Twitter cancel SMS delivery in Europe
Twitter have finally done the sensible thing and cancelled SMS delivery outside of Canada, India, or the United States and hurrah for it.
This cost most have been a serious drain on the company and has been mentioned by lots of people including myself as a worrying cost factor in the future development of twitter.
“It pains us to take this measure. However, we need to avoid placing undue burden on our company and our service. Even with a limit of 250 messages received per week, it could cost Twitter about $1,000 per user, per year to send SMS outside of Canada, India, or the US. It makes more sense for us to establish fair billing arrangements with mobile operators than it does to pass these high fees on to our users”
If this secures and safeguards the future of twitter I for one am delighted and congratulate Biz and the guys for making this move sooner rather than latter.
Irish web awards launched
News just in from Damien Mulley that the Moviestar.ie sponsored Irish web awards have now officially launched.
Its a typical Mulley run event, all inclusive with a rockstar feel and having attended the Mulley organized Irish blog awards this year I suggest you grab a ticket while they are available.
More below
“Finally got the press release out the door earlier this morning for the Moviestar.ie Web Awards on October 11th. Nominations open very soon. Like the Blog Awards it’s a two stage affair. Stage 1 will see every nominated (and nominations are free) website get judged using a scorecard. Specific scorecards for each category will then be used in Stage 2 by the judges. An awful lot of work went into making sure that the scorecard was good enough to keep the staunch standardistas and the pragmatists happy and I hope that concentrating on these important areas will help push for better websites in Ireland.
The category list is here and interest in category sponsorship is already strong. Wahey! Not everyone will be happy with the list and will want their own niche included but for year one, we’re content with going with that list. Changes as always will happen the next year. Sponsors cannot be nominated either to ensure transparency. We hope the 11th of October will be a fun night. Leave the tux at home folks, it’s more fun without it”
iPhone 3G cracked
Well today was the day and all went well in the end.
Its a real simple process and you are not interfering with the phone itself in anyway whatsoever. Watch the QIK below and you will see an iPhone 3G running on Vodafone 3G
I have tried every option so far and none of them worked but I got a sample pack a few weeks ago from SIMable and decided to try that, it worked first time and with a little bit of chopping and changing I have the phone running on 3G vodafone.
I have one SIMable to give away, leave a comment if you want it and I will pick one comment
Disclaimer
SIMable tell me they aren’t guaranteeing anything on iPhone, I made now changes except on 3G and it worked first time.
Twitterfone V2 is live
This has been a while coming
The team has been working on this around the clock for a month and we are finally happy with it.
What’s new?
Well you can see a full demo below and here’s another one from Michael Arrington of Techcrunch
well you can now listen to you tweets, send an @ or send a direct
I really like the new features and have been surprising friends with directs for last few weeks.
Lots more to come including one really big piece of news
TwitterFone – Now you can listen too from TwitterFone on Vimeo.
Press Release
Twitterfone becomes more social, outlines expansion plans
Twitterfone, the service that allows you to call/phone in your message to twitter has announced new add-ons to their popular service.
The new additions to Twitterfone now allow people to listen to the last 10 messages from their friends all via their phone and directly respond to these messages or send a private message their followers.
Speaking about the new changes, Twitterfone CEO Pat Phelan said:
“The main feature request from users was the ability to not just speak to Twitter but also to listen to their friends’ Twitter messages via their phone. So I’m very pleased that Twitterfone now enables two and multi-way conversations on Twitter using any phone while you’re on the move.”
Twitterfone doesn’t need to be installed on a phone, does not need to be downloaded from the iTunes Appstore and can be used on any mobile phone on the planet. You don’t even need a screen! It’s the most accessible interface for the Twitter service.
On future expansions Phelan added:
“We’ve received a huge amount of feedback from our hyper-enthused users and we hope to provide them with what they want and we’ll be seeking some outside funding to do this. Twitterfone has become something much more than the proof of concept we initially launched.
We’re really excited about the relationship we have with our users and how we’re building a better product together.
