When The Vortex is ignored, it grows unwieldy. I had to write this just to clean out my link file.

-Buzz buzz buzz. Is this Google’s tacit apology for Wave? A knockoff of FriendFeed? Something I just can’t get excited about, no matter how hard I try? Call me naive, shortsighted or just plain dumb – I don’t get it. I cannot possibly fit one more stream into my day. And I rarely access Gmail in my browser. Plug it into my Facebook feed and then I could understand it a bit better. But how is it supposed to fit into my existing stream? No really, I’m asking – someone tell me!

**Update – They’re now being sued for it.

-I should start a regular column on the location apps market, as news is emerging almost constantly these days. While Foursquare’s traffic tripled in two months (that’s a hell of a stat), BusinessWeek declared it dead in the water. (Note to BizWeek: see ‘personalization of mobile experience’ for a hint.) My favorite though is the robbery meme that popped up yesterday, thanks to the launch of pleaserobme.com. I get the point they’re trying to make and yes, of course, we need to be cognizant about posting vacation notices to the public. But the cynic in me awaits the inevitable security solution the site’s creators are sure to pitch us.

-Just to prove to you I’m not a total grump, check out this advice on staying present in our bizarre new century. There’s some interesting stuff in here, like committing to ‘single-tasking’ and keeping fewer tabs open.

Apps on the Radar

-If you’ve been to SXSW before, you know what a corn maze it can become. There are 10,000 panels, sessions, and parties to navigate, not to mention all the unofficial parties. I’m already needing a nap, just typing that. But a super-slick iPhone app has come out that does everything short of passing out your business card. What would make it even better is actual times connected to each session. But hey, I’m a control freak.

-Appsaurus may be old news but I’ve just stumbled upon it. Seems just the cure for those of us with iPhoneAppItis. (Sorry).

-If you have young ‘uns, you’ll care about this app. If you don’t, keep movin’.

-I’m a bit perplexed that there’s an entire app genre devoted to pretend-you’re-cooking games. Then again, it may be fun. For, you know, the ladies.

I accidentally hit the keyboard and typed ‘grr’ at the start of this post but considered keeping it. It’s been that kind of week, don’t you think?

–I should’ve seen it coming when my recent Foursquare vs Gowalla post became one of the most-read posts on our blog. Location-based apps are going to be one of the most hotly contested markets in tech this year. Yelp knocked the sector for a loop last week when it rolled out check-ins, though it remains to be seen exactly what they plan to do with the info. Part of the point of Foursquare and Gowalla is the gaming aspect, so Yelp would need to construct another layer on top of an already crowded product.

And then there’s CauseWorld, which surprisingly few people are talking about. Launched in December, CauseWorld turns the location game into good works, giving you “karma points” for checking in. You can then donate sponsors’ money to causes via those karma points. (The company has a special Haiti promotion going on right now). It’s a great way to turn iPhone silliness into something truly meaningful in the real world.

Keep a close eye on this space. I doubt this will be the last we’ll hear of new entrants and updates.

–Some sort of nonsense is happening next Tuesday in San Francisco and I’m so annoyed at the buildup that, by this point, it better turn out to be a flippin’ robot that makes me pancakes.

–Am I the only one who thinks this is a really bad idea? In the first place, if I want to know the national debt, I’ll type that into Google. Second – and most important – I’m having enough trouble keeping up with the tweets of everyone I follow. The last thing I need is to have their personal searches added to the noise. I am a huge advocate of evolving Twitter but this ain’t it.

On that note, it’s somewhat surprising to me how few evolutions of Twitter I’ve seen. Is anyone building on this technology to harness its potential value? Can I christen that a hot topic for 2010 in the hopes that it will catch on? And mind you, I don’t mean Twitter tools. There are an abundance of apps/sites that utilize the API to measure your influence or impact or whom you should block. I’m looking for someone who’s working on the next version of Twitter, in a sense. Let me know in the comments or ping me – carla [at] guidewiregroup [dot] com.

Now that I’ve allowed this to degenerate into a rambling wish list, I’ll take my leave. Happy weekend everyone.

The Vortex is our bastard child here at The Guidewire, always changing names and directions and never quite knowing where it belongs. The heavy focus on the foibles of the technosphere – its most recent iteration – grew tiresome. The industry seems to be growing up again, and the little boys that ran around marking their territory have been forced to mature in a down economy.

