Twitts

A website that provides minute by minute updates on people who are not at home has sparked concern that it will encourage burglars. The site, called Please Rob Me, launched this week and has been criticised for being the perfect tool for any self-respecting housebreaker.

But the three brains behind the website insist they’re not helping criminals, but highlighting the dangers of the latest social networking craze of announcing to the world where you are at any given moment via the internet. Social networking crazes such as Foursquare, in which users post their location online, are a goldmine for potential burglars, the website’s founders said. The Please Rob Me website says: ‘Our intention is not, and never has been, to have people burglarized.’

Instead they are trying to alert people to the danger of putting too much information on the world wide web. The Dutch website channels information from other networking sites like Twitter into one place, listing ‘all those empty homes out there’ and providing a running total of ‘new opportunities’. The information it provides on people’s movements is searchable by city or by their Twitter username.

‘We’re leaving the lights on when we’re going on a holiday, but we’re telling everybody on the internet we’re not home,’ said co-founder Frank Groeneveld, 22.

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How to build your career in b2b

A quip on Twitter by a snowbound traveller has led to his arrest and bailing on suspicion of communicating a bomb hoax…

Frustrated by delays at Robin Hood airport, near Doncaster, 26-year-old Paul Chambers keyed in: “Robin Hood airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!!” Police knocked on his door in Doncaster shortly afterwards and arrested him under the Criminal Law Act 1977.

Bailed after more than six hours of questioning, Chambers also had his computer and iPhone briefly confiscated and the message was deleted from Twitter’s website. Tweets of support and incredulity have since been posted by some of the 769 people regularly following his page, along with requests for interviews from journalists.

South Yorkshire police said that Chambers remained bailed because of the Twitter comment and added: “We advise members of the public to use such sites appropriately, as they are easily accessible to the public and any inappropriate use could cause unnecessary concern and lead to comments being reported to police…”

Chambers describes himself on his Twitter profile as a “film-watching, football-loving, rubbish-talking, hyphen-using idiot”. His tweets are kept locked, which means that only followers accepted by him can see them, rather than the public at large.

In an effort to lose weight before his own wedding, Alex Ressi, 33, launched TweetWhatYouEat.com in January 2008.

Unable to find a simple way to keep a food diary online, the New York-based developer created his own site that lets people keep a Twitter-based food diary by sending messages via mobile text or the Web.

Although people can choose to keep their messages private, by default the TweetWhatYouEat Web site broadcasts, in real-time, members’ messages about their meals and caloric intake. Now, the site has about 12,000 members, some of whom have lost 40 pounds, he said.

Ressi said the goal was to make users more aware of what they’re putting in their body. But he acknowledged that another force is also behind the site’s effectiveness: Shame.

“There is that component of shame,” he said. “Perhaps if your food diary is open and public, it may affect what you eat.”

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But If you’re tired of calorie counting, try eat stop eat lifestyle.

Twitter is now available on Nokia 5800 in the form of Stew.

This widget lets you view your Twitter stream, as well as post updates, right from your 5800 phone!

If you do not know about Twitter, it’s a great way for people to stay in touch with others and a quick way of getting snippets of news and gossip. With Twitter, you can stay hyper–connected to your friends and always know what they’re doing.

With this widget you can get the twitter on fullscreen on your Nokia 5800. Stew’s functionality is limited to reading updates and posting new ones on Twitter. You cannot reply to a contact, nor can you follow any links that your friends might have posted.

Download Twitter Application ‘Stew’ for Nokia 5800

[ via - tube5800.com ]

Twitter has had quite a year. Not only has it attracted worldwide attention and millions of new users, “Twitter” has been named the top word in the English language for 2009.

According to the Global Language Monitor, which examines language usage across the world, “Twitter” beat out “Obama,” “H1N1,” “stimulus,” and “vampire” to take the crown. Interestingly, “2.0″ came in at sixth place.

Click here to see a full listing of the top words, phrases, and names of the year–and of the decade.

CBS has picked up a comedy project based on the Twitter account, which has enlisted more than 700,000 followers since launching in August and has made its creator, Justin Halpern, an Internet star.

“Will & Grace” creators David Kohan and Max Mutchnick are on board to executive produce and supervise the writing for the multicamera family comedy, which Halpern will co-pen with Patrick Schumacker. Halpern and Schumacker will also co-exec produce the Warner Bros. TV-produced project, which has received a script commitment.

The comedy’s title will change if it gets on the air.

Halpern, 28, had moved back in with his parents in San Diego, and on Aug. 3 he launched “Shit My Dad Says,” a Twitter feed featuring colorful — often profane — comments and pearls of wisdom made by his 73-year-old father during their daily conversations.

[ via - thrfeed.com ]

A New York-based anarchist has been arrested by the FBI and charged with hindering prosecution after he allegedly used the social networking site Twitter to help protesters at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh evade the police.

Elliot Madison, 41, from Queens, had his home raided and was put on $30,000 (?19,000) bail after he and Michael Wallschlaeger, 46, were tracked to the Carefree Inn motel in Pittsburgh during the summit on 24 and 25 September.

The pair were found sitting in front of a bank of laptops and emergency frequency radio scanners. They were wearing headphones and microphones and had many maps and contact numbers in the room.

Official police documents allege the two men used Twitter messages to contact protesters at the summit “and to inform the protesters and groups of the movements and actions of law enforcement”.

[ via - guardian.co.uk ]

Twitter will not host adverts on its website this year, says co-founder Biz Stone.

Stone used the 140: Twitter conference in Los Angeles this week to reveal that the micro-blogging service has benefitted from substantial investment and funding this year, ensuring advertising isn’t a priority.

“Any kind of approach toward advertising is going to be a while… we’re not thinking about that just yet,” he said.

However, Stone didn’t comment on whether the ads would appear in 2010.

Stone said the company was focusing on rolling out new features, scaling the business and adding new services, such as paid-for commercial accounts.

He also revealed that these account holders would be given access to new tools that could analyse and gather data from their followers.

[ via - pcworld.com ]

Twitter users on Thursday will, for the first time, be able to make voice calls directly to each other through the microblogging service.

During the beta period, voice chats will be limited to two minutes on Twitter, the company Jajah said.

A new third-party offering from Jajah known as Jajah@call is expected to go into beta Thursday morning that will allow Twitter users to initiate a two-way voice chat with other users by typing “@call @username” — where “username” is someone’s Twitter ID — into any Twitter client.

During the beta period, the company said, the calls will be limited to two minutes, but the company will evaluate that length during beta. However, it sees the two minute period, after which the call will end, as “the verbal equivalent of a tweet.”

According to Jajah, an Internet communications provider with tens of millions of users, the service will allow a user to place a call to any other user, so long as the second person follows the first on Twitter and both have Jajah accounts.

The service is free to use and is expected to work on any Twitter-enabled device, from PCs to smart phones.

[ via CNN.com ]