Everyone uses Twitter differently, some people preferring to follow a large number of people, and some like myself who do not. A retweeted tweet is supposed to be something of importance. That is, interesting enough to pass along.

I agree that there are tweets of such interest. However, (watching my @ influx on TweetDeck), I think now that the noise coming from @ tagged retweets is going to gag the use of Twitter somewhat.

If I post something, and it gets eight retweets and a comment, the comment often gets lost. In it being lost, I cannot find the person that wanted to discuss what is at hand.

Also, when a retweet is tagged with someone else’s name (the original tweeter, or perhaps the last two), the conversation is recycled backwards to the original poster. This centralizes the conversation, and cuts out people ‘down the tree.’

Now, of course I understand the desire to give credit where it is due. If I find something damned interesting, then you might want to say thanks for the find. But you already did. You chose to follow me, giving me that dabble of credence from your account (and thus you), so you have already said thanks.

I can hardly speak for anyone else, and I cannot at least for now change the way I retweet, (it would probably be taken an offensive from people who did not agree to what I have mind), however I can make a small request. When you want to retweet me, just take the tweet, and cut the ‘RT @alex’ out of it.

As long as you found it interesting, and want to share it, and follow me, I am content. After all, I just want that tweet to get more exposure, not myself. Take the conversation, and distribute it.

If I have yet to make my point clear, this is what I am trying to avoid continuing:

No offense Bjorn, you were just first in TweetDeck. That tweet has two important bits: the tweet and the link. I do not need the mention of who wrote it (@thenextweb); assuming that I follow each person that I do for a reason, I can expect them to not link-jack me. And after all, they can only do it once.

So I could take that tweet, and do this with it:

I think that we can all agree that the second tweet is simpler to read, easier to follow, and will save you time. You no longer have to dig through the chaff to see if you want to eat the wheat.

So, don’t retweet me in the traditional way, please. Just take what you find, and pass it along. If you tell me that I can do the same, I will. Hell, we could revolutionize this retweet concept.

Twitter however, wants retweets to look like this:

If you have yet to get ‘official’ retweets, relax. You are missing little. What do you think? Drop th RT @, or is it really just too special?

Twitter and Facebook in a single-tasking environment is really not that practical. So you quit everything and go into Facebook.. look at your friends’ status and pics and then.. switch to Twitter and do the same. Seriously?

Why is Microsoft not thinking again? It would be great to have a small notification pop up every time a new tweet appears. I’d prefer that over the overly frequent ‘disconnected from Xbox Live’ notifications! It’s intriguing that Microsoft is giving more attention in their beta feedback to the quality of streaming video from the Zune Marketplace where I’m asked to organize a movie night and watch Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Join us for another Zune Movie Night.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Sunday, November 1st at 8 PM (your local time-zone)

NOTE: This movie is not available for free. You will need to use points to view this films

That’s a bit pushy, don’t you think? It’s beyond me why Microsoft does not ask people how they would use these features in the first place. “Here’s how it works, enjoy the privileged update, but tell us how the video quality is.”

Cancel your plans, need to test the streaming quality tonight. No you can’t tweet what you’re watching, we’d have to start the movie all over again.

This morning I found out it was active on one of our accounts (@Shareables) so I eagerly started playing with it. It works as expected and seems like a logical addition to the Reply button.

More noticeable however was a new Status Message on the top of my Twitter interface. As you can see in the screenshot below Twitter now shows how many new tweets were published in your stream, all without the need for a reload.

The number keeps updating as new tweets come in and when you click the yellow box the new tweets are shown without the page reloading. They just appear, magically, on the page.

I can image all those page reloads being pretty heavy on Twitter’s service. This must be a smart way to get traffic down while increasing usefulness for users.

The ‘new tweets’ indicator is also shown in the title so even if you are working in another tab you still know that there are new tweets. It works pretty similar to how search at Twitter shows new messages and I can’t help but wonder why they didn’t do this earlier.

The new interface apparently is activated with the new Retweet functionality. Are you seeing it too?

Twitter’s official announcement:

We’re starting a limited test of notifications on twitter.com for when you have new tweets. So if one of the folks you follow has tweeted since you loaded your homepage, you’ll get a little notice saying “1 new tweet” that, when clicked, will display the new content.

