Twitter.
If you haven't done it, somehow, people just know.
It's worthwhile to bone up on Twitter. And I wouldn't have said this a few weeks back.
Twitter lets you update anyone who gives a toot up-to-the-second updates on your sad little life. Via your phone primarily, but also by web. As a tool, it really blew up at the Austin based geekfest "South by Southwest". Then it was supposed to die. But it's only gotten bigger. Mad bigger. I've got one word for you: twittervision. I watched this thing til I was bleary-eyed.
http://www.twittervision.com
Believe me when I tell you its like Mr. Pibb and red strings = crazy delicious. See a self-involved world updating live. Please. Go. Now.
Twitter's burrowed its way into the general subconscious and stuck - why? well, first thing is they released their code to the public, so anyone can create their own twitter "mashup" or tools. This took a pretty basic tool and actually made it intersting. Two, its an embodiment of "reachability" - the ability for others to know where you are at all times. Three, it a chance for celebrity - to show up on the general posts at twitter, to appear on a map mashup, etc., has value. Fourth, It's a great tool for connecting with people on the fly, and that's how it was used at SXSW, where it became a way to leave virtual posts and set up spontaneous gatherings.
But there is something deeper here to this phenomenon - I'd love to hear your thoughts on it!
Twitter's like digital kudzu. Here's just a partial list of Twitter related stuff from franticindustries:
Mashups
Flussgeist - an unorthodox but interesting mashup between Twitter, Flickr, and several other services. It combines tweets with images, videos and an ambient soundtrack.
Swotter A contestant for the weirdest Twitter mashup out there, Swotter is “reading” books to Twitter. It’s essentially just sending lines of text from a book to a Twitter account. You can see it in action here: twitter.com/booktwo
Twapper - a mashup between the online calendar 30boxes and Twitter, created by the folks from 30boxes themselves. It works on both mobile and standard web browsers, and it’s useful even without a 30boxes account
TwitterEarth - similar to TwitterVision (which came first), but based on Live Maps, and works in 3D, too - at least it should, but at the time of this writing clicking on the 3D icon does nothing.
Twitterer - a Twitter/Second Life mashups, which shows updates from a certain Twitter accounts over Second Life spheres.
TwitterMaps another Twitter/Google Maps mashup, with a simple function: find out where a Twitter user is located. You can also update your current location with a special command sent to Twitter.Mobile
Autotwit lets you automate Twitter updates. Quite useless, unless you want to keep up an image of a man that never sleeps.
EmailTwitter - allows you to post Twitter updates and retrieve your Twitter timeline via your cellular phone or other e-mail enabled mobile device, without incurring SMS fees.
Mail2Twitter allows you to post tweets through e-mail, as well as any email-enabled mobile device.
RSS2Twitter - converts an RSS feed into Twitter tweets.
Twitter Badges: This comes straight from the developers of Twitter: Flash badges intended to be displayed on your website, showing your latest Twitter posts
TwitterBuzz is an interesting tool that turns Twitter into some sort of simple Digg. It displays a list of most popular links on Twitter. You can see all the Twitter messages mentioning the link.
TwitterFeed - a service that combines OpenID and Twitter to let you feed the entries on your blog to Twitter
Twitterholic keeps a top list of users based on how often the post, how many friends they have, and other factors.
Twitteromatic - a tool that posts all sorts of information (weather, Firefox updates) to Twitter automatically.Widgets
Twadget - A Windows Vista widget (Microsoft calls them gadgets for no understandable reason), which shows you the latest Twitter updates and gives you the ability to post to Twitter right from your desktop.
Yourminis Twitter widget that shows tweets, and enables you to post updates to Twitter.
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