Life begins at 141, RIP Twitter!

As part of my day job I get to brainstorm on how to brain storm about making our website "go viral", and participating in spreading the word about it on all the various "social networking" websites. Naturally "Twitter" is often a part of the daily conversation but I have to say so far I just don't get it and as the raucous noise of tweets and twits rises to a cacophony I'm more and more convinced that Twitter is getting close to jumping the shark, if it hasn't already and reading this Alternet article did nothing to diminish that feeling. So as just another blogger it costs me nothing to stick my neck out and make a big prediction - Twitter is the Emperor with no clothes on, it has no merit beyond its 6 million users (and how many of those are active we have no idea) which is a tiny fraction of any dozens of other web properties.

Lets get this straight, Twitter's 140 characters limit was copied directly from text messaging limits, but text messaging is popular inspite of its technology imposed limitations, and because it was the cheapest and only alternative to expensive per minute fees for making a phone call. Now Twitter seems to sing the praise of this limit like it was some wonderful feature, meanwhile corporate America is scratching its head and trying to figure out get around the limitation to share URLs, advertising and other verbose messages. Lets face it, Twitter is just a glorified blogging service for the short of words, and a pain in the ass constriction for the rest of us that we're better off without.

There, I've said it.

'Nuff said... but you notice it took more than 140 characters!

Google Latitude info hints at Android system update "soon"

UPDATE: I discovered today that T-Mobile had already started rolling out the new G1 firmware - without any announcement that is - but people had already noticed it arriving on their phones and posting on the T-Mobile forum. T-Mobile moderators then confirmed the push and gave some details, which include the Latitude feature in Google Maps. Hopefully I'll get my update sooner rather than later - last time I think it took about two to three weeks!

After following a TechCrunch link to the new Google Latitude "track your friends" feature (that seems to be the kind of bad news Loopt isn't going to want just now) I tried to send my phone an SMS to get this on my Android powered T-Mobile G1 . Unfortunately, and somewhat expectedly, it just took me to a mobile web page on the Android browser that said "Coming soon". Obviously something like this is an ideal app for the Android platform and G1 with its integral GPS - having on the G1 is a no-brainer.

Going back to Google I then followed a "Find out more" link that took me to a Google help page which in no uncertain terms states:

Google Latitude is available on the following mobile devices wherever Google Maps for mobile v3.0 and above is supported:

- Android-powered devices with Maps v3.0 and above. G1 users in the US will be receiving Maps v3.0 in a system update soon.
- Most color BlackBerry devices
- Most Windows Mobile 5.0 and above devices. Note: Some Windows Mobile devices don't support cell-ID location detection.
- Most Symbian S60 devices

Now I know there was a huge rumor storm and fuss about "Cupcake", the supposed new Android release that would be made available to G1 users in January - but never arrived and then was dismissed by Google and T-Mobile as "not happening". However this seems like the first official word that really there will be system update soon... I guess there might be the option to update just the Maps app, but it definitely says "System Update" and not Maps update.

However if prior experience is anything to go on I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for it...