Mind-reading headsets will change your brain

Innovation is our new column that highlights the latest emerging technological ideas and where they may lead.

This week, engineer Adam Wilson made global headlines by updating Twitter using his brainwaves. “USING EEG TO SEND TWEET” he explained.

Twitter with your brain

UW-Madison Click for video: University of Wisconsin researcher Adam Wilson composes a Twitter message using a system that reads his brain waves. Click on the image to watch a video explaining how the message was sent.

Twitter’s big day? Here comes Oprah

 

Updated 11:33 a.m. PDT with new @Oprah follower statistics.

The official answer is in regarding Twitter Chief Executive Evan Williams’ teasing tweet Thursday about Friday being a “very big day”: @Oprah.

BakerTweet

 

Google Eyes Twitter

                

Google is rumored to be in talks with microblogging phenomenon Twitter on acquiring the latter. Michael Arrington of TechCrunch reported that news sources mentioned about Google’s interest in acquiring Twitter. Furthermore, it was rumored that Google was in “last-stage talks” to buy Twitter.

Twitter: Building Businesses Tweet by Tweet

Entrepreneurs are finding the fast-rising microblogging site to be a useful tool for reaching out to customers

Here’s what happened when Chris Savage, the chief executive of Wistia.com, searched for the phrase “private video sharing” on Twitter, a social networking site. One post he found read, “A teacher requested a private ‘video sharing’ Web site so that specialists can observe student behavior—can anyone refer one?”

A Look Inside Twitter’s New ‘Discovery Engine’

Twitter’s trying to step up its game with a newly introduced Discovery Engine — a souped-up search feature coming soon to your Twitter home page. The futuristic-sounding service packs some extra punch into Twitter’s existing search functionality and could give the site’s Web interface a much needed jolt of energy.

Mark Cuban Fined for Twitter Comments

 

                   

The NBA’s true maverick has been fined $25,000 for his recent comments on Twitter. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban recently used the social networking tool to voice his anger at league officiating after Friday’s loss to the Denver Nuggets. Cuban’s “tweets” referred to an altercation between Nuggets player J. R. Smith and Mavs player Antoine Wright.

First post (7:25 p . m . , March 27):

how do they not call a tech on JR Smith for coming off the bench to taunt our player on the ground ?

Twitter, the Friendly Ghost

                                                      

Following your favorite celebrity on Twitter? Maybe not! While the whole world is a ‘twitterin’…was it any wonder that a certain level of the elite twitterati would eventually find a way to game the system. The latest trend a foot is “Ghost Twittering.” The term was coined to describe when someone, usually a celebrity, politician, sport figure or a corporate brand pays another person or persons to update their Twitter account on their behalf. The use of ghostwriters has been around in the literary world since literature was first penned. Now,it appears it is prevalent in Twitterdom as well. But, while it may make sense for our busy world leaders to farm out their tweets, when celebrities engage in this practice it really seems to be defeating the purpose.

Twitter hitchhiker travels for free

  

 

Globetrotter Paul Smith has visited more cities in the last three weeks than most people see in a lifetime.

And he hasn’t spent a cent along the way.

The 33-year-old Englishman has made his way halfway around the world through the generosity of users of Twitter, an internet-based social networking service.

Twitter will offer premium accounts, eventually

 

Twitter founder Biz Stone said that the company has hired a product manager to develop accounts for businesses that would have more features but would cost a fee to use, the Wall Street Journal reports.

But Stone didn’t specify when these accounts would be rolled out. San Francisco-based Twitter has been growing rapidly, but the company hasn’t specified how it will make money.

Many people speculated that the company would turn to premium accounts, especially as more and more businesses signed up for the service.

Microsoft Now Sponsoring Twitter Enterprise Site

           

Twitter has created ExecTweets, a site sponsored by Microsoft and designed to push messages, or “Tweets,” from executives to the general ecosystem of Twitter users. As Twitter, Facebook and other social-networking solutions grow in size, they have been seeking out viable avenues for earning revenue.

