*Extending album art: What your favorite albums look like beyond the cover... Did no one mock up that one Sugar Ray album? [tobs]

*Bloggers can feature Amazon MP3 tunes on their blogs now thanks to a widget. In boring news, I haven't blogged about widgets in a long time. [coolfer]

*The New York Times writes up Kanye's space alien aesthetic and his ego. Sure, he can pick on Entertainment Weekly, but what will Mr. West have to say about the paper of record?

*The Office's Creed has a platinum album to his credit with his band, The Grass Roots. [earfarm]

*FlyTunes: Add streaming video from the likes of Comedy Central and NBC to your iPhone. [listening post]

*Video: Machinima music video for The Beatles' "I'm Only Sleeping" made with World of Warcraft. [urlesque]

*They may give Jammie Thomas, the Minnesota woman busted for music filesharing, another trial.

*Also: The RIAA is on Limewire like crazy. WATCHING YOU.

*Off topic. BusinessWeek on Twitter. If you want to understand social media, read this. [buzzwatch]

twitter feed: http://twitter.com/pabaker55

Many of you know, I use twitter.com for microblogging, networking with friends and colleagues, and for personal goofiness/venting/celebrating/randomness. Twitter has been an easy to use tool for keeping in touch with those I can't normally keep in touch with, offer immediate stats on upcoming events or changes in my work, and to ask questions/advice/ideas on questions I have regarding everything from career to everyday life. Twitter is about community, about relationships, about being yourself. None of that professional-like manner, or being about your business. This is the new wave of communication, regardless of the naysayers.

SOME GREAT REASONS FOR YOU TO TWEET:

- connect with like-minded people

- share your thoughts on today's topics, links online, etc

- record moments you want to remember, in your simplest words

- gain ideas for projects and problems you come across

- gain new friends

So, are you my twitter friend? (follow http://www.twitter.com/natashawescoat) and I will add you!

I just finished a my soy smoothie that was mixed with choco whey protein, bee pollen, and frozen strawberries. It was delicious! Now, I'm off to get in my workout, ship some orders, and connect with artists.

As it turns out, they do. This also might sound cliche and lame, but I've re-discovered how fun it can be having my own little community of (in this case) like-minded web 2.0 geek friends to keep up with. I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks the same thing.

Whatknows has put some real thinking into what Twitter does. He also has some great advice:

People complain that Twitter is just “one more thing”, and I guess it kind of is, but I’m not convinced that it has to be. I originally joined Twitter to see if this “one more thing” was something worth adding, but over time have grown mildly fond of my 140 character updates. The recommendation I would give those who are not quite sure how to integrate Twitter into their lives (or visa versa) is to mix it into something you already know and do. We all update our Facebook status. And what is Twitter if not the Facebook status minus the Facebook?

True dat.

We'll see what happens once my summer classes begin, but in the meantime I'm hooked. So if you're not already on it, join up so I can stalk you.

Thoughts aboard MI 467:

1. I've said it before and I've said it again: Singapore Airlines doesn't so much hire air-hostesses; it hires models who smile prettily and get you (almost :( )whatever you want. It's like some sort of air-porn experience, minus the sex. Yes, that makes sense.
2. A half bottle of wine(=quarter each of red and white chardonnay) does absolutely nothing by way of giving you a high. Even from the fact that it's free.

I'm trying to convince my father to buy me a new phone. I think the basic point of contention now is the price, which of course is good for me because it implies the Battle of If has been more or less won, and the Battle of How Much can't really go that badly, because it can't be worse than the old one and we're spending so much anyway, i can say "but it's only a small percentage of.." etc.

Updates will be fairly infrequent unless there's free internet access at other places along the way. Bear it. I miss you too.

• Microcontos - http://twitter.com/microcontos
• Haikais - http://twitter.com/haikais
• Poesia erótica - http://twitter.com/poesiaerotica
• Mulheres que amo - http://twitter.com/mulheresqueamo

Para que serve o Twitter?, Parte I.
(Meu Twitter)
(DB)

After making sure our friends and family are safe, I started to reflect a bit on the earthquake. It never ceases to amaze me how Twitterquaking has become the defacto emergency broadcast system of the web. If you're new to the term, it simply refers to using Twitter during an earthquake (or any other emergency) and using it to move around information, and find out if friends and loved ones are well. Exhibit A is this morning's 7.8 magnitude earthquake in Chengdu, in central China. Twitter is the sole reason I know about it this morning and not the evening's news.

