Thanks to Maxitweet, 140 characters no longer Twitter limit!

A new service, called Maxitweet, seems to have found a way to extend the limit of your tweets to beyond 140 characters. Read on...

CHRISTCHURCH, NEW ZEALAND: Type "140 characters" into Twitter's search box and the resulting tweets come flooding in -- predictably the majority of them lamenting this constraint. A new Twitter service, has found a way around the restriction by clever use of letter-like symbols called Unicode characters.

"Maxitweets" are up to 200 characters long, an increase of nearly 50 percent, and have opened up new possibilities for the fast growing Twitter communications platform.

For example, tweeted recipes ("twecipes") are easier to read with the extra space available. A number of poets have also responded enthusiastically. A limerick aficionado, who had given up on trying to tweet the humorous five-liners because they tend to be around 180 characters long, now posts them several times a day as @limerik. And breaking news services -- among the more prominent users of Twitter -- are able to tweet the news item, rather than just a link to it.

How does it work?
Twitter caters for users in many countries and therefore transmits in a universal font language called "Unicode." It contains over 100,000 glyphs in hundreds of languages. Maxitweet was the first to realize that glyphs resembling two or more normal letters can help to transmit text more efficiently.

In the word "lions," for example, two characters are saved by replacing the vowels with a Cyrillic letter resembling "io," followed by the Unicode symbol for nanosecond "ns."

"We spent weeks combing through thousands of glyphs in many languages -- Cyrillic, Thai, Arabic, Hiragana," says Wytze Hoekstra, project manager at FrisianStyle Productions, which runs Maxitweet.com. "We then wrote a javascript engine that compresses text in the background and delivers a user-friendly experience."

Will the new limit improve the Twitter experience? Even though 140 was enough to produce many memorable tweets, like those collected by http://www.besttweets.com -- "Museum for the Art of Micro-Elegance" -- it remains to be seen whether the expanded limit will take Twitter to new heights. Some say 140 characters is too many. "I'd only call about 30 of them 'characters.' The other 110 are quite boring." -- Aimee Brock (@Aimee_B_Loved on Twitter).

Perhaps, the argument is best summed up by Jason Shellen (@shellen): "When people ask me about the brevity of Twitter I always tell them 'You can really say a lot in just 140 characters. More than you would th '."

Is Twitter hyped? Research indicates otherwise!

UK: Underneath all the hype about Twitter, evidence is emerging that it can bring genuine value when used in the business environment, particularly for the younger generation.

Business-to-business industry researcher AIIM found that 27 percent of 18-30 year-olds agree that Twitter is an important rapid-feedback tool for business use, compared to only 7 percent of those over 45.

Users feel it gives them unprecedented access to answers from experts, and they find it useful for running mini polls, sharing opinions during conferences and events, and making contacts whilst travelling. In total, 34 percent of the survey population has a Twitter account.

The survey also found that business users of Twitter are much more engaged than personal users, with half of the business users actively contributing and posting, rather than merely following.

As regards following, 55 percent of users feel it has given them a useful insight into other professional's lives and businesses. However, even among committed users, there is a concern that Twitter might steal too much of their time, with 74 percent using it during working hours.

“We’ve been tracking the rapid growth of Enterprise 2.0 -- the business use of social media - for a couple of years,” comments Atle Skjekkeland, VP of AIIM, “but Twitter has grown much faster than anything we’ve seen before. It seems to me that Twitter brings back such quick answers from any expert community that it cannot fail to have a lasting place within the general business toolbox.”

The AIIM survey, which polled 788 respondents, indicates that LinkedIn is twice as popular as Facebook for business networking, with over 50 percent of participants having an account.

Two thirds feel that professional networking on the web is vital to their career progression –- even more so in the current difficult times. Pressure is growing on IT departments to replicate social networking tools within the work environment, with a third expecting to use the same type of networking tools with their business colleagues as they do with friends and family, and 71 percent finding it easier to locate knowledge on the web than it is to find it on internal systems.

The AIIM research report is entitled “Collaboration and Enterprise 2.0: work meets play or the future of business?” Part of the AIIM Industry Watch series, the report is free to download from the AIIM website,
www.aiim.org.uk. It is underwritten by Allyis, Ektron, EMC Corporation and
Oracle.

TwitGeek? Follow geeks like yourself on Twitter!

TwitGeek! What will these folks (or web developers) think of next?

I was quite amused to come across this site, which clearly states: TwittGeek is a Twitter application that automatically follows 200 targeted people based on keywords you write!

I haven't tried it out though for a simple reason: I am quite selective as far as my choices and interests are concerned. In Twitter's case, I've basically decided only to follow those web sites/industry associations that are of interest -- or 'of a technical nature' -- to me!

