Twitter Matters

I assume most readers of this blog have heard about Twitter by now.  If not, proceed immediately to the Twitter site and sign up for a free account.  In the past year, Twitter has grown from 2 million users to 32 million users.  You need to be on Twitter period.

The recent Time Magazine cover story by Steven Johnson on the service was the best Twitter related article I have read to date.  The article is an in-depth but thoroughly interesting examination of the Twitter phenomena that should be read by established Twitter users and those who have never even tried it.  It not only explains what Twitter is and how it began, it explains why it is important and how it will change the world.  That sounds like a tall order for Twitter to fill, but witness the recent citizen reporting on the political upheaval in Iran and all the sudden it doesn't seem so far fetched.  It's notable and amazing that the State Department has been"consulting" with Twitter and may have been involved in delaying  a scheduled maintenance this past Monday so as to permit the flow of conversation from Iran to continue without interruption.  See, Twitter matters.  Also be sure to read  "10 Ways Twitter Will Change American Business", another recent article from Time. 

Power Twitter users should check out Seesmic Desktop.  This is a relatively new application for PCs and Macs built with Adobe AIR.  I've been using this program for about a month and give it a thumbs up!  Seesmic makes it easy to manage multiple Twitter accounts and follow conversations.  It often makes good sense to have a personal Twitter account and a business Twitter account.  That way, you can take full advantage of Twitter's possibilities without posting content inappropriate to your followers. Seesmic also integrates nicely with Facebook and lets you group social contacts into related lists (such as co-workers, friends, family).  The program installs easily, has been stable for me on multiple computers and is a piece of cake to use.  Seesmic is free (at least for now).

Just the other day I received notification that version 0.3 of Seesmic Desktop is coming out soon.  Enhancements include multi-account posting with "smart account enabling", authenticated bit.ly integration permitting you to keep track of of URL clicks when sharing short links with followers, an "integrated services panel" that works in conjunction with popular Twitter photo sharing add-ons such as TwitPic and Twitgoo and further improvements to the user interface.

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Speaking of Time Magazine,  I came across a comment by Jeff Korhan on Mashable, an excellent resource for everything that relates to social media.  Jeff wrote, "Thanks for the [article about the Twitter article in Time], but I'm wondering who reads Time magazine anymore unless you are at the dentist's office?  Well for the record, I am a Time subscriber and I think it's an excellent way for busy people to keep on top of current events including technology trends.  The articles are well written and offer more measured perspective than the daily newspaper.  Plus it's a great value and tax deductible to boot.  Amazon offers a 1 year subscription (52 issues) for just $20.  At the time this article was written, Amazon is offering an additional five bucks off, making it a steal!  For those of you on the bleeding edge, there's a Kindle electronic edition for $1.49 a month, but some subscribers are unhappy because it lacks many of the photographs and graphics of the print edition. 

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Looking for a way to fun way to cut travel costs this summer?  Consider signing up for Spirit Airline's new $9 Fare Club.  Members will receive exclusive special offers at least once every six weeks with fares "as low as a penny!"  Dang, I'd be willing to fly almost anywhere for a penny just to look around!  Unfortunately, Spirit doesn't fly out of Sacramento, but they do have gates at many other major US cities including Boston, Detroit, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York and San Francisco.  And they fly to cool resorts such as Costa Rica, Cayman Islands and the Bahamas.  Sounds tempting, even if I would have to drive to the Bay Area to board my flight!  The cost to be a member of this super savers club is $39 annually.

-- Michael

P.S. -- You can find me on Twitter as lawtechgeek and mwcrosson.  The latter account relates more to my law practice in general rather than tech stuff.  I represent clients in the Sacramento region in family law and bankruptcy matters.

Microsoft Bing Debuts!

"Live Search is evolving.  Welcome to Bing."

Microsoft's new search engine, "Bing" is open for business (in "preview") mode.  The interface is simple, attractive and much more colorful than the spartan Google page since it features topical photographs.  It appears that the photographs will change throughout the week but if you have Silverlight installed, you can view photos from the past.  The bottom of the home page shows searches that are currently hot and the results page keeps track of your search history, a handy feature.  Some early detractors have already dismissed it as simply a "dressed up Live Search" while some smarty pants pointed out that Bing could stand for "But It Isn't Google."  However, these critics are missing one of the main points of Bing.

A major developmental goal with Bing was to create a search engine that helps you make better decisions.  The following snippet is from the Welcome page:

"We took a new approach to go beyond search to build what we call a decision engine. With a powerful set of intuitive tools on top of a world class search service, Bing will help you make smarter, faster decisions. We included features that deliver the best results, presented in a more organized way to simplify key tasks and help you make important decisions faster."

I find this concept intriguing, but also puzzling at the same time. I mostly use search engines to find information, but not necessarily to make decisions.  Even when I do need to make a decision, the role of the search engine is limited mainly to helping me locate insightful information on other websites.  I generally have no expectation that the search engine itself will play a part in choosing option A over option B.  In fact, a neutral search engine seems appealing to me, and this may not be possible if Bing is going to proactively present information in a format that helps sway users one way or the other.

So to make this less abstract, what kind of decisions are we talking about here?  It's not entirely clear to me what Microsoft has in mind, but the Bing tour gives some clues.  It references helping users decide which flight to book, which freeway would be best to take and which hotel to reserve.  Too bad I already have an established decision process for making travel plans that I am happy with.  It also speaks of "supercharged" buying decisions and "Honda vs. Hummer."  So far, it sounds like a mishmash between Expedia, Pricegrabber, Consumer Reports and the endless traffic updates on AM radio. 

Is this what we want out of a search engine?  Does your decision making process rely heavily on search engines?  If not, do you think Bing could change the way you do things?

-- Michael