Microblogging with Twitter

Guest Post Written by Ujjwal Grower and edited by Vishal

Vishal's intro: Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send updates (text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) to the Twitter website, via short message service, instant messaging, email, or an application such as Twitterrific. Twitter was founded in March 2006 by San Francisco start-up company Obvious Corp.

The restriction to 140 characters has resulted in Twitter being labelled as “micro-blogging”. A traditional blog is a log of what somebody is up to but in a richer, more detailed format. One of the key aspects of Twitter is to send and receive updates (also called tweets) via your browser, email, instant messaging clients and SMS so you can keep in touch no matter where you are.

How it works :
When you send in a mobile text (SMS), Twitter sends it out to your group of friends and posts it to your Twitter page. Your friends might not have phone alerts turned on so they may check your web page instead. Likewise, you receive your friend's mobile updates on your phone.

Enough from my side. Let's jump into Ujj's post on Twitter for Microblogging.

Twitter is the newest baby in the blogosphere. If I try explaining what you can do with Twitter, you will most certainly feel it's useless, but once you 'twit' for a while, you will get addicted in no time. Twitter is a mix of social networking and internet messaging, we call it microblogging. It is a way to tell your friends what you are doing. To get started you
create an account, start following some people already on Twitter and you are good to go. People who start following you will receive your updates on their Twitter page. So if I am following Amit,

I will receive his latest update - > Amit: skipped breakfast to crunch pointers in the office :(
and he will receive mine -> Ujj: new caterer serving awesome food.. life is good again :)
and so on.
Amit can also reply to Ujj directly -> Amit:@ujj kewl ..enjoy :)

Interested enough. Let me tell you the real power of Twitter. Twitting's most fun when you sync up your Twitter account with your Gtalk and Cell phone. Once you do that you will receive updates as messages from Twitter id from your friend. You can also directly send updates on Gtalk and even via text messages on a cell phone (but that is a little expensive).

Twitter is being used extensively by pro bloggers like Techcrunch, and Tech2 who need to inform their followers about their latest posts. Surprisingly even Bollywood has not ignored Twitter's presence on the web. An account of the recently released Bollywood movie Saawariya was spamming Twitter accounts extensively during the release of the film.

The other huge plus with Twitter is its API which can be used by anyone very easily to create web mashups and write their Twitter bots. One such bot was written by Taggy, men in Blue which would automatically update the Twitter account. You can develop Twitter bots using PHP and Java. More about it here. A detailed tutorial next time.

Take2 -Top Web2.0 Apps in Australia

I recently wrote about upcoming Web 2.0 apps in Australia and it was received well. As a result of that i have now updated this list in collaboration with Richard Macmanus from Web 2.0 workgroup. More here, here and here.

Top 5 Probable Digg Buyers

Rumours are hot about News Corp planning to buy Digg. It’s a rumour right now, how much truth is there, is anybody's guess. This can be real news and might have been leaked to the press as a part of the strategy as suggested by Internet Analyst, Henry Blodget,

Settle on basic deal terms and a provisional price, leak details so the market has a couple of days to chew on the idea, see how the stock reacts, and neutralize the market’s biggest concern (lawsuits) by announcing a distribution pact with the main guy who might sue you, fix the price, rubber-stamp the press release, and go.

The coming days will tell us how much truth is there. If News Corp cannot buy this then these might be probable buyers for Digg.

Microsoft - Microsoft will be the obvious choice because Microsoft is lagging in this Web 2.0 phenomenon. There hasn't been any decent/buzzing service offered by Microsoft in this space. If this comes on board, it will provide them with a kick-start, which they are hoping for a while. Microsoft has got all the ingredients to make this happen.

Yahoo - Yahoo's revenue is not increasing and is losing to Google on many fronts. If Yahoo can pull this off it will be their third prize catch after Flickr and del.icio.us. Both of these are brilliant applications. Digg will fit well into its service offering.

