Alec Saunders SquawkBox

Twitter is a river of commentary a mile wide and an inch deep.  Ephemeral posts whiz by at a rate that make it nearly impossible to track, and yet any one of them could be an opportunity to reach out and connect to a friend or a potential customer, or to resolve a potential reputation destroying support problem.  So recently I’ve been looking for more and better tools to help manage my use of Twitter.

Summize, acquired by Twitter and now called search.twitter.com, lets you search the Twit-o-sphere for posts matching your keywords.  For example, yesterday I searched “Ken Blanchard” to find fans of Ken Blanchard and invite them to our call with Ken next week (part of the Calliflower Communiques series).  Search.twitter.com allows you to search, right now, or take a search and encapsulate it in an RSS feed so that new tweets on your favorite topic(s) are delivered via your favorite RSS reader.

TweetBeep is an alerting system for Twitter.  Similar to Google Alerts, with TweetBeep you can set up a series of keywords to scan on, and then be alerted by email whenever one of those keywords is entered into Twitter.  For instance, I have keyword alert set for Calliflower, allowing me to know when people create Calliflower calls that I might be interested in, or post other messages about Calliflower.

TweetScan is another alerting system for Twitter.  If you’re interested in creating applications that use keyword search on Twitter posts, it’s a great choice because it provides an API.  If there’s a downside to TweetScan it’s that it offers only daily delivery of alerts.

TweetDeck is yet another way to keep track of topics of interest.  TweetDeck is an impressive desktop application that keeps a database of all tweets it sees during the time that it is open.  It allows for search terms to be created, and keep results in an auto-updating column.

I use all of these tools in differing circumstances.  Perhaps the most valuable to me is TweetBeep; with timely (scan every hour) delivery to email it lets me stay on top of what I care about in the Twit-o-sphere from anywhere I have access to email.  Without these tools, I’d drown in the fast flowing current of Twitter’s river of commentary.

Related articles by Zemanta

• My Essential Twitter Tools
• Announcing Online Reputation Monitoring Tool - Trackur.com

I had two calls from the Conservative Party yesterday — one from a fund raiser, and another from a pollster polling on behalf of my local MP Pierre Poilievre.  The fund raiser wanted money, and the pollster wanted to know how I was going to vote if an election were called.  I told them both the same thing, which is that I won’t contribute funds or votes to the party while their policy on copyright remains Bill C-61.  I’ve been delivering that message to party workers all summer long as they have repeatedly called looking for hand outs.

So what’s wrong with their approach?

As I’ve written previously, Bill C-61 would make most ordinary Canadian families into criminals.  Rip a CD to a PC and allow your spouse to play it on her iPod, she’s a criminal.  Keep a television program on your PVR too long, you’re a criminal. The list of offences goes on and on as the music and film industry have won a definitive victory in their battle to criminalize innocent and ordinary consumer behaviours. Not only that, but the industry holds the cards.  The mere allegation of theft entitles them to levy fines pre-emptively, without giving the accused a day in court, and without recourse.  We give murderers, drug smugglers, car thieves and shoplifters the right to a fair trial.  Why not music “thieves”?

I’m nail-spitting angry over the Conservative copyright reform bill.  I haven’t been this upset with the Conservative Party since voting Reform in the election of 1993.

I say get your hand outs from the music and film industry, Mr. Harper.  I’ll be more than happy to see you and your government tossed out on election day over this issue.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Harper signals snap election may be called
• PM stokes election speculation

Image via CrunchBase, source unknown

In between dozing on the couch last night while watching Barack Obama’s speech out of one eye, I caught sight of the announcement of the Android App Store Market, Google’s answer to the Apple App Store.  Open to all, with no approval’s process, and designed to allow content as well as applications to be delivered, Android Market is trying to out-do Apple at its own game.

It’s not unexpected.  Every handset manufacturer, having watched the success of Apple in the market, must now surely be plotting the same maneuver.  Speculation is high that Microsoft’s reason for buying Danger wasn’t the OS platform, but rather the application store. Nokia has repeatedly dipped its toes into the water with on-deck applications browsing tools.  And RIM?  Well, I am sure the folks in Waterloo have watched Apple carefully and are taking an even closer look at what Google has now announced.  Even carriers are getting into the act as T-Mobile has announced they will provide a store.

Google’s “differentiators”  (content + applications, and no approvals process) of course are mere window dressing.  Two important facts are still unknown.

1. What is the revenue split with Google for the Android developer?
2. How many Android handsets will we see in the market?  In a world where Apple, in a few scant months, has sold over 6 million handsets surpassing the RIM handset runrate and now representing over half the global Nokia handset runrate, Google will have to deliver spectacularly.

Don’t expect Android Market to be a smashing success out of the gate.  Developers’ attentions are focused on Apple right now, with its clearly defined business model and obvious market opportunity.  Google is assembling all the pieces it needs to compete, but nothing can change the fact that their competition has a two year head start.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Android Market, Google’s App Store, Will Not Require Approval For Applications
• Google Clues Developers in on Android Market
• Android Market, Google’s response to Apple’s App Store for third party developers
• Google introduces Android apps store
• Android Market, Google’s App Store, Will Not Require Approval For Applications [Android]
• Google introduces Android apps store
• Google introduces Android apps store
• Android to get an App Store, cleverly called Android Market

All week long there has been a persistent story making the rounds about Nokia dumping VoIP support from upcoming phones.  This scribe even played a part in spreading the story… and it turns out to have been untrue.

Charlie, over on the Nokia Conversations blog, acknowledges that the VoIP client is missing from the N78 and the N85.  He also provides the following by way of clarification:

There’s no conspiracy here, no pressure from operators. Not to bore you all, but it’s simply that the VoIP code and the programming interfaces (APIs for you folks in the know) were improved.* Yeah, the company everyone was led to believe was turning its back on sending voice over the Internet is actually improving things in the next generation of the S60 operating system.

Alas, sometimes when that happens, stuff stops working (as Om discovered). So, developers have to go back and re-do their apps (as Om points out). A bit of a bummer, and sometimes leads to serious doubts as to the direction we might be taking (as Om found out).

That’s good news.  No doubt our Finnish friends will find a way to get the word out in advance of the rumour mill the next time an “improvement” breaks existing code.

Welcome to the world of software!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Nokia Says: We Didn’t Remove the VoIP
• Thanks to WiFi Smartphones, Mobile VoIP is Growing Steadily
• No VoIP for Nokia’s N78?
• Is Nokia bowing to carrier pressure? VoIP removed from new phones
• No VoIP In New Nokia N-Series Devices? Is Nokia Turning Its Back on VoIP?

This morning we talked about some of the stories that are emerging about the use of technology in politics.  Barack Obama’s use of SMS to announce Joe Biden as his running mate, Microsoft’s deployment of a voter registration application on XBOX, and the novel ways that cellular phones are being used on the convention floor.

The other topic?  Tomorrow is Skype’s 5th anniversary.  How has Skype changed your world?  the communications industry?

On the conference call today: Dan York, James Body, Jim Courtney, Bill Volk, Jonathan Jensen, Sheryl Breuker, Jeanette Fisher, Dave Brown

 

 Squawk Box August 28 [37:44m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download