As a friend mentioned jokingly over chat to me -- "I just added you on to my Twitter -- love that you said that you are a 'simple' guy when your interests are so technical!" God bless this friend of mine! :) I find that 'simple guy' and my 'interests being technical' bit quite open to interpretation! :D

I have another friend, who calls herself PR Chick! Funny names!! Recommended she change it to Ozbabe or something, since she hails from Australia.

Anyhow! I wonder, what will I encounter, if I do indeed sign up with TwitGeek? While it may automatically make me follow 200 people based on the keywords I type, I really don't want to be following people having fancy, and funny names! At least, their names should be clear enough for me to understand! How will I know who's say, BrokenMac, KillOpera, or even, I Hate Windows??

Well, in case you are a geek, and wish to follow fellow geeks like youself, TwitGeek is just meant for you! Best of luck Tweeple!

Who should I follow on Twitter?

I am sure this is a question most of us ask ourselves. At least, I do! Since my interests are very specific, I find it challenging to determine who to follow. In that dilemma, I actually end up following very few! Now, I don't know whether this is good or bad. However, like a friend told me recently -- it is not in the quantity you follow on Twitter, or your followers, but the quality!

Indeed, a very wise suggestion! If I have less than 100 followers, but if I find that they have a genuine interest in what I write, my day's done! At least, I know that those who read my blog posts seem to have an interest in the subjects I write on.

Who Should I Follow
Right! I also came across a web site called: Who Should I Follow! This web site asks you to put in your Twitter user ID, and promises to give you suggestions on interesting people to follow.

Well, I did try with my own user name, but I don't think I received the desired results. As I said, my needs are very specific. I'd like to follow those who write on topics of my interest, and well, at least, write something new all the time, so I get to learn even more. However, that's me. I have a suggestion for this site -- please add a line for interests, besides, searching by the Twitter username, for example, cooking or photography or mobile phones. Maybe, that will lead to delivering more quality results.

Perhaps, it may not be a bad idea for you to try out this web site. You may find those you'd like to follow and make new Twitter friends.

By the way, may I add here that among those who are following me on Twitter, I've managed to strike up some sort of friendship as the interests are quite common. In fact, a few have even gone ahead with some business related discussions.

So, those new to Twitter, there's more to having followers or simply following others. Think business, think relationships -- and long term! Best of luck

Tried Tweetdeck and Twazzup?

All you Twitter lovers, users and fans, am wondering whether you've had the chance to use TweetDeck and Twazzup!

First, TweetDeck! This is a very simple and a fast way to experience Twitter! It acts as a browser, and allows you to stay in touch with what's happening on Twitter real time, besides connecting you with your contacts across Twitter, Facebook, etc.

The latest version, v0.25, is said to have a fix for a memory leak issue, and new features such as short URL previews, Twitpic thumbnails, recording of 12s video clips and Facebook integration.

Twazzup is a search engine that allows you to search Twitter and find relevant information. For example, I searched for my account on Twazzup and was elated to find all of my recent tweets listed there, even nicely arranged as per topics -- such as AMD, Intel, MCUs, PV, etc.

In case, you've uploaded any images using TwitPic, it shows up on the right side of the page. And so do the most popular links of articles that you may have posted!

Well, enjoy using Twitter, friends! Power to micro blogging!!

Twitpic -- upload your pictures on Twitter!

Folks, if you haven't tried, Twitpic, suggest you do!

First, if you have a Twitter account, which I believe most of you do, please use that to log into Twitpic. Once there, you have several options to upload photos on to Twitter.

According to Twitpic, you can upload pictures to TwitPic from your mobile phone, or use Twitpic's API, or through the website itself. It is as simple as that! There are some popular twitter clients that have built-in support for TwitPic.

So, with your micro blogging, you can also share images for everyone to see. Now, won't that make your posts look great? I've tried it, and it really looks marvellous.

Cut the chirp! Get Filttr, with Twitter!

How many of you, like me, are on Twitter? Possibly, everyone! How many of you feel there is an overdose of information on Twitter? Again, possibly, everyone!

So, here's a chance to cut the chirp and get to the relevant! I guess, that's what Filttr sets out to achieve!

According to the Filttr site, its amazingly intelligent birds fetch you, the user, only those tweets that are relevant for you.

Interestingly, I could not sign up, as the "NEXT" link on the sign-up page refused to work. Maybe, it is a beta flaw or something. Hence, I was unable to test the system. I will surely try again later, so nothing much to report otherwise!

Nevertheless, more power to micro blogging!

PS: Later, I was able to email Filttr, and get a response as well. And yes, the site did work. Thanks Swaroop!