Twitter and Facebook along with Myspace are currently the three hottest social networking websites. Myspace had its first birthday way back in 2003, Facebook took to web in 2004 & Twitter originated in 2006. But since its origin the amount of buzz that Twitter has generated has sent shockwaves across the various media platforms.
What is Twitter? According to Wikipedia, Twitter is a social networking & micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users' updates which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length. Those who do not know how to use Twitter may have a look at these wonderful Twitter tips for beginners by PC Magazine & this Twitterspeak for twitter terminology.
Ever since its inception the growth of Twitter has been exemplary. 08-09 US Presidential Campaign, Mumbai terror attack & most recently (Feb 09) US Airways Flight 1549 accident generated the amount of buzz as never seen before. Actually such was the Twitter buzz that after the accident took place, #fight 1549 became a search term.
The number of celebrities joining Twitter per day is skyrocketing, latest in the series being famous Basketball star Shaquille O'Neal under the name The_Real_Shaq. On 12 February 2009, 202 cities around the world held Twestivals, bringing together the Twitter community for an evening party to raise money and awareness for Charity: Water & the result as on 18th Feb 09 - “total raised from the Global Twestival stands at USD 250,000 = 55 water projects in Ethiopia, Uganda and India - clean water for just over 17,000 people.”
According to Hitwise, Twitter has entered top 100 sites in UK, traffic has already trebled in 2009. Feb 2009 Complete.com blog,Twitter ranks as the third largest social network and puts the number of users at roughly 6 million and the number of monthly visitors at 55 million. Just recently Twitter had its billionth tweet. Twitter is certainly on a role.
For more on twitter, stay tuned! Click to follow me on Twitter.
Technorati Tags: twitter, facebook, myspace, social networking, micro-blogging, twestival, charity: water, tweet, mumbai terror attack, flight 1549, shaquille o'neal, US presidential campaign
Feb 22, 2009
Twitter on a role
Feb 19, 2009
Nokia at MWC (09)
Recently concluded Mobile World Conference 2009 at Argentina brought many announcements from all cell phone majors. Nokia was as usual the busiest counter. They came out with a slew of announcements in multiple categories. Here’s a brief review :-
Nokia E-series saw a lot of the action with the introduction of two new phones :-
1. Nokia E75 :- Said to be the successor of Nokia Communicator, this phone has a new shiny & polished look. One of the nifty features is addition of free Ovi-Mail service which brings to you your mails from all email providers at one place. Other features are 3.2 MP camera, full 3G capabilities & Max 4GB expandable memory via SD card. Here are some cool Nokia E75 pics.
2. Nokia E55 :- A super slim Smartphone with Blackberry Pearl like looks. This one is just 1 cm thick. It features only a half QWERTY keyboard and comes with a good 3.2 megapixel camera. Take a look at these awesome Nokia E55 pics.
Nokia also introduced some additions to its N-series in form of Nokia N97 and N
okia N86. Here’s the complete review of Nokia N97.
New Nokia N86 is the first Nokia phone with a 8 MP camera. Here is the complete rundown at Nokia.
For more on Nokia at MWC visit this Nokia MWC 09 video.
Watch out what others had to offer at MWC 09.
Feb 18, 2009
Good content for your blog
Blogging is all about providing your readers with good content. First let us discuss what is good content. Adjectives that are often used for it are latest, cool, very useful, exemplary, in depth…. etc. What we understand is that good content is a relative term. It will change according to your blog topic.
Where to find good content? No single website or for that matter even a group is not sufficient. Do a lot of general reading like newspapers, journals, books to gain the first hand information. Even your academic knowledge could be a gold pot. Research extensively about your topic on the web. Never underestimate the power of local knowledge, these tips make your content unique. Discuss about your topic with your friends & family especially the elders, they may surprise you with their experience.
To add some spice you need pictures, music, videos. For that you need a long term plan & probably some smart artistic skills. Try to make simple cartoons and caricatures. Tables, flowcharts, pie diagrams always prove handy. At times use your mobile to capture images.
