Jun 042011
 

Different people use Twitter in different ways. Some are very selective about who they follow and interact with – e.g, only the people who they actually know. Others, use it like an open chat service and follow basically everyone that they find interesting. There are numerous of different kinds of users and different kinds of purposes. One thing that some users encounter is that they end up following too many people and their timeline has become too difficult to keep up with. There are a number of websites/services that allow you to sort out and clean up your following list. But if you’re a Mac user and want a desktop application, take a look at ‘unfollow for Twitter’.

unfollow for Twitter‘ by Spicy Apps, is a Mac desktop application that makes it easier for you see (stalk? :P ) who unfollowed you, sort out or “weed” your Twitter following list. Its key features include:

  • load twitter users from your account into the app.
  • find inactive twitter users by selecting a filter.
  • select twitter users and batch unfollow them.

After you enter your Twitter account login details, you are presented with 2 viewing options.

  1. View your Twitter following list by last tweet.
  2. View those on your following list who does not follow you back.

Both viewing options will allow you to sort by username, no. of following, no. of followers, description (useless), location, tweet count and last tweet. You can also filter out the list according to time (weeks and months). However, one of the major drawbacks is that it can only list 100 users. According to the app’s help section, this is a limitation of Twitter’s servers as they only allow to load 100 users per call.

After loading your list, unfollow is quite simple. Just select the unfollow check-box next to the user and click the unfollow trash button. Of course, you can batch select users.

As you can see, there isn’t anything too special about this app. It doesn’t have the fancy bells and whistles but it does what’s it’s meant to do. ‘unfollow for Twitter’ is available in the Mac Apps Store for $$0.99. Find it in the Mac App Store here.

There’s also an iPhone / iPod Touch version of the app version, which has received lots of positive feedback (4.5 out of 5 stars in the iTunes Apps Store out of 229 ratings). MWD also has a review of the iPhone / iPod Touch version of ‘unfollow for Twitter’ app here.

May 222011
 

pressreader front page from ipad

I just found the best newspaper app reader for iPad, iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile and Blackberry devices, called PressReader. What I like about this particular mobile newspaper application is that I can read newspaper from all around the world including my home country Slovenia and other 5 country (German, Russian, Bosnian*Croatian*, and USA/UK)  newspaper because I speak  5 languages.

PressReader saves your trip to Gas Station or place you are buying newspaper from, because you can download daily newspaper right onto your mobile device, not only you can read the newspaper you can copy, save it and also share it via social networking websites such as Facebook or Twitter.

As you can see in the picture above, you can read top stories for free, you can listen to them and search for particular topic, because it is all text based.

Features of PressReader:

  • 1800 FULL CONTENT newspapers
  • Read news from 94 Countries in 48 different languages
  • Daily updated newspaper such as US Today, NYTimes, The Herald, The Washington post etc…
  • Download newspaper automatically to your mobile device
  • Flipping through pages like your paper magazine
  • It’s Green! Save trees
  • Supports on-demand audio, so you can listen instead of read!

Those are just few features that press reader has, but  there are many more features that I would like you to find it for your self,  because this application is free to download on most popular devices such as Blackberry, iOS, Windows Mobile and Android. When you download press reader you get seven free newspaper issues and  if you decide to read more, then you can  subscribe to various subscription plans that start as low as $0.99! (Subscription Plans)

Where to download Press Reader

My best suggestion is that you go to your mobile app store and search for Press Reader or press on the links bellow.

PressReader for iPad – App Store

PressReader for iPhone – App Store

PressReader for Android – Android Market

PressReader for Blackberry – App World

For other PressReader application downloads such as Windows Mobile, PC and Mac visit their website PressDisplay

pressreader countriespressreader slovenian magazinepressreader washington post

 

May 132011
 

Here are some news from yesterday that might be valuable for you to read.

Next Gen iPod Nano?

Images of what possibly could be the next generation iPod Nano has surfaced again. It features a 1.3 megapixel camera on the back but doesn’t have a clip.

New Mobile Twitter Website

Twitter has announced that they will be rolling out a new version of their mobile website. The new look resembles the Twitter for iPhone app (tabs) and features more HTML5 integration.

The app is fast – you can quickly scroll through your timeline, move between tabs and compose Tweets. It’s rich – it takes advantage of capabilities that high-end device browsers offer, such as touch gestures and a large screen. And it’s simple – it’s easy-to-use and has the features you’d expect from a Twitter application, including your timeline, @mentions, messages that you can read in conversation view, search, trending topics, lists, and more.

Angry Birds Theme Song Cover

Pomplamoose (Jack Conte and Nataly Dawn) from Youtube made a cool cover of the Angry Birds Theme.

 

Quick Image Resizer for Windows

Image Resizer 3 is a nice little application for Windows that allows you to easily resize images by just right-clicking on a picture.

Jan 042011
 

MG Siegler known as Paris Lemon on Twitter posted an article yesterday about RSS being dead, that article made lots of debate around the social media and blogosphere, but MG is known for writing such articles that’s why he is one of the top writers at TC.

Anyway, I left him a comment saying that RSS feeds can not be compared to Facebook and Twitter traffic and therefore RSS feeds are not dead.

Thing is that regular people that are not into technology  love to read two or three tech blogs and most likely don’t even know what RSS means or what the official Icon for RSS is, therefore they subscribe via

  • Email Newsletter
  • Facebook (Fan Page)
  • Twitter (follow accounts)

But then you have geeks like me who has over 300 tech blogs in RSS feeds (Google Reader) and they are all sub-categorized in folders  (Phone Blogs, Android Blogs, Windows Blogs, Apple Blogs …etc)

RSS feeds is never going to be dead unless Google shuts down Feedburner and even then, I could subscribe to blog.com/feed

To be honest, you can’t compare RSS feed to any social media website service because 140 or 350 characters for me at least is not enough to know exactly what am I about to click or read.

 Fred from AVC wrote also some good points which you can read here, he also put out some graphical information which you might like.

Anyway, what do you think? Is RSS dead? If so , why? (Leave your responses in the commenting section below)

Dec 102010
 

Twitter not too long ago said, they don’t block #Wikileaks to become Trending Topic but I think they are. See, in their defense they say that:

Given the widespread confusion about #wikileaks, we’d like to offer a longer explanation of how we measure Trends on Twitter, and why some popular topics may not make the list.

I think they are scared to get hit by Operations Payback DDO’S attacks, like they brought down Mastercard and numerous websites that opposed Wikileaks.

How can a stupid trending topic (world wide) like #thingssomepeopledonthave or #firstkiss trends more than Wikileaks, even though looking at my RSS feeds every 5-15 minutes some blog or website mention’s “Wikileaks”? Those sites have twitter accounts with thousands and million of followers that retweet their post constantly. (And I am only subscribed to like 80 top blogs/websites)

Google Reader (1000 )_1292022599226 

Anyway,

I think Twitter is just scared to admit that they are not allowing WikiLeaks to become trending topic, because if they do, maybe #OperationsPayback will come after them and “payback is a bitch”. I am not all for it that Wikileaks become trending topic because I am already sick of looking at my RSS feeds and know what’s going on anyway, I am just saying that as corporation you should not show fear. Who know’s maybe they will close my account for saying stuff like but at least I don’t fear to express my opinion, truthfully.

Nov 172010
 

Just got an email from HootSuite that they will be offering HootSuite Pro version and the Basic Free version will be limited with the usage of Hootsuite.

Basically what they are saying if you want to use Hootsuite for business then you will have to pay $5.99 per month. I know a lot of PR people that use Cotweet or Hootsuite to tweet and update Facebook status for many companies.

