A daily digest of IT news, curated from blogs, forums and news sites around the web each morning. We highlight the key commentary and demystify the real story.
Mixed emotions after the unveiling of the new Twitter web client. The majority of users, use the web -- not fancy 3rd-party apps. In IT Blogwatch, bloggers decide if they love or hate #newtwitter.
Your humble blogwatcher curated these bloggy bits for your entertainment. Not to mention Photoshopping a famous image...
Brian Solis kicks us off:
By the time you read this, you may already find a special alert ... inviting you to click to try the new Twitter. ... A change to Twitter.com was imminent to grow the footprint of social medias favorite little giant. ... Tweets are on the rise. Twitter reports over 90 million Tweets per day.
...
Twitter is switching to a two-column dashboard ... a shift in design ... to keep your eyes on the stream without straying to far from the flow. ... You can now view embedded photos, videos, and location directly on Twitter. ... Twitters new design also means business. ... Rich media isnt the only thing well see in these free spaces.
Erica Naone puts it another way:
Twitter users often post links to pictures and videos. ... [It] will pull those onto the page so that people don't have to leave to view that content. ... This [is] in part through partnerships with companies that provide these services.
...
[It] will also provide contextual information for tweets, giving users related posts ... [and] make it easier to see profile information about who has posted a tweet. ... The changes ... suggest a focus on the aesthetics of the site that Twitter historically hasn't had time for.
But Mitch Wagner is disappointed:
We live in a society that's too fragmented, too consumer-oriented. We don't know who our neighbors are, we lose touch with our friends and family. ... Social networks are hugely important in that they provide means to connect people with each other, and encourage people to create things and share.
...
That's far more important than becoming yet another channel for celebrity gossip.
Ex-Twitter employee Alex Payne is "filled with a mix of excitement, resentment, pride, and dread":
If you scratch the surface of what was announced, you can quickly see why its such a milestone. ... [It] clearly aims the company towards mass market success. ... [It] encourages a kind of deep exploration ... that has previously only been exposed in bits and pieces by third-party applications.
...
As an early employee who heard a lot of internal discussion about monetization strategies ... Twitters accelerating turn towards ... the typical Silicon Valley ad play ... is, on some level, a little disappointing. But ... its clearly the most pragmatic way for Twitter to capitalize on its substantial and growing network.
Meanwhile, Rex Hammock would prefer to see a federated Twitter:
Im all for Twitter, the business, growing as big as it can go ahead and steamroll everything in your path, for all I care.
...
But [if] Twitter, the medium ... continues to be owned by one company, its on a collision course with the brickwall destiny all such monopolies hit one day.
Richi Jenningsis an independent analyst/consultant, specializing in blogging, email, and security. A cross-functional IT geek since 1985, you can follow him as @richi on Twitter, pretend to be richij's friend on Facebook, or just use good old email: itbw@richij.com.
