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Twitter Nov. 19 released its geotagging API to programmers, but users won't yet be able to access location-based services from the Twitter.com Website. The feature, which allows users to selectively annotate their tweets with their exact location and provide more context to users about their surroundings, has been implemented on Twitter applications such as Foursquare, Gowalla, Twidroid and Seesmic Web. Creepy? Perhaps, but likely only to someone who wouldn't opt in to use such a service in the first place.
Why Tim O'Reilly Sees Microsoft as a Proponent of the Open Web
At the Web 2.0 Expo, Tim O'Reilly predicts that Microsoft will emerge as a leading proponent of the open Web, despite the company's tradition of fostering its own proprietary operating systems and development languages. O'Reilly says Microsoft's recent deals to index Twitter tweets and use Wolfram Alpha's APIs for computational data show a shift in its willingness to work with other Web companies. Moreover, the Windows Azure cloud computing operating system is designed to work with open-source technology.
Twitter, Orange Rock MMS in the U.K.
Twitter said it is bringing multimedia messaging to the U.K. with the help of France Telecom-owned Orange UK, allowing users to send pictures to their friends. Users can send picture messages (MMS) thanks to Snapshot, a special Website that automatically posts the link directly to Twitter in a tweet and allow followers to add comments. Users can take a photo with their Orange mobile phone, select & send via MMS& or & send multimedia message& and send it to 86444. Twitter users will soon be able to tweet to each other via their TV sets while watching football, news, entertainment shows and films.
Twitter's Evan Williams Says Retweet Will Rescue Us From Retweetarrhea
Twitter CEO Evan Williams Nov. 10 took steps to explain how the company's native retweet feature will surface more relevant information with more clarity about who tweeted it than existing retweet services created by TweetMeme, ReTweet and others. To get rid of the attribution confusion, Twitter will show in a user's timeline the avatar and username of the original author of the tweet, with the person who retweeted it in the metadata underneath. Will the lack of annotation services and the addition of unfamiliar avatars bother you when you use Twitter? Your comments are important; they will be passed along to Williams and the team.
LinkedIn Turns to Twitter for Professional Tweeting
LinkedIn Nov. 10 agreed to let its users tweet their status to Twitter and to their LinkedIn connections. Status updates have been an important part of LinkedIn, with working professionals using it to alert others to sales leads, new jobs and other business opportunities. Twitter is the king of the status update, with millions of users blasting out 140 messages to followers each day. LinkedIn may be the leading social networking for professionals, but it's membership growth has cooled in the last two years. Meanwhile, Facebook has soared to more 300 million users, sparking speculation that many people have turned to the leading social network for their personal and professional connections.
Reframe It Claims Google Sidewiki Emulates Its Web Annotation Service
Reframe It says Google's Sidewiki service is too close to its own Web annotation service for comfort. Reframe It CEO Bobby Fishkin argues that Sidewiki's features mimic Reframe It's right down to the icon buttons. Google denies any wrongdoing. Meanwhile, an intellectual property attorney says Reframe It could make a patent or copyright infringement complaint against Google, depending on its IP. eWEEK has published side-by-side comparisons of the two Web apps on Google Watch.
Twitter Begins Its Retweet, Stymies Spammers on Trends
Twitter Nov. 5 began the slow rollout of its retweet button, which blasts out tweets users are fond of to their followers in one fell swoop. This is a sensible alternative to making Twitterers copy, paste and tweet links they love, and add the names of the tweet authors with an RT (retweet) tag. Twitter also said it is experimentally tweaking its trending topics to help users find more relevant tweets. The idea is to thwart spammers, which are rampant on Twitter, littering the trends with porn-baiting tweets and other garbage.
eWEEK at 25: The Web Changed Everything
eWEEK Chief Technology Analyst Jim Rapoza was & saddled& with reviewing then-nascent Web technology when he started in the Labs. This was a lucky break for him, as he got to start working with Web technology very early in its development. And it's pretty safe to say that the the World Wide Web is one of the most important technologies of the century, let alone the last 25 years.
LABS GALLERY: SeaMonkey 2.0 Adds New Firefox Capabilities to the Old Mozilla Suite
While many users applauded the launch of the stand-alone browser Firefox, there was a significant community that preferred the Internet suite approach of the original Mozilla. SeaMonkey is a volunteer project within Mozilla dedicated to keeping the suite option available to users. With the release of SeaMonkey 2.0, that browser suite now has many of the newer features and capabilities found in Firefox 3.5. Users can have browser, mail, newsreader, chat and Web composer capabilities in one application, while still enjoying a modern browsing engine and the extensibility of Firefox.
Google Friend Connect Features Invite Social Discovery, AdSense Ads
Google Nov. 4 added a section to Friend Connect accounts that lets users share information about themselves for serendipitous discovery, as well as a private e-mail feature to let users connect with others they may meet online through Friend Connected Websites. Google also added an AdSense section to let Friend Connect site owners serve Google ads matched both to their site's content and to the interests users publicly share on the site. Though not a social network like Facebook, Friend Connect is being used by more than 9 million sites, with over 500 million unique viewers of Friend Connected Web pages each month.
