Jianjun’s Blog

Like Facebook, one of the charming features of Twitter is its extendability. Although standard Twitter functions are kind of limited, third-party applications make up for this perfectly. Here are some of the services I used and liked:

1. If you think text tweets are too boring and would like to share your snapshots on-site occasionally, give brightkite a try. Brightkite allows you to post your current location, notes or pictures via web, SMS (if in the US) or MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) - as an email.You may choose to link your brightkite and Twitter accounts so each time your update on brightkite, a new tweet appears on Twitter. Brightkite has a privacy option so you can always control how detailed your location should be shown to whom. Brightkite is currently in Beta and you need to wait for an invitation to participate. If you can’t get one from their website, leave me a message here. I’ll send one to your email on an availability basis.
2. Ever wondered who’s been following when you didn’t get follower notification? Or are you feeling frustrated when someone unfollows you after you followed them back? With Twitter Karma, in just a few clicks you will find all those information plus a couple of other functions.
3. If you are one of those twitterbuds who can’t stop tweeting even during sleep, here’s a good one for you. Tweetlater sends out pre-scheduled tweets at your own local time. You may also use it as a reminder service tweeting to yourself. But this only works when you use, again, a third-party service notifying you of such tweets. Another use of Tweetlater is auto-follow your new followers. However, since Twitter spammers are on the rise, take the risk when you use this.
4. Did you know many of the most active Twitter users don’t visit Twitter website to interact with other friends? There are many Twitter ‘enhancement’ applications, one of which is Thwirl. Thwirl is an Abode Air application that sits in your system tray. Besides all standard Twitter functions, it also gives you a sound alert when @yourusername appears in the middle of someone’s tweet body. This is a great addition. Twitter by default doesn’t send the message to your ‘reply’ tab unless @yourusername comes first in a tweet. Some other nice functions:
   • re-tweeting a useful message, spreading it far and wide;
   • keyword-searching twitterland messages;
   • shortening long URLs with snurl;
   • picture-sharing via TwitPic.

There are many other great Twitter extensions. But since I didn’t have a chance to try them out, I won’t be able to cover them until I update this post later.

Nice tweeting…

Twitter is a popular social communication or microblogging platform where people update their current status using less than 140 characters.

Most users use a Twitter client such as Twhirl or Twitter web interface to send and receive ‘tweets’. But Twitter also offers an SMS service, which works just as your usual mobile SMS. You won’t be charged a dime unless you send them out. You may choose to receive a particular person’s updates or only Direct Messages (DM). You can also set it to ‘Sleep’ during certain hours. Local Twitter SMS numbers:

USA 40404
Canada 21212
India 5566511

International users may enable their mobile device via Twitter’s UK number: +447624801423.

Visit http://twitter.com/devices (after you logged in) to enable your phone to receive/send SMS messages from/to Twitter.

To receive a particular person’s tweets, go to that person’s profile page and choose so.

Happy tweeting!

*Update*

Twitter has stopped sending SMS messages to my mobile in China since a few days ago.

*Update-1*

Twitter recently experienced quite some technical glitches. But the good news is SMS service is back. Now you should be able to enjoy it for free again.

Referred by a friend on Seesmic, the other day I tried out ooVoo (http://ooVoo.com) on my desktop. It’s an application similar to Skype, but features a lot more video functions. Besides one-on-one video chats and calls, you may also hold group video conversations with up to 6 ooVoo participants and 6 phone participants.

Have you ever been craving for a function on Skype to record phone calls? With ooVoo, not only can you do that, but also with the videos of both parties! It’s something like you see on a TV interview, with both the host and the distant party video windows showing up on the screen.

Another step forward beyond Skype is the ability to record video clips, which you can post to your blog, embed on your web site or send to your friends as an E-mail attachment. If you want something fancy, there are also hundreds of effects from Webcammax included to enhance your video. Use distorting mirror effects to surprise your friend, or put on a mask to fake Harry Potter.

The beta release promised free phone calls to any landline or mobile numbers in the US and Canada through March 1st, 2008. I made a few calls and the sound quality is quite satisfactory.

ooVoo web site is currently partially localized into several languages, including Simplified Chinese. The client software is available in these languages too. I evaluated its Chinese translation in the software, while the general translation is good - much better than Skype’s, there’s still room to improve.

For example: “Click Record to Start” is translated into 单击“录制”以开始录制, the character 以 is redundant and the repetition of 录制 sounds stiff. It could be rendered as 单击“录制”键开始 (Click Record button to Start) - I added “button” because there’s only a Red button on that screen instead of text “Record”. This small change could make Chinese users “feel” easier when using the software - or if you really want to emphasize Start Recording: 单击“录制”键开始录像 (Click Record button to start recording), this way a repetition can still be avoided.

Of course, you can’t expect ooVoo beta to be perfect. For example, it lacks some useful features Skype has. The public chat function on Skype is something I can’t dispense with. In my daily job, localization team members use it to facilitate communication on issues during i18n. A temporary group chat is not as convenient when such work lasts for a long time or on a regular basis. ooVoo could also interfere with other video recording software. When it is running in the background, you could lose your voice in another video recording process.

Feel free to add me on ooVoo: zjjtrans