We think it improves the tweet consumption experience and hope to roll it out to everyone as soon as we can.

Based on the qSearch service by comScore Inc, one of the leading digital intelligence company, the search traffic results awards Google as the leader of the search engine table. With approx. 38.6 billion searches from September 2008 to September 2009, an average 88 searches per person per region is been done.

With 44.1% searched on Google Sites, it showed dominance over majorly all the countries with an average of 59 searches per user which included Australia, India, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand and Singapore.

Via Zazzle.com

Yes, I admit that I was jealous when Adobe released their mobile Photoshop version for the iPhone last month. But now I’m happy again, because Adobe just released an Android version.

The application is only available in the US Android market at the moment, but that should change shortly. Together with a Photoshop.com account this application brings a good and easy way for some easy photo editing and backing up your photos to your Photoshop.com space.

Don’t let the name Photoshop fool you here. It’s not like you get the full set of Photoshop editing possibilities on your Android. The editing options are limited to the following functions:

• Crop
• Straighten
• Rotate
• Flip
• Exposure
• Saturation
• Tint
• Black & White
• Soft Focus

And of course in future updates Adobe will add some more possibilities that will please all your mobile photo editing needs.

There is also an upload function where you can upload your photos to your Photoshop.com account. The application itself makes it possible to edit your local photos that are based on your phone and the photos that are stored on Photoshop.com.

Take a look at the video below that demonstrates the Photoshop for Android application. And if you had a chance to test it, let us know what you think about it.

Update: someone uploaded the APK to Megaupload. Now the people outside the US don’t have to wait. And it works great on my Android G1.

Thank you to all members with Cyworld.

Due to Cyworld shuts down US service, US Cyworld will no longer be able to service.
We sincerely apologize for shutting down the service with unavoidable reason.
Before US cyworld close the service, you will continue to access to US cyworld contents but not
purchase items. Also, you will not use your acorns.
If you have unused acorns, you will be given a full refund for paid acorns only.

Refunds and data backup service is in progress, using the acorn will no longer be able to purchase for miniroom items, skins, etc.

@ Schedule for closing US Cyworld service
Due to Data Back-up and closing service issues, the service will be unavailable.

* Shop service will be unavailable since Nov 03, 2009
o Club service, Profile photo/data upload serivce will be unavailable since Nov 23, 2009

I knew immediately that it had come from Korea. Why? The English, while not horrendous, isn’t good. It’s a pretty ingrained habit in Korean business that people don’t ask for the most basic of help when it comes to proofreading English. That’s why Korea is constantly laughed at for its Engrish. The problem this time? Not asking someone to proofread this letter (or, as my experience has gone, getting someone to proofread the letter and then ignoring their feedback.)

Which one is legit: paypal.com or рayрal.com? Can’t tell the difference?

The р in the latter domain name (also in the title, by the way) is a Cyrillic glyph that looks identical to the Latin p. There are tons of glyphs from various scripts that are identical. With the exception of Middle-Eastern and East-Asian scripts and some archaic languages, all modern scripts bear a great resemblance to each other.

While phishing filters are designed to look at long domain names such as paypal.com.phishing.com and we are all used to ensuring that the domain name we land on is legit, we are incapable of detecting identically looking glyphs from different scripts.

Never thought magnifying glasses could be a cool security feature, did you?

Twitter has always left development of everything except the core Twitter website and API up to third parties. It even bought the service’s search technology in from a third party.

Now developer Jesse Stay, the man behind Social Too, has spotted what looks like an iPhone app used internally by Twitter.

With the new geolocation feature being tested internally and the new version of Seesmic Desktop featuring the ability to read location from tweets that use it, how is Twitter generating location tags for its test tweets? From the looks of the screenshots Stay has uncovered, by using a secret iPhone app.

Now, we’re not suggesting that Twitter is about annoy its third party developer community by launching its own iPhone app. Given its bare-bones look this is probably noting more than a test app for adding geolocation data to tweets.

Still, it’s fascinating to have a look ‘behind the curtain’ at the development process behind one of the decade’s biggest web success stories.

Larger screenshot below:

The deal breaks down as follows: eBay will own 30% of the company, the founders will own 14%, of which they paid $84 million for 4%. The rest of their stake is part of the settlement, and payment for Joltid. Joltid is the underpinnings of Skype that make it tick, and was the root of the latest round of lawsuits.