Twitter announced on March 23 the launch of ExecTweets, a site sponsored by Microsoftand designed to push “Tweets” from some of the nation’s most prominent executives to Twitter users.

Twitter, Seeking Revenue, Launches Microsoft-Sponsored Site

Digital media’s hottest startup has online social networkers twittering about its first effort to drive revenue and build a viable business model.

Twitter Inc., the so-called microblogging platform that has taken pop culture by storm in recent months, has launched a Web site sponsored by Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) called “ExecTweets.”Microsoft declined to say how much it paid to sponsor the site, which is designed to allow corporate executives to message Twitter users.

The Story of the Fail Whale

How An Unknown Artist’s Work Became a Social Media Brand Thanks To the Power of Community

           

Twitter users are very familiar with the iconic image of the Fail Whale. This social object has been latched onto by Twitter fans not just as a representation of Twitter’s downtime, but also as a representation of the community’s love for the service and their hope for its triumph over their many struggles. Despite Twitter’s troubles, most of its users stayed true, watching and waiting as the team began the long process of recoding the application in order for it to scale up. As Twitter succumbed to the strain of running their under-provisioned service, the Fail Whale “over capacity” image would appear. And this image began to take on a life of its own. This is the story of the Fail Whale.

Discovering the Power of Twitter’s Real-Time Search

A-ha moments often come when the conventional method lets you down and you need to try something new. That happened on Saturday when Gmail was unavailable to me for over an hour. The outage was long enough for me to have to set up a Yahoo Mail account to send an urgent email. I also used Basecamp to communicate with my ReadWriteWeb colleagues; through that, I learned that Gmail was fine for them. So I started my research online to see what was happening. Of course I started my search with Google, which was not of much use. Then I tried Twitter.

Salesforce.com Integrates Twitter

When Gmail failed a few months ago, I tried using Google to find out what was going on. When that did not get me an answer, I tried Twitter and did find some answers. That alerted me to the power of real-time search in one specific usage case. It was a relatively minor problem for me. But what if I ran customer service for a SaaS firm that just had a major outage? How would I find and monitor the conversations going on out there? That is what today’s announcement by Salesforce.com about Twitter integration is all about.

More lawmakers using Twitter to communicate

WASHINGTON — With a 140-character limit on Twitter posts, you wouldn’t think the long-winded politicians in the nation’s capital would be that interested in this new technology.

Think again.

Happy Birthday Twitter!

Can you believe that the micro-blogging service TwitterTwitter reviews is already three years old? Well, it’s true. Three years ago from today, Twitter Co-founder Jack Dorsey sent his first Tweet and, together with Evan Williams, Biz Stone and others, created a social media company that has grown over 1300% in the last year.

The Inner Circles of 10 Geek Heroes on Twitter

Hotshots, rock stars, geek heroes – many of us follow a lot of the same people online. But who do they pay the most attention to themselves? The influencers of influencers are of interest for a lot of different reasons, most appropriately because finding them is a good way to dive deeper into niche topics.

 Twitter exposes conversations that can show us who’s in anyone’s inner circle because conversations there are public and programatically accessible. In the following post we look at the data and find out who has the most reciprocal conversations on Twitter with 10 geek heroes – from the founders of big sites like Digg, Reddit and StumbleUpon to nonprofit geeks working to challenge injustices.

There’s something a little uncomfortable about being able to see this information. Fact is, though, it’s part of the nature of this powerful new system of communication. We expect that data parsing like this is only the beginning.

In the charts below, assembled using developer Pete Warden’s service Mailana, you’ll see the top 5 people these geek heroes have reciprocal conversations with on Twitter and a screenshot of their larger web of connections. You can click through the links below to visit the full Mailana interface or visit this page to learn more about the methodology. On Warden’s site you can click on the “info” links and see exactly what topics these friends discuss. There you’ll see explanations like “@kanter sent 47 messages to @agahran and got 46 back.” Note that these charts are just based on reciprocated public replies – not private direct messages.

