Thanks to a change in Apple’s iPhone Developer Program License Agreement, Adobe has decided to abandon the iPhone app building technology included in Flash CS5.
Adobe says it’s not planning on “any additional investments in that feature” after CS5 because of section 3.3.1 of Apple’s iPhone Developer Program License Agreement:
Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).
This section indicates that tools such as that in Flash CS5 are forbidden when developing apps for the iPhone and it appears to make it pointless for Adobe to provide the feature according to Adobe’s Mike Chambers:
While it appears that Apple may selectively enforce the terms, it is our belief that Apple will enforce those terms as they apply to content created with Flash CS5. Developers should be prepared for Apple to remove existing content and applications (100+ on the store today) created with Flash CS5 from the iTunes store.
The feature will still ship with Flash CS5, but is there much of a point in using it?

Save time and money with our favorite secret tricks for Google, Facebook, YouTube, eBay, and several other sites you already use.
Think you know all of the tricks at your favorite Internet sites? Think again.
Even if you’re on Google, Facebook, and YouTube every day, you might not be tapping those sites’ full potential. Read on to speed up your Internet abilities, unlock new features, and find a new favorite tip or two.
Google Gimmicks
Search within a site: Narrow down your search results to a single site. Type (search query) site:(domain); an example would be entering: video card tips site:pcworld.com to find pages only at that location. You can even limit results to within sections of a site, as in this example: twitter site:pcworld.com/businesscenter.
Search for file types: Maybe you want to track down a certain document that’s a PDF. Enter your usual search string plus filetype:pdf to find only those pages. This method also works with PostScript (ps), Office docs (doc, ppt, xls), Rich Text (rtf), Plain Text (txt), and more. You can find a list of searchable file types here.
Exclude results: Include a minus sign to exclude certain results. Suppose you want to find news about Apple unrelated to the iPad. Type Apple -iPad. You can also combine the previous tips, such as Apple -iPad -site:apple.com and Apple -iPad -PDF.
Get local details: Forget manual time conversion; just enter time [city] (as in Time Tokyo) to get the current local time. Or try weather [city] for a forecast. For more local details, try [city] map, movies [city or ZIP code], and [restaurant name or cuisine] [city or ZIP code]. This works for a few other regular search strings, like Weather [city], stock quotes, and more–check out Google’s full list.
Make conversions: Swap units of measure, such as measurements of volume or distance; this works for converting different currencies, too. Try [number and unit] in [new unit] such as 7 inches in cm or 30 Euros in USD.
Bing Bonanza
Find links to files: Find pages that host or lead to certain file types, such as music. Enter [search term] contains:[file type] such as Wilco contains:MP3 to find MP3s from the band Wilco. Try this kind of search with many other file types, such as WMA, PDF, AAC, DOC, and nearly anything else.
Remove the background image: Bing sure is cute, but its big photos can be distracting. Visit http://www.bing.com/?rb=0 for a plain, gray version of the site.
Save searches as RSS feeds: If you want to stay on top of hits to a search query, turn it into an RSS feed. After loading your results, append &format=rss to the end of the new URL, and view it in your favorite RSS reader.
Fix Your Facebook
Hide application notices: Are you sick of Farmville, Mafia Wars, and other Facebook apps cluttering your feed? Mouse over the entry, and click Hide. You’ll block those alerts from your wall.
Invite a list of friends to an event: You don’t have to manually click a bunch of friends to send event invitations. Instead, create a list first. Click Friends in the left column, and use Create a List on top to pick certain friends. When making an event invitation, click the Filter Friends tab to show only the list. Click Select All.
Hide content from certain contacts: Keep your mom and work acquaintances from seeing messages intended for your inner circle. Click the lock privacy icon, and choose Customize.
From there, you can hide the post from specific people, or show it only to your entourage. For more on Facebook’s privacy settings, read “Protect Your Privacy With the New Facebook Settings.”
Cut to the core: The Lite version of Facebook strips away most of the clutter in the main design. It’s great if you’re on a slow Internet connection, browsing on a netbook, or just want to avoid the usual mess.
Browse to lite.facebook.com to give it a try, and click the link at the top of the page to toggle back to the full site.
Twitter Tweaks
Schedule tweets: You can set up a schedule for your Twitter account, so posts can go up while you are asleep, or–heaven forbid–are away from your gadgets.
