Tuesday Tech Talk #29

Hello folks and welcome to another edition of Tuesday Tech Talk. This week I want to talk about Social Media overload and when to scale back. Also more Apple Tablet news and Google taking a stand in China. So lets dive right in.

Social Media trim back

After listening to Fr. Roderick’s The Break and he mentioned he had deleted some accounts on social media sites he just has no time for or anyone he knows on them, I decided to look at the social media sites I had signed up for but do not use much. After identifying them I then deleted my account on them. Here are the ones I am no longer using:

identi.ca

Brightkite

Utterli

FriendFeed

Last.fm

XT3

4Marks

Remember the Milk

What I kept

Plurk

Basically I got down to Facebook, Twitter, and Plurk. Plurk and Twitter are similar but with one regard, Plurk allows people to reply directly below your post where as Twitter it is not directly below it.

Twitter

On the other hand Twitter is massively used. From following TV shows, games to communications from Haiti and Iranian protestors wanting a better government. You can be caught up on the news quite a bit just by following Twitter and doing specific searches on content you are interested in. Hashtags are another benefit to Twitter say like you are writing about the Haitian Earthquake you can type #Haiti at the end of your post or anywhere else in it which makes it easier for others to follow.

Facebook

Lets face it Facebook is the reason I no longer have a MySpace page along with many others. If your a business and you are not using Facebook in 2010 your dead. I have seen local business using it to post specials like Atlanta Bread for example here in town will post their daily soups and chili. Also Romie’s Grocery posts their daily specials and of course Joe Joe’s Espresso posted their free coffee tasting on Saturday (btw they were all delicious, Joe knows his coffee and you should stop in and enjoy the great beverages and food as well as the always friendly staff.)

So using these 3 popular social media sites will do me just fine. I also use ping.fm to set my status to all at the same time.

More Mac Tablet speculation

According to a close contact within Apple, Boy Genius is reporting the Tablet is an iPhone on steroids. Also last week I wrote about the possibility of the Tablet having a webcam but according to Daring Fireball’s John Gruber, this may not be the case. Personally it would be nice to have one but it is not a make or break deal for me either way. Apple is also sending out invites for their special event on 1/17 for what they are calling their, “latest creation”. I think by now we all know what it will be. Among those attending will be Leo Laporte of TWiT so it will be interesting to get his perspective. Sometimes I do wish I lived in the San Francisco area and was part of the insiders club to attend these things. But then I think about how affordable our mortgage is in Tupelo and I’m quite content.

How the Apple Tablet could change our lives

Evan Agee has a great post about 5 ways the Apple Tablet could effect our lives. It’s a great read and worth checking out.

New touchscreen 22“ iMac later in the year?

Interesting tidbit here about a possible touchscreen iMac Apple may also be working on. Could it be Apple is going to be the one that will make the touchscreen effect we saw in the movie Minority Report commercially viable? Stay tuned.

New iPhone in April?

Some overseas providers are speculating on a new iPhone in April. This seems early for me being they usually roll out a new model around late June/early July. We shall see.

Google to stop censoring search results in China

Good on Google for telling China they are not going to play their Commie games anymore! They are even willing to pull out of China altogether.

This Week’s iPhone/iPod touch apps

MobileMe Gallery - If you use MobileMe for your photo storage there is now a free app to browse your library on it. I use both Flickr and MobileMe.

Political GPS - This is a nice little app. Answer 30 questions on social and fiscal issues and it gives you an idea of the spectrum of where you stand. Not surprising to anyone that reads my blog I am on the conservative-libertarian side of things close to Milton Friedman. They also have a paid version with a database of members of Congress and how they voted as well as including the US Constitution, something our lawmakers have seen to have forgotten about but that is a post for another day.

TWiT - This is the audio streaming app for all things This Week in Tech. Also has a bookmarks section to Leoville, TWiT.tv, TechGuy Labs, and much more. It is free.

Well that is going to do it for this week’s Triple T. See you all next week for #30!