twitter

Twitter has been great for tracking things like earthquakes, forest fires, and other natural disasters, but what about human health? SickCity, a new Twitter mashup is doing just that, by tracking people's tweets about being sick, having sore throats, and other physical maladies (like zombification). The tool lets you track these occurrences both by city and each specific ailment. And the stats go back to the last 31 days, which can show you if a certain type of sickness is trending.

Google rolled out something similar for flu trends back in November of last year, however that's based … Read more

AUSTIN, Texas--"Is that the hat, Mr. Terdiman?"

My inquisitor was Alice Taylor, a prominent British video game journalist and, like me, an attendee at the South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) festival here this week. But the bowler Taylor--whom I know through professional and social circles--had spotted on my head and was asking me about was most definitely not the hat she thought it was.

And she was hardly the only one seeing this black chapeau resting atop my dome and thinking that it was something other than a stylish headpiece. In fact, all day Monday, strangers and … Read more

Calling all Twitter users! Want to be notified when there's something new and exciting on The Cheapskate? Now you can.

To subscribe to the feed, just head to my Twitter page and click Follow. That's it!

Note that I'm still field-testing this new endeavor, so it might take a day or two before you start getting updates. In the meantime, if you like it, don't like it, or have something to say about Twitter in general, feel free to leave a comment. I'm all tweets and ears!

You know a Web app has come into its own when it gets banned in courtrooms and locker rooms.

Twitter, which went from being just another Web geek service to an Internet phenomenon lampooned on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," is now becoming a nuisance for at least two American institutions--the judicial system and the NBA.

Some judges and lawyers believe the integrity of trials is being threatened by jurors posting comments about cases on the popular microblogging service.

Lawyers for a building products company are asking an Arkansas court to overturn a $12.6 million judgment … Read more

AUSTIN, Texas--For many fans of the hit TV series "Mad Men," one of the biggest events of 2008 was the sudden emergence of a number of the show's characters on Twitter.

At first, it seemed as though whoever was posting regular tweets from within the fictionalized 1960s world of the AMC network show was doing so on behalf of the producers. But as is well known now, they were a group of people who had taken on the task themselves, and who quickly found their project shut down. As is equally well known now, a public outcry … Read more

New inspiration always floods in after a speaking appearance is over. Kicking myself for not highlighting a couple of things that were right in front of me @ my SXSW panel. Perfectly timed gifts  as usual, in this case foursquare and tweetluck. Let me explain: in the world of social cohesion messaging rules. So, any conversation around behavior change needs to respect that role. Successful behavior change requires immediate feedback, and social relationships offer the best form of encouragement. But messaging platforms are direct, not directED. We spend a lot of time in them because they are … Read more

A clarification has been added to this story. See below for details.

John McCain has come a long way, technologically, since his days on the 2008 campaign trail.

Less than a year ago, the Republican presidential hopeful admitted that he needed help logging onto the Internet. Now the 72-year-old, four-term senator is practically leading Washington's foray into the Web 2.0 realm as the subject of what ABC News claims is the first "Twitterview"-- an interview conducted entirely on Twitter.

It might be better said that this is the first such high-profile Twitterview. Interviews via Twitter, … Read more

AUSTIN, Texas--A couple of days ago I wrote a story suggesting that the Twitter saturation level here at the South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) festival was so high that the service's value was being affected.

Now, after four full days here, I think that conclusion is worth a reality check: Twitter is out-and-out dominating SXSWi.

To be sure, the massive numbers of tweets that are being posted using the "#sxsw" tag is making it more difficult for those using Twitter to find specific information than was the case at SXSWi 2007 or SXSWi 2008. But the reality … Read more

Twitter's OAuth interface is now open to all developers, enabling more secure access to the service via its application programming interface from third-party Web sites. Alex Payne, Twitter's API leader, made the announcement in--what else--a tweet Monday.

OAuth is an open standard for online authentication. It enables a user who stores information such as a password on a particular Web site to then authorize yet another site to access that data, all the while not sharing the user's identity with that site. Twitter OAuth had been offered to some developers in a closed beta a few … Read more