Gmail - HootSuite Migration – Go Pro for More - ilovetoargue@gmail.com_1290004189249

 

HootSuite Pro:

  • Unlimited Social Networks
  • Unlimited RSS/Atom Feeds
  • Unlimited Ow.ly Stat History
  • Unlimited Social Insights
  • 1 Team Member Included
  • Google Analytics Integration
  • Facebook Insights
  • Enhanced Support
  • Influence Scores Ad Free

HootSuite Basic:

  • 5 Social Networks
  • 2 RSS/Atom Feeds
  • 30 Day Ow.ly Stat History
  • Ad Supported
  • Message scheduling
  • Saved draft messages
  • Multi-network integration

I guess many will start typing “Hootsuite Alternative” in Google today.

Nov 142010
 

Since some numbers in Japan show that people over there prefer Twitter to Facebook, one can only think of juxtaposing other numbers that say that Twitter crowds are better educated and of higher spending than Facebook ones.

In the mean time the US is contempt with letting people unknown launch missiles 35 miles of the coast and then call it all a jet trail with a conspiracy theory twist.

And while selling self help books for Pedophiles seems to be OK according to Amazon (until the outrage grew to be too much, that is ), the queen of England got her Facebook page hijacked by anti monarchy protesters within hours of its launch.

Google vs Facebook scorecard

Impress your friends as an in depth researcher of techy trends by memorizing the few pointers below, before the list grows:

1) Google Blocks Facebook API

Google feels there should be something they termed “reciprocity” when allowing third parties to use their contact polling service, which Facebook isn’t buying into, so they changed their terms of service accordingly, effectively shutting out Facebook s ability to import Google’s contacts from a willing Facebook user.

2) The (Facebook) empire strikes back

Using a technique called deep linking, Facebook implemented a two steps procedure to overcome the API ban, this meant first “exporting” the Google contacts info and then uploading it to Facebook.

3)Google pouts

Blocking deep linking is relatively easy, but somewhere PR crowds from within must have interfered, the resulting inner struggles turned into a statement in which Google declared itself disappointed that Facebook didn’t share its gum toys instead of acting silly hacking.

4)Trap my contacts now

Probably to be known as the disclaimer of the decade (and yes, that’s the original title right there), the lengthy text that precedes the option of exporting your contacts from Google warns how your contacts will be “trapped” once exported and inserted into some other evil social service. there is no easy proceed anyway button, just a lengthy, daunting if childish Google rant.

5)I can smell your brains

Zombie fad gone and forgotten, the brain hunger normally attributed to the undead seems quite fitting for these two giants; the offer,  courting and eventual counter offer the Google engineers are getting talks by itself. Best counter bid so far? a 3.5mil in stocks made to an engineer at Google by,.. Google, this in part due to another of its engineers actually leaving for Facebook after being counter offered a paltry 500 thousand in stocks to stay. I wonder if Facebook has any plans on hiring the guy that was sacked from Google for spilling the beans on the 10% cross the board raise all engineers where going to get.

Worms in the Apple

Ok so Apple is probably the hottest thing around since sliced bread, but it isn’t without faults, just check for yourself:

-Glassgate

Got to notice a shortage of third party slide-on cases for i-phones lately? well it isn’t due to lackluster production; Apple withdrew most of them from public domain (re releasing some of them later on the i-store)  after its engineers found the possibility for these slide-ons to cause speckles of random material trapped within to turn glass parts of the i-phone into shrapnel.

-Vaporprint

The possibility to simply send something to print from a distance to any Mac or Win connected printer, originally touted by Apple itself, disappeared into thin air and will not be part of the upcoming IOS mayor upgrade (4.2, due in November ), instead, only “airprint friendly” printers, of which there (conspicuously?) only seems to be HP models in the market, will be able to do the deed.

-The one hour snooze

I haven’t heard of any law suits pertaining to iphone owners getting fired because of late arrivals due to the fact that their alarm clocks went off one hour late after the daylight saving time adjustments failed to take place on the device. Off course little grief was taken from the issue since there is a plethora of free apps in the i-store that pull the feat, on time.

-Airbook style blues

After all the oww and ahh, people are starting to notice the trade-backs of stylish till the bitter end computing; alleged graphical glitches and hinges loosening notwithstanding, with a lack of ports and locked in components, i-store independence and true multitasking concerns are creeping up among the user base once they start realizing that:

you can’t swap batteries on a long trip.

