Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

12seconds just today launched their application programming interface (API) as well as announced it’s first three partners: Tweetdeck, Blippr, and Phreadz. With the goal of 12seconds being to be the go-to platform for video status updates, they needed this step forward of a strong API.

The company is happy with their first three partners, although they are still encouraging others to hop in and play around with the code. Of their newest partners, Tweetdeck, an Adobe Air client, probably holds the crown for being known for it’s Twitter service. Blippr is a site that does short-form reviews, and Phreadz is a startup company that does threaded video conversations.

MORE »

While not confirmed, news has been trickling out from Facebook users in China that they were not able to access their data.

A clear picture has yet to be painted but Facebook is close to confirming the phenomenon. “We are disappointed to learn of reports that users in China are having difficulty getting access to Facebook,”

Representatives from the social network reportedly told CIO News. “We have not made any changes to our site that would create access problems and are looking into the situation.”

MORE »

It’s a problem that most Web-based companies would love to have: their website servers crumple under the weight of popularity and pent-up demand (as long as denial-of-service attacks are not involved.) It usually means a lot of people have come to rely on your services, or at the very least are checking out what you have to offer.

It has happened most recently to leading e-tailer Amazon and up-and-coming short form messaging service/social network Twitter. Public relations officials at both companies have had to work overtime explaining why users were not able to access the sites. Amazon’s problems hit on June 6th and 9th and were initially chalked up to a hiccup caused by company systems that are “very complex and on rare occasions, despite our best efforts, they may experience problems.” Twitter’s problems happened a couple of weeks ago and included outages and public viewings of supposedly-private “tweets.”

MORE »

Twitter has already taken microblogging to the next level, and now it has just gone a little further with the launch of TwitterFone, a new speech-to-text service enabling Twitter users to update their accounts through mobile phone.

TwitterFone basically eliminates the need to access your mobile Web and type your so-called “tweets”. Just call it in, dictate your message and it will automatically transcribe and post your message to your Twitter account within 5 to 10 minutes.

Though I’m personally not a big fan of Twitter, it is indeed a popular and powerful tool among Internet marketing practitioners and social networking addicts who are always on the go. Integrating this technology enhances its relevance and ease of use for the members of its community.

But it can be useful even if you’re not an active Twitter user. If you think about it, TwitterFone can be a reliable reminder tool for busy people. Just dictate your errands or things to do while on the go and check it online when you get home. It could work well for someone like me who tends to forget so many things. Think about it.

Although free, this service is currently in beta by invitation only, and as of now its working only in US, UK, and Ireland.

Product [TwitterFone] Via [Pat Phelan]

Here’s a nice light-hearted story that could inspire us all and reminds us that there are still a few remaining good samaritans out there. What makes this story more interesting is that the individuals involved are actually techie’s like us.

Scott Hacker lost his phone and realized it was lost only after receiving the following note on his Twitter account:

Hi. i found this phone. could you tell me how to find the owner…

After a few messages from his Twitter friends who also read Twitter message, Hacker met the good samaritan, Silje Rygland who found Hacker’s phone lying on the lawn of UC Berkeley. To make a long good story short, Scott Hacker got his phone back and wrote about the experience in his, yes you guess it right, blog. Incidentally aside from running his personal tech blog, Hacker is also the founder and administrator of ”The Archives of Misheard Lyrics”, a popular site that maintains a database of misheard lyrics to pop songs.

Lesson of the story? If you’re not in Twitter yet, better sign up now, for who knows you might lose your phone too and Twitter might help you find it.

