Twitter has been the subject of a LOT of tech talk. It results in three different camps of people: (1) people who get it and participate, (2) people who tried it and found it stupid, (3) people who don’t even try it. In our recent reader survey here at PCMech, we had some interesting results…54% of our readers find Twitter to be a boring...

Dave has been using Twitter (twitter.com/davidrisley) for a while now. For a time I used it (twitter.com/frostedside) but stopped citing it as useless. I tried FriendFeed but more or less hated it so stopped using microblogging services altogether. During this time Dave said to me over and over to twhirl because it works really well. I was dead set against this...

Talking about using social media for business purposes practically walks on the third rail of the Internet. A lot of people who are using social media sites like Twitter or Facebook are particularly sensitive when it appears they are being marketed to. In my opinion, the fact that Twitter users get nervous when they see a “internet marketer” use...

If you’re going to set up shop online and try to market anything, you are most definitely going to need an online identity. In fact, even if you don’t plan to use the Internet to make any money, you might want to set up an online identity. But, what do I mean when I say “online identity”? Essentially, I mean an easily identified brand on...

It took me a while before I grasped the whole concept of what social networking actually is. It’s not that I don’t understand how it works technically. It’s that I didn’t comprehend what it’s about. Said sincerely, it can get confusing. First, let’s try to define it. We’ll use Google. Google’s best definition...

When Twitter’s servers are barfing (which happens multiple times per day, we are greeted with this weird picture of a bunch of tweety birds carrying a whale. It is cute, but it doesn’t really communicate what is really happening. So, I have hereby nominate the following graphic to replace the whale. I call it: Twitter FAIL. I love Twitter, but like...

The Internet is broken up into, let’s say, two groups of people: (1) Early adopters who try everything that comes out and are on the cutting edge, and (2) everybody else. And there is a whole lot more of “everybody else” than there are people like myself (early adopters). The “everybody else” crowd hears buzzwords like Twitter but...

Yesterday at 1PM EST, the launch of Firefox 3 was on. And immediately, the Mozilla servers croaked Twitter-style. I was monitoring Twitter (as I usually do) at the time and the anticipation and buildup was something to behold. People were waiting around until 1PM to download Firefox 3. Some were doing countdowns. Then, as 1 PM hit, the race began and Twitter was...

Out of all things funded by the US Government, it seems the one place that uses pretty much anything other people use on the internet is NASA. For example, NASA has a Ustream channel and it gets massive amounts of views. Why isn’t other gov’t-funded stuff using this tech? No one knows. And now we’ve got Twitter from Mars. No, really. I’m...

I am a professional blogger. This means I am pretty tuned into the Internet and what’s happening. Social media and the whole Web 2.0 phenomenon are second nature to me. It is the same for other bloggers. But, those of us who are familiar with all this stuff make up a small percentage of the Internet. In fact, most of my readers here on PCMech (yes, that...

Have you heard of Twitter? Are you on Twitter? The opinions on Twitter vary a lot. And the reactions I get range from “What is it?” to “It is frickin’ awesome!” I do use Twitter and today I just wanted to take a moment to ask you to follow me on Twitter. My reason is below. For those in the dark on it, here are some links to...

On the vast majority of web services that offer free screen names it is expressly forbidden to sell your name to someone else. Why? It’s mainly to offset screen names turning into property that the providers can’t control, i.e. it would turn into a huge big frickin’ mess. Trust me, there are very good reasons why screen names are forbidden...

Ever heard of Twitter? If you’re a blogger or somebody in tune with social media, you probably have. If you’re one of PCMech’s computer-focused readers, then your answer probably lies somewhere between “No” and “Yeah, but it sounds stupid as hell”. Granted, Twitter will probably seem like a colossal waste of time to most...