Posts Tagged ‘Twitter’

Changes At Google

Thursday, January 15th, 2009

Once upon a time everyone thought that Google was unstoppable. However, the worsening economy is taking its tole on search giant. The company has issued a number of official blog posts over the last week or so detailing the changes.

Google Video will no longer be accepting uploads shortly. No surprise there, actually, I’ve been wondering why this didn’t happen a long time ago. Google Video, IMO, should have been one thing… search for (and in) videos.

Google Notebook, a service that I actually love, will be stopping development. However the service will continue to work, for now. I guess with this service shutting down, I’ll have a reason to switch over to Evernote.

A number of services that Google picked up, but never really did anything with will also be getting the axe. Jaiku, Google’s service similar to Twitter and Plurk will be shutting down, and the code released as an open source Jaiku Engine under the Apache license.

Other fatalities include:
- Dodgeball, a mobile social networking service.
- Google Mashup Editor will quit working in about 6 months. Everything should be moved over to the App Engine.

That’s not all of the Google news. Google is also making changes to recruting and engineering. About 100 positions in the recruiting section are being eliminated, and 40 satellite engineering offices in 20 countries are being closed. No word on how many engineers that will impact.

As long as Google doesn’t mess with my Picasa, GMail, GDocs, GCal, or Grand Central I’ll be happy. Though I will miss Google Notebook.

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Redesign Week

Saturday, September 20th, 2008

Looks like the last week (or whenever) was “redesign week”. Both Twitter and FriendFeed made major changes to their sites. Not eactly sure when either of these happened, considering I haven’t really used these services that much in the past.

While the Twitter redesign is nice, it’s still very uninviting. However the FriendFeed update kicks ass. In fact, I’ve probably spent more time on Friendfeed this past week then I’ve spent since I first created my account. Major props to them!

View me on Twitter | FriendFeed | Plurk

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Jaiku Now On Google Servers

Friday, August 29th, 2008

Jaiku, the micro-blogging service similar to Twitter, Plurk, and the many other services out there, was purchased by Google a while back. Just got an email stating that Jaiku has now been moved and is running on the Google servers.

This should give Jaiku a major advantage over Twitter, Plurk, and the others… stability. Will it be enough? We’ll see.

If you are a Jaiku member, feel free to add me. If you aren’t on there and would like an invitation, drop me a line and I’ll throw one to ya when I get home from work this evening.

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How Many Plurks Can A Plurk Plurk?

Monday, August 11th, 2008

There is no doubt that I’m a fan of Plurk. I use it far more than Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku, or even MySpace. It’s a great service, and I’ve met some really cool people on there. But this post isn about that kind of stuff…

Today one of my Plurk buddies posted a simple request. Can a single Plurk get more than 300 replies? Sure it can… and it did. Now the question is just how far can it go? 1000? Been there. 2000? Getting close. 3000? Maybe.

We’d really like to see just how far this can go. So feel free to jump into the thread and reply. If you don’t have an account, you can sign up for free right here.

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100 Push Ups

Wednesday, August 6th, 2008

For some reason, I never really got into Twitter. Sure, I have an account, and once in a blue moon I’ll check it. Other than that, I don’t do much with it.

Yesterday happened to be one of those rare moments when I found myself on Twitter, and as luck would have it there was an interesting (to me anyway) post from Kevin Rose. He was re-posting about hundredpushups.com. I found this site interesting, it claims that anyone of any physical ability can follow their plan and in six weeks they should be able to do 100 push ups.

It’s no secret to many of my friends that back in school, I would have been easily able to pull off 100 push ups. Heck, I could have done 50 on my finger tips, or with claps in-between. Sadly, that was a long time ago, and now I’d be lucky to do 10 push ups. It’s also no secret that I’ve been trying to shed a few pounds and get back into shape. It’s been a slow process, but I’m doing good. I’ve dropped 13.5 pounds in 31 weeks, or roughly .5 pounds per week. Nothing fantastic, but I’ve kept it off, and that’s key.

So, I’ve decided that I would take the 100 push up challenge. Friday of this week will be my initial test, and the following Monday will start Week 1 of the program. If all goes according to plan by Monday, September 22 I should be able to do 100 consecutive push ups. Will it work? Who knows. What do I really have to lose by trying?

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My Social Network Experience

Wednesday, June 25th, 2008

Social Networking… who would have ever thought it’d be as big as it is today. Everyone and their brother is in the game. And while I have an account on just about everyone of them, there are only a few that I log into on a regular basis.

Of course, I don’t count sites like Twitter, Plurk, or Pownce as a “Social Network”. Other people do, but I still consider these blogging services… or if you’d prefer micro-blog. Over the last few weeks, I’ve been thinking about a few services, and here are my thoughts…

(more…)

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Playing With Plurk

Saturday, June 7th, 2008

Ok, so yesterday I wrote a message about Plurk. I must admit, after playing with it for a couple of days and communicating with my Neowin friends, I’ve become somewhat of an addict. For me, it has been so much better than my short run at Twitter (which I still update via ping.fm).

For those of you that have never used a service like Plurk or Twitter. They are often referred to as mico-blogs, to be honest, I hate that term. Think of it is a semi-live chat/form. You post something, and other people can reply. You can give a status update (i.e. d3bruts1d is off to take a nap), share videos and pictures, or have a conversation. – Unlike forums that are generally geared toward specific topics (Neowin, TR, OCC, etc.), these kinds of service are usually far more open. Allowing you to discuss your favorite foods, beer, movies, tv shows, talk tech, the weather, sports, or whatever floats you boat. And it’s fun, ask just about anyone that is plurking right now.

So, if you aren’t plurking yet. Go ahead and give it a try. Feel free to add ‘d3bruts1d’ to your friends list if you want someone to talk with. :)

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Plurk, Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku

Friday, June 6th, 2008

There has been some rumble the last few days about a new service called Plurk. I first noticed it when ping.fm did an update earlier this week and added support for it.

Plurk, like Twitter, is a micro-blog / status service. However rather than display things in a list view, Plurk uses a rather nice timeline view. This fresh approach, in addition to Twitters consistent stability issues has lead people to ask, could Plurk be a twitter killer?

My answer: Sure, it could be. But it still has a long way to go, and will need to offer several additional features. But so far, I’ve really liked it.

Of course, Plurk isn’t the fist service to be considered a “twitter killer”. Pownce and Jaiku as well as other services have all shared the same title. So far, nothing has really been able to touch the king of micro-blogging.

Part of what makes Twitter so unbeatable right now is the number of applications, plugins, and extensions that allow you to user Twitter. You’ll find something twitter related for Firefox, Flock, Google Desktop, iGoogle, Facebook, you can even find widgets that allow you to display your tweets on your personal blog. Not to mention the dozens of other sites out there that will aggregate your twitter data and display it.

What service does everyone else use? I’ve got friends on them all. So far my favorite is Plurk, followed by Ponce and Jaiku, with Twitter dead last.

My Profiles:
Plurk
Pownce
Jaiku
Twitter

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