4:
Skype:
I've been trying this one out for a while now and have had fairly good results with it, the only problems I've seen with it is A) not everyone wants to install such a large file (23 MB's) B) Skype isn't so much a messenger as it is a telephone type calling program that has messaging capabilities. So it's good if you want more features, bad if you just want the simplicity of a messenger. The Logo... slightly plain but it looks like it wouldn't weigh much to carry around. (Download 23.8MB http://www.skype.com/download/skype/windows/beta/downloading/)

Option 5:
Others:
AIM, Yahoo!, ICQ, Myspace, etc...
I must admit that I've had no experience with these messengers at all and my only opinion would be based on my previous experience with the companies. I'm not going to express my feelings about them but I'm sure that there are pros to them. Other options out there that I haven't written about or researched yet, and that's where I hope that you would voice your opinion in comment or in further blogs.

So in conclusion after doing the small amount of research on the subject I would be more inclined to use Google Talk or Skype, having said that I'm sure there wouldn't be too big off a difference in using AIM or Yahoo! Messenger or any other messenger. Please express your opinions, or just tell me that I wasted a whole hour and writing about a subject that doesn't matter at all. I hope to get to the point where most of the people I communicate with will have have an instant messenger and the world will be filled with unicorns and rainbows.