Will have to do without the device while the battery is replaced once it wears out or want a flash / ram upgrade.

Won’t be able to sync / transfer with other devices while surfing the web if not within a wifi covered area (using the USB to Ethernet cable, sold separately, on the lone usb port ).

Have a cookie, and another, and another

Since the advent of cookies in the browser, the types, variety and locations of these snippets of data, used by webmasters abroad to track your intent in either useful or malicious ways, has diversified into as many as eight different siblings.

One Samy Kamkar decided the world should be warned about the implicit dangers of such proliferation releasing a JavaScript API that turned the communal cookies into something akin to the t-1000 liquid metal Terminator; destroy a part of it and the standing rest re assembles it. Evercookie (as its creator baptized it) wont shape shift your keyboard into a freak pin cushion, but the point was made, cookies can get nastier than originally presumed.

This week saw the release of a counter measure, a free Firefox add-on called quite appropriately Nevercookie (by Anonymiser, Inc), which is meant to supplement private browsing mode. Opera fans rejoice; your private browsing mode already deals with the Evercookie strain.

Feel I didn’t quote your favorite news bit? got a rant/comment/praise/suggestion? hit me up @tecnocratica or use the comment section below

Nov 082010
 

Browsers, once rather simple apps relegated to being dumb content providers have evolved into mayor players in terms of how you experience the web overall.

From Microsoft’s dodgy behaviors when it tried to identify itself as another browser altogether to Mozilla’s war cry of Open Source and tinker-with-it policy, the browser landscape has become a tight slit throat arena of innovate or die companies that stand on the pride of having you use their tools to get on the all encompassing web.

Old School

The household names Firefox and Internet Explorer have kept taunting each other for some time now, surpassing (and to an extent, “adopting from”) one another regularly in terms of innovative uses, performance and looks.

While the other not so well known names stayed behind in terms of adoption, one has found a place to call its own; Opera Mini has all but exploded in terms of online access from mobile devices, in part due to the advent of el-cheapo-no-name cell phones running Nokia knockoff java enabled operating systems.

Today all of them are looking one way to the future and besides the niche niceties each sports to differentiate itself, their main call is for early adoption of HTML5, so much so that each at a given time has posted its test results on compliance from w3consortium and claim bragging rights over it.

New School

Chrome, the browser from Google, shouldn’t really be in this side of the contenders divide, the only reason for naming it here is mainly because it has been the last to come into being that still works with the same precepts of the other browser, it’s probably the fastest and “cleanest” of them all, its offer is all about “back to basics, but efficiently so”.

Next (Content) Generation

So far it was all about letting you visit pages and get content from them, but that’s so oh my god last season!

The next samples are showcases of how the browser realms may be threatened to vanish as we know them, giving rise to some utterly different offerings for doing pretty much the same stuff we do already online.

Enter the first successful non free browser to hit the shelves since Netscape: Skyfire may be only available for IDevices (namely IPhone and IPad ) but on launch day it was so sought after that it almost ended up being too successful for its own good. Skyfire won’t just let you browse the internet, it will transform for you any content that can’t be played natively on your IDevice, as long as that content is flash videos, that is. for doing this it uses a cluster of servers that will pre process the video for you (more on the specifics here).

The Social Browsers

What could possibly be better than having Facebook and Twitter in tandem on a site? well, according to these two challengers that would be having Facebook and Twitter on EVERY site, even a 404 page, in other words, incrusted straight into the browser itself. Both RockMelt (Backed by Netscape founder Marc Andreessen) and Flock boldly go where no browser has gone before, offering the possibility of working with your social networks in ways simply not feasible with traditional Browser software.

If their promotional videos are any indication (both home sites have eerily the same basic layout, as if a parallel brain structure was needed to germinate any product in this new field of social browser applications), these highly social media integrated browsers will enable a whole new level of social mediation by making your personal and social info part of the context in which the browsers themselves operate, everything from sharing links with friends to discovering venues to searching in Google will be re-rendered according to personal info and these browsers will do all the legwork of fetching relevant content from your social media circles.