How Twitter Lists Brings Back Human-Curated Directories and Reveals Influence
Blogging celebrity Anil Dash examines Twitter Lists as a way to tag real-time Web feeds, while the Bivings Report says getting added to a Twitter list is more of an endorsement than getting followed. Dash says Lists is a winner because users must be signed in, creating an authentication and relationship requirement that reduces spam. Meanwhile, the Bivings Report says Lists could bring a beacon of light to one of the dark sides of Twitter: the stat padding that Twitterers engage in to gain more followers, thereby appearing important or influential.
Twitter Lists Beta Goes Live for More Users
Twitter Lists, a new feature that lets users lump Twitter contacts into various groups, went live as a beta for more users this week and should be available to everyone soon. The Lists feature was opened to eWEEK Oct. 29, so here's how to create a list. Lists is a fine feature to add for now, but it will be interesting to see what sort of negative fallout there might be from this. Lists could cramp the serendipity factor on Twitter. Users may elect to spend their whole time in Lists rather than venturing out to follow and meet new contacts on Twitter. Is Twitter going the route of Facebook?
Opera 10 Still an Innovative Web Browser
While Opera may not be the most used browser today (with its single digit market share), many of the features found in current generation web browsers, such as tabbed browsing, were originally introduced in the Opera web browser. And based on the capabilities in the new Opera 10 browser, it won’t be a surprise if some of its new features find their way to other browsers in the near future. In this eWeek video review, eWeek Chief Technology Analyst Jim Rapoza walks through some of the new capabilities in the Opera 10 web browser.
Opera CEO: Browser Ballot Is Good for Consumers
In an interview with eWEEK, Jon Tetzchner, CEO of Opera, which brought an antitrust case against Microsoft in European Union courts, talks about some of the latest developments in the case.
Facebook Becomes Erstwhile Digg Destroyer with Live Share Counter
Facebook took a page from social sharing site Digg by launching a live counter for its content Share button to display how many times a piece of content has been shared on the Web. Content on Digg became glorified based on how much it was dug. But the sheer size of the Facebook network has made the social site the new go-to place for sharing content. Facebook also opened up the analytics associated with sharing habits on Facebook to further help Website publishers measure the value of the Share content.
Facebook Friends Say Homepage Changes Are Confusing, Annoying
Facebook Oct. 23 created a toggle switch between its News Feed and Live Feed, trying to improve the user experience on the homepage. The changes sparked criticism over the weekend from several users, who vented in Facebook Groups such as I Automatically Hate The New Facebook Home Page group, as well as in the comments section of news stories. Over the weekend, several users wrote to complain that the changes were confusing or annoying. Others, however, accepted the changes. Facebook is welcoming feedback, but there seems to be no plans to change the service back at present. What do you think of the homepage changes?
Facebook Offers Real-Time, Highlight Reel News Feed for the Homepage
Facebook Oct. 23 changed its homepage again, offering users a highlight reel view of the most interesting activity that's happened in the last day and a real-time view that shows users what is happening now. This move takes on an interesting light in the wake of Microsoft's announcement at Web 2.0 Summit Oct. 21 that Bing would begin serving up public Facebook status updates. Facebook also tweaked the Suggestions section to let users help their friends find their friends, or upload pictures and video. Facebook is also prodding users to help their friends become more active on the site, displaying a & progress bar& below their profile pictures on their profile.
Twitter CEO Evan Williams Vaguely Discusses Revenue Model at Web 2.0 Summit
Twitter CEO Evan Williams ducked around questions about Twitter's revenue model in a bland conversation at the Web 2.0 Summit. Web 2.0 Summit co-host John Battelle tried to crack the nut that is Twitter's plan to make money. Williams merely repeated what he and Twitter co-founder Biz Stone have been telling the press and analysts for the last several months—there will be advertising of some kind and selling analytics to companies may be an option. Williams also failed to take the bait on questions about Twitter's feature sparring with Facebook, which appears to ape some Twitter features.
Small Businesses Use Facebook, Twitter for Promotion
Are you a small business owner using Facebook and Twitter to market your products and services? Forty-five percent of small companies with fewer than 100 employees said they use Facebook and Twitter to promote their businesses, Internet2Go analyst Greg Sterling found after conducting a survey of 2,400 small business owners. However, Sterling also said that while many businesses use Facebook and Twitter for marketing, they don't know how to measure how effective their promotions are on those social sites.
Facebook Follows Twitter Lists by Freshening Groups
Facebook revamps its Facebook Groups section for letting people organize around a common interest. Facebook adds a Wall to Groups that summarizes all the recent activities of people within the group and a Publisher that lets users share their content. Group activities will now be delivered to users' News Feed instead of just the group. Facebook is also in the midst of a big redesign for its homepage. More exciting is the punching match Facebook and Twitter are engaged in, borrowing similar features from each other to flesh out their social networks, which though young, are becoming richer week by week.