This way, you’ll be able to tweet across time zones (so your international followers won’t have to scroll all the way down to hear from you, perhaps), and keep your Twitter account active when you need to focus on a project.
Many sites offer this feature, including HootSuite, SocialOomph, and Twuffer. I like Twuffer for its simplicity, although the others have additional features, such as Facebook support.
Get deals by following companies: Some of your favorite companies might post deals to Twitter. You’ll have to sort away businesses that spam followers too often.
If you really want to step up your hustle, make a new Twitter account specifically for landing freebies so the spam won’t get to your real one. Keep it all straight with a twitter client that manages multiple accounts, such as Tweetdeck. Also, check out “How to Win Prizes on Twitter” for more tips.
Learn about current events: Look for your local Happen.in feed, which charts Twitter chatter based on your location.
If a bunch of people in the same area post “bridge out,” Happen.in will repost the details so that you keep on track of regional events and trends. The Twitter Website includes similar functionality in the right-hand column. Adjust those Trending settings to set it for your area.
Expand URLs: Shortened links could send you to a funny YouTube clip, a popular article in the New York Times, or a site designed to riddle your PC with malware. Use a Greasemonkey script (a Firefox add-on) and just hover your mouse over the cryptic URL to see the full version at the bottom of the window.
If you’re in a different browser, try pbtweet or read How to Use Greasemonkey Scripts in IE, Chrome, and Safari for more details.
Texting Tips and Smartphone Secrets
Toggle mobile formatting: Many Websites detect your mobile browser and offer up a mobile version of themselves with bigger fonts and simpler formatting. If a site doesn’t do this automatically, try putting m. or mobile. at the front of the Web address (URL), as in http://mobile.pcworld.com.
If you want to swap a mobile site into its full, PC design, look for a link at the top or bottom of the page.
Get e-mail as texts: You can have email messages sent to your phone as texts, which can be convenient. Maybe your RSS reader can forward content as e-mail, and you want to be alerted to updates in a rarely used feed.
Enter your 10-digit mobile phone number prefix and carrier suffix, such as 2223334444@txt.att.net. Here’s a list of other carriers. Also, read “10 Killer Texting Tricks” for more SMS goodness.
Send text messages from AIM: Your PC can send texts to a mobile phone for free. Within an AIM client, send a text to the number with + and the country code prefix. For example, a San Francisco message might be directed to +14151112222.
eBay and Craigslist
Mind your eBay reserve: Tiptoe through starting prices when auctioning off an item to save money. If you’re pricing something near eBay’s thresholds of $1, $10, $25, $50, and $200, cut back by just a cent to save yourself a little cash, which can add up for high-volume sales.
If you list something at $199.99 for example, eBay charges $1. For a $200 starting price, eBay charges $2. For more information, check out the eBay Fees page.
Spell poorly: If you’re buying hard-to-spell product, try searching for misspelling or common typos (“playstaion”), or enter * as a text wildcard such as “playst*”. (eBay will find hits for one or more additional characters.)
You might stumble over auctions that others haven’t found–which means less bidding competition. If selling, enter a few of those errors into your listing to snare misspelled searches (though probably not in the title–you don’t want to disappear from the correctly-spelled search results).
Search Craigslist with RSS: Keeping an eye out for a free leather couch on Craigslist? Save yourself from searching every 10 minutes by setting up an RSS feed for the search results by entering your search within Craigslist and clicking the RSS button in the lower-right to add it to your RSS reader of choice.
Entertainment Extras: YouTube, Hulu, Flickr, iTunes, and Xbox Live
Download YouTube and Hulu: Watch online videos away from the Internet by downloading them to your PC. The simplest methods usually work best for noncommercial video, such as random YouTube home movies. But at press time, I got StreamTransport to save videos even from Hulu. Play clips back with VLC.
Watch high-quality YouTube: Bump up the resolution in supported clips. Just click the number and arrow in the play bar; it’s likely 360p by default. Pick a higher number for the best quality.
Link straight to part of a YouTube clip: Instead of sending people to the beginning of a clip, you can create a link that plays from a spot in the middle that you choose. Just add #t=[number]m[number]s to the end of the URL, such as http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mf6IQgFxpIA#t=00m11s to begin 11 seconds in.
Initiate console game downloads: Microsoft’s Xbox Live site might seem superfluous on a PC. However, you can queue up downloads and activate purchases through your computer, and when you log in back on the console, they’ll transfer automatically.
Upload to Flickr through e-mail: Instead of manually uploading photos, you can send them through e-mail. This can work well from an old mobile phone to quickly send pictures from a PC. In the Emails & Notifications tab of the Account options, click Create an upload-to-flickr email address to configure the feature.
Search and link to iTunes content in a browser: The iTunes store lives in its own application, but you can access specific apps, songs, searches, or anything else with a URL. To search, try http://itunes.com/[search term] such as http://itunes.com/evernote. If your search comes up with a single result (as in this example), you’ll jump to that page within iTunes. To copy a direct URL to an iTunes store page, right-click an item within iTunes, and choose Copy Link.

The Wall Street Journal takes a look at ABC’s application for the iPad ten days after the device’s launch, revealing that users have streamed at least part of 650,000 television episodes in what the network deems a very successful launch.
The network said that in the 10 days since the iPad’s debut, its TV-show watching app has been downloaded 205,000 times, giving the Walt Disney Co. unit a presence on nearly half the 450,000 devices that Apple says it has sold. Moreover, users have watched at least part of 650,000 television episodes using the app, generating “several million” ad impressions, according to an ABC spokesman, although the precise number is still being calculated.
The report notes that ABC has been offering on the iPad the same traditional 30-second ads from a host of advertisers that are seen by television audiences. By fall, however, ABC plans to roll out special interactive ads for users of its iPad application. Additional plans involve allowing local affiliates to offer targeted advertising to users based on their location.
Also provided in the report is an interesting look at the development of ABC’s iPad application, which was undertaken by a team of twelve ABC engineers. Development is reported as having occurred “in the five weeks between the Jan. 27 announcement of the iPad and its commercial release on Saturday” despite that fact that that time interval was over nine weeks in length. And somewhat surprisingly given Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ position as the largest individual shareholder of ABC parent company Disney, ABC’s engineers were not provided with a pre-release iPad for development purposes and had to rely on the simulator included in Apple’s development tools for the platform in order to build the application.
Application developers have been able to ride along with strong sales of the iPad, with Apple today announcing that strong U.S. sales of over 500,000 already have forced the company to push back international launch by one month to late May as it struggles to keep up with demand.

Users hate them. They’re a massive headache to network administrators. But IT departments often mandate them nonetheless: regularly scheduled password changes — part of a policy intended to increase computer security.
Now new research proves what you’ve probably suspected ever since your first pop-up announcing that your password has expired and you need to create a new one. This presumed security measure is little more than a big waste of time, the Boston Globe reports.
Microsoft undertook the study to gauge how effectively frequent password changes thwart cyberattacks, and found that the advice generally doesn’t make much sense, since, as the study notes, someone who obtains your password will use it immediately, not sit on it for weeks until you have a chance to change it. “That’s about as likely as a crook lifting a house key and then waiting until the lock is changed before sticking it in the door,” the Globe says.
On the bright side, changing your password isn’t harmful, either, unless you use overly short or obvious passwords or you’re sloppy about how you remember them. (Many users forced to change their password too frequently resort to writing them on sticky notes attached to their monitor, about the worst possible computer security behavior you can undertake.)
Rather, frequent password changes are simply a waste of time and, therefore, money. According to the Microsoft researcher’s very rough calculations: To be economically justifiable, each minute per day that computer users spend on changing passwords (or on any security measure) should yield $16 billion in annual savings from averted harm. No one can cite a real statistic on password changes’ averted losses, but few would estimate it’s anywhere approaching $16 billion a year.
Bottom line, IT departments: Drop the password-change mandates. You’re only creating extra work for yourselves and making the rest of us hate you.

Turns out all the leaked photos of Microsoft’s “Project Pink” phones were real. Targeted squarely at young “social” chatters looking to share their every waking moment with the world, the Kin One and Kin Two boast slide-out QWERTY keypads, Zune media players, multi-touch displays, and more social networking tools than you could shake a stick at. No app store, though.
