Do you have the “new” Twitter?

If you use Twitter, then by now you’ve heard the micro-blogging, social networking site is rolling out an all-new interface. And if you’re one of the cool kids, they’ve offered you the opportunity to try it out early before they introduce it site-wide. I’ve been given preview privileges on both my blog (@podzmedia) and personal (@kellypodz) Twitter accounts. So what’s new other than the bolder logo and slick new look?

 

Tweets containing links to multimedia content will now render instant previews in a display panel on the new Twitter -- without leaving the site.

 

TwitPic Gets Paris Hilton Busted for Cocaine

Las Vegas Police arrested hotel heiress Paris Hilton last weekend for possession of .08 grams of cocaine found in her black Chanel purse. Her only defense was that the purse was borrowed from a friend. However a few days later, it was discovered that Hilton had posted a TwitPic of the purse with the caption “Love My New Chanel Purse I got Today. :)” on her Twitter feed a month and a half earlier. There went her alibi!

Paris Hilton posted this photo of a black Chanel purse to TwitPic and Twitter a month and a half before telling police it belonged to a friend after they found cocaine in it.

Charles Barkley: “People Who Use Twitter are Idiots”

“People who use Twitter are idiots,” Charles Barkley told CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo at the 21^st Annual American Century Celebrity Golf Championship. “They have no life,” he said. “I can’t take them seriously.”  Give me a break, Sir Charles! What is it with celebrities bashing the internet lately? Just a few weeks ago I told you about how Prince proclaimed that the internet was “completely over.” (read that blog)

Charles Barkley flips the bird.

Status Syncing: Twitter to MySpace, Facebook to Yahoo

A few weeks ago I wrote a blog post about how I believe smaller social networking sites shouldn’t allow their users to sync content with Facebook and Twitter because it diverts traffic away from their own sites (read that blog). Lately I’ve noticed a trend in the opposite direction, with smaller or struggling networks pulling status updates from the larger, more popular sites. The smaller sites must hope that aggregating content will give users reason to hang around on their pages longer, thus being exposed to THEIR advertising.

Synced tweets show up in the MySpace "Stream" marked with the Twitter T.

KGB Gets Windows 7, Russian Spies on Facebook!

Okay, it’s not really the KGB anymore. But the Russian Security Service made an unusual request of American-based Microsoft this week. They want the full source code to the Windows 7 operating system. Microsoft is delivering without issue. It is the company’s policy to entrust the unlocked source code of any of its products to any government that wants it. Including Russia, and even China in the past. This isn’t really all that strange. But it is ironic just a few weeks after ten Russian “spies” were discovered on American soil and sent packing back to the good old U.S.S.R.

Photos of Anna Chapman lifted from her social networking sites surfaced in the media almost immediately after her arrest.

Marketing Your Business on Facebook? You Want Fans, Not Friends!

It’s no secret that social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter have become one of the most popular, not to mention least expensive, ways to promote your business online. In the rush to jump on the social networking bandwagon though, many businesses are making a fatal mistake in establishing their presence on Facebook. Instead of setting up Facebook “fan pages,” they’re using personal Facebook accounts. Using regular Facebook accounts to promote your business is against the Facebook terms of service. They can and will shut down business pages for making this error!

Administrate your "pages" on Facebook.

Sub-Smartphones are Dropping Like Flies!

This week we saw the product death of two major lines of mobile phones that were slightly less than what we expect from modern smartphones. In a world where the apps-driven Apple iPhone and Google Android mobile phones rule the marketplace, the Microsoft Kin and T-Mobile Sidekick lines just didn’t cut it.

Microsoft Kin 1 and Kin 2

July 4 – Celebrating Our Digital Freedom

This weekend is the Fourth of July… Independence Day… the federal holiday celebrating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, thus declaring the United States free from the Kingdom of Great Britain. But things have calmed down a little since the 18^th century; and we’re on better terms with England now than we used to be. So the holiday has become a celebration of our freedom as Americans in general. Recent events in the tech press got me thinking: as Americans we also benefit from certain digital freedoms not as easily enjoyed in other parts of the world.

UPDATE – Facebook Blocks Twitter’s Friend Finding Feature

Earlier this week Facebook blocked the new feature of Twitter’s Facebook application that allowed users to find friends on both sites. Last week I wrote a blog post about how I believe smaller social networking sites should not allow their users to sync content with Facebook and Twitter because it diverts traffic away from their own sites (read that blog). I concluded by suggesting that the best way to leverage the huge user bases of Facebook and Twitter is to use the larger sites to invite friends to engage on the smaller networks.

Ruidoso Man-cation Reveals Mobile Internet Addiction

This weekend I spent a few nights in Ruidoso, New Mexico with five guy friends. It was to be the ultimate dude’s trip. Fishing, horse races, gambling, beer drinking, grilling, and a beard-growing contest. No women, no work, and no 3G internet connection… Wait. No 3G?!? I was not prepared for the fact that the high mountains and dense tree coverage around our cabin outside of town would cut my iPhone and I off from the hive mind.