Logging on this morning, my Twhirl stream was buzzing with activity among the folks I follow living in China. Apparently It was kicked off with Frank Yu's asking "Earthquake in Beijing?" followed by a momentary comedic interruption of the news with "i twittered as the building swayed...screw running out the door, MUST TWEET !" That's dedication Frank - or perhaps addiction. According to Marc van der Chijs, "within a few minutes the Twitter community found at least 3 active Twitterers (http://twitter.com/inwalkedbud, http://twitter.com/lyrrael and http://twitter.com/casperodj) that were reporting live from Chengdu. Quite amazing to see how quickly news spreads on Twitter, because we already had all information before the mainstream media picked it up."

Marc is absolutely right. In fact, the USGS picked up the quake about 5 minutes after the initial Twitter reports began. Many of us had a map of the quake region before the USGS could post one. Now it's tempting to chide the experts for showing up late to the party, but frankly Twitter is an unfair advantage for the rest of us (side note: I hope folks at the USGS are following Twitter. They aren't doing their jobs otherwise). It seems increasingly the web is pushing mainstream news services are in the business of confirmation and analysis rather than actual news dissemination. This missive from Robert Scoble pretty much sums up the role of the mainstream media in the minds of active Twitter users:

For more updates follow the stream of news updates from Twitter users here.

Update 1: From Shanghaiist, Pictures out of Wenchuan. This brings me to the verge of tears.

Update 2: Some folks in China place the toll at 11,922. The BBC's coverage is here. My friends Jeremiah Owyang and Elliott Ng (CN Reviews) have also donated and stepped up calls for action. Bravo fellas. Elliott's blog post has a great list of organizations which can use your help. Thank you for the comments and continued support.

Mas vamos do início: o que seria Feed RSS e para que serve? RSS é a sigla em inglês para Rich Site Summary ou Really Simple Syndication, ou seja, uma forma simplificada de apresentar o conteúdo de um site. Um documento RSS é feito na linguagem XML e geralmente exibe o grande volume de informações existente em uma página na internet de forma resumida. Pela característica de alimentar de notícias, os documentos RSS também são chamados de Feeds. Os feeds são a forma mais prática de se manter atualizado em vários assuntos ou apenas assuntos segmentados. e por isso são a melhor opção de unir informações de várias redes sociais.

Se você por acaso é cadastrado em mais de uma rede social, procure eleger um sistema que possa agregar suas fontes de dados - este é o conceito do lifestreaming.

Como diz o título da música, "Junte tudo o que é seu". Uma boa opção é o Tumblr que além de funcionar como blog também agrega feeds de outros blogs, do YouTube, Slide Share e o famoso Twitter e assim você pode mostrar tudo o que está fazendo na web para seus amigos de uma só vez.

Os microblogs também fazem muito sucesso entre internautas e blogueiros de plantão e também devem receber alimentação de sistemas de feeds e sites que enviam informações diretas para ele. Um bom serviço de alimentação para o Twitter é o Twitterfeed em que o usuário programa um ou mais feeds rss do seu blog ou de outros sites para enviar as atualizações ao seu perfil no Twitter. A grande vantagem no uso desta ferramenta é criar um perfil que agregue apenas suas informações de blog, videos etc, diferente de seu perfil pessoal. Se preferir pode programar o feed do seu Tumblr que já está alimentado com vídeos, fotos e afins e mandar tudo para o Twitter através do Twitterfeed.Fantástico, não?

Redes sociais como Orkut, Facebook e Myspace também pensam no conceito lifestreaming e disponibilizam agregadores RSS em seuas páginas. Também é uma ótima opção de atualização.

Para que gosta de mais mobilidade, a opção é o Iminta - um serviço ainda em fase beta que e agrega todos os seus feeds e também serviços de vídeo, fotos, perfis de outras redes sociasi e tudo mais em uma só página.

Mas ainda resta saber como atualizar todas estas redes sociais de uma só vez para que elas possam aparecer nos feeds RSS? Simples. A solução é usar o Imified, um serviço que atualiza blogs, Twitter, o próprio Tumblr, del.icio.us e muitos outros através de programas de mensagem instantânea como o MSN, Gtalk, Yahoo e ICQ. O usuário escolhe um dos programas que vai usar, adiciona o endereço do serviço e depois configura quais os sites que deseja atualizar e pronto...tudo será plenamente atualizado através de IM. os usuários do MSN podem usar e abusar do serviço.

Para quem ainda não experimentou usar Feeds RSS, vale a pena aventurar-se pois pelo que tudo indica,é a maneira mais simples e prática de passar informações a diante, basta saber usar a tecnologia com inteligência.

Il prodotto è italiano al 100% ma la lingua di riferimento è l'inglese visto che il sito che vola alto!

Nice, we all want this. But the question remains: what makes up a really good microblog ?

