October 2007 - Page 2 of 2 - Stay N Alive

Month: October 2007

Twitter Launches Facebook Status Updates

Posted on by jessestay

I noticed yesterday that Twitter has officially launched the ability to update Facebook through your updates on Twitter. You just click on the Twitter app within Facebook, and you’ll see a link that says, “Want Twitter to update your Facebook status? Click here.” Click on that, the message will still be there (they say they’re working on that), but all your Twitter updates will now go to your Facebook status as well. Any Twitter replies (with @username in them) stay on Twitter and do not go to Facebook, resolving my previous concern.

UPDATE: Twitter doesn’t ignore just any post with an @username in it. The post has to start with @username for Twitter to ignore the post. I’d love to see it just ignore anything with @username, since Facebook friends won’t know who @username is anyway.

How Apple Can Beat the Hackers and Please Their Customers at the Same Time

Posted on by jessestay

Apple – are you listening? I’ve got a tip for you that I’m pretty sure could very well be a solution to all your woes. Ars Technica today released new information about Apple’s new SDK and how they will continue to be web based. The article mentions the updates will be “released soon”. I actually like this idea – I see the future of operating systems as web-based, and Apple IMO is on the right track, making the AJAX SDK much more similar to what you could do with a normal SDK.

Apple – you’re on to something here with this update to be released soon after the last update – stay agile! Steve Jobs mentioned fighting the iPhone hackers was a “cat and mouse game.” He then followed it with, “I don’t know if we’re the cat or the mouse”. Apple – the object is to stay the mouse, constantly having to be chased by the cat. So long as you’re the mouse, the hackers will never keep up.

How do you become the mouse? Constantly release updates, faster than the hackers can keep up! Release new feature after new feature. Keep giving your customers more – they’re hungry for it! I guarantee you Apple, if you can keep your customers satisfied with lots and lots of new, cool stuff, they’ll ignore that their phones can’t be hacked until that stupid relationship you have with AT&T expires and you can truly allow your phone on multiple networks.

New Wave of Citizen Journalism on Twitter

Posted on by jessestay

Are you in Utah? Do you like getting the latest news, as it happens? Do you like giving back to society?

Well I may have something for you. I’d like to announce the new Twitter Bot, “SLCNews”. The way it works is if you see news happening in your area, you generally can report the news much faster than a News reporter who has to get to the scene. Citizens are usually the first reporters on the scene of a major event, yet the reporters always get the credit. With this Twitter bot, if you see news happening in your area, report it by direct messaging the Twitter user slc news, followed by a short amount of text describing the event happening. All people following the user slcnews will then get Twitter updates (usually on their cell phones) that share with them the news happening. The idea is if enough people pitch in, your news will be much more on time, much more accurate, and very on the scene. I can see this meshing with Twittergrams, links to Flickr photos, etc. all from your cell phone (on your cell phone, all you have to do to send a message to slcnews is to send a text message to 40404 that says “d slcnews accident on I-80” or whatever the news that is happening).

So if you’re on Twitter and live in Utah, please do your part to the community and follow SLCNews! If you’re not on Twitter yet, please click on the link above and join! If there were ever a reason to join Twitter, this is that reason! If you like this and don’t live in Utah, let me know and maybe I’ll add your city next.

Facebook to Release a Passport-like Common Logon?

Posted on by jessestay

With yesterday’s announcement of the statusUpdate API call in Facebook, my thoughts have been going wild on what this means. This was clearly done for Twitter and other status update sites out there. I can also see some cool uses for it in other applications too.

One thing this does hint at, whether Facebook is thinking about it or not, is the possibility of a common logon system similar to Microsoft’s Passport or OpenID. The next step Facebook should take is open their authentication system up in the API. Currently, you can get a user logged into Facebook via the API. Facebook now needs to package this and market it as a complete solution to sites like Twitter to get them to base their user profiles off of Facebook profiles. I would prefer this method personally, as I only need to update my profile in one place (Facebook), and then I can use Twitter for all my other status needs.

Facebook Releases Status Updates via the API

Posted on by jessestay

Finally! The moment has come! Soon you’ll be able to just update Twitter and magically your Facebook profile will update to what your current Twitter status is. This is big news, and great for Twitter, as now users can focus their updates in Twitter, what it was made for, and not worry about updating in a million places.

I have yet to see the feature on the Twitter app, but it was only released yesterday, so I expect to see it soon. The only main disadvantage I see to the feature is now when you send @so-and-so your Facebook friends won’t really know what you’re talking about. Do I see an acquisition down the road by Facebook?