Chris nailed it the other day, calling it the “Post Web 2.0 Malaise.” We’re in a valley between tech revolutions right now and during valleys, the power structure shifts and new voices arise. The tonal shift will be away from egos and individuals and toward revolutions, innovations, ideas. There are some exciting winds stirring in the tech world. In 2010, I think we’ll all be focused on bigger pictures.

So in keeping with all that bluster, I’m evolving this weekly wrap-up into something broader. At its simplest, it’s nothing more than a look at my Read It Later list from that week – stuff I thought was interesting and bookmarked for later. But a larger value is to take all those links and look at what ties them together. So what did the week of December 14 reveal about the tech world? Well…

*Facebook has a potential catastrophe on its hands. Or a goldmine; depends on how smart they are. The release of its new privacy policies this week raised the hackles of many, primarily because it caused uncomfortable realizations. I doubt I’m alone in saying that both my business and personal life are starting to revolve more around the service. (Lack of access to my account on Wednesday literally prevented me from working.) Marshall Kirkpatrick’s call for a release of the data is the first drumbeat, I think, in what could be a long and potentially ugly saga. We’ve handed over a large portion of our lives to these folks; what are they going to do with it?

*A shakeup in online music looks to be on the horizon. Apple acquired Lala and Spotify made a splash at LeWeb. (Louis Gray is raving about Spotify.) All signs are pointing to the end of stored music on your devices.

*You’re going to be on the phone a lot next year. In one way or another. The 2010 prediction pieces are starting to hit and ‘mobile’ is littered about them like confetti. Ravit Lichtenberg offers her thoughts on social media trends for next year while Milennial Media held mobile as its sole focus. And to keep you on your toes, the security sector has threat predictions.

*You should watch some Christmas specials next week. If you’re not a Charlie Brown fan, amble through bizarre specials from Christmas past on Mental Floss. (And be sure to watch the groovy 70s commercials.)

Oh and a Simpsons arcade game from EA is coming soon to the iPhone. Happy Holidays!

I’ve spent the last seven days trapped in the house with two sick children, which means I have more links piled up than I know what to do with, and my fuse is shorter than Balloon Boy’s 15 minutes (too soon?). So if I offend anyone, deal with it. This Vortex will also have to tide you over for a bit, as I am moving to Austin next week (whoop!) and will be offline. Now that you know far too much about my personal life, on to technology.

News from the Social Media Vortex

–This is biased but I don’t care. If you haven’t read Chris Shipley’s response to the latest Calacanis rant on angel investors, please do so posthaste. Surprise – she actually agrees with him! But she has some fun with it too.

–If a Nordic country falls from the Internet and no one notices, does it make a sound? Due to a typo in a script, Sweden dropped completely off the Interwebs for an hour and a half Monday night.

–Comic book fans now have reason to join Twitter. Neil Gaiman is conducting a storytelling experiment on the service, enlisting followers to help him create an audiobook. Madlibs for nerds, if you will.

–In news that surely made old-media stalwarts curl into the fetal position, the Huffington Post passed the LA Times and Washington Post in site traffic this week.

–It’s pretty hard to win the Worst. Post. Ever. award. When you consider the millions of blog posts that appear each week – many of which feature piano-playing cats – one would have to write something really painfully awful to win this award. So let’s all send hearty congratulations to John Biggs at MobileCrunch.

Apps on the Radar

–Jason Meserve pointed me to the super-cool AutoStitch app, which lets you create panoramic pictures on your iPhone.

–During a search for a friend, I was referred to Get Apps Done, something of a clearing house for iPhone app developers and the people who need them.  Love stuff like this – a simple, logical concept that is needed by a large group of people.

–Were it 1989, I’d be excited about this.

–And finally, thanks to Apple’s new policy allowing developers to build paid upgrades into free applications, the follow-up (or part of it at least) to hugely popular game Rolando is now available for free.

Tweet of the Week

–It’s rare that the winner triumphs so easily but you’d be hard-pressed to trump Billy Ray Cyrus this week. After his daughter Miley threatened to leave Twitter, he responded with this:

Miley. You are a light in a world of darkness. You were born “Destiny Hope Cyrus” for a reason. You can’t leave everyone now. We r countin on u.

