Latest
Twitter Time: 10 words or less con't
RAIDING AND INSTANCES PT. 2 sirurza @wowinsider LEEEEEERRROYYYYY JENKKKIIINNNSS blizatrex @wowinsider dwarf warrior in trouble. shield wall! kesoleil @wowinsider "I'm down." "Forgot you were a rogue again?" "Shut up."str1fe @wowinsider "If it's pretty, don't stand in....oh, dammit" Pnut060 @wowinsider 10 year old guildie literally crying over loot on vent.kesoleil @wowinsider Famous Last Words: "I can Solo heal that." *raid wipes* rikitikitik @wowinsider Fresh from Naxx 10 full clear, we faced Malygos. Splat!Elad @wowinsider "Are you all hard for this ready-mode boss?" rikitikitik @wowinsider "Guys, the debuff is up. Don't move!" Release? Elad @wowinsider Whoops, forgot Righteous Fury. anjldust @wowinsider "This," he said, "is where the epics come from." puzzill @wowinsider Cylindra bubbled her warrior, now to hope and pray ruairi @wowinsider multi-tasking tank causes wipe Pnut060 @wowinsider I can spend all night doing this rofl ruairi @wowinsider bored healer causes wipe XandosFiretree @wowinsider Twenty-four strangers departed Shattrath, hunted Illidan. Two dozen friends returned. DLMDixon @wowinsider Hunter leaves pet on aggressive preparing for Algalon. Dooms Azeroth. cwharton @wowinsider The gaping maws of Yogg-Saron filled her nightmares every night. wow_acia @wowinsider | Healer story - "Get out of the fire or I won't heal you!" ClakyDruott @wowinsider Tonight I ran out of ammo, last boss in Naxx.... locktart @wowinsider run up stairs. Oh shi- "YOU FAIL!" killed by Kologarn. Pnut060 @wowinsider My naxx raid laughing at friend stuck behind a box. benquinney @wowinsider Guiding Star dropped - and I got it. Awesome! Brightbeerd @wowinsider Pug was OK. The tank was bad. Stupid hunter pets. Aeire @wowinsider I murder things for honor, glory, and really pretty clothes. FeistTheRogue @wowinsider "Walk into Ulduar, kill monsters, collect loot, rinse and repeat." Aoikari @wowinsider Me and some undead chicks entered a bar, got lucky. eyuzwa @wowinsider "we'll be alright since everyone has their Onyxia cloaks...right?" Night0wl @wowinsider Ragnaros so close, sons to go, oh no we wiped! Umatar @wowinsider My proct pally gets turned on my being hit hard. omgitsafox @wowinsider "Hey, where'd your pet go?" "...Oh shit. PASSIVE, DAMMIT." Serneum @wowinsider Atkallen the hunter shot Archimonde in the face. LouGagliardi @wowinsider Warrior fights boss, wins and promptly celebrates.LOLZ Stoopid512 @wowinsider I withheld water from Ringo, just to watch him die. Aoikari @wowinsider never going to let you down! Thrall said to Jaina. paulje00 @wowinsider "Orcs, the other green meat" Aoikari @wowinsider Never going to the undercity zoo again... must wash eyes! awlbiste @wowinsider Nelf Rogue killing the Tarren Mill fightmaster. Can't get out. tselmorrah @wowinsider He sought trade but found only Chuck Norris jokes. TragicDog @wowinsider guys, don't go up to the top... damn it! RUUUUUNNNN Jaysen_N @wowinsider Materinty test proves that neither are the baby daddy, GASP! spasticsnap @wowinsider Tauren leaves her fertile homelands to battle frozen dead. Night0wl @wowinsider Hydraxian Waterlords, need daily quests, Ragnaros respawns to slow, Farmed/ knight816 @wowinsider rain fell silently on the windshield; it was actually ichor kiffar @wowinsider Titanium Node! Mine, Paladin! His head stuck to my pick.. <_< Bytorsnowdog @wowinsider female elf dancing naked, sigh deeprun tram all over again! tashalee @wowinsider The priest said to her, "My holy nova prematurely crits." Jaysen_N @wowinsider Thrall and Arthas battle it out on the Jerry Show. Jaysen_N @wowinsider Jaina rumored to be pregnant, with Arthas as baby daddy. Aoikari @wowinsider I wake up and i'm in undercity with no liver.... Metrophelean @wowinsider Arthas would be less angsty if Icecrown had restrooms. rmoore08 @wowinsider I teabagged an enemy player. It was hot! Jaysen_N @wowinsider Jaina and Thrall will marry, then live happily ever after. Metrophelean @wowinsider DOWN DRUID! That is not what EPIC MOUNT MEANS! Aoikari @wowinsider magtheridon took me back to his lair, hes dirty. ;] professorbeej @wowinsider Body of an elf, a dwarf's face, orc's smell: love. arkbites1 @wowinsider Thrall takes Stormwind. Starbuck's soon opens in the auction house. brigwyn @wowinsider mike and turpster were caught in the game closet together Ashayo @wowinsider So this one time, at (band) Camp Taurajo, I /shindig'ed. chuckenorris @wowinsider a priest and a gnome walk into a bar JoshJosa @wowinsider Walking in