Set for release in the “beginning” of May exclusively on Verizon Wireless (no pricing details or exact release dates yet), the Kin One and Two look like a combination of the T-Mobile’s old Sidekick sliders (which were developed by a company now owned by Microsoft) and Motorola’s new Motoblur service, which pushes an endless stream of Twitter, Facebook, Windows Live, and MySpace updates to Moto’s Android phones.
While the two new Kins run on an OS that’s based on the “same core elements” as Windows Phone 7, they’re not actually Windows Phone 7 handsets; instead, they’re both powered by a custom, pared-down OS that emphasizes social networking, music, and content sharing.
Both Kins are slider phones, but their respective form factors are slightly different. Kin One is shaped more like an oval, with a compact QWERTY keypad, a 5-megapixel camera, an LED flash, and SD video recording; the Kin Two has more of a traditional rectangular shape with a larger keypad and display, an 8MP lens, and full-on 720p video recording.
main event, though, is something called the Kin Loop: a tiled mash-up of status updates from your Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter pals (similar to the stream of updates you’d see on Motorola’s Motoblur-enabled phones), contacts, email and SMS alerts, recent photos and videos, you name it.
Sitting at the bottom of the display is a little green dot, called the Kin Spot, that lets you quickly share photos, videos, Web pages, and location info with any of your contacts; basically, you just tap and drag the content you want to share onto the Spot, then tap again to choose one or more contacts, or just tap to share with all your Facebook, Twitter, and/or MySpace buddie.
Another cool feature reminiscent of the old, cloud-based Sidekick is the Kin Studio, a snazzy personalized Web page that automatically backs up all your Kin contacts, photos, videos, and messages online, complete with a timeline that lets you “relive” your Kin events for any given month, week, or day. Of course, Microsoft will have to be careful to prevent any of the online meltdowns that plagued Sidekick users in October.
Gizmodo fills in several of the details missing from the Microsoft press release, such as storage capacity (4GB for the Kin One, 8GB for the Two, not expandable), processor (Nvidia Tegra for both handsets), and the inclusion of Wi-Fi support. But note, you won’t be able to install any apps on the Kins whatsoever. Huh.
Of course, the crucial detail we’re missing here is a price tag. Speculation is that the handsets won’t cost any more than $150 with a two-year Verizon contract. But given the fact that the Kins won’t have an app store, I’m thinking more like $99 for the Kin Two, $49 for the One. (The phones will also arrive in Europe this fall via Vodafone.)

Apple has not been shy about publicizing its culture war with Adobe over the use of Flash on the iPhone or iPad platforms. Yesterday, Apple took the battle to a new level, though, by changing the legalese for the App Store to prohibit any apps not built solely on Apple’s proprietary Objective-C programming language.
Apple has not been shy about publicizing its culture war with Adobe over the use of Flash on the iPhone or iPad platforms. Yesterday, Apple took the battle to a new level, though, by changing the legalese for the App Store to prohibit any apps not built solely on Apple’s proprietary Objective-C programming language.
The new iPhone Developer Program License Agreement includes the following text: “3.3.1–Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).”
This is essentially checkmate in the chess match between Apple and Adobe (ADBE). However, checkmate comes at the end of a well-played match as a result of superior strategy and tactics. Apple’s move is more equivalent to throwing a tantrum, taking your chess board, and going home.
I understand this strategy. I see it on a regular basis in games between my young children and their friends. All of the kids can be playing with a ball and having fun, but if the other kids won’t play the game that the owner of the ball wants to play, or if the owner of the ball is not winning, that child will simply storm off and take the ball home with them.
It is effective, but there are no real winners. And, I am not sure how well the immature toddler tantrum translates as a business strategy. Ultimately, Apple’s decision to slam the door on alternate development platforms limits the potential capabilities of iPhone and iPad apps, and increases the effort developers need to invest in order to provide the same app across multiple platforms.
By banning Adobe, Apple may be biting the hand that feeds it, though. Apple and Adobe have had a symbiotic relationship that has been mutually beneficial. The Mac computer has always been perceived as a superior platform for graphic arts and design, and Adobe has provided the fuel to drive that engine with products like Photoshop and Illustrator.
Adobe is set to release CS5–its flagship Creative Suite product–next week. One of the key features of the new software is Adobe’s Flash-to-iPhone compiler that enables developers to create an application in Flash, then package it for use on the iPhone–circumventing Apple’s lack of Flash support.
