Is Twitter blowing up?

I have to admit I have been on sort of a Web 2.0 hiatus for the past 4.5 months since launching our new site. In the last week or so I have been inspired by much of the exciting news in this space as well as in Mobile scene too.

So I decided to start using my Twitter account again..now when I say use what I mean is post. I utilize Twitter in a data streaming way and love it. I get updates from Techmeme, Jason Calacanis , Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Land, and of course one cannot live w/ out live Redsox casts via Twitter.

Today I read a great article over on Steve Spalding's blog on "How to use Twitter" in which he listed some great applications like....

ServerMojo - Monitors your web server and will send you update notifications via Twitter.

Remember the Milk for Twitter- Remember the Milk (rtm) is a popular GTD web application. By adding the rtm Twitter member as a friend you can send commands to your account via the Twitter interface. This is particularly useful if you are using Twitter by SMS when you are out and about and you only have your mobile phone and no Internet access.

SugarStats - If you are diabetic then check out SugarStats. This site allows you to monitor your sugar levels and gives you all sorts of graphs and charts. Plus you can send in your data via Twitter.

Twitter by Voice = Jott.com send a Twitter update by speaking into your phone--your voice gets
converted to text and sent out to all your followers.

Foamee.com is a fun IOU system built on Twitter that helps you
track who you owe beers to (and vice versa). All you have to do is
follow the account "ioubeer" and then send it @replies. So, say
you owe me a beer for helping you change a flat tire, this is what
you'd send to Twitter:

@ioubeer @biz for helping me change that flat tire

Then, your IOU will show up on the front page at foamee.com.

I also came across Guy Kawasaki's post regarding his Twitter app that feeds his Truemors site.. really slick if I say so myself..


I wonder how developers will leverage some of these apps via Open Social and Facebook Api's...hmmmmmm there are so many facets of Twitter.. there are business applications, social and now even health and safety values being equated too it...

I actually wrote about Twitter being used in an Emergency situations after the tragic events at Virginia Tech last spring. But it looks like Twitter really has scaled in this capacity during the recent natural disasters in California.

I just see Twitter creating so much value lately? Is it just me or has it been this robust for awhile now?

Hypocriacy brought me out of retirement

Awhile back a set a Google alert for Blendah. Well today it payed off big time... In my inbox came this little tid-bit from from someone that wants to make $10k off this idea but calls me out for squatting on Yelp...hmmm do you smell something here? I do ...The irony of the whole situation is that Twitter has a policy of turning over Trademarked names to their rightful owners.

Maybe this is what I needed to get back in the game.. things have been a little hectic since launching our new "Wholesale Autoparts Club" w/ a splash of Web 2.0

clipped from blogs.claritycon.com From the 10K Monkey Idea Lab: Yelp + Twitter = Yelpitter Anyway regarding Yelp / Twitter. I was thinking about my old school IRC days in college and chatbots. I think there could be two fun ways to use Twitter and Yelp together and incorporate some chatbot functionality.. Yelp Review via Twitter What I think would be cool is to have a new Twitter user, let's call it Yelp. 1 When reviewing a restaurant, you would just add Yelp as a Twitter friend and direct message them the name of the restaurant. Yelp/Twitter would auto respond back to ask what you thought of the restaurant. You can then respond back to Yelp/Twitter with the review and it's added to Yelp. 1It appears someone has squatted on the Yelp twitter name. Has Twitter squatting become the newest form of cybersquatting? Thanks for trying to ruin Twitter Tom@blendah.com

Ebay sticks to it's gun's for a whole 16 days

A couple of weeks ago I posted on the big "Cat fight" between Google and Ebay regarding Google Checkout Event thrown Guerrilla Style at Ebay Live in Boston...

Well Ebay pulled all their ads off of US Google sites.. but today while surfing I found this Google syndication link... I wonder how much their traffic suffered to do a 180% so quickly??????

I have also posted a Compete.com Daily Vector Graph.. very interesting..

clipped from www.honda-tech.com civais Offline 455 posts [100%] Austin TX 2-3-2004 « Re: (civais) « » 12:15 PM 8/18/2005 Reply Edit bump Austin Weekly Meet, http://www.honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=1246841 88 CRX HF 98 CIVIC clipped from gmodules.com

Mahalo should be Aloha for Hello and Goodbye ...

Let me start out by stating that I am a huge Jason Calacanis fan... I follow him on Twitter and take great interest in his candor and the way that he leverages PR.

When I first saw Mahalo.. I thought jeez is this really all he is introducing?? basically Cha Cha meets Wikipedia .. so I wasn't overwhelmed w/ the angle of going after the Fat part of the Tail.. it seems to me that the way to truly utilize a combination of People / Machine search is to target micro- niche's ... this became more evident when I searched for "Honda Civic" after listening to Jason's Podcast w/ SEO critics today on Mahalo being that I am a long time Honda enthusiast and directly involved in the Aftermarket industry. My impressions of the search results were that it was a totally "mailed in" .... I wonder how many more are?? Now let me preface I think that they Mahalo is on the right track w/ it's Greenhouse Program..