Time Warner - Time Warner group which owns Netscape will be another contender. Netscape has launched its portal on Digg style but is not popular as Digg is. Netscape recently asked top Digg contributors to join and get paid for their contributions. Netscape would definitely like to acquire this.

Google - If nobody can buy Digg then Google will definitely try. It will be more of a strategic move, not to allow Yahoo, Microsoft or News Corp to buy this. Google can pull this off.

I can think of only these 5 contenders, what do you think? is there any other company (media) that might be interested?

Top Web 2.0 Apps in Australia

Every day we read/hear about the new web 2.0 applications that start up with interesting concepts used. The recent acquisition of YouTube by Google has raised hope for new startups to realize their dream of making it big time. Aussies are not behind in this trend. There are quite a few interesting applications that have come out of hibernation.


To-do list - Remember the Milk

It allows users to manage tasks online as any to-do list will do. It is integrated with Google Maps, and Skype (IM) and is available on Mobiles as well. This is a very popular application around the globe with more than 100,000 users from 155 countries. It was launched in October 2005.


Digg clone for funniest email - FWDitOn

This is inspired by digg. It allows users to read hilarious emails, do a rating and share it with others. It is an interesting concept and has caught the attention of a few Venture Capitalists from overseas. This site was covered recently on TechCrunch.


Community for parents - Minti

Minti provides an online platform for dads & moms to share and rank their advice about parenthood in a simple way and with lots of fun. It was launched in March this year after raising USD$1.2M.


Connecting students in Australia - Student face

It is a social networking service inspired by Facebook, Orkut, which allows students to share information, swap pictures, videos and more. It helps in uniting students with similar interests from all over the country. Membership in StudentFace is exclusive to students who are enrolled in an Australian university and have a valid university (.au or .edu) email address. The site was launched this year.


Marketing for bloggers using emails - Zookda

Zookoda is a blog broadcasting service provider. It allows bloggers to spread the word about their blogs by sending blog summaries via email. Zookoda provides blog owners with the tools to manage their mailing lists, design their emails, broadcast blog summaries and track recipient usage. It was launched this year in March and is now up for sale.

The Universal Web Storage Platform - Omnidrive

This is a full-scale web storage platform that can be accessed from a web browser, Windows or Mac desktop and even a mobile device. It allows users and developers to easily access and share content and files on the web. This was started by Nik Cubrilovic and launched at the beginning of this year. It was covered by TechCrunch and recently got coverage in nine msn's The Bulletin magazine.


Blog search engine - Gnoos

It is a blog search engine that is inspired by Technorati. Its main focus is on local bloggers. It was launched in May 2006.


Social networking service - Babbello

It is a social networking service inspired by Myspace. It allows people (popular with teens) to write blogs, chat, download ringtones for mobile, swap photos and more.


Connecting buyers and sellers - findit.com.au

It's a portal inspired by Craiglist. It provides a free forum for all community advertisements and listings.


Property Search - Spyk

This allows you to search all residential properties for sale or rent across Australia. It is a project designed and developed by Tim Kremer.

Other notable ones in dealing with real estate are :

• Domain.com.au
• Realestate.com.au
• Suburb View

Update: I have found two more notable sites.

News rating- Sukk

It's a Digg clone for a rating of news from Australia and New Zealand. The site was launched on September 5th, 2006.



News rating- PerthNorg

It's a Digg clone for a rating of news from Australia. It is more comprehensive and allows news to be published and rated separately in different categories like technology, sports, lifestyle, business and others. Interestingly in addition to voting, it increases the rating if someone posts a comment on a news/story/article.

Note: I can't think of covering all the Web 2.0 applications in Australia if I have missed any applications. I would like all of you to share information on other Web 2.0 applications in Australia. Please do leave a comment.
Disclaimer: Views expressed here are my personal. I am not a paid employee of any business/organisation covered in this article. I work for a software development and integration company, in Melbourne, Australia.