An original post by Keith! I think it’s one of the best guide to someone who doesn’t know what Twitter is!

Twitter is hard to explain to those that aren’t using it.  For a long time I have avoided sites like MySpace and Facebook but I’ve always had a blog, a cell phone, and email.  Those three items made me feel connected.  If I had something to say, I’d blog it.  If someone wanted to reach me electronically they could send a text message or email.  Lastly they could just call me.  Little did I realize how disconnected I was until later on.  It took Twitter to really show me how disconnected I was.  After becoming a Twitter fan I started to spread the word.  Some people I convinced to start using it.  Others are still holding out.  Maybe this will be enough to put them over the edge.

Not Until They Use It

I remember when I first told Alan Stevens about Twitter.Com.  He reluctantly joined and said "oh great, another social networking site".  It wasn’t long until he started to see Twitter’s potential though.  Alan’s first tweet was on Oct. 25th at 11:04 PM.  About a day later he said this and as we can see he was starting to get it and work his way through it.

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Millward Brown, a subsidiary of the WPP, has come out with its annual list and report, BrandZ, that ranks the most valuable brands in the world. Unsurprisingly, Google tops the list for the third year in a row, with the Google brand valued at $100 billion, rising 16% in value over the past year from $86 billion. Microsoft comes in second, with its brand valued at $76.2 billion, only rising 8% in value over the past year. Last summer, Google had the no. 2 reputation in the world, according to The Reputation Index, and Microsoft didn’t even break into the top 40 (the company was ranked #43 in terms of reputation). In last year’s BrandZ rankings, Microsoft was third on the list behind General Electric, so the company has inched a little closer to Google.

Other notable tech companies that made the top 10 in this years most valuable brands list were IBM (no. 4, valuation: $66.6B), Apple (no. 6, Valuation: $63.1B), China Mobile (no. 7, Valuation: $61.2B), and Vodafone (no. 9, valuation: $53.7B). Ten of the top 25 brands are technology brands. Amazon is no. 26, AT&T is no. 28, Cisco is no. 30, eBay is no. 54 and Yahoo is no. 81, falling from no. 62 last year. Yahoo’s brand value went from $11.5B to $7.9B.

Here’s Top 20:

1. Google ($100 B)
2. Microsoft ($76.2 B)
3. Coca-Cola ($67.6 B)
4. IBM ($66.6 B)
5. McDonalds ($66.5 B)
6. Apple ($66.1 B)
7. China Mobile ($61.2 B)
8. GE ($59.7 B)
9. Vodafone ($53.7 B)
10. Marlboro ($49.4 B)
11. Walmart ($41 B)
12. ICBC ($35 B)
13. Nokia ($35.1 B)
14. Toyota ($29.9 B)
15. UPS ($27.8 B)
16. Blackberry ($27.4 B)
17. HP ($26.7 B)
18. BMW ($23.9 B)
19. SAP ($23.6 B)
20. Disney ($23.1 B)
21. Tesco ($22.9 B)
22. Gillete ($22.9 B)
23. Intel ($22.8 B)
24. China Construction Bank ($22.8 B)
25. Oracle ($21.4 B)

Source: TechCrunch

The domain Ad.com sold for $1.4 million yesterday at domain name registration company Moniker’s TRAFFIC conference in Silicon Valley. The winning bidder was Divyank Turakhia of Directi.com and CEO of Skenzo, a domain parking company.

Moniker made more than $2 million in domain names at the TRAFFIC auction, with Ad.com taking the highest bid. Bottledwater.com took the no. 2 spot at $45,000 and Athletic.com received the third highest amount, selling for $40,000.

$1.4 million may sound like a lot to spend on a domain, especially given the current state of the economy. But Ad.com is a two-letter domain that is easily pronouncable and actually means something, so it’s definitely valuable in the domain market. And a recession doesn’t seem to be stopping companies from spending the big bucks for desirable domain names so Turakhia may be able to flip Ad.com for a profit. Travelzoo bought Fly.com for $1.8 million in January. Vibrators.com was sold for $1 million a back in November and A&T’s YellowPages.com paid $3.85 million for YP.com in December.

Source: TechCrunch

Apple has just brought out a brand-new third-generation iPod shuffle that is almost twice as small as the previous model. The device also has an exclusive new feature called VoiceOver that allows your shuffle to speak song, artist and playlist names to you.

The new iPod shuffle looks nothing like its predecessor. It comes in two shades – silver or black – and has no more buttons! (It looks a bit like a fancy cigarette lighter.)

The new shuffle is truly tiny: smaller than an AA battery and the redesign means that all of the controls are now placed on the earphone cord instead of the body.

The VoiceOver feature speaks 14 languages, including English, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish, and even tells you how much battery life you have left.

Priced at 75 Euro including VAT, the new 4GB shuffle holds up to 1,000 songs and starts shipping today.

Source: SiliconRepublic

If you want to link to a specific part of a video on YouTube, you can. For example,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjDw3azfZWI#t=31m08s

Notice the “#t=31m08s” on the end of the URL? That link will take you 31 minutes and 8 seconds into that video. Linking to a particular minute and second can be really helpful – for example, that link takes you straight to where someone asks Eric Schmidt a question about Twitter. From there, you can listen to his answer, where he says (among other things):

“We’re in favor of all of these new communications mechanisms. I think the innovation is great, Twitter’s success is wonderful, and I think it shows you that there are many, many new ways to communicate, especially if you’re willing to do so publicly.”

Source: Matt Cutts

comScore’s online video numbers for the US in January are out, and YouTube is, unsurprisingly, doing great again. In January, 100.9 million visitors viewed 6.3 billion videos on the popular video sharing service, surpassing the 100 million viewers milestone in the US for the first time.

YouTube also led the large growth in online video watching, accounting for 91 percent of the incremental gain in the number of videos viewed compared to December. Fox’s MySpace also experienced large growth: from 444 million videos viewed in December 2008 to 552 million in January 2009, with Yahoo, Viacom and Microsoft’s properties following in places three to five.

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A U.N. report published today states that six in ten people (60%) of the world’s population has a cell phone subscription. The driving growth trend is coming from poor, developing countries. This 60% figure is up from just under 15% in 2002.

Internet use has more than doubled to 23% in 2008 up from 11% in 2002. Only 1 in 20 people in the same poor countries have Internet access, however in rich countries the fixed broadband services increased to almost 20% market penetration, while on average only 1 in 20 worldwide have high speed Internet. Mobile broadband has also shown its fastest increase, with 3% of people worldwide having it on average, compared to 14% in rich countries. Fixed line subscriptions (home phones) have increased at a slower rate, from 1 billion in 2002 to 1.27 billion in 2009, meaning cellular phones outnumber direct-wired phones in excess of 3:1.

The 106-page U.N. report also ranked countries by how advanced their information and communications technology (ICT) is. The order went as follows:

1) Sweden
2) South Korea (getting nation-wide Gigabit broadband by 2012)
3) Denmark
4) Netherlands
5) Iceland
6) Norway

The United States came in at #17, with Hong Kong at #11, China at #73 and India at #118, both of which have a high technology base but whose ranking was affected by their large populations and poor, rural areas. Myanmar’s militaristic government gave that country the only cited decline over the same period, with Internet bandwidth dropping 90%. This came following the Internet being shut down at times, along with several bloggers being jailed for published content.

Source: TG Daily