While restricting development to the Objective-C programming language effectively blocks Adobe’s flanking maneuver, and arguably helps Apple maintain the stability and consistency of apps with a minimum of effort, it also hinders what developers can achieve.
Facebook’s Joe Hewitt stated via Twitter “I’m upset because frankly I think Objective-C is mediocre and was excited about using other languages to make iPhone development fun again.”
Setting those considerations aside, Apple’s war with Adobe puts developers in a tough spot as well. Apple has managed to establish itself as the de facto App Store–meaning that it is virtually a requirement to at least create an app for the iPhone and iPad, but it is not the only platform.
Developers want tools that allow them to develop an app once, and repackage or redistribute it across multiple platforms such as Android, Windows Mobile, WebOS, PC, etc. Flash is fairly ubiquitous, so developers could create an app in Flash that would work across most platforms, then use the Flash-to-iPhone compiler to port it to the iPhone and voila!
Unfortunately, those compiled apps won’t ever see the Apple App Store because they violate the new rules. So, developers will have to create one app for the iPhone and iPad, and then develop the same app all over again for other platforms.
The move by Apple seems petty. There may be some benefit to Apple, but Adobe, app developers, and ultimately iPhone and iPad users all suffer as a consequence.

Twitter has e-mailed developers to clarify why its acquisition of Tweetie for iPhone represents an opportunity–not a threat.
Friday was a big day for mega-popular social-networking/micro-blogging service Twitter; the company announced its acquisition of the most popular Twitter application for Apple’s iPhone, Tweetie; and it said that it had “worked closely” with Research In Motion (RIM) on the first “official” BlackBerry client, which was just released to the public–in beta form–last week.
However, many third-party Twitter developers have voiced concerns that Twitter’s support and “official” branding of both Tweetie, which will eventually be renamed “Twitter for iPhone,” and RIM’s Twitter for BlackBerry app will make it more difficult to market and sell “non-official” Twitter apps made by external developers.
On Sunday, just two days after the initial announcement, Twitter’s director of its platform team, Ryan Sarver, attempted to assuage developers’ worries over the announcements by explaining that the acquisition and endorsement of the BlackBerry app will actually be a good thing for the Twitter ecosystem, and therein, developers…in the long run.
From Sarver’s e-mail:
“We love the variety that developers have built around the Twitter experience and it’s a big part of the success we’ve seen. However when we dug in a little bit we realized that it was causing massive confusion among user’s [sic] who had an iPhone and were looking to use Twitter for the first time. They would head to the App Store, search for Twitter and would see results that included a lot of apps that had nothing to do with Twitter and a few that did, but a new user wouldn’t find what they were looking for and give up. That is a lost user for all of us.”
The post goes on, but the gist is basically this: Twitter is putting its support behind both Tweetie, which has already proven to be hugely popular in Apple’s iTunes App Store, and RIM’s new BlackBerry client. That’s because folks new to Twitter need to be able to quickly find an app for both iPhone and BlackBerry that’s clearly labeled “Twitter” because the company/you-the-developer will lose them as potential customers if they get confused by the mass of already available Twitter apps from third-parties and simply decide to forget about Twitter altogether.
Umm. Okay.
Sarver also writes that even though the move may present a new challenge for third-party Twitter developers, it’s really “beneficial to everyone in the ecosystem…[since] more opportunities become available with a larger audience.”
He also goes on to apologize for the confusion that came along with the company’s usage of the word “official” in reference to Twitter for BlackBerry and the upcoming Twitter for iPhone–formerly Tweetie. But the post on Twitter’s blog announcing the new BlackBerry app hasn’t been changed; it still reads:
“Working closely with RIM to deliver the OFFICIAL Twitter app has been a great experience and we are looking forward to bringing more and more Twitter innovation to BlackBerry.”

Obviously, Twitter can purchase/support any and all of the third-party applications it pleases; however, I think that its attempt to disguise what is clearly a threat to third-party developers as an opportunity is deceptive, to say the least.
Why, I ask you, would someone new to Twitter, purchase Twittelator Pro for iPhone, which costs $4.99 on the iTunes App Store, when Twitter for iPhone, which will no doubt be the first result when someone searches said app store for “Twitter”, is both endorsed by Twitter–and free?
