I Spy a Qwitter...

Qwitter.

What does it do?

It allows the followed on Twitter to see that their followers have "qwit" following them, even providing which tweet was the last one the follower followed before "qwitting" following.

Make sense? Let me break it down.

Qwitter debuted on Friday, Oct. 17, 2008, as a means of allowing users (aka "the followed" on Twitter) to find out when others (aka "the followers") stop following them, or receiving their 140-character status updates.

The followed lose followers everso often for any of an assortment of reasons, whether the followed said something that the follower didn't agree with or the followed's tweets are no longer seen as relevant or interesting in the eyes of the follower.

Until Qwitter was created, services like Facebook and Twitter intentionally did not inform users when someone "de-friended" or "un-followed" them because it could potentially be a sensitive issue.

Now all precautions have been thrown to the wind, as Qwitter is trying to tap into the "too curious for their own good" market. After signing up for the service, when someone stops following someone on Twitter, the Qwitter user will receive an e-mail informing them of their follower that "qwit" and after which tweet the qwitter qwit.

The following example is provided on Qwitter's Web site to serve as an example of the message a Qwitter user would receive in their e-mail upon someone "un-following" them:

John Gruber (gruber) stopped following you on Twitter after you posted this tweet:

What's the difference between Arial and Helvetica?

While Qwitter may answer some user's questions, followers now must be more conscious of their "un-following" habits since there is the possibility that the followed will now be informed of such actions.

For more information on this new media topic, visit http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10069135-2.html?tag=mncol;posts.

The Social Browser: Flock 2.0

Do you enjoy seeing who has recently posted on your Facebook wall, viewing friends' recently uploaded Flickr photos and reading your friends' most recent tweets on Twitter? Then I have found the Web browser that was created just for you!

Flock 2.0: The Social Web Browser is for people who love features but hate plug-ins and

 extensions. The newest version of the product, Flock 2.0, comes with  a variety of features preconfigured and integrated into the browsing experience, without the user's additional work of setting up and layering extensions into your Firefox installation. These features include the current Mozilla engine (the same one in Firefox 3) and additional media and social net integration features.

Flock users have expressed that the first version of the product was more stable than Firefox 2, most likely because it was not overloaded with extensions, and that it did more than Internet Explorer 7. Now the speed and stability that Firefox 3 provides makes the decision to use Flock to be based on the features it offers.

Flock's capabilities include offering social media feeds from MySpace (which is new to version 2), Twitter, Facebook and other sites, which ultimately allows you to see everything that is happening with your friends and networks, all in your left sidebar. You are also able to view media (photos and videos) from media and social sites like Revver (new), YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, etc. The media bar across the top of the product can be set to view items your "friends" have posted or been tagged in.

Similar to current browsers, Flock also recognizes if a page you are on has an RSS feed and further suggests and allows you to subscribe to the feed. The second version also allows you to subscribe to media streams and displays the items in the media bar.

Upon closing or disabling the media and social sidebars, Flock is much like Firefox 3, including the "awesome bar" URL entry field, a feature that heightens success in your searches, as it allows you to search for a particular website www or a word/topic. Most other Firefox extensions can be added to Flock.

However, the product's comprehensiveness in social updates is what sets this browser above all the rest.

For more information on the new media topic, visit http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10066805-2.html?tag=TOCmoreStories.0.

YouTube to offer TV Shows with Ads

YouTube will now give people the opportunity to watch full-length episodes of some television shows. 

The ability to view television shows that one may have missed is another way to promote use of YouTube, which has experienced staggering growth.

YouTube was designed for posting short, amateur videos that lasted only a few minutes. The idea for posting longer videos of television episodes has evolved from Internet users becoming more comfortable watching longer videos online and an increase in individuals' attention span from 2.6 minutes in July to 2.9 minutes a year ago.

"Dexter," "Beverly Hills, 90210" and "Star Trek" will be showing on YouTube through a deal with CBS. Of great importance to YouTube's owner, Google, the longer videos will air advertisements before, during, and after each episode, which will hopefully help the nearly four-year-old video sharing site.

Executives at YouTube had previously refrained from the use of advertisements so as not to deter viewers from using the site in an attempt to avoid a 15-second commercial for a 45-second video. The extended length of the videos makes including commercials in the clip acceptable in the eyes of the viewers, as well as the fact that other network television Web sites are allowing commercials to run during full-length videos.

As YouTube branches out to include TV content, the site faces competition, most notably from Hulu, which reports more than 100 million video streams a month in comparison to YouTube's five billion video views recorded in July 2008. YouTube does account for 44 percent of all online video consumption in the United States.

Another feature YouTube has devised to encourage viewership is the new "theater view," a larger video player for longer content.

For more information on this new media topic, visit http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/11/technology/internet/11tube.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=technology&pagewanted=print.

P.S. I'm so glad that I read this article, because I cannot wait to go back and watch all of the Beverly Hills, 90210 reruns on YouTube instead of purchasing the seasons on DVD!

Technology Gives College Recruiting a Boost

In this day and age college recruiters no longer have to read the scores of all the high school basketball games in teeny, tiny print in the local sports sections of printed newspapers across the country. Nor do recruiters have to travel hundreds of miles to catch their prospects in action. Instead, they can simply log online from the convenience of their own home and catch the highlights.

The Internet and various video sharing agents, most notably YouTube, allow recruits to show college coaches and recruiters what they are capable of doing out on the field or on the court. The Internet's ability to show recruiters prospective athletes' talent adds one more item to the list of things computers make easier to do--athletes getting noticed and thus earning an athletic scholarship to college. Such online postings not only save gas money for the college recruiters, but it saves the potential recruit the money for postage necessary to mail video tape footage of games to recruiters. Computers make editing these films much easier, thus adding to the benefits of online coverage of recruits.

April Carson, a 15-year-old basketball prodigy, is just one example of how online video sharing has already paid off. April's father posted footage of her breaking the Tequesta Trace Middle School record for 3-pointers in a game. April's outstanding performance would have perhaps gone unseen by everyone not in attendance (including recruiters) had it not been posted online.

A performance that had only been seen by Tequesta Trace's fans has now gone on to receive 11,858 views (at the time of this post), including views by notable basketball coaches across the country, following her father posting the highlights online. April and her family have already received mailings from Baylor, Clemson, Princeton and Yale, and she is only a sophomore in high school!

April is not the only high school athlete to benefit from the ease the Internet provides of recording, posting and watching stellar atheletic performances online. Some athletes, like Jashaun Agosto, even use similiar methods to record and show their daily workouts and athletic training. Jashaun's footage had received 260,400 views at the time of this post.

YouTube links to these recordings can be sent to scouts and recruiters quickly in an e-mail. Although online films are not the only indicator of talented players, many coaches think that viewing such films is a good jumping off place when scouting. Online links also lower the age at which recruiters begin to watch and track prospective athletes. Such internet communication makes it easy for players to talk with coaches and coaches to talk with coaches. If only students could post videos of them acing their tests for academic scholarships, and we would be set!

For more information about this new media topic, visit http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/02/sports/ncaabasketball/02youtube.html?_r=1&ref=technology&oref=login.