For me it are these ten requirements:

1* login with username
2* immediately ready for posting after login
3* 140 characters mininum
4* no title needed
5* standard sending to all people
6* no extra tagging needed
7* respecting commas in urls
8* shortening urls
9* directly ready for reposting
10* presenting your previous postings

This list of requirements is ofcourse strictly personal, but I wanted to be able to discuss about quality so I had to substantiate what I see to be necessary for quality.

These seven microblogs meet all these criteria:

http://twitter.com
http://smspr.ru
http://zuosa.com

http://gozub.com
http://blip.pl
http://feecle.jp

http://beemood.com

Do you know of any other microblog meeting these criteria, let me know it right away !

Pieter Jansegers
http://webosophy.ning.com

Although the use of this "Twitter" seems very irrelevant, businesses use Twitter to quickly update customers, and even in some extremes, update people in a medical emergency.  Could've used these during 9/11!

Twitter provides more astounding information on their website:

"With Twitter, you can stay hyper–connected to your friends and always know what they’re doing. Or, you can stop following them any time. You can even set quiet times on Twitter so you’re not interrupted."

Cyberstalking meets Web 2.0?  Hell, Twitter's better than porn.  I know I've always wanted to know when my mom's taking a dump.   In actuality, though, Twitter is extremely addictive, especially if you're mostly self-conceited.  Scratching your ass?  Twitter your ass-scratching activity in a second, sent to your friends through the Internet or preferred mobile device.  If you need a drinking buddy for the night, simply Twitter away and wait for a response.  Even I'm joining in on the microblogging trend, although very reluctantly.

Insisto en que la escuela está cambiando. Y a mejor. Ser profesor de Lenguas en el siglo XXI es una gran suerte pues tenemos al alcance todo lo necesario para preparar buenas clases llenas de palabras, creatividad, cultura y producciones comunicativas. Sólo hay que intentar, además, que los alumnos se pongan de nuestra parte y mantenerles esa tensión durante todo el curso, lo que no es fácil, en el irregular consciente adolescente.

Una reflexión pendiente en todo este feliz vaivén es si la escuela debe asumir la realidad exprés o potenciar otro tipo de estímulos culturales. Me explico: aparecen los microrrelatos, los ágiles cómics on-line, los experimentos del laboratorio se pueden “sustituir” por simulaciones, los libros de texto se transforman en cuadernillos de apoyo, las obras de teatro se reducen a sketchs… Yo no sé el impacto de estos “consumibles” ultrarápidos en la tradicional cultura escolar ni en la axiología humanística y científica pero sí sé que responden a la realidad y que, complementando a los otros formatos, impulsan nuevas necesidades culturales. Metacultura, al fin.

Por aportar algo de inocente pólvora al fuego, presento aquí algunas herramientas que ejemplifican todo esto. Llevo pensando tiempo en dar otra vuelta de tuerca al uso del blog (individual o colectivo) y de sus ventajas (público, intertextual, estético, crisol multimedia…) con las herramientas de microblogging (un buen ejemplo en euskera): Twitter, jaiku , trumblr… ¿ventajas?: gratuitos, no se pierde el tiempo en la gestión pues hay muchas menos posibilidades, en algunos se suman los contenidos multimedia, podemos diseñar actividades más ágiles (descripciones, uso no formal de las lenguas, conjuntos de figuras literarias, diccionarios, hemerotecas personales...) ¿Problemas? Un poco escasito en la estética que tanto atrae a los alumnos, no se pueden dejar comentarios, no hay categorías, ni enlaces….Vamos, igual que el cuaderno ¿milimetrado? ¿cuadriculado?. Yo siempre dudaba.

Patxo Landa

Por cierto, somos finalistas en Espiral. Gracias a todos y a todas.

Below is an example of an expansion of BrightKite. These photos are snapped with a phone camera, emailed by phone to the BrightKite shop account, automatically fed to a Shop N Carrboro Tumblr (with an instant mobile version), and added for this demonstration to a Slide show.

!!!

All the posts on this site, including the feeds, are from travelers who use microblog formats in some fashion. Let us know what innovative things you are doing with microblogging.

If video doesn't do it for you, here's what Twitter is to me.

First off, Twitter starts you off with the question of, "What are you doing?"

Notice that number in the corner there, it encourages you to enter a 140 character response. Then your post gets put into a stream of other entries, from your contacts.

Okay. Why do I care that Andy's hands are sticky... Maybe, I don't. Maybe, though, his hands are sticky because he's having another of his famous snacks. The SocNet community checks in with Andy to see what some of the best snacks are, and what are the best ways to eat them. Everybody needs a hobby.

