Two new mobile services just recently caught my eye. And I have to admit, I am addicted to them.
, a two-year-old social networking site, asks one simple question,
When I first came across this site, I signed up for an account, and sparingly updated my status. I never really got into it because it was a hassle to login to the site every time just to post a status.
But recently, I found out that you can text or IM your status to Twitter. This makes it really convenient to update it (especially if you spend a lot of time online, or plugging away on unlimited text messaging services).
But the best feature of Twitter is its community. You can view other people’s status and make friends. You can even choose to have all of your friend’s status sent to your mobile device.
Obtrusive? Your privacy is defined by you. Annoying? Sometimes, yea. Informative? Very.
I subscribe to about 10-12 status feeds, and most are . I also subscribe to , , and feeds. I have a feeling these might be fake, but I know for sure that John Edwards has Twitter. I never thought I would be this up-to-date on . Imagine if George Bush had Twitter!
I get about 50 text messages a day from Twitter, but each quip has it’s own unique value. Jeffery Mickey once said, “Twitter isn’t the future, it’s the present.”
An article from today showcases “Six Ways to Improve Twitter”, and they uncover other ways of using the service. They already have Mac Widgets for Twitter.
Some will argue that Twitter is giving out too much information, but you can decide for yourself. As I look down to my cell phone, which is happily plugged into the charger, it displays, “5 New Messages”.
Another new product, pointed out to me by Justine Ezarik, is called Groovr. This service allows you to update your location via text messaging from your cell phone.
Use simple commands like “ 711″, and Groovr automatically adds your location to their database, with a Geocoder‘s best guess of your actual location.
You can then go online and add details about your place, add its real address, and mark it for the public to see.
Groovr also allows you to upload photos and videos when you are “checked in” to a place. When you are visiting a place’s web page, you can see a of your spot.
I have been pretty religious about updating my status on both of these websites, and I can honestly say that I feel more connected to the world. It’s kinda cool to visualize yourself in an online space, and all you are doing is simply teaching the machine, and trying to provide accurate, and sometimes humorous information for the rest of the world to see.
Sure, there are negatives here, but for now, it’s all just an experiment. Only time will tell if this online world is legit.