the Fjord, Carosh discovers three frost wyrms mating. nickhuber @wowinsider When the candle factory closed, Kobolds all over Azeroth wept. maziltov @wowinsider Low railings on Thunder Bluff bridges = long fall, possible lawsuit. kryptongirl @wowinsider The druid turned into a dog tree. He barked. profetacinque @wowinsider Arthas wanted to go see the zoo; Jaina said "no". Matt_LRR @wowinsider Arthas looked on, coldly. "who left the air-conditioner running?" Curtis_Hanna @wowinsider Baby Gnome shoes for sale. Never worn. ravenette13 @wowinsider Sometimes, death knights just like to pick flowers. The end. lttleknownceleb @wowinsider You know, I really thought that gnome was dead.
Twitter Time: 10 words or less
tweetmeme_source = 'wowinsider';I've been manning the WoW.com official Twitter for the past few nights and having a great time of it. The three nights previous to last, I did some reader-participation art and ended up drawing a tauren rogue and two druids (undead and gnome!). Tonight I thought I'd go a little more literary and had the Twitterati, in the spirit of tweets, send me WoW-related stories of ten words or less. Here are some of my favorites, and the rest are after the jump.Make sure to follow us on Twitter and YOU TOO MIGHT SEND ME BRIEF MESSAGES SOMETIME. I'll see you there! Frito_KAL @wowinsider No matter what the humans say, gnomes are NOT piñatas. Iamfivebears @wowinsider "Thanks for the summoooooooooooooon...." the rogue yelled up the cliff. kryptongirl @wowinsider The druid turned into a dog tree. He barked. MsJenni @wowinsider We entered Deadmines nude, voting who came out best dressed. TheCorruptOne @wowinsider Armor drops from a clear desert sky. Incoming gnomish engineer! threeparts @wowinsider How many edge of winter's does this damn dryad -have?-
Tweetie 1.2, now with love for video
We've mentioned our love of Twitter clients on many occasions. Among the many we have covered, Tweetie has become one of our favorites on the iPhone. When the desktop client was announced and subsequently released, our love affair was re-ignited. And now things are even more steamy; atebits announced today (via Twitter, no less) the immediate availability of Tweetie for Mac version 1.2. The new version includes several new features and bug fixes surrounding URL-shortening (tinyarro.ws now supported), 32-bit stability, and improved Growl notification support. Other new features include three-finger "back" swiping on supported trackpads, drag-and-drop video support, as well as the ability to record and tweet videos from your iSight using ImageShack's yfrog image hosting service. Our own Michael Rose was so excited about the update that he promptly downloaded the new version. Take a look at this excellent (and very brief) video he posted using Tweetie 1.2 for Mac. After (or before) you check out Mike's shirt of the day, head on over to atebits and grab the latest version of Tweetie. Also, be sure to tweet some videos and mention @TUAW and @atebits so we can take a peek -- but don't let the ease of posting videos steal your soul.
WoW Insider Show episode 91: The video show
We had our long-awaited video version of the podcast last weekend, and it was a hoot: Turpster and I dressed up and drank champagne together, Robin Torres showed how to inflate your Frostmourne, Lesley Smith came to us live from England, Duncor showed off his famous gigantic cowboy hat, and Patrick Beja showed that he can out-spiffy us any day. Unfortunately, because of the way we did things, we didn't end up getting a good recording of the whole thing -- you can see a few clips of the beginning over on Ustream, but they only have my camera (and the audio is rough -- I didn't realize it sounded that bad at the time). Dotorion also Frapsed a bit of the beginning, which should give you a little taste of the multi-camera mayhem.But in the end, it was pretty much a one-time thing you had to be there for live. Lightning in a bottle, if you will. The good news is that even if you didn't see the show, we've still got a treat for you: Turpster premiered a brand new video (put together by our good friend Ninthbatter) that we played at the end of the show, and that you can watch online right now. Turpster has also recently updated his own site, where you can find all the songs he's ever made, including our WoW Insider Song, and "Just Can't Wait," which is a song that he, I, and BigBearButt recorded a while ago before Wrath's release. So even though you don't have a new podcast to listen to today, you can tune in there.