While Rockmelt needs you to login to Facebook in order to request a personalized download link sent to you via mail, Flock is freely available for download from their site. Rockmelt has a good reason for being so “selective”, all of the context from which it will feed its functionality will come from the cloud, in Skyfire style, Rockmelt will actually bring in its own computing might into the core of the software, this just made me wonder how they will manage “browse offline”.

Caught in the crossfire

As a webmaster responsible to deliver “cross browser” code, the stress induced lump in my stomach swells every time I hear the inception of a new browser in the field.

Hopefully the advent of HTML5 and CSS3 will lower the burden, also, Rockmelt at least is based upon the webkit frame, so it comes from a true and tested environment and presumably not the cause for implementation concerns.

What might be

These three new players have one thing in common; they present an additional layer of code between the user and the information on the internet, helping it evolve into knowledge, changing the paradigm for the term “browsing”, and by doing so, changing the way we expect the online world to behave and gratify us.

The Old School better take heed before they get relieved from duty.

Nov 072010
 

Anyone who s even bothered knows that there s not a single day that goes by without a myriad things making it into the headlines when it comes to tech, so bear with me will I do a shabby attempt at summarizing what I would consider the prominent bits (ergo consider this a valid conversation check list for your first morning of the week at the office water break )

Google glitches

Gmail slows down to a crawl, Gmail admits to the fault naming a latency issue found on one of its datacenters which would affect 2% of its user base (4 million people approximately).

Google voice scrambles and dies out for a few hours, no official reason given so far (feel free to correct me on this one).

Google employee files sexual harassment claim against twitter employee.

On the bright side the Google Android OS reaches three years of age this week, blows its cake’s candles wishing to retain the market share superiority over IOS.

In your Facebook

Gmail slams the door on Facebook’ s face claiming a need for reciprocity, it effectively blocks Facebook’ s ability to fetch friends thru Gmail alleging a lack of response from Facebook to follow suit on sharing the info ; in plain terms what Gmail is asking for is dead simple: “if you want to import my data to your platform, you better start letting me do the same”.

This may seem harsh to the naked eye but a closer look at the situation reveals that most users seem to be oblivious to the fact that you simply can’t export friend lists to (your favorite online communication service here).

Although targeted at Facebook, the move comes in the form of an alteration to the terms of service for Gmail s contact API and applies from now on to any third party wanting to liaison with Gmail

Congress got into a little chitchat with Facebook about privacy of user data, due to alleged reports of leaks of personal information to third parties.

This spurs from a single media article of a company that notwithstanding has commercial common dependencies with myspace, which just matter of fact re-re-launched itself in an attempt to not crash and burn.

In the mean time, Facebook launches a line of Facebook “credits”, virtual currency to be used within its apps and games, which you can purchase in meat space.

Skyfire Backfires

The by now übber famous, misleadingly branded “Flash player for IDevices” (for my take on why I think the assertion is misleading check this link) Skyfire debuts; the success of the apps offering mixed with its resource dependency forces its makers to pull the plug on the downloads  barely 5 hours after launch.

Since, they have used a drop counter approach to commercializing the app, enabling downloads for limited periods of time, while scaling the server clusters needed to provide the service  accordingly. Nothing like castrating the potential clients to provide a fulfilling user experience.

Tablet Galore

Everyone and their dog is taking on the tablet format in an attempt to grab a piece of the iPad action, even Kindle who stubbornly insists they aren’t in the same market as the iPad got a suspiciously tablet looking product, the Nook color, out on the shelves, other offerings include models from mostly all mayor computer hardware manufacturers, with assorted dimensions and operating systems.

One has to wonder why did they all have to wait on Apple, having all the tech already available, and after pondering on the issue for some time, the only conclusion is that Apple has become the only company capable of knowing if its own products are cool, before launch, granted, there were some half decent attempts before, but they all failed from lack of support from their own companies, Apple stands its ground behind all its products. It’s like all the other companies started looking like gnu s on a river crossing, waiting for someone else to get their caskets wet first.