While you think that this may be a kind of micro-niche web application, there are a bunch of micro-blogging sites out there now. The Social Networking community jumps around, testing new tools. I've got accounts on Brightkite, Jaiku, Twitter, and Pownce.

I'm busy trying to asses whether or not I should pick one of these sites and stick with it. To that end, I've created a spreadsheet (back off, I'm a geek, I know it) that compares the top three contenders for my main micro-blogging site. I've rated them on character limits, adding links or photos, contacts/friends adding, as well as some of their mobile/smartphone features. I know that I've not captured all the features that should be compared, and so I'm reaching out to the community to see what else should be covered, and what those features are. I'm also sure there are other micro-blogging sites that aren't in my brief list.

If you'd like to help out comparing these metrics, please check out the sheet over on Google Docs.

If you want to be involved in editing the sheet, please drop me a line at wholelotofnonsense at gmail dot com and put "Micro-Blogging Comparison" in the email subject line.

Reluctant Blogger asked me about using twitter clients today so though I'd share a comparison of some of the popular ones. Obviously it's easy to just use twitter via the twitter website or as many post via texting on their mobile phone or Instant messenger client but many people use a dedicated desktop client or an add on to their web browser.

Twitterfox- one of many twitter add ons for the Firefox browser.

Flock - the social media browser based on firefox has a twitter widget built in.

Twitterific - a small twitter client for mac OS X. I find it a little annoying to have to go into preferences to set the client view for either friend or public timeline but it supports growl notifications on OS X.

Twhirl - Very popular with a lot of people and recently bought by up and coming social video service Seesmic (so might we see video tweets soon?) it has some great features like the ability to search public tweets by a keyword subject though it does not provide a public timeline view at this time.It requires Adobe air to run.

Spaz - Another adobe air based client and currently my favourite. it supports growl notifications on the Mac and key for me is that it's easy to toggle between friend tweets and the public timeline.Shame about the dubious product name though.

It's easy to see what people are using as their tweets usually show what method or software they've used to post a message after each post.

It's always good to hear about new twitter and micro-blogging clients.

Here is a compilation of all of the known Twitter Tools out there that I know of. (Click Image To View Larger)

Please let me know if I am missing anything! Just leave a comment and I will change her up!

If you would like to make mind maps like this just go to http://www.MindMeister.com

Follow me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/scottbradley

Knitting Flickr http://snurl.com/27qa1-3958 , Twitter, http://snurl.com/27qg6-3958 wordpress http://snurl.com/27q03-3958 using snurls

Snurl colours: 6699CC, BFD4E9, CCDCEC, FAF9FF,
Knit
Purl
K1, P1, rep from *
Snip
Snipurl
Snurl
Snipr
Create
Manage
Browse
Print Screen
Create Snips >> Manage Snips >> Browse Snips

MySnipurl for oceanflynn >> Manage Snips >> Snipurl /Snurl/Snipr

SnipURL or Snurl or Snipr (all the same domain) can snip urls to shorten them from super long (eg 500 characters +) to 18, 20, 26 characters. These snurls can be used in emails, in microblogs such as Twitter, etc. Snurls don't wrap. They remain "meaningful so you can remember and share them in the future, and permanent so if your underlying URL expires or changes you can always modify your snipped URL. (As a bonus, you can even see the popularity of you URLs by viewing how many people clicked on it)."

The scoop was that Dave Winer asked on Twitter about an "Explosion" in Virginia and the chatter stream (aka Tweets), eventually led to the correct answer - a tiny earthquake in Falls Church VA.     More important than the fact this tiny event was hardly "breaking news", it was very broken news and probably worried a lot of people until the "explosion" became a tiny rumble.

Again, Twitter is great, but let's not go stupid here and start thinking Twitter represents a radical restructuring of our information universe.  

Um tremor pequeníssimo em Washington D.C. foi percebido antes pelos usuários da ferramenta. Ou melhor, publicado antes ("publique antes, filtre depois" é a norma vigente da Web 2.0 que Clay Shirky consolidou de vez em seu ótimo "Here Comes Everybody" _registre-se que, pessoalmente, sou adepto do filtrar e depois publicar).

Segundo relato da Reuters, o tremor levou quase uma hora para sair do Twitter e chegar ao mainstream. O Tiago Dória vê por um ângulo auspicioso o mesmo relato, apontando para o apuramento do uso do microblogging no jornalismo. De fato, olha que cobertura esperta das primárias na Carolina do Norte (EUA): os repórteres passavam flashes via Twitter. Óbvio ululante, mas cadê?

Por isso pergunto, como já havia feito antes: cadê as redações que não estão ligadas na movimentação do microblog? Cadê o repórter "twittando" da rua? Chegamos à conclusão de sempre: a paquidermia grassa...