twitter

I have tried Twitter on many occasions in the past and I can even use EQO for Twitter updates, but Twitter has never stuck for me.  Today, I was reading the blog of social media guru Chris Brogan (as a customer evangelist ought to do) whose Twitter Revisited post inspired me to give Twitter another shot.  Earlier in the day I had even watched this Jeremy Owyang video with Guy Kawasaki (another customer evangelist hero of mine), which made mention of Twitter and its usefulness.  It really seemed to me like all the cool nerds were on Twitter, convincing me to give it another shot.  I posted a couple of Tweets and then decided to follow Chris Brogan.  Turns out I am his three thousands follower, resulting in a personal thanks.  Immediately after and likely because of said incident, a few more people decided to follow me.  Cool, instant gratification indeed.  I'm going to give Twitter a serious shot now, for at least a week:)  Anybody interested in Twittering with me, my id is chriseqo.  Looking forward to the Tweets!

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist

When I heard today that Google bought Jaiku I wasn't surprised. Jaiku is my lifestreaming application of choice and their Symbian app is awesome. They clearly have a knack for UI design and likely have as much native Symbian experience as anyone out there. What with Google's recent mobile push, I immediately figured Google was after Jaiku's mobile app. I expressed this view in the office and was immediately rebuffed.

The overwhelming opinion was that Google is looking to get into lifestreaming (or activity streaming), which raises the question "Why not Twitter?". Twitter is the lifestreaming champ at the moment, thanks largely to their brilliant API, and its founder, Evan Williams, previously worked at Google after his company Blogger was acquired. I went online and found out that the very same debate was going on quite prominently on the web. Mashable asks the same questions, O'Reilly echoes my view, but an email from Jaiku pointing to an acquisition FAQ clears things up a bit:

Q: Why did Google acquire Jaiku?

A: Activity streams and mobile presence are important areas where we believe Google can add a lot of value for users. Jaiku's technology and talented team are a great addition to Google's current application and mobile teams.

Well, there you go; there are the activity steams, the mobile aspect, and Jaiku was probably cheaper. Jaiku has also closed its doors to new users indicating they are looking to improve before they scale again. Having already signed up, I am one of the lucky ones that gets to keep using the service. Personally, I don't depend on Jaiku so I don't have many friends or post many updates. I've just been using it out of curiosity and for occasional amusement. Now that Google has grand designs for it and it's a private beta, I'll probably be watching it much more closely. I welcome new friends, my id is chriseqo if you want to add me. I'll see you on JaigoogKu.

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist

I came across a genius post today indicating that you can use EQO Mobile for Twitter updates: Posting to Twitter from your Phone with EQO Mobile. Thank you to Rob Rogers of Digital Streets for enlightening us! While I know there are many ways of sending twitter updates from a phone, this is just one more thing you can do with EQO Mobile, which already provides MVoIP, Messaging, and IM. I already had Twitter on my Google Talk contact list and am now using EQO Mobile to send Twitter updates using our IM Chat. Give it a shot, it's cool.

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist