Technology

It is the first week of 2009 and by now, most of you have probably heard of Twitter, or you’ve heard the name Twitter.  Some of you may not know what Twitter is or why it has become more and more relevant in today’s techno-age.

You may have read some news articles about how people were using Twitter on their cellphones/blackberries during the Mumbai, India attacks.  Or about the one man who used twitter when the Continental plane crashed in Denver just a few weeks ago.  But why should you use Twitter?  Some people may view Twitter as just a simple tool to broadcast what you are doing during the day.  But twitter is so much more.  What are some of the reasons why Twitter will become one of the largest social networking platforms on the planet?

1. Twitter encompasses some of the power of instant messaging. The ability to stay in constant communication, no matter where you are.  Your desk, your laptop, your mobile phone.  You can send a tweet to everyone who follows you or you can send to an individual person.
2. Twitter also is as convenient as email.  Whether you reply to a tweet or not, it is up to you.  Fellow tweeters are not expecting an instant reply.
3. The control of who sees your messages and which messages you see is completely left up to you.  Twitter is an “opt-in” communication tool.  You need to “follow” people in order to get messages from them.  and you can very easily “block” people if they’re steam of tweets get too much for you.
4. Twitter is transparent, which means that you are associated with everything you post which is a great deterrent for people to use it for spam.
5. Twitter is a good social network, but it is also great to use for tweeting about your latest business ideas, projects or products.  People can choose whether or not to read the tweet or follow the link.
6. Twitter can be linked to your blog.  It is a great way to drive traffic to your blog.  You can let people know you’ve just posted a new blog entry.  You can pique people’s interest in a topic or event.  One caution would be a recommendation to be selective about which blog posts you promote on Twitter and not just spam everyone with every blog post you make.
7. Twitter can be used to enhance the customer service of your company by being seen online and willing and able to help consumers answer product or service questions.
8. Twitter can also be used to monitor trends and follow competitors so that you know what is happening in real-time.
9. Twitter works well with most cell phones so that you’re never out of touch from your twitter feed.

Sign up for a twitter account at http://twitter.com and if you’d like to follow me, you can find me at http://twitter.com/benjaminbradley

These are just a few reasons why people should be using Twitter.  What other reasons do you use twitter for?

Blackberry, what would I do without you?

One of the main reasons people gravitate towards a Blackberry phone is so that they can stay connected to their business, clients, friends, and family. People’s stream of communication is no longer a single stream (vocal communication) but now encompasses multiple different text and image-based communication avenues.

My blackberry is close by at all times… unless my wife says its “family-time”, then I better make sure my blackberry is no where near my hands. I thought I would provide a look at great mobile apps that I use on my blackberry.

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There are so many different ways to edit your pictures in today’s day and age.  Many people have perhaps heard about Photoshop or the generic software that came with their digital cameras. But many may not know that the online image editing space has grown very fast over the past year.  Many of these sites have built up very powerful image editors.  Here are a few you should check out.

Picnik.com - Import images from sites such as Photobucket, Picasa, Webshots, Flickr, MySpace, Facebook, your own computer, other websites and more.  Also offers numerous tools, fonts and shapes for free. More tools are available with a nominal premium subscription. continue

UPDATE: The developers for WorldMate Live have released an update which now allows many of the locked-out users to gain access to their travel schedules.  If you were one of the unlucky blackberry users who were locked out with the upgrade, make sure you uninstall the broken application, reset your blackberry, and go to http://get.wmlive.com to download the updated version.  This new version will allow the previously locked-out users to login.

Thank you to the developers of WorldMate for fixing this issue.  I just wish there had been some communication about the issue.

This was going to be a review/recommendation for anyone who has a blackberry or windows mobile smartphone to go right now and pick up the WorldMate Live application, but something happened during the writing of this post.

This is the way it is supposed to work… if it worked at all.

A few days ago, I received a nice little email from the WorldMate Live crew about the brand new version which had some new features like hotel bookings and a few other updates.  And since I was leaving on an extending trip to different parts of Asia, I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to test out this new version.

Now I do have to say that up until this point, WorldMate Live has been a great program and I would have recommended this to everyone.  And now here comes the enormous BUT…..

But, after I upgraded the program and followed the instructions to reboot the blackberry, I attempted to sign-in to my Gold account (the paid version of the account), and the program decided to hang up and freeze.  And I was left staring at a screen that said “Please Wait…”

So I waited…
and waited….
and waited some more!

I thought maybe something had gone wrong with the download and the upgrade.  So I uninstalled the program and then rebooted.  I proceeded to download a fresh copy of the application on my blackberry and followed the installation instructions and then rebooted again.  Same problem, unable to sign into the account.

All the settings were correct.  I even followed some suggestions of going into the Blackberry’s options and choosing to “Allow” on all three of the application’s permissions.  Still no luck.

I decided it was time to contact WorldMate Live about this issue.  One of the reasons I paid the $99.95 for the application was the customer support that was stated was part of the Gold Plan.  I went to their website and read that I needed to go through their FAQs before submitting a support request.  So, I followed their wishes and actually read through every single FAQ they had on that site.  None of them answered my question.

So, I submitted a technical support request.  They don’t offer an email address, or a phone number, or a physical address to write.  You must fill out an online support request.  This didn’t bother me….UNTIL they didn’t respond.  I haven’t even gotten an email saying they were working on the issue or that they had received my support request.

The next day, I requested a link to the OLD version of WorldMate Live because I was leaving in a few days on my extended trip.  No response to that support request either.

So, I’m now stuck without a functioning application, out $100, and now I need to go enter all my trip details into another program or printout before my trip.  Until WorldMate Live realizes how important customer service is to paying customers, I can NEVER recommend this application to anyone.

If anyone has any ideas that I haven’t tried.  Or they know of the link to an older download version of WorldMate Live, please let me know.

Until then, all I can do is wait and hope that WorldMate Live grows up and learns the power of RESPONDING TO SUPPORT REQUESTS.