"Honda Civic Message Boards and Blogs

• Autoblog: Honda Civic Search
• HondaCivicForum.com
• Engadget.com: Honda Civic Search
• Technorati: Honda Civic Tags

courtesy of Mahalo.com

hmmm autoblog - no biased there (cough cough) if you search "Honda Civic" you get 8 not so great posts.. more like press releases ...

HondaCivicForum.com - is an ok board.. but did the guide just simply search for "Honda Civic Forum" on google and walla you guessed it HondaCivicForum.com .... Honda-Tech.com would have been a much better choice in my opinion.. you be the judge 240,000 members vs 22,000 ..

Engadget.com ????????????????? What relevance does that have.. oh wait (Weblogs Inc) .. I see pattern here

Technorati Link... great idea but did the guide look at these results????



I could go on and on about the results on that page.. but the results speak for themselves...people want valuable info not the same old same old...

Jason this is you reputation on the line and with results like this.. I'm not sure you will gain loyal users.. but you are a sly one.. and I think that you are actually banking on that "Google Juice" when someone actually types "Honda Civic" into Google and the Honda Civic Mahalo page scores high on SERP i.e exactly how Wikipedia does...

But I thought the point was to provide the best possible results :(


p.s. I would have left feedback but I was only limited too 500 characters

Check out the tail on that one...

Saw this post today.. and thought I would check out Ilike.com .. I had never heard of it and I'm not a Facebook user as well.. so I was blown away when I saw their traffic graph .. May 24th was the day they launched their Facebook App... Wow is all I can say..

The team at Facebook is hedging that their site will now be the Social Network Mecca.. and with the way that they have postioned themselves in bringing value unrivaled by any other network to it's users.. in my opinion will catapult it to the top... bubye Myspace ..

clipped from www.techcrunch.com The Long Tail Is Getting Fatter Three separate news stories involving numbers this week caught my eye. iLike announced it has now has 6 million registered users and is now adding 300,000 new users a day. Apple’s Safari browser for Windows has now had 1 million downloads. Finally SpaceTime, a 3D browser we reviewed June 5 passed the 100,000 download mark.

Ebay the bully or Scared of Google....

The Blogosphere is abuzz w/ the today's action by Ebay to pull all it's advertsing on Google's US properties due to Google's light hearted attempt at making a point of Ebay's policy of not allowing Google Checkout as a viable option for Ebay users...then Google call's off there party...

That got me thinking...why would Ebay really do this..it has to be something more.. Could it be when Google was outbid by Ebay for StumbleUpon...then Google released a similar feature for Google toolbar owners that gives personalized search results too...

I think that Ebay might actually be a little ascared of little ole Google Checkout.. the often mocked Google payment system... I believe it is actually gaining ground at a very fast pace.. it seems like every time I do a google search lately it is laden w/ Google Checkout sponsored adwords for advertisers.. plus it seems like it has really gained traction in the long tail of e-commerce sites..never mind the top retailers that have made the switch like BlueNile.com and Buy.com with 0% processing fees..

It will be interesting to see how this pans out and to watch the traffic rankings to see if Ebay see's a dramatic decline in traffic and revenue.

clipped from valleywag.com Ha. After a report that Ebay was boycotting Google's text ads, the search engine has decided to cancel a party to woo stores on the online auction site. Google planned to hold the cocktail party tomorrow night in the fringes of Ebay's Live event for its biggest sellers. Mountain View, which plays on online shops' disgruntlement with Ebay's monopoly charges, had entitled the invitation, provocatively, "let freedom ring." Ebay's Meg Whitman must have blasted her Google counterpart on the hotline. Freedom for Ebay's imprisoned retailers, who are being lured by lower fees on Google's credit-card payment service, may yet ring. But not just yet. WED JUN 13 2007 BY NICK DENTON AT 6:18 pm 244 views

Nice Job West Warwick!! cmon NH get in the game

Seems like Wind Power is really taking off lately and it is being done on the local government level..which is the way for a grassroots effort to really make an impact. What if every town used it's natural resources to supply it's own power? What a concept...

clipped from www.zwire.com WW considers plan to use wind power WEST WARWICK - A New Hampshire company wants to introduce a new era of wind technology to the United States and it wants to showcase that technology here in West Warwick. Representatives from Portsmouth Power Corporation made a presentation to the town council and town residents last night to introduce the principles of the project. The company would like to build three module power towers on Arctic Hill. The company is proposing putting one tower near the tennis courts and two towers at the rear of the baseball field behind the high school. The company would donate the tower closest to the school to the town and would own the other two.