If I’d known the messiah was going to come in the form of an autotuned child star, I’d have watched more Disney Channel.

No, I don’t have a Google Wave invite yet. Yes, I’m bitter. But Scoble has already pronounced it a loser, so there’s no need to try it out now, right?

News from the Social Media Vortex

–GoogleWaveGoogleWaveGoogleWave – the technosphere can talk of nothing else this week. While every lame surfing/nautical pun imaginable is being employed by bloggers, the actual merits of the technology remain to be seen. A more interesting development is the emergence of the Wave spammer/blackmailer/link-whorer, individuals who dangled invites to the service in exchange for endless retweets and follows on Twitter. And yes, I’ll admit to participating in one. (@AaronNeale, I’m still waiting.) If anyone would like to give me an invite, I’ll say something nice about you in The Vortex next week.

God, I’ve resorted to begging. I hope you’re all happy.

–Let’s get philosophical, shall we? Joel Postman had an excellent piece a couple of weeks ago on Social Media Today, in which he applies the thoughts of Marshall McLuhan, Socrates, and Einstein, among others, to social media. This would make a fascinating book; something along the lines of The Simpsons and Philosophy. And yes, I own that.

–So this is pretty funny. What happens when celebrities immerse themselves in a technology they don’t completely understand? Justine Bateman, that’s what. Seems that our beloved Mallory didn’t catch on to a new re-tweeting feature in Twitter and hurled expletives in response. After a similar incident with her Tumblr account, you’d think she would hire someone to explain this Interwebs thing to her.

Apps on the Radar

–Not an app, per se, but something I will be purchasing immediately. Duracell has an instant charger for any USB-compatible device that juices up your battery-sucking iPhone on the go. And it’s only $20.

–Are you on Aardvark yet? I’ve been using this nifty little question-and-answer service for months and love it. Now that they’ve made an iPhone app, you have no excuse.

–News junkies should check out this Wired post on news apps that personalize the news for you. Twitter Times seems especially interesting.

Tweet of the Week

…and a fun new ID to follow. @Artwiculate holds a daily contest in which followers create the best tweet using a given word. Yesterday’s winner, for the use of ‘oeuvre,’ was @routermonkey who said, “After mastering french, bi-fold and dutch doors, the carpenter was proud to add louvered to his oeuvre.”

But the tweet of the week goes to @novaspivack, in a perfect illustration of why I love semantics geeks:

Question … has anyone computed all valid English sentences of 140 characters? How many are there.. ballpark…?

Let me get right back to you on that one, Nova.

Mr. Hyde it is. Dr. Jekyll was always the boring one, don’t you agree?

News from the Social Media Vortex

–The technosphere was thrown into a tizzy (no really, they were) over the news that Facebook will include @mentions in your status updates. It’s being spun as an !attack on Twitter! So everyone choose your side. There will be no mercy for ambivalence.

–David McCandless has developed the fascinating and fun Hierarchy of Digital Distractions. Print it out, laminate it, and carry it in your wallet for those moments when you’re not sure whether to retweet or answer the phone.

–I was going to mention this last week but thought the post was already too Twitter-laden. Check out What The Trend, a super-handy reference that explains the reasoning behind mystifying Twitter trends. The minds behind it are also not above editorial comments; check out the explanation for “Michael” today.

–So you know Julia Allison? Yeah, I don’t really either. But she’s managed to make a name for herself as… um, I honestly don’t know what to call her. An Internet celebrity? The point is -  and this is admittedly coming solely from her – she is paid $4 a word for writing… something. We’re not quite sure what that is either. So to sum up: someone you’ve never heard of is being paid an obscene amount of money to write some sort of column for an unknown entity. That, my friends, is what The Vortex is all about!

Apps on the Radar

Yes, there were new Apple releases this week but they were pretty boring. I think the biggest “announcement” to come out of Wednesday was that Steve Jobs continues to soldier on.

–Flickr finally arrived on the iPhone, letting you shoot pics and video on your phone and upload directly to the site.

–Football season is here (woo hoo!) and my favorite sports app, Sportacular, had a nice recent upgrade for the iPhone that includes push notifications. Louis Gray prefers ESPN’s app but he’s just plain wrong. Shall we settle it with a duel?