Evan Williams

 

 

 

 

 

Evan Williams was the co-founder of Blogger and is now the co-founder and CEO of Twitter. He announced today that he’s an expectant father! Who does he converse with most on Twitter?

1. Sara Morishige Williams, Ev’s wife. Good man, Ev.
2. Chris Sacca, a startup investor and adviser to Twitter.
3. Jason Goldman, Product Manager at Blogger turned Product Manager at Twitter.
4. Biz Stone, Twitter’s co-founder.
5. Sarah Lacy, tech business journalist (now on staff at TechCrunch) and author of the excellent Web 2.0 history book Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good.

Here’s Ev’s full profile on Mailana. (Photo CC from Joi Ito.)

Veronica Belmont

 

 

 

 

 

Veronica Belmont is everybody’s favorite geek video host. Who does she trade Tweets with the most? You might discover a person or two on her list.

1. Ryan Block, gadget blogging rock star and founder of Gdgt.com.
2. Tom Merritt, CNET podcast host.
3. Casey McKinnon, web actress and show host.
4. Patrick Norton, Veronica’s co-host on Tekzilla.
5. Felicia Day, gaming web show host.

You can explore the Veronica-sphere here.

 

Kevin Rose

 

 

 

 

Kevin Rose, founder of social news site Digg, has long been one of the most-followed people on Twitter. More than 320,000 have opted-in to receiving Tweets from Kevin. He’s following 160 people in return. Who does he have the most conversation with? Rose’s list is unsurprising; it’s mostly co-workers.

1. Gary Vaynerchuk of WineLibrary.TV.
2. Aubrey Sabala, Marketing Manager at Digg
3. Joe Stump, a developer at Digg.
4. David Prager, one of Rose’s co-founders at web TV station Revision3.
5. Alex Albrecht, co-host of Diggnation.

You can see Rose’s full list here.

Tim O’Reilly

 

 

 

 

 

Tim O’Reilly is the founder of O’Reilly Publishing and a related series of events like the Web 2.0 Conference. Here’s who Tim has mutual conversation with on Twitter most often.

1. James Governor, an open source analyst at RedMonk.
2. Fred Wilson, one of the best known venture capitalists in the Web 2.0 world. Wilson has invested extensively in Twitter, for example.
3. Validis Krebs, the man behind Orgnet, a social network analysis and consulting firm.
4. Paul Kedrosky, writer and pundit on international finance.
5. Jennifer Pahlka, Web 2.0 Conference Chair.

Here’s Tim’s full profile on Mailana.

Shaquille O’Neal

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shaquille O’Neal hasn’t always been a geek hero. The basketball great is fast becoming one, though, and if you haven’t read about his awesome real-life meetups with Twitter friends, you really should. Shaq talks to all kinds of people on Twitter all day long (usually from his iPhone, it appears) – but who does he converse with the most?

1. Kathleen Hessert, a sports marketing Twitter pro.
2. A. Jo. Martin, Director of Digital Media & Research for the Phoenix Suns.
3. @laskey is someone with protected updates; we have no idea who this is.
4. Nate Moller, a marketing consultant.
5. Mona Mohammadi, Deputy to the Senior Adviser at the Office of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, according to her LinkedIn profile, though that’s not mentioned on her Twitter profile.

You can see all of Shaq’s closest connections here, though he’s such a gentleman we can imagine him taking offense at the idea that he loves any of his Twitter friends more than others!

Garrett Camp

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Garrett Camp is the founder of StumbleUpon. StumbleUpon is awesome and Camp is a fairly consistent user of Twitter. Which lucky people get to engage with him the most?