Sometimes its not a bad idea to quote someone but take care that you give that person due credit, a link to the original source. Good references are always liked by readers. Some off-track information like historical background or funny aspects makes stuff interesting.
Finally some proven free sources that make life easy.
- Wikipedia
- About.com
- IMDB
- Google News
- PubMed
- ERIC
Feb 17, 2009
Nokia N97 hands on
Yesterday at the latest Mobile World Congress 2009 (MWC 09), Nokia made a slew of announcements, one of which was its highly awaited new S60 based touch screen phone N97.
Features:-
- Full QWERTY keyboard
- Smooth 30° flip mechanism
- 640x360 resistive touch screen
- 5800 quick contacts bar
- Symbian60 v5 OS
- 32 GB internal memory
- 16 GB Expandable memory via microSD card
- Customizable widgets like Facebook, RSS
- Accelerometer
- A-GPS with Nokia Maps 3.0
- 5-MP Camera with Zeiss lens & LED flash
- TV out
For more visit Gizmodo & Engadget.
Update :- Here's the link to Nokia N97 video.
Feb 16, 2009
Make your blog more presentable
Continuing from my last post about the art of blogging, here i am going to focus on how to make your blog standout in the crowd.
Today an internet user crawls through hundreds & sometimes even thousands of pages in a day. It is but natural that he/she wont remember your page unless it has some good content or something unique. How to make your blog unique?
First thing that naturally affects any web surfer about a blog is its visual appeal. Apply unique themes to make your blog beautiful. Some excellent blogger themes can be found at Deluxe Templates & Our Blog Templates. Optionally for your own website you can have a look at these very creative designs.
Ease of use. Keep in mind there are thousands like you doing the same thing. Make reader a king, make it easy for him to get whatever he wants. Especially don’t make things complicated, don’t use very gaudy & complex themes.
Structured information always improves your readership. Categories, labels, tags, archives, inward links makes finding things very easy. It also helps in Search Engine Optimization.
Icons, emoticons, pictures, videos, quotes, links, some good humor & beautiful widgets and their effective placement with simplicity appeals to the human senses.
Neat & clean fonts, faster load times, personal touch like something interesting in the profile would definitely work in your favour.
Hope these tips help you make your blog prettier & more presentable. Stay tuned much more to come on blogging!
Feb 15, 2009
The art of blogging
Writing a good blog is an art. Your writing skill shows your ability to convey an idea. To become popular or to make money through a blog requires you to teach masses about your idea. This is where skill plays its part.
So how do you write a blog? There has to be a structure to the blog like a brief introduction, sufficient description, analysis, and the opinion. Opinion is an important part that is often missed. Blog has to be precise yet so informative, common yet so unique & also gripping to have a tight hold over its readers. Title has to be explanatory yet secretive. It should to be attractive enough to draw the readers but not very flashy. Language should be lucid, avoid the overemphasis on oomph. Grammar, spellings, sentence construction has to be spot on.
Description part should be unique, thorough, well researched & easily understandable keeping in mind the length factor. Links, Images & Videos contribute to the richness of the blog. Using quotes, idioms & phrases makes reading a pleasure. Humor adds some spice & makes it digestible.
To make your blog unique, write in your own style like conversational, mocking (but not derogatory), thrilling, baby talk etc. Don't reveal your secrets all at a time, keep some for the future. Ask a few questions. Create a healthy debate.
These all points will help you write a good blog. But to popularize and monetize a blog you need extra efforts and extra blogs. This is my first of this series. So stay tuned!
Meanwhile enjoy these beautiful blogs.
contolini.com/chris/
eleven3
Feb 12, 2009
Darwin Blogs
You must be 
thinking about the title, what Darwin has to do with blogs or rather with the blog labelled "Best Blogs". Just a little offbeat today because today is Charles Robert Darwin, the great scientist's 200th birthday. So as a doctor i decided to dedicate this post to the great man who proposed the "Theory of Evolution through Natural Selection". Today i am going to take you on a ride which sheds light on Darwin through this blog.
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