–Facebook Lite is here, for those times when you… I don’t know, need more white space. Do with it what you will.

–And if you’re like me, you love a good pandemic, so check out CNET’s round-up of swine flu apps for your iPhone. When the media isn’t whipping you into enough of a frenzy, fire up the CDC News Reader or, even better, Outbreaks Near Me to complete your hysteria.

Tweet of the Week

–Alex Iskold wins the prize, with a tweet sent mere moments ago. And one that makes me wonder where he’s choosing to school his children.

Picking up kids from school. Weird, it smells like scotch around here.

Here’s hoping your weekend is filled with inappropriately placed scotch fumes.

Wait!! I almost forgot to mention – if you own a Kindle, do me a solid and fill out this survey. I’m doing a usability study for a client and could really use your opinions. Once you’re done with that, you can resume your drinking.

It’s funny – I started this weekly wrap-up to skewer the insanity of the technosphere. It’s an odd little world that thinks an awful lot of itself and needs a dose of reality on a regular basis. But sometimes I just can’t muster the energy to make fun of Scoble’s latest rant, or whatever that week’s kerfuffle is. And, as you may have noticed, these posts have been drifting more towards actual news updates and app reviews. So I’ll put the question to my small but faithful group of readers: which Vortex do you like better – Jekyll’s or Hyde’s?  (If you need a prompt, Hyde was the evil one.) In the meantime…

–Robert Scoble thinks Twitter is worth “five to ten billion dollars.” Sigh.

–Sarah Lacy is mad at Brazil because she didn’t get her visa arranged in time. The only thing missing from this temper tantrum is the sound of stamping feet.

–We’ve all done it but John Hodgman did it in spades. What was meant as a direct message on Twitter instead went out to his 82,000+ followers – his cell phone number.

–Yeah, this site is petty and mean. But gosh, it’s funny.

And with that, I’ll leave you to a happy holiday weekend. Step away from the computer, get some sun, and meet me back here next week.

Perhaps it’s the end-of-summer quiet but there wasn’t a lot of technosphere silliness this week – just actual news! Don’t get too comfortable; September is just around the corner.

News from the Social Media Vortex

–It’s America’s Funniest Home Videos for the 21st century. YouTube is now giving revenue share to uploaders of hit videos. Once a video gets a certain number of viewings, YouTube will offer to put ads around it and give you a cut of the profits. So get that cat on the piano pronto and start counting the dollars.

–The big kerfuffle of the week resulted in the word “skank” being tossed around with abandon. So that’s fun. Model Liskula Cohen won a lawsuit against Google, forcing the company to reveal the identity of an anonymous blogger who called her a skank and other unseemly things. The ruler could have much broader ramifications for blogging; could this be the beginning of the end for trolling?

Apps on the Radar

–If you haven’t already heard that the new Facebook iPhone app is here, you likely don’t need it.

–If you’re a hardcore Firefox user, check out SmarterFox. It has a plethora of browser tricks that will make IE seem even quainter. (Jessica’s slideshow here gives a good overview.)

–Frequent fliers should check out WorldMate, an app that creates automatic itineraries from your fowarded travel confirmations. There’s a free and paid version, the latter of which gives push notification of flight delays. Yeah, you think you won’t need this. And then you meet the Dublin airport.

–The unfortunately named CommuTweet (aren’t you expecting updates from Karl Marx?) lets users tweet about traffic jams in which they’re sitting. Kind of a “it’s too late for me but save yourselves” sort of thing.

–16Apps pokes its nose into your Twitter stream (or Last.fm or FriendFeed) and then recommends iPhone apps for you. From my updates, it surmised that I curse, drink beer and am into politics. Wow. I sound like a real winner.

Tweet of the Week

–Why didn’t I think of this? Some enterprising fellow created the Twitter id @shitmydadsays and it’s as funny as you think it will be. I had a hard time picking just one tweet so go read the whole stream. But this one made me giggle a bit more than the others: “Your brother brought his baby over this morning. He told me it could stand. It couldn’t stand for shit. Just sat there. Big let down.”

I’m much less cranky this week, I promise. Plus, it was a pretty slow news week so there are more fun apps to tell you about than egos to deflate.