On the BlackBerry front, why would someone who has no idea what to expect from a mobile Twitter app, purchase a BlackBerry app like TweetGenius, which costs $7.99, when RIM’s official Twitter for BlackBerry is endorsed by Twitter and free of charge?
Sarver is, in effect, saying that third-party developers’ application-names aren’t beginner-friendly enough, so the company is pushing its own applications in front of the rest to hopefully build the overall Twitter user base. And Twitter’s own apps will be free.
The average Twitter beginner probably can’t tell the difference between “Twitter App A” and “Twitter App B,” so if “App A” is free, she’s going to skip the purchase of “App B” every time. At least that’s the way I see it. Sure, folks who start off using a free Twitter for iPhone/BlackBerry app could, over time, get curious about other commercial (not free) apps, but what percentage will actually pay for one of the them? Especially when Twitter says its apps are the best.
Twitter is a VERY simple service, and users really only need the ability to check timelines and send “tweets,” which can be done via any Twitter app. And once a user gets comfortable with one particular app, he’s likely to stay with it for no other reason than it is familiar.
The timing of Twitter’s moves also seems noteworthy to me, since it apparently decide to enter the Twitter-app game only recently; the company let third-party app developers gain loyal users for more than a year before stepping in and trying its own hand with a free app.
More from Sarver’s e-mail:
“As we work to provide the best possible Twitter experience on all of the major mobile platforms, momentum will increase dramatically”
I think this statement is particularly telling. If Twitter really does offer the “best possible…experience on all major platforms,” and for free, why would anyone pay for third-party apps? Twitter adoption, or “momentum,” if you will, is already increasing dramatically. But the company’s recent support for Tweetie and Twitter for BlackBerry could simply redirect that momentum away from third-party app-developers, toward Twitter itself.
That sounds to me like a clear opportunity for Twitter–and a clear threat to third-party developers.

Here’s how to get started with Twitter, use it for bargain hunting and group communication, and access it on the go.
Twitter may be a household name, but it remains a mystery to many people. Perhaps even most people. This week I’m going to put on my teacher’s cap and show you how to set up a Twitter account, how to put that account to good use (you can even use it to enter contests and win prizes), and how to read your incoming “tweets” (messages) from just about anywhere.
Get Started with Twitter in Three Easy Steps
What the heck is Twitter? In a nutshell, it’s a messaging service, a way for one person (or organization) to communicate with others in 140-character blasts.
What do you do with Twitter? If you’re feeling narcissistic, you can send out messages of your own, on whatever subject you like, to anyone who chooses to “follow” you (i.e. subscribe to your Twitter feed in order to read your message). At the same time, you can “follow” others (friends, family members, Shaquille O’Neal) and read what’s on their minds.
There’s no cost to using Twitter, and signing up for an account won’t fill your inbox with spam or anything like that. So why not give it a try? Here’s how to get started:

1. Open your Web browser and head to twitter.com.
2. Click Get started now.
3. Complete the signup form. Keep in mind that your selected user name will become your Twitter “address,” so put a little thought into it. (The form will tell you immediately if your desired name is already taken, at which point you’ll have to think of something else.)
4. Click Create my account and you’re good to go.

You’re now an official member of the, er, Twitterverse. Let’s find something interesting for you to follow. Click Find People, type flirtcreate, and then click Search. Our Twitter feed should be the first result that appears. Mouse over the accompanying icon of the little person and click it to follow FlirtCreate. (Don’t worry, this isn’t a permanent marriage. You can always “unfollow” us later if you want.) Now click Home and you’ll see all the latest tweets from Flirtation Creation’s editorial staff.
Three Ways to Make Good Use of Twitter
When it comes to Twitter, I prefer to be a consumer, not a producer. In other words, I know no one cares what I had for breakfast, so I don’t bother to tweet about it.
However, I do care what famed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) has to say, because it’s usually interesting and educational. So he’s among the select few Twitter users I follow. And therein lies my point: Twitter can actually be a fun, informative, and even practical tool–provided you follow the right people. Here are my three favorite uses for the service.
Find deals. Love bargain hunting? Twitter takes the actual hunting out of the equation, instead dropping deals right in your lap. It’s just a matter of following the right sites and bloggers. Here are a few to get you started: @cheapskateblog, @FreeStuffUS, @dealsplus, and @bargainbabe.