Via [sarahintampa]

If you were busy updating your Twitter this morning, you might have noticed that the service was running a bit slow. That’s because the creatures inside the Twitter are currently mulling over the possibilities of adding advertising to the site, weighing their options, which are actually pretty much “advertise or die” at this point. You might not realize it yet but Twitter has helped everybody with their service except for itself. Because aside from the occasional round of VC funding (the last of which was on July 2007, at $5.7 million), Twitter has never really made anything off their wonderfully addictive online service. Its only option may be to put ads on its site, which would in all certainty become the topic of many a debate since users have so far been using it 100% ad-free. For 2 years now, actually. So while I personally won’t mind having ads on Twitter, since there’s quite plenty of free space on the sidebars anyway, I think a lot of people would still find it hard to kick the habit of twitting in an ad-free Twitter. How about you? How would you feel if Twitter suddenly placed paid ads on its pages? Add your answers in the comments!

Via [TechCrunch]

If you’ve ever tried to follow the Twitter updates of more than one person, you’ll appreciate what TwitLinks has set out here to do. Using advanced alien-technology (or maybe RSS feed updates, I’m not sure), Twitlinks gathers all the most recent Twitter updates of leading tech industry pundits and arranges them in the fashion of a blog, with updated links to the latest industry news as well.

TwitLinks creator Gary Brewer said the idea for TwitLinks was born out of his interest in “the links that people [he] didn’t know personally published over their individual twitters.” So basically, he’s trying to organize the latest and most useful twitters in the tech industry, much like how Techmeme tries to organize breaking technology news.

Now, while no one may be able to say just how well this new service will perform in the long run, at least we have one more tool to run to as we cover the ever-growing tech industry and everything happening inside it. But you can bet it’s going to be big; it may have only yours and my attention now, but with a little more time it could take on the whole world too. Who knows?

Via [Read Write Web]

Well it had to happen, someone had to be the first, after all we have seen other social service accounts hit the open market, but Andrew Baron of Rocketboom fame has put his Twitter account up for sale.

Andrew was kind enough to offer up an explanation to his loyal followers:

I really love my Twitter account but I feel like I haven’t been using it the way I want to. Quite honestly, I feel sorry for all of my followers because they wind up with my tweets in their timelines and I haven’t been able to utilize the medium the way I want to. I also participate in another Twitter account over on Rocketboom so I’m thinking I’ll post more over there and start up a new account to do what I want to do next.

Andrew Baron has around 1,500 followers and as of this writing (4/13/2008 at 9:15 am) the auction currently sits at $510 after 26 bids. My question is, who thinks this will be worth that kind of money? Twitter accounts, especially when based from someone’s name seem, well kind of personal, I wonder just how many subscribers will remain after the new owner begins to post. Just in case you want to follow the action, you can check out the auction over at eBay.

Read [Twitter] Via [TechCrunch]

If you’re interested in seeing a mix between online services Postsecret and Twitter.com, dawdlr is here at your disposal. Like Twitter, dawdlr is a global community of friends and strangers answering one simple question. But instead of Twitter’s infamous “what are you doing?” question, dawdlr asks its users in more broader terms. Which is, what are you doing, you know, more generally? Dawdlr is updated once every few weeks and is operated by just one person who has yet to disclose his/her gender.

The concept behind dawdlr is simple. You just tell the site admin what you are doing, more generally. But instead of logging on to the web site and microblogging like you only had one hour left to live on Earth, dawdlr users need to send in their entries via post card, much like how Postsecret operates with its secret publishing system.

Right now, I can’t say I clearly see the point to this new service, when Twitter seems much more useful because it’s timely, but for the heck of it, let’s give the little web site a chance. Who knows, maybe some people really do prefer snail mail. Maybe my unlimited Yahoo Mail storage is useless after all.

Read [Dawdlr] Via [Popgadget]

This year’s big winner at the SXSW was Sched.org. Tauted as this year’s Twitter, Sched.org is a simple scheduling app that was developed in a mere 14 hours by Florida developers Taylor McKnight, a 24-year old web designer, and Mehta, 27, an IT consultant.

Last year, Twitter proved to be a success and still continues to be a winner, with its micro-blogging feature. Users are allowed to post and receive simple updates wherever they are via their laptops or phone. And this year, Sched.org proved just the same by posting a more organized schedule of the conference. 

MORE »