The first smart move that Microsoft had made was to prominently display Tweets as results. But may be it was biting off more than it can chew. Now comes the news that first, Facebook has acquired FriendFeed for $50 million , second it has replaced Live.com its search engine with Bing. Readers remember that Microsoft has 10% share in Facebook.

Facebook is no doubt much improved and less cluttered and more efficient in its search capabilities. In the old Facebook one had to browse through various categories and there was no way to search for shared items and status updates. Now tabs have been provided on Facebook on the left side where you can simply click to find various categories. You can also seach the web and find the results displayed as a filter rather than on your own page.

Hitherto the facility of sharing your up dates was not available to others and Twitter certainly scored over Facebook where you could search for anything on the earth. Now on Facebook you can go to “Posts by Everyone” and find information the same way you do on Twitter. A message on top of the screen will update the results of your query as they appear.

Although, Facebook has made its intentions clear the problem seems to be with the users who are not prepared to part with personal information to “every one”. Facebook is trying to get over this problem by introducing new privacy options.

The rivalry will begin if Facebook succeeds in turning Twitterish.

So, it is still early hours to expect Twitter to react and know how it will fend off competition. But, will Twitter move closer to Google?

Forget the complaints about personal information not being deleted from Face Book much after you leave a group. Face book has conducted a survey in which it wanted to gauge how much personal information people are willing to share with every body without any reservations.

It would be ideal for Face Book if people are ready to share all their personal information with out any reservation. May be Face Book has not heard of the adage “Familiarity Breeds Contempt”.

When people are young they socialize as per their groups and they may not have any inhibitions about sharing personal information with in the group. But with age the personal relations change. When you enter the phase of personal relationships you are not willing to share that information with others.

When professional relations start and a family is being raised, there is a limit to what you will share with others. People out grow the groups get into new relationships.

It is surprising that people do want to maintain such a large number of social relationships. But Face Book wanting you to reveal every thing to every body on the net. I think it is stretching it a bit too far.

Twitter is rightly worried about this provisioning by Face Book. I think Twitter is more professional oriented where a person has a following and in  course of time the relationship might mature into sharing personal information. The principle on which these two work are different and not related.

But we hope Twitters hope that Face Book’s present ploy comes true for the sake of human relationships.

Finally Twitter has joined the Bandwagon of Consciousness vs priority Search. It has begun to provide real time search results for any topic you might enter and get the tweets about that topic in real time including the time elapsed since the tweet and the person who tweeted it. The information is streamed and it comes as a widget.

The query can be entered in to the widget and the widget will be displayed adjacent to the input fields.

The widget can be modified and its color chosen and it can also be put on a web page from where the results can be viewed. The results will be updated in real time and all the tweets will be scrolled along with the tweet, URL and the time of the tweet.

Will the widget work for Live Video Tweets that Twitter intends to introduce. I doubt if it will work because text can be scrolled but video tweets cannot be scrolled and if the provision is made then like the bird in the clock each video will appear tweet and then the next. Sure sounds interesting or may be Twitter has not yet given it a thought. Does it mean text tweets will not be provided with Live video tweets?

Twitter has also provided options for search including operators looping etc.,

Link

http://twitter.com/goodies/widget_search/

At last Twitter is living up to its actual name. Two companies at least are vying to get their products ready and they compete with each other. what do they do?  Live Video Tweets of course.

It is one thing to leave your words for any number of people to read and it does not make any difference to what they are called- Tweets are what ever. But two products vying with each other to make the word actual i.e Live Video Tweeting?

I do not know how you feel about it no matter how popular you are but having a site where you are perched like a parrot and when some one clicks on to it you begin to tweet the same words over and over again, just like a parrot. I think it is stretching the analogy too far.

I have no doubt there are many who love their own voice even if others don’t. Some how I feel you become more birdish. May be that’s not what Twitter is about.

It is one thing to watch the video of a singer or watch a movie over and over again. The only other thing is watching news and they have usually pretty faces announcing the news.

But to have a site  where your video keeps tweeting the same thing like a parrot over and over again?

I do not think I like it. But that does not mean it has to be universal.

Good luck to the video tweeters.

I’m a big user of Twitter, especially on the iPhone. Twitter and the iPhone is a perfect match of service and device that has been approved by Apple. It is offered as a free upgrade for all existing users. The new users can download a free version, which includes ads or pay an introductory price of US$4 for the ad-free premium edition.

SimplyTweet Lite is a twitter application for iPhone which is free and basically focuses on twitter conversations. You need not navigate through a series of tweets to understand a conversation between friends and view your friend’s timeline and all your @Replies. SimplyTweet Lite displays all the tweets related to a conversation on a single screen. It is similar to user identity of iChat where you can also reply to multiple twitterers together.

TwitterFon is focused on 80% of your task of Twitter such as check friends or replies timeline, check direct messages, send a reply or a direct message and search. It has very clean user interface, very fast response and scrolling ability. It lets you read and publish tweets to twitter through your Mac. The app also has keyboard shortcuts for quick access. There is support for multiple twitter accounts too.

Twitterrific is a fun application that lets you both read and publish posts or “tweets” to the Twitter community website in a simple manner. The application’s user interface is clean, concise and designed to take up a minimum of real estate on your Mac’s desktop. You can get twitterrific for free but with Ads in it or buy it if you find the ads annoying.

Twittelator Pro is the most powerful twitter client for your iPhone which begins finding folks nearby and posting Tweets, maps & photos. It supports picture from both camera and library and maps and also built in web browser to view external links.

Twittervision is a remote access tool combining with Google maps allowing you to see all of the Twitterers posts in real time posted on a world map. NASA used Twittervision to capture the discovery of what appeared to be water ice on Mars by the Phoenix Mars Lander. Other NASA projects, such as Space Shuttle missions and the International Space Station, have also started using Twittervision to disseminate breaking news or provide information feeds for sporting events.

Polly Trade.com is a new initiative on Twitter where it gives you an opportunity to trade in shares. It is in its beta version after it has been tested by its creators, Lance Walley and others.
To use this application on Twitter, you have to first register yourself at Pollytrade when you have to give out certain information about yourself.

You have to have an E-trade account for this purpose. After registering your self you can tweet your order which Pollytrade sends to your E- trade account to be executed.

Polly trade then tweets back your order status and checks if your broker has cleared the order or whether you have enough money in your E-trade account and the ownership of the shares for which you placed the tweet.

You canconfirm the transaction in your E-Trade account by checking it.
As it appears to us this is another facility provided to twitter users and can easily be said that it is another extension of social net working.
One thing that appears about the site is that it may not be willing to let you speculate. It checks back whether you own the share or not along with the quantity. Then it also checks back if you have the money or not. There is the brokerage involved who has to ratify your order. Although it presently accepts margins, Pollytrade is thinking of disabling it.
We suggest to Pollytrade that if it wants to provide a wholesome option of trading in share to Twitter users, it should obtain sub brokerage and permit speculation. It should also be able to provide live quotes which are constantly updated.