The rest of the equity goes to the investors who are putting up nearly all the money.

eBay has had its total ownership reduced from 35% of the new Skype. This concession was assuredly not what eBay wanted, but it seems a small price to pay for Skype move past its legal quandaries.

Skype is now safe for its millions of users. There will be no service interruptions, at least stemming from legal problems.

With Skype on its own, do you think that they will perhaps be more aggressive in their pricing? The investors putting up the cash for the deal are going to be looking for a favorable exit, and that means expanding revenue. We might start paying a bit more?

The book titled Mein Kampf (Mi Lucha in Spanish) is a book written by Adolf Hitler, combining elements of his autobiography with an exposition of ideas of the political ideology of National Socialism.

The most shocking feature of the application is unquestionably its logo, the Swastika, in plain site in the apps directory.

This comes not days after Apple banned an app for mentioning the word iPhone.

How did no one catch this?

Update: Ralf, one of our team, comments below stating that the symbol in Germany is even prohibited by law (German link: http://bundesrecht.juris.de/stgb/__86a.html).

Via iPhoneTicker.de

Once you have gone about installing the application you can set up your preferences which won’t take you too long as all you need to do is select how you would like to post to Twitter (web, Tweetie or Bluebird) and setting your keyboard shortcuts.

When you are ready to start sharing this is where Droplr comes into it’s own. Select your content, whether it is an image, text, file or link, and then drop it over the Droplr icon in your menu bar. The app will then upload your file to Droplr and output a shortened URL which you can pass on to others to access your content. If that wasn’t simple enough Droplr will also activate your preset Twitter client from earlier with the URL already added so you can easily alert your Twitter followers that you have shared a new item.

Droplr & Tweetie In Action

The web interface for Droplr continues the simple and effective usability of the desktop app. Uploads are divided into Images, Links, Notes & Files and you are also able to track the number of views each item has had which could prove useful. Another handy feature is the ability to set your own custom domain for the service rather then using the preset droplr.com or drp.ly.

Droplr Web Interface

Upcoming features in development include the ability to set a custom shortcut in Droplr for the snapping and sharing of screenshots – a simple solution to avoiding desktop clutter when you are only snapping a webpage or view to send on to someone else. The app also promises additional statistics to the standard views count in a future update.

Droplr, whilst currently in closed beta, is an application to watch out for if you love sharing information on Twitter and elsewhere online as it’s utter simplicity makes it very handy to use. You can stay up to date on their development via the Droplr Twitter account.

TheNextWeb has a handful of beta invites on offer to the first few readers who comment on this post!

Twitter Tim.es wants to change that, by generating a personalized ‘newspaper’ for you based on what the people that you follow are talking about.

The more times a link has been posted by someone that you follow, the more weight it is given. The result is curated content stemming from the people you trust, who are the people you follow.

The product is a digestible list of content, with large headlines, and notes as to who tweeted that specific link, and what they said.

Twitter Tim.es takes it one step further, by tracking what the friends of the people that you follow tweeted, making the content just another step more accurate. Take a look at what The Twitter Tim.es made for me:

If you are forced to stay away from Twitter for any length of time, Twitter Tim.es can keep you up to date in a flash. Hell, if you just want content, you could create several dummy Twitter accounts and just read the prepared newspapers. Tweeting? Old school.

If you are like us and more often than not find yourself having opened many tabs in your favorite browser, you’ll very much like jitouch.

jitouch adds eight new gestures, with more to come according to the jitouch developers:

• Switch your browser to the next and previous tab
• Open a link in a new tab
• Minimize window
• Zoom
• Move and resize window
• Close window or tab
• Open recently closed tab for Firefox
• Quit application

While some of the gestures are more complex once you’ve gotten accustomed to them, you won’t miss them anymore. The jitouch developers have described the principles of their gesture design as clearly focussed on only requiring a single hand and minimizing finger movement.

You can check out the added gestures in this YouTube video. A full demo of jitouch in action is available, too.

When installed jitouch adds itself to the Mac OS X menu bar. You can easily disable gestures you’re not using or switch off jitouch completely.

The multitouch extensions works fine with Leopard and Snow Leopard and can be downloaded as a free trial. If you like it, the developers ask you to buy a US$ 5.49 lifetime license.

