News from the Social Media Vortex

–GoogleWaveGoogleWaveGoogleWave – the technosphere can talk of nothing else this week. While every lame surfing/nautical [...]]]> 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.

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 [...]]]> 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.