Social Money

Within the craze for monetizing on the Social Media, the consensus so far is quite clear: “we don’t know how exactly, but the money is there”, this comes as the last stand for advertising companies to try to turn away from the unavoidable, mainly that in social media, consumers are not the target, but the enabling  component of successful promotion, watch as advertising companies try to wrap their minds around the paradigm shattering concept.

Already some light at the end of the tunnel is shinning;

Twitter may have become one of the most ubiquitous social media tools of our times, but it has been the least keen on generating profit, till now. Tweeter has started toying with inserting adds in users streams.

Google is dropping the sponsored links in favor of plain good old adds, rumor has it that its due to better conversion rates.  The buzzword for this whole issue seems to be R.O.I (Return Over Investment).

The real Twitter FailWhale? that would be its CEO

On a recent interview twitter s CEO Evan Williams admitted to various screw ups from which he says he has learned a lot, among the fails he counts;

late comer’s syndrome, causing power struggles between him and Jack Dorsey.

Failing to be assertive, just took him too long to too late when it comes to making  decisions.

Alienating coworkers; the guy never filled the necessary paperwork to grant his employees shares when they were about to sell blogger.

Anything you though ought to be here? let me know! use the comments section below.

Nov 022010
 

Twitter experiments with Promoted Tweets to make more money without even annoying its 175 million users across the world.

Yesterday, Twitter extended the effort of its Promoted Tweets to its timeliness. It exposed the paid ads to the users.

Promoted Tweets are those tweets that are of advertisers like Starbucks that pay $100,000 to push the products in the searches and also in the trending topics list.

Earlier this year, after four years of without commercialization, Twitter started its advertising initiative. It announced of showing sponsored tweets for a pay from the brands. However, those sponsored tweets only appeared in the Trends column and search engine of Twitter. Moreover, only certain users could see the advertisements in their time-line.

Twitter communications executive Matt Graves wrote on the blog of the company they want to make the promoted tweets appear in such a way that it is useful as well as authentic to the experience of Twitter. He added further, “During this testing period with HootSuite, we will experiment with where and when promoted tweets are shown in the time-line. Not all HootSuite users will see promoted tweets and those who do may see different promoted tweets in different places in their time-line.”

He said that the company wants to display the promoted tweets to the relevant timeline.

A poll was conducted after the promoted tweets were announced in April this year. It was found that about 70% of the Twitter UK users were unhappy. The poll interviewed 1,219 Twitter users of UK and it found 68% people were upset with the idea of branded tweets.

Twitter is on the way of opening a London office soon to promote UK-centric brands in the region instead of US-centric brands like Starbucks.

Oct 192010
 

Today FierceWireless revealed some of the famous twitterati details and you will find it amusing to know about all the top ten Wireless Twitterati.

Twitter name
(real name)

Followers

Following

Tweets

clip_image001
@boygenius

(Jonathan S. Geller)

12,950

198

9,563

Before he revealed himself in April (when BoyGeniusReport was acquired by Mail.com Media Corp. in a multimillion-dollar deal) Geller ran the gadget blog (and his Twitter feed) anonymously. Since then he has kept up his steady diet of irreverent commentary on wireless news and whatever gadget he is testing. Though not all of his tweets are directly about wireless, most are and he still manages to break a scoop every now and then.

clip_image002
@ceciliakang

(Cecilia Kang)

2,337

555

1,883

As the technology reporter for the Washington Post, Kang has an inside track on federal technology policy. Often tweeting from FCC meetings or other events in Washington, she is often among the first to know about what the FCC is planning to do. Kang’s tweets are infused with both candy-coated musings and eat-your-vegetables news.

clip_image003
@Gartenberg

(Michael Gartenberg)

9,892

336

32,845

Now an analyst at Gartner, Gartenberg has bounced around from several technology consulting firms, but he is trusted as a reliable and insightful analyst source by both blogs and the mainstream press. He has also become a tech-focused Twitter celebrity. He tweets matter-of-fact analysis and insightful musings about smartphones and other technologies, and is seemingly always using the medium, whether it is to tweet from launch events or while getting a morning bagel. He also regularly takes to Twitter to mock what he calls tech “unicorns” like the Verizon-iPhone.