Just spending 300K on gifts alone, must give you an idea of how excited they are with their new API’s. The 1500 developers in the house got a Eee netbook. An internal marketing team of 20 people switched into crunch time, to make sure the conference was a success. Only 18 people signed up, two weeks in advance.

Let me give you an introduction to the new Paypal features that will make your life easier as an online service startup. Without the monkey screaming sounds from the audience and the guys on stage that is.

Freemium services can now be built using Paypal’s pre-approved payment feature. You can setup a contract with your customer, to bill a monthly/ instant fee within a pre approved bandwidth. This allows your customers to instantly up/downgrade and be charged accordingly without going to paypal again. – A feature most Credit Card payment providers had in place years ago. Current subscriptions can’t be converted to the pre-approved method automatically. You have to guide your clients trough paypal again to make this happen.

Seller protection will stay an issue for online services and e-goods providers. It’s hard to actually prove you provided the service or granted access to the e-good. Paypal policy was and will be in the favor of the buyer.

Mobile payments allow you to add a pay-with-paypal button directly in your iPhone app. A barcode scanning app was used as an onstage example. By scanning the barcode you get a list of local and online suppliers. With the integrated buy-now feature you can buy direct from the app at one on the online retailers. In this case the mobile app functions as a store front for multiple parties. Paypal facilitates the transaction between the buyer and the seller and the middle man, without bothering the buyer. The middle man takes the commission directly from the transaction. An SDK for iPhone is already available. For Blackberry this will take an other couple of weeks to months.

A funny demonstration was the online banking solution with integrated paypal support. Not only could you send a check, but also send the money to a paypal account… wow! Although better than sending a cheque, Paypal does take its share from this transaction. While this might seem innovative for the US, in most European countries you can send money directly from one to an other bank account at no charge. Even corporate accounts have a couple of hundred free transactions a month.

Paypal wants to push e-commerce to new heights by providing an easy to use, all purpose, money transaction platform. To give a perspective of the massive opportunity they have. Retail is the corner stone of today’s e-commerce. Only 5% of retail is sold online. And retail in general is only good for 5% of earths 31 trillion dollar yearly turnover. So Paypal wants to make sure you have the tools to move another 5% of any industry online.

This is how it all looks and works.

If you’re invited to join the RT beta, you see this.

And here’s a new-style RT close up.

When you do a RT

This is what happens if you want to retweet using the new functionality.

Hover over a message and you see a retweet link, bottom right:

Then a confirmation appears if you click it:

You then see the message in your stream, showing you retweeted it (at the bottom):

And you can undo it if you want (bottom right):

You also get a retweets menu item in the right hand column, which shows you a screen showing what you’ve retweeted, who has retweeted you etc. There’s not much in mine as of yet!

While France may have been left waiting, by the look of the place, it may have been worth the wait. Stunning.

via Appsfire blog

Google Voice

The bad news is that no date is confirmed. The good news is that it’s definitely coming, agreements are in place and Google let it slip in a PDF letter that was apparently “formatted improperly” to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

In the letter, that Business Week managed to get a peak at, Google claim that the service has 1.419 million users, 570,000 of whom use it seven days a week. No problems there. What it also mentions then intentionally retracts is that it has signed contracts with a number of “international service providers for inputs to Google Voice”, more than a hint that the service may well go global shortly. It does however add that none of these services have been launched yet.

The reason the FCC launched its investigation into Google Voice earlier this month was after AT &T and others raised concerns that Google is blocking certain calls in rural parts of the US, thereby undermining the principles of net neutrality.

The regulator then sent Google a letter asking it to explain how Google Voice works and why it is blocking calls, a practice prohibited by the FCC.

While most of the statement was geared toward dealing with FCC inquiries into how Google Voice actually worked, it also of course addressed the concerns with the blocked numbers.

Google explain that all numbers are blocked for a reason – most notably some 100 numbers are barred in connection with a massive sex chat billing scam, as well as some rural areas that account for just 1.1% of their operating traffic – yet would cost as much as 25% of their operating funds.

AT&T has repeatedly accused the service of violating net neutrality rules by blocking the numbers, while Google has maintained that it is using a perfectly legal method which other carriers employ to stop billing scams – oh the drama.

Image from Voices