Archive of TheNextWeb.org
Written on November 18, 2008 – 5:56 am
Andrew Hyde, Start-up junkie
Startup tarpipe is aiming to simplify the workflow of posting on social media sites. Their API enables users to do progressive things with their content in single actions. You can upload a photo from an email, have it post to a few such as uploading a photo, announcing this action with a tweet, sending an IM to a friend and send an email (and can do so at the same time). It does this without forcing the user to install a desktop or mobile application.
Their blog highlights some of the interesting projects their product is leading to, such as extending battery life while using location based service and make EverNote do some cool things.
The big question for me is in how it will be used, and how it will differ from just creating a social media power user megaphone. I can see some people setting it up so that their Twitter, Pownce, away message, Jaiku, Flickr, Friend Feed, Tumblr and Plurk update every time they see fit, which would create an almost embarrassing echo chamber.
They are strong advocates for open source, and with their API can imagine some creative uses. Currently, I see uses that are neat (use IM to update your twitter) to useful (uploading your photos to several places) but don’t see a use of their API that absolutely shines. Yet.
I hope you like that post!
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Written on October 10, 2008 – 3:03 pm
Robin Wauters, Next web enthusiast & Plugg organizer
Friday Flashbacks is a new article series we’re going to try and establish here on The Next Web blog, in which we look back at what happened in this week one year ago. The aim is to get some insight in what had us - “us” being tech bloggers in general - buzzing last year, and if all that noise was worth it or not.
(I was trying to make this a weekly series but skipped a few weeks. You don’t mind, do you?)
So where does last year’s buzz stand now?
October 8, 2007 - Loïc Le Meur launched his new startup, a video conversation platform dubbed Seesmic, with a review on TechCrunch. (Michael Arrington later disclosed he had personally invested in the company). The company is still going strong, even made an acquisition last April with Twhirl and recently raised another $6 million round co-led by Omidyar Network and Wellington Partners, where Le Meur is a Partner. Competitors are jumping onto the scene nowadays, examples given 12seconds, Phreadz and TokBox.
October 9, 2007 - Google acquired Jaiku, the Finland-based mobile IM and presence company. The terms of the acquisition were never disclosed. Jaiku didn’t continue to grow as much as Twitter did in terms of users and traffic, and the only posts that are being published on the Jaiku blog since the acquisition seem to be about maintenances and outages. The service was ported to the Google App Engine and moved to the search engine’s infrastructure, and they made invitations unlimited. That’s about it. As far as I’m concerned, Jaiku fell off the grid and unless Google has some major plans with it, I suspect it won’t make any headlines anymore.
October 10, 2007 - Mozilla announced they were serious about building a mobile browser. The project was given the codename “Fennec” and is still under development. Nobody really knows when Mozilla plans to release a beta version. Anyway, Fennec will face competition with IE Mobile, the iPhone and Android browser, Opera Mobile / Mini, SkyFire, etc., but based on the prototype concepts introduced last June, it looks like it might just be a worthy one.
Written on August 18, 2008 – 2:38 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Last Thursday, European Twitterazi experienced a bad start of the day. Their beloved micro blogging service would no longer send SMS updates. Smart phone users can still find ways to receive updates about Twitter conversations. Yet people with less sophisticated mobile devices are in the dark now.
My co-editor Patrick suggested that Twitter should offer a pro-account option, so that people would have to pay for SMS updates. But co-founder Biz Stone wrote on the Twitter blog that he didn’t share this opinion:
International billing is a significant project and not something we are comfortable focusing on before we have a dependable offering. It’s not right to charge for spotty service—and we know there are bugs.
How to get SMS text messages updates
Although Twitter still sends updates to 96 percent of its users, the remaining 4 percent is pretty pissed of. Especially in the UK, Twitter users are quite angry. Read for example the comments on this TechCrunch UK post.
The first commenter on the Techcrunch UK post was Paul Bradshaw from Online Journalism Blog. He called it a “stupid move” and was “in a very bad mood”. He even sacrified his Twitter avatar for the cause. But for Bradshaw, it doesn’t end with just being angry. He’s now actively looking for ways to still get SMS messages from Twitter. Here’s his try:
- Via Jaiku: the invite-only micro blogging service from Google still sends SMS updates to all its users. So a solution would be to feed your Twitter account into Jaiku, then create another account that receives the updates from the first Jaiku account.
- Redirect emails to phone: some mobile operators allow you to forward email via SMS messages to your phone. Create a filter in Gmail that forwards Twitter mail to a special email service of your operator
I realize I’ve described the solutions in a rather cryptic way. Did that on purpose, as I don’t want Bradshaw to miss the reward for his work. So check out the step-for-step instructions on his blog.
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