clip_image004
@harrymccracken

(Harry McCracken)

23,900

2,019

8,351

McCracken is a longtime tech journalist  (he’s been on the beat since 1991) and has made a name for himself by blogging on the site Technologizer. On Twitter, McCracken takes a well-informed, if often, sarcastic look at technology and condenses it into a 140-character form for consumption. (Recent samples: “Then there’s Qi, a good new technology which nobody will know how to pronounce,” and “Sprint will have a ‘Keeping Up With the Kardashians’ app. I’d pay for an “Avoiding the Kardashians” one…”). McCracken provides crack live coverage from industry events (including the Windows Phone 7 launch), and also brings and old-school sensibility to the new medium.

clip_image005
@JohnPaczkowski

(John Paczkowski)

5,955

364

3,775

Paczkowski is the deputy managing editor of AllThingsD, and blogs regularly about the wireless industry, especially smartphones. Most of his Twitter stream is fed directly from ATD, but the headlines he churns out (and the stories behind them) are enough to keep users coming back for more. Some recent samples include:  “Windows Phone 7: There’s an App for Some of That,” “Nokia’s Ari Jaaksi: Meego Home Now,” and “This Just in From the N.S. Sherlock Institute for the Bleeding Obvious: Media Likes Covering Apple.” It should be noted that Paczkowski’s colleague, the indefatigable Kara Swisher (@karaswisher) is also an extremely avid Twitter user, and a sharp one that. Swisher, also a longtime tech journalist, is quick to post replies to those who engage her in conversation (despite having over 702,000 followers) and is always up for a bit of playful banter to go alongside her solid reporting.

clip_image006
@kevinctofel

(Kevin C. Tofel)

4,712

796

7,221

Tofel is the managing editor at jkOnTheRun, a GigaOM site covering mobile technology, and Tofel’s Twitter feed oozes gadget geekiness (in a good way, of course). Tofel can usually be found on Twitter engaged in conversation about the merits of a new phone or service he is testing. Additionally, Tofel is a great Android enthusiast, and is constantly tweaking his Nexus One, which he lets his followers know about. Tofel’s colleague Stacey Higginbotham is (@gigastacey) is also takes to Twitter on a  regular basis. What Tofel brings to Twitter in his earnest love for gadgets,  Higginbotham provides in equal measure for her enthusiasm and knowledge of mobile broadband. She has been especially active on Twitter of late as more carriers have rolled out high-speed mobile broadband to new markets, and is always looking to glean information from followers’ experiences.

clip_image007
@maryjfoley

(Mary Jo Foley)

12,056

347

3,599

Foley has been a Microsoft-watcher for a long time, and has carved out a space in tech reporting as the go-to source for the inside scoop on Microsoft products and services, whether they are mobile or not. Foley takes the time to regularly answer queries about the latest Microsoft rumor, and her Twitter feed reflects both her affection for and skepticism of the company’s products and plans. If anything, as Microsoft ramps up its efforts to promote its new Windows Phone 7 platform, Foley’s feed will become even more of a must-read for Microsoft news than it already is.

clip_image008
@phonescooper

(Eric Zeman)

3,891

2,636

14,701

One of the voices behind Phone Scoop, Zeman is a brash, informed and enthusiastic voice on Twitter on all things mobile. Although he occasionally drifts into the mundane, Zeman’s feed is usually full of biting commentary on the wireless industry and its various personalities (“Dear @ballmerplease botox your armpits before your next public speaking gig,” and “Firstest impression of the Nokia N8? It is the finest hardware crafted by Nokia. Secondest impression of the Nokia N8? I can’t believe it reverts to the Nokia mini-pin charger. Didn’t the EU mandate microUSB standard?”). Zeman’s commentary is caustic, funny and original.

clip_image009
@saschasegan

(Sascha Segan)

