So, if you’re interested and want to learn more, head down to Facebook and Become a fan a get your digital twin

As you can see it’s quite similar in concept to Twhirl and it will be interesting to see Facebook users get on board with this concept. There are some interesting ideas as to why Seesmic decided to launch this as a seperate app instead of integrating it with Twhirl, but personally, my Twitter and Facebook account are linked through the Twitter Application for Facebook, so I’m not a prime user for the app. To tell you the truth, I just love the search facility in Twhirl so much I’m addicted to it now. You can specify a search term, example, “wireless alarm” and it will integrate the results directly into your Home stream, so that as soon as someone tweets something with that term, you’ll know about it. I wonder if the Facebook client does the same?

• Specs of Facebook’s Profile Redesign – interesting read which will affect millions of users. I wonder how much user feedback goes into this process. After all, nobody like a platform they’re familiar with changing under their feet without warning, do they? And don’t forget the poor developers.
• Microsoft Brand Confusion Runs Deep – Very interesting post and a real problem from Microsoft. They have generated so many brands and nomenclature over the years that there is significant confusion amongst it’s user base. Microsoft always feels like a top-heavy organisation, with too many people pulling strings and not enough people delivering to the end user.
• Google Translate becomes the best online free translator – Google Translate now supports the translation between any of the following languages: English, Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish (the new languages are shown in bold)

There was more, but those were the most interesting ones

P.S. that was my first link to Mahalo .. Jason will be so pleased ..

I attended the seminar with some work colleagues and we’ll be using some of the things we heard and trying to weave them into our services. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a huge company, Government or sell back racks for a living, you can always pick up something new by listening to somone else describe their experiences and what they have learnt. Thanks for sharing Sherrilynne.

She’s doing it again next week if anyone wants to sign up

Scrabulous is an extremely popular version of Scrabble running on Facebook and after 6 months of phenomenal growth, Hasbro has requested that the game is removed because of breach of copyright. Mashable suggests today that it’s been removed, but it could simply be an application glitch at this stage. I’m not denying that Hasbro own the rights to the game, but there are so many win-win scenarios they could spin from this situation that they are totally killing with this action.

It still amazes me though, how, instead of embracing change and using Scabulous as a way to augment sales of their board game and increase visibility of their products, Hasbro is instead stamping down on it. It wouldn’t be hard for an avid developer to capture the segment of people playing Scabulous with a similarly involving game .. one that Hasbro don’t have rights over .. and that would be the beginning of the end for Scrabble and the rise of a new community-based game. Facebook has indeed made many things possible and provides an excellent platform for this sort of social game.

What are your thoughts .. do you think Hasbro is doing the right thing?

I suppose it’s all about wanting to be on the forefront of innovation. It’s pretty exciting to be able to dream things up and be given the opportunity to transform them to reality. I’ve been working on a project here in the Isle of Man that is providing new services to citizens and businesses through an online channel and you can hear the pride in my voice when I discuss the project with anyone willing to lend me an ear

• TwitterFox: This was the one that made the difference. It’s a plugin for FireFox that sits in your system tray and pops up a message when one of the people you’re following sends a message. This means you can keep up to date with your mates without having to leave the page you’re on. It also lets you Tweet straight from the plugin. Indispensible!
• Twitter Application for Facebook: The main thing this does is update your Facebook status with your last Tweet. It also has a page where you can see what your friends are doing, but I don’t use that. Great way to consolidate your status updates in one place.
• Twessenger: The other place that has my status is MSN Messenger. This plugin for Messenger updates your status with you latest tweet. Again, striving towards unified status updates.

And there you have it, three utilities that have changed the way I interact on the web and taken me back to microblogging. If you’re on Twitter, follow me here. Do you have any related tools you use everyday?

Interesting, but what is more interesting, is that this ties into a whole new advertising model. Once a page is created, you can opt to promote it to people on Facebook. And here are the advertising options you have available:

• Advanced Targeting Target by age, gender, location, interests, and more.
• Content Integration: Get noticed, not skipped.
• Flexible Pricing: Buy clicks (CPC) or impressions (CPM).
• Trusted Referrals:Attach friend-to-friend interactions about your business to your ads.

I found it pretty interesting how they offer proper segmentation of their user base, as well as integration into the whole social networking theme. Unfortunately, when I tried getting further, the site wouldn’t late me, so I suspect that the whole thing isn’t fully baked yet. Funny how people release unfinished stuff nowadays, isn’t it ?

Anyway, here’s my fan page. Become a fan by clicking on “Add this to my stores”. Yeah, I told you it’s unfinished … Go ahead, sign up

Whilst many companies may be blocking it or fawning about its use within their workplace, I am becoming increasingly aware of its networking prowess in negating the need to spend time hovering over a sausage-on-a-stick at lengthy networking buffets.

Now that’s what I’m talking about! Social networks are a pretty effective tool to help you get in touch with people, interact with them and possibly even do business with them. It’s like being in a giant party with everyone you know. You can choose who to speak to, who to avoid, who to block and who to encourage. If your staff are motivated and use the tools you give them to achieve their aims, social networks can play a really important party in keeping in touch with the world. You’ll undoubtedly find people who will abuse this, but they tend to be the same people who will spend ours on the phone with their friends, use their work email to send jokes around and take advantage of the work photocopier. The problem isn’t what facilities they have at their disposal, it’s with their attitude and motivation.