Keep tabs on celebrities. Call some people star-struck, and I think it’s cool to get messages from the likes of Aziz Ansari, Jimmy Fallon, Paul Feig, and their personal music hero, like Brendan Benson. Makes one feel like you’re buds. If there’s an actor, comedian, musician, or other famous person you admire, head to Twitter, click Find People, and then follow that person. It’s fun!
Manage a group. If you are the coach of your daughter’s soccer team, you need a quick and easy way to contact all the parents in case of scheduling changes, rained-out games, and the like. By getting everyone to “follow” me (and receive my tweets via text message), it’s a snap to communicate with the group.
Access Your Twitter Account on the Run
Now let’s look at ways you can access Twitter without being tied to your PC. For starters, if you have a mobile phone (doesn’t have to be anything fancy like a Droid or iPhone), you can take advantage of Twitter’s SMS features to send and receive tweets.
Open Twitter in your Web browser, click Settings, and then click Mobile. Follow the instructions to pair your phone with your Twitter account. With that done, any text message you send to 40404 becomes a tweet.
You can also elect to receive tweets via SMS from selected people you follow. However, because standard messaging rates apply, high-volume tweeters could end up costing you. Also, frequent SMS interruptions can prove annoying. My advice is to receive SMS tweets only from important, news-bearing sources.
A better bet all the way around is to find a Twitter app for your phone–assuming your phone runs apps, that is. They’re available for all the major platforms: Android, BlackBerry, iPhone, WebOS, Windows Mobile, and so on.
These apps let you tweet, retweet, send direct messages, view your feeds, and so on. Many of them are free; others cost a couple bucks. If you’re wondering, I’m partial to TweetDeck for iPhone.

Twitter on Tuesday introduced a new service called Promoted Tweets, which will let companies send ads in the form of ordinary messages, according to a blog posted by co-founder.
The introduction is an important step for the company, since it represents the first step towards turning the microblooging service into a money-making venture.
Users will start seeing paid messages, which will be labeled “promoted,” at the top of some Twitter.com search results pages. Initially, up to 10 percent of users will see the promoted messages. Twitter will work with Best Buy, Bravo, Red Bull, Sony Pictures, Starbucks, and Virgin America, to roll out the first ads.
Twitter roll out the Promoted Tweets in several phases, with Tuesday’s announcement marking the first. Before Twitter develops the service further, the company wants to get a better understanding of the “resonance” of Promoted Tweets, the user experience and advertiser value.
Future changes to the ad service could include showing the messages in users’ message timelines.
The ads will have to fight to get user attention. Twitter will attempt to measure whether the advertising messages interest users and stop showing those that don’t. They will have all the functionality of a regular message, including the ability to reply, retweet and favorite.
On Tuesday, Twitter’s COO Dick Costolo will be talking about the offering in detail at the AdAge Digital conference. Costolo and CEO Evan Williams will further discuss Promoted Tweets and what it means for Twitter developers at Chirp, Twitter’s developer conference, on Wednesda.

In a report on forthcoming challengers looking to rival Apple’s iPad, The New York Times notes that Google is reportedly preparing to launch its own Android-based entrant into the field as Nokia, HP and Microsoft also move forward on their own plans for devices in the emerging industry segment.
Eric E. Schmidt, chief executive of Google, told friends at a recent party in Los Angeles about the new device, which would exclusively run the Android operating system. People with direct knowledge of the project — who did not want to be named because they said they were unauthorized to speak publicly about the device — said the company had been experimenting in “stealth mode” with a few publishers to explore delivery of books, magazines and other content on a tablet.
After reportedly holding back to see what Apple would do with the iPad, competitors such as HP and others have been hard at work developing their own answers to Apple’s challenge.
The rivalry between Apple and Google has become increasingly personal as the two companies have begun to compete in a growing number of areas. Google’s Android operating system has been a fast-growing alternative to the iPhone in the smartphone market, with Apple signaling that it is taking the threat seriously by filing a patent infringement lawsuit against handset maker HTC in what has been seen as an indirect assault on Google’s smartphone offerings.
While an unsurprising development given Google’s and Apple’s increasing overlap, a Google tablet would offer yet another area of direct competition between the two companies and likely escalate tensions even further.