6,655

219

8,029

Segan is the senior mobile analyst for PC Magazine, and his coverage is directed at a wider consumer audience. Nevertheless, he is steeped in mobile history and knowledge, and his Twitter feed reflects not only the depth of his knowledge but the sharpness of his wit. When he is not opining about the latest phone he has reviewed, Segan is often found skirmishing with others on Twitter about long-term trends in the mobile industry. His convictions on Twitter are solid, but he is not above changing his mind about Big Topics (a longtime skeptic of the Verizon-iPhone, he says he has recently come around to the idea because the balance of evidence has shifted recently). That marks Segan: he analyzes, both on and off of Twitter, based on the evidence, and is usually pretty spot on.

clip_image010
@zpower

(Chris Ziegler)

4,826

213

6,404

Ziegler is the senior mobile editor for Engadget, and as such, is usually on Twitter letting the world know about whatever scoop the tech blog has landed that week (or day, as the case may be). When he’s not singing his publication’s praises, Ziegler is usually engaged in conversation with other technophiles about the latest tweak to a smartphone operating system or expressing his point of view about a particular smartphone or platform that has caught his eye. (“dumbfounded at the people calling wp7’s third-party apps mediocre — I’d actually call this the strongest start EVER for a new platform.”). His tweets are often off-the-cuff, sharp and always entertaining.




Via Fiercemobilecontent

Oct 042010
 
Credit: Flickr.com User:Joi

Twitter today announced via blog post that Dick Costolo is the new CEO while Evan Williams stepped down to do some more product analysis and promote Twitter like he did for past few years. Dick Costolo joined Twitter last year in September to build,  manage and organize how Twitter should bring the income stream. Continue reading »

Sep 252010
 

Nice thing about Feedburner now is that it updates your twitter starus with latest post well yesterday it all broke down and Feedburner did not update twitter status anymore.

At first I thought it was wp-cache plugin we have installed, but that seems not to be a problem.Bit of research it turns out that @Feedburner acknowledge the issue and as it appears they fixed it too. Well after I post this will see if it really works right?

For those that have same issue I have, you can either follow @Feedburner status update or go to their blog for more information here.

Overall, I am glad that they at least wrote about it.

Sep 222010
 

Twitter bug caused huge havoc and later it was successfully fixed. Now, a 17-years old Australian was taking responsibility for the bug. Here, the whole havoc is not done through this boy and he was just opened the gates for it to play.

The whole incident was a result when this Melbourne high school student tried to test the Twitter security flaw. The small act from a little boy caused huge head ache to many of the prominent members of Twitter. The problem was brought into the notice of Twitter team almost a month back from a Japanese hacker.

The best part is that the student is good enough to accept the fault and today many youngsters are being curious towards these issues. But, we all should wish that it will not repeat and the vulnerability should not become an advantage for the others.

Sep 222010
 

Twitter successfully fixed a bug that was causing serious spread of worms on Twitter’s website. The bug had been fixed on Tuesday and apparently it was an old bug resurfaced accidentally since August that is almost a month ago.

The presence of this bug was caused serious havoc and at last Twitter gained control over it yesterday morning. The worms resulted through this bug were truly damaging. One of the worms sent by this bug blacked-out Twitter messages to all the victim’s followers and another was successful in distributing Japanese pornography.

These worms are particularly virulent and a victim doesn’t need to click on anything to initiate the spread to the followers. The malicious code was used to spread through hover over a specially written link that was sent in a Twitter message. The damage was resulted on hundreds of thousands of users in Twitter.

Twitter said about this in a blog post as “we discovered and patched this issue last month. However, a recent site update (unrelated to new Twitter) unknowingly resurfaced it”.

The bug presence was knowledge since Aug 23, when it was patched in the open-source text processing library used by Twitter. A worm of this bug was succeeded in spreading pornographic version to all the 1.2 million followers of Sarah Brown, the wife of former British Prime Minister.

Some more prominent personalities victimized for this bug are White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, Japanese hacker named Masato Kingawa and many more.

Via Computerworld