* About *
Twitterfone Inc is privately owned Twitterfone is a US corporation with operations in the USA and Ireland. Its shareholders come from a mix of technological and telecoms background. Pat Phelan of MAXroam, Florian Seroussi of Global Roaming, David Marcus of Echovox (Zong) and Sean O Sullivan/Ivan MacDonald of Dial2Do.
* Using Twitterfone v2*
How the new Twitterfone magic happens:
You dial the TwitterFone number, press 1 and now you’ll hear your friends last 10 tweets from your home page. Simple.
Replies and Private messages? No problem:
While listening to a tweet from a user, you can send an @ to them by just pressing 2 and recording your reply. Likewise you can send them a private d message by pressing 3.
* Twitterfone Statistics: *
Twitterfone is currently available in 18 countries and will expand to many more in coming months.
Over 20,000 people have signed up to Twitterfone since it launched in May
* Contact Details *
Pat Phelan is available for comment on pat@twitterfone.com or +353-87-2049121
In China for Olympics? use Jajah Babel
Jajah have released a very nice translation engine which is available by just dialling a number in USA/UK/Australia.
Jajah Babel
Jason Kincaid over at Techcrunch has given it a test drive and it definitely gets a thumbs up.
“With help from IBM, JAJAH brings down the final barrier to global communications with JAJAH.Babel, a revolutionary real-time translation service that works on any phone.
JAJAH.Babel is the first of many translation services that we will be bringing to market. The vision of JAJAH.Babel with IBM is to offer a global product to enable consumers to unleash the true power of global communications”
Now the only thing missing is a Chinese number
Well your wish is my command
If you need to do translations from China whilst visiting for the games just dial local Chinese number 215-129-4632 this should cost nothing more than a local call.
phweet.com talking on Twitter
I only tweeted it yesterday.
Suddenly I am on a call with a bunch of friends from twitter
Phweet founded by David Beckemeyer of PhoneGnome fame and Stuart Henshall works beautifully
I just entered my sip address recieved the call for free here in Spain and suddenly twitter has become a real chat channel
Well done guys, big kudos due
Pix.ie the Irish for Flickr
One of the sites which really passed me by over the last few months has been Pix.ie , I initially played around with it but as it the recipient of the Tuesday shove I had a play with it today and can report that it has passed with flying colours.
Its fast for uploading and I mean stonking fast.
I love the layout, simple to use, very straightforward,Beautiful graphics, large uploads limits and a very cool interface.
Time for me to move that flickr account over I think.
Get well soon Amy
I was sad to see Amy Winehouse in a bit of bother today again, its a tough road for her and with a father who appears to see her as a meal ticket she has her hands full.
As a recovering alcoholic (almost 10 years sober) I see a long and difficult road in front of her as long as she has these people at her beck and call.
I am so glad that tough love was used on me and I ended up in a bedsit with a bottle crying my eyes out most days wondering why the world had turned against me, not allowed to see my sons, not even able to provide for them and disowned by my parents the only way was up.
I wondered into an AA room was loved and cared for until I could do it for myself.
The early years were incredibly tough with not a lot of breaks but things improved albeit very slowly.
I remember the first time I was allowed to take my sons to town shopping on my own and the pain of handing them back that afternoon and heading back to my flat, my eyes water now even typing.
Things got better one day at a time and we are on vacation now in Spain and having a ball, even my 21yr old Son came with us.
I don’t know why I am writing like this, I suppose its out of gratitude and thanks to the man above for opening the gates of hell and letting me out.
Stick with it Amy you can do it.
Some holiday pictures
Scott with an amazing aluminium bodied Ferrari, custom built
Andrew in Puerto Banus
Andrew and Dad
Me and the boys
The high cost of breathing in Ireland?
Took my usual trip to the local Pharmacia here in Calahonda this morning to stock up for next 6 months.
Ventolin and Becotide manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline same manufacturer and brands as I get in Ireland, that’s unfortunately where the similarity ends.
Spain €7.11c
Ireland €59.42
For the same brand and both EU countries.
Who on earth is profiteering from this? anyone got any idea’s?
