Twitter

Most web services like Twitter for example require a unique email address for each account you create. What if you want to create two or more accounts, but only have (or want to use) one Gmail address?

You Gmail address has a unique feature. If you put a dot in between any of the letters within your id the email still arrives to the same mailbox. So for example if you email address is: john.doe@gmail.com all the below addresses are valid and will arrive to the same inbox:

• j.ohndoe@gmail.com
• jo.hndoe@gmail.com
• j.o.hndoe@gmail.com
• j.o.h.n.d.o.e@gmail.com

You can use each to sign up for a different Twitter account and stay organized within one Gmail account.

If you use twitter, visit this page: http://twibbon.com/join/IE6-Must-Die to support the IE6 Must Die movement.

It has almost 10,000 followers and it's very easy to join. Just enter your twitter username and password and your avatar will be updated to include a little IE6 crossed out icon. Check out how it looks like: http://twitter.com/creativebitsorg

Your name will be added to the cause as well. You can revert any time.

If you happen to be a supporter of IE6 for some sick reason you can sign a petition here: http://www.saveie6.com/

Twitter is one of the most important channels for informing the world about what is happening in Iran. The #iranelection tag has been the trending topic for over 3 days now with hundreds of messages every minute. Twitter even delayed their critical maintenance update on request from the US government just to let people tweet without interruption.

This is an introductory post about Twitter, for newbies and beginners, but I hope seasoned Twitterers will also find some interesting points.

Why Twitter?

Twitter is the typical service which you think is useless until you start using it. Only then will you discover the true potential. It's hard to explain why Twitter is cool, but I'll try. In a few words it's condensed and instant communication, which is increasingly more valuable as we get closer to singularity.

I have an idea for a product (or rather a group of products) that I want to share with you.

It's a gadget that is linked with Twitter (or any other status update web application like Facebook, LinkedIn, etc). It's objective is to make status updates easier, more fun and more integrated with the off-line events of people's lives. It is mostly a gimmick, but with potential for serious applications. The number of different uses are unlimited.

The idea is that people attach a so called twitter transmitter (transwitter) to any real life object. For example a coffee mug. When you lift the mug the transwitter sends a message to your twitter account: "Taking my morning dose of caffeine!"

See the chart above of a few example transwitters, such as:

• Toothbrush clip-on transwitter: "#transwit I just brushed for [XX] seconds"
• Coffee mug or any other object stick-on transwitter: "#transwit Taking a sip of coffee"
• Vehicle transwitter: "#transwit Driving in Phoenix, Arizona"
• Multibutton keychain transwitter: "#transwit I've walked the dog" or "#transwit Had a great workout"
• Branded keychains: "#transwit #starbucks I'm at Starbucks, enjoying free WiFi"

What do you think?

Tweetmeme (Tmm) is a service built around the highly popular Twitter micro-blogging service. Tmm counts the number a certain web page has been tweeted about. If a certain page gets a lot of tweets it hits the Tmm front page, which will generate even more traffic.

Currently the Tmm home page only gets a few thousand visitors, so it's not even comparable to the traffic that digg can generate. However as twitter becomes more and more popular the content appearing on the Tmm homepage will become increasingly more relevant and interesting. The advantage of Tmm over digg, reddit or slashdot is that links do not have to be manually submitted and the number of votes are automatically given by twitter users regardless if there are aware of Tmm or not.

Tmm with 1M+ Twitter users vs Digg's 3M+ Tmm is already comparable and as Twitter grows it will become even more so. You can embed a Tmm button (just like a digg button) that automatically shows the number of tweets a certain page got and allows people to re-twitter it easily.