1. Travis Kalanick is an entrepreneur who sold his P2P company Red Swoosh to Akamai in 2007. He advises and invests in startups.
2. Tim Ferriss is the author of the book 4 Hour Work Week.
3. Melody McCloskey, manager of video at Current.tv.
4. Gary Vaynurchuk, wine and social media man.
5. Zappos, Garrett Camp talks with his shoes.

Here is a full picture of Camp’s network, though from the picture below you can see it’s actually pretty sparse.

Alexis Ohanian

 

 

 

 

Alexis Ohanian is the co-founder of social news site Reddit. Reddit is old school and full of developers. Whom does its founder talk to most on Twitter?

1. Brad Parler, video dude at Powered Production.
2. Ian White is the creator of music sharing site Blip.fm.
3. Tony Adam, manager of search traffic acquisition at Yahoo.
4. Wil Wheaton, a famous guy who claims he disappoints everyone with his lack of responsiveness on Twitter.
5. Jacqui Cheng, Associate Editor at Ars Technica.

Here’s the rest of Alexis’ inner circle on Twitter.

Jeffrey Levy

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jeffrey Levy is the Web Manager at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). He Tweets a lot, and well. Who does he Tweet with when he Tweets with other Tweeters?

1. Adriel Hampton works at the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office and is a Goverment 2.0-head.
2. Ari Herzog is a strategic consultant.
3. Chris Dorobek, anchor at Federal News Radio.
4. Amy Gahran, a media consultant who was one of my (Marshall’s) first web 2.0 heroes.
5. Dr. Mark Drapeau, Government 2.0 guy.

Check out the rest of Levy’s inner Twitter circle here.

 

Jeremiah Owyang

 

 

 

 

Jeremiah Owyang has helped bring the stuffy world of corporate industry analysts into the Web 2.0 era of conversation as much as anyone has. He’s got more than 36,000 people signed up to get his posts on Twitter, but there are some who he ends up conversing with more than others.

1. Peter Kim, former Forrester analyst with Owyang. Kim is now working on a stealth startup called the Dashis Corporation.
2. Jennifer Leggio, ZDNet social business blogger.
3. Shel Israel, Silicon Valley writer and communications guy.
4. Josh Bernoff, Jeremiah’s fellow analyst at Forrester.
5. Amy Worley, VP of marketing at humor book publisher Andrews McMeel Publishing.

You can see the rest of Owyang’s inner Twitter circle here.

Beth Kanter

 

 

 

 

Beth Kanter is one of the most inspiring non-profit tech consultants in the world. She’s raised thousands of dollars on Twitter and has friends from everywhere. Who does she have conversations with more than anyone else, though?

1. Marnie Webb is the co-CEO at Compumentor/TechSoup. You should get to know Marnie; once you do you’ll wonder why you waited so long.
2. Amy Gahran, see Jeffrey Levy’s list above. Gahran has a lot of conversation with a lot of awesome people.
3. Jonathon D. Colman does SEO for REI.
4. Beth Dunn is a consultant and MBA candidate.
5. Dr. Mani is an Indian entrepreneur and heart surgeon.

There are a lot of people in Kanter’s circle. You can meet some of them here.

by Marshall Kirkpatrick

Windows Live / Facebook integration coming in April?

Another day, another gem coming from Twitter.  This time, TechCrunch found a tweet by a Microsoft Advertising marketing manager for Southeast Asia (since taken down), which appears to reveal the timing of Facebook integration into Windows Live:

Facebook will be added in the Windows Live activities in april, I just heard!

Adding Facebook to the list of activities available on Windows Live was something that was announced by Steve Ballmer at CES in January, but we haven’t heard much about it since.  Windows Live has been promoting coming availability of “over 50 activities”, including Facebook, but as of today there are only 12:

so maybe we’ll be seeing a flurry of new activities in April.  TechCrunch speculates that Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco (Mar 31-Apr 3) might see Windows Live / Facebook announcements, but at this point there’s no official word of that.