News from the Social Media Vortex

–There’s never a lack of pope-wears-a-funny-hat items in the technosphere. This week, it’s the discovery that “well-known” bloggers aren’t much known outside of Palo Alto. Mark Dykeman did some number crunching based on Google Blog Search results and found that household names in the blog world don’t necessarily equal household names in the real world. Check out his handy table for full results.

–CNN ran a funny piece on the 12 most annoying Facebookers. It’s pretty spot on and I couldn’t help categorizing my friends, and myself, as I read it. Post it on your wall and see if any status updates change for the better.

–And the latest Twitter parody is Woofer, a “macroblogging” service that requires a minimum of 1400 characters to post. Or as some call it, standard prose.

Apps on the Radar

–If you’re a fan of Qik like I am, you’ll be happy to hear that it’s finally arrived on the iPhone. Though of course you need the new 3G S for it to work.

–If your Tumblr account hasn’t been updated since, oh say, early June, maybe the new Facebook Connect integration will prompt you to get off your lazy bum and post something.

–The Google Wave preview opens to the public September 30th. Wheee! I am stupidly excited about this but can’t precisely explain why.

–The TomTom Navigation app is now up in iTunes. I could really use this app but will need to read more in-depth reviews before I fork over $99.

–In my ongoing search for a great iPhone news app, I’m encouraged by Mashable’s rave review of the NPR app. Doesn’t look like it has push technology for breaking news yet, but still worth trying out.

–And finally, check out Spider posthaste. Reviewers are fawning all over it, calling it one of the most ingenious games yet devised for the iPhone.

Tweet of the Week

–Thanks to one of my favorite tweeters @rainnwilson for notifying me that Paris Hilton now has a verified Twitter account. If I’m not careful, she could easily sweep tweet of the week regularly.

“On my way to go visit some of the most poverty stricken villages in Central America. Going to be a very emotional day, God bless them all.”  No, Paris, God bless you.

I’ve been awash in home-selling negotiations this week so I’m particularly cranky. You’ve been warned.

News from the Social Media Vortex

–As you’re well aware by now, Facebook acquired FriendFeed this week. Allow me to couch that: you’re well aware of this news only if you live in your browser. For those who frequent FriendFeed, though, it was like George Bush had been elected to a third term. Teeth were gnashed, tears were shed and exclamation points were employed with abandon. With characteristic good humor, FriendFeed set up a FestivusFeed on its site to allow for the airing of grievances.

I’ve been a long-time fan of FriendFeed and certainly understand the disappointment of a service’s community insiders. But the bottom line is that FriendFeed is a business that needs money to survive. Anyone who assumed that the site would exist as is in perpetuity needs to sign up for Economics 101 at your local community college. FriendFeed is an ingenious technology with a super-smart team that deserves to be seen and utilized by a much larger audience. Congratulations you guys – very well deserved. I can’t wait to see how far you go in Facebook.

–Marco Arment, Tumblr developer and Instapaper creator, took on Jason Calacanis this week, dissecting Calacanis’ I’ve-Decided-to-Hate-Apple post, picking apart the vast amount of circular, confusing and sometimes preposterous reasoning. There may have been a sound point or two in Calacanis’ post but those were overshadowed by his suggestion that we should activate multiple wireless services for one phone. Rather than defending his assertions, Calacanis instead “zinged” Marco by saying he needed a Wikipedia page and ending with a “for realz.” The really fun part? Jason did this on his personal Tumblr page.

–In related news, a Pear Analytics study found that 40% of Twitter updates are “pointless babble.”

Apps on the Radar

–Customers of USAA Bank will soon be able to deposit checks via iPhone, by taking a photograph of the front and back of the check. The actual check never even needs to be submitted. USAA is a small bank but their customers are primarily military personnel so they’re smartly adapting to fit client needs. Tech companies should take heed.

-AppsFire hasn’t been approved by iTunes yet but I’m hoping they jump on it. The iPhone app allows users to share favorite apps via email, something I’m surprised Apple didn’t come up with to begin with.

Tweet of the Week

–I fully admit to lifting this from the top slot on tweetingtoohard. But can you blame me? “I swear to g-d I can’t relate to most of society. I’m on a whole different level of consciousness.Its all so [censored] obvious. Wake the [censored] up.” – Loren Feldman

Wow. I need a shower after writing this one. Happy weekend, all.