by: Chris Hudson
26 August, 2009
Crederity has announced the launch of an identity verification service for Twitter users in the US.
It tries to combat the problem of online identity theft by enabling Twitter users to prove their real-life identity.
Crederity validates the offline, real-world identity of the person who has created a Twitter account.
To learn more about Crederity’s new service for Twitter users, please visit: http://www.crederity.com/twitter.html
Presently, the service is free for US and Indian residents.
by: Chris Hudson
29 July, 2009
Yesterday Twitter reached a deal with O2, Apple’s exclusive iPhone network provider, that will enable ALL O2 customers to both send and receive updates from Twitter.
Last year Twitter removed all SMS access for UK tweeters due to high SMS costs. Earlier this year Vodaphone subscribers got back access.
O2 customers can find out how to enable the SMS feature on Twitter’s blog:
“To Twitter over SMS with your iPhone or any other mobile, head over to your account settings and activate your device. The Twitter shortcode in the UK is 86444 if you want to save it in your address book.”
O2’s Apple iPhone users can also download free apps from the iTunes App Store such as Twitterific, Seesmic and Tweedeck that will also enable you to post messages on Twitter without the use of SMS.
by: Chris Hudson
23 July, 2009
The Twitter app Seesmic 0.4.1 is now available with performance improvements and a resolution to a Facebook issue that was affecting some users.
Seesmic is a competitor to TweetDeck and is likewise an Adobe Air application. It enables you to run, monitor and interact with multiple Twitter accounts
Seesmic 0.4.1 can be downloaded from here:
http://d.seesmic.com/seesmic/SeesmicDesktop-0.4.1.air
In case you missed the news, a couple of weeks ago Seesmic launched a web-based version of the Twitter app. Apparently, there is a new version coming in the next few days - Seesmic Web can be downloaded from here:
http://seesmic.com/app
by: Chris Hudson
17 July, 2009
A few weeks ago we saw the news of Michael Jackson’s death disseminated largely via Twitter users and social media sites before Google and the mainstream news media got hold of the story.
Then yesterday we had Daniel Tumiwa breaking the story of the Jakarta bombings from the scene via Twitter and his Blackberry. Pictures of the atrocity appeared on Twitpic shortly afterwards.
It is hard to believe that Twitter’s founder would ever have imagined that its service would be used for frontline reporting of breaking news of world terrorism, rather than, “should I have a bagel or doughnut for breakfast?”.
Social media has come a long way already but are there any limits to what it can do in the future?
Will Twitter users replace the majority of professional journalists ultimately? What is the point of a hack turning up to a crime scene, press card in hand if the news has been tweeted and posted on Facebook and pictures have been taken and posted to Twitpic?
Analysis and investigation of the news stories maybe the answer for journalists but once the story has been broken on social media sites there are plenty of intelligent and articulate bloggers on the Internet who can provide the background to any story.
When the Web 2.0 Internet gets hold of the information from the social media sites there are also millions of people online able to provide immediate analysis and input expert background knowledge into a story rather than a handful of journalists in a newsroom.
Have journalists any real defence against an army of citizen news gatherers or a horde of knowledgeable bloggers?
What are your thoughts?
by: Chris Hudson
Australian ABCNews is reporting that news of the bombs at the Marriott and Ritz-Carlton Hotels in Jakarta was first posted by Twitter user Daniel Tumiwa from his Blackberry:
“Bom @ marriot and ritz Carlton kuningan jakarta
2 boms go off at marriot hotel ad ritz carlton jakarta
2 boms go off inside Ritz Carlton and Marriott coffee shops! Not kidding. Am here.
Left location.Shocked. Lots of blood. Breakfast meetings at coffee shops while bombs went off.
Thanks for all the concern. Back home. Safe. Shocked. Blood…smoke…glass…everywhere…prayers to the victims….”
Simple, immediate and graphic. Pictures of the outrage also rapidly appeared on Twitpic.
You can follow Intrahost on Twitter, although we tend to tweet about online web design resources and such like rather than terrorism; but I guess you can never know whether or not today is the day that YOU will be a breaking news story to the world via Twitter?
by: Chris Hudson
6 July, 2009
Twitter have admitted that they have accidentally suspended a number of twitter accounts and they have also taken the unusual step of exonerating the 3rd party service Tweetlater from any complicity in the mistake.
Unsubstantiated reports are saying that as many as 100,000 accounts may have been affected, including a number of high profile accounts which are already back online.
Here’s Twitter’s statement:
“Earlier today, we accidentally suspended a number of accounts.
We regret the human error that led to these mistaken suspensions and we are working to restore the affected accounts—we expect this to be completed in the next several hours.
One additional note: some the accounts suspended were using the third-party site Tweetlater. However, Tweetlater is not to blame for these suspensions nor is it in violation of our Terms”.
If you don’t want to rely on Twitter automatically unsuspending your account you can contact Twitter through either their Twitter Spam account (if you have access to another account or create one) or by sending a request through their Customer support system.
by: Chris Hudson
2 July, 2009
Microsoft’s Bing has taken its first tentative steps into the world of real-time search. They are introducing results from Twitter into their search results.
Recent events like the death of Michael Jackson exposed not only the inadequacy of traditional news outlets in disseminating the story quickly - but also that of search engines like Google, that took over two hours to begin showing links to articles about the singer’s death in response to searches for “Michael Jackson.”
Conversely, Twitter was awash with the news within seconds of its release by a small website. Any real-time indexing of tweets on that day would have brought the story to the attention of non-tweeting world a great deal faster.
However, Microsoft’s Bing is only going to be indexing the tweets of the more prominent and prolific twitters to begin with. They will be chosen by follower count and obviously the volume of their tweets.
In order to find the results from Twitter on Bing you will have to add “twitter” or “tweets” to the name of the person for whom you are searching. You can even search by the Twitterer’s username e.g “@intrahostltd”, although that does beg the question why not just look up the account on Twitter? Anyway, Bing’s search results will include the person’s latest tweets and a link to see more.
Why not follow us on twitter!
