I’ve been intrigued by the whole URL shortener explosion. Every man and his network has a shortener these days . Although they’ve been around for years (tinyurl for example), the reason for the rise in popularity is undoubtedly Twitter with its need for brevity. So much so that some are getting...

I’m predicting that Protected Updates are going to be the next big Twitter trend. Why? Because the mad rush for maximum followers has run its course. And people are now realising that having thousands (or even millions) of followers is next to useless (except of course for the psychological reasons)....

In the race to drum up a following on Twitter, people are using all kinds of silly tactics. The latest one I’m seeing is the fake #followfriday thank you tweets. Basically you send an @reply to a bunch of people (that probably don’t even follow you) thanking them for recommending you as part of the...

I’m getting sick of all the stories that people are writing about this so-called 60% quit rate with Twitter. It’s hit all the news sites by now, and is gaining widespread acceptance. The problem though is that it is unclear what it is based on. Here’s the grab from the Nielsen blog that reported...

It’s early in the backlash cycle as people come to terms with what Facebook is and isn’t providing via its Open Stream API (and developer Wiki). Check out Xobni and Seesmic for details on some of the early examples of how it can be implemented. ReadWriteWeb however offers a slight lament at how...

One of the things that has made Twitter so popular is its simplicity and the 140 character limit. The reason I’m hardly on Twitter anymore is because it is too simple and has a 140 character limit. Yep, I can happily live with it going mainstream and having @oprah around doesn’t faze me at all (as...

Stories like this (Activist Charged for Inciting ‘Twitter Revolution’) and this (Inside Moldova’s Twitter Revolution) from Wired are always hard to gauge. Are they deliberately trying to be silly, or are they just reporting the silliness of the world? In this case it is hopefully the...

FriendFeed has had a lot of coverage this week. But then again so has Windows 7, Twitter, TweetDeck and Seesmic Desktop, so there’s a chance you may have missed it. When the new FriendFeed beta was unveiled on Monday I was certainly intrigued (in fact so much so that I’ve spent most of the week...

To be profitable, OR not to be – that is the question. The latest YouTube expenses news shouldn’t really come as a surprise. The price of enormous popularity is often high, and if the business model isn’t clear, then profits might not be in tandem. YouTube expense estimations have emerged from...

It will be fascinating to see how this latest Twitter-being-acquired rumour plays out. As TechCrunch reports, there’s rumours of Google in late stage (or perhaps early stage depending on which update you read) acquisition talks with Twitter. The value of Twitter is in using the service as a real time...

I really like Twitter. But how to manage it effectively? Over the last 18 months or so (I joined Twitter in September 2007) I’ve tried a number of different client apps. TweetDeck, Twhirl, etc. But the one I keep coming back to is OutTwit (from the fine folks at TechHit) . Its a simple little Outlook...

Hot on the heels of the MySpace and Silverlight partnership, comes Facebook’s partnership with Adobe (via TechCrunch). Called the ‘ActionScript 3.0 Client Library for Facebook Platform’ (and I thought Microsoft had boring names!), the API allows developers to build applications that connect the...

Douglas Bowman, who Google gave the title of Visual Design Lead, is going to work for Twitter. This was rumoured a few weeks back on Valleywag and FastCompany, but appears to have been confirmed yesterday by Spencer Ante. We’re looking forward to Part 2 from Douglas, following up his Part 1 from just...

There’s no doubt that Silverlight is powering ahead in many circles. As Ars Technica reported earlier, the latest development along those lines has Silverlight and MySpace working together. MySpace is now allowing developers to host Silverlight applications on the MySpace Open Platform. From the MySpace...

You’ll be shocked (NOT!) to learn that Twitter is growing at a massive rate. Stats last month put the growth at over 1300% for February (compared to a year earlier). You can read all the latest numbers over on the Nielsen site (which I came across via the TwistImage blog). For me the two most interesting...

I’ve been wondering what’s next after Twitter. Where are all the cool kids heading these days? After all, it has become so mainstream now that the inevitable transformation from intimate community to marketing broadcast is all but complete. The vibe on Twitter has changed. Yes I know, that’s what...