The Queue: Hey Sacco, can you do today's The Queue edition
Playing the role of Adam Zibbert tonight will be the Michael Sacco. There will be a brief intermission between acts. Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW.com team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Zibbert will be your host today. You know the drill! LET'S GET US SOME QUESTIONS ANSWERED.Bearkub asked... My main is a lvl 80 paladin (holy/prot), gold is not an issue, and I have everything I could want off the Wintergrasp PVP vendor/npc. My alt is a level 70 hunter (hilarity ensues). Is it worth it to spend 200 stonekeeper's shards to buy the +10% XP bonus shoulders? Or would those shards be better spent on something I can sell for gold (the non-bound pvp meta-gems, for example)? Is there something to spend the shards on that I'm unaware of? I imagine they're worth it on a lvl 58 DK alt, but I'm not sure what the "cost/benefit" cut-off is.Heirloom items are pretty great, in my experience, especially the shoulders. With 3.1, they also grant 10% extra quest experience on top of mob XP, which is a lot -- especially given that most of your XP earned while going from 70-80 is going to be quest XP. It, essentially, takes a flat 10% off of your leveling time, sometimes more. And, when you're done with it, you can send it to another alt, even if they can't wear that specific armor type, because the item will automatically become the highest possible armor type for that specific character. I'd say it's worth the purchase, but it's a personal choice. Just remember you can get gold back at any time, but leveling time isn't something you can recoup.
WoW Insider Show special video edition live tomorrow
The day has arrived. A little while ago, we challenged you fans to get us over 9000 Twitter followers, and somehow, some way, you delivered. So now we have to keep our promises -- tomorrow, the WoW Insider Show, which has only ever been an audio podcast, will include video with our live feed, and you'll be able to see the faces of all your favorite bloggers (for better or worse). Turpster and I will be dressed in our finest threads, we'll be toasting champagne (so bring your own if you want to toast with us, 21+ please), and we'll host a cavalcade of bloggers and friends of the show on live video. We've got some surprises planned, and hopefully Ustream will hold up under the strain -- whatever happens, it'll surely be wild.The show begins our Ustream page at May 23, 2009 3:30 PM EDT var date_span = document.getElementById("date"); var date = new Date(date_span.innerHTML); var monthname=new Array("Jan","Feb","Mar","Apr","May","Jun","Jul","Aug", "Sep","Oct","Nov","Dec"); var weekday=new Array("Sunday","Monday","Tuesday","Wednesday","Thursday", "Friday","Saturday"); var year = date.getFullYear(); var day_of_month = date.getDate(); var month = monthname[date.getMonth()]; var day = weekday[date.getDay()]; var hour = date.getHours(); if (hour > 11) { if (hour > 12) {hour -= 12} am_pm = "PM"; } else { am_pm = "AM"; } var minute = date.getMinutes(); if (minute < 10) { minute = "0"+minute; } date_string = day + ", " + month + " " + day_of_month; date_string += " at " + hour + ":" + minute + " " + am_pm; offset = -date.getTimezoneOffset()/60; if (offset >= 0) { offset = "+"+offset; } date_string += " in your time zone (GMT"+offset+")"; date_span.innerHTML = (date_string); , or you can jump after the break to see an embedded feed. The audio archive of the show will appear here on Monday, and we'll have a video version on Ustream, but unfortunately Ustream will only save one video stream -- mine. So if you want to see Turpster and our guests on video, someone in the live audience might have to Fraps it out. And directly after the show, we'll be spending some time on Zangarmarsh (It Came From the Blog is our guild over there on Horde side, and I'll be hanging out and dueling Peggle if you want to stop by).Whew. It will be memorable, I can guarantee that. We'll also talk a little bit of Warcraft, and of course we'll talk about the new WoW.com and what it means for the podcast as well. We'll see you (and by see you, I mean you'll actually see us) tomorrow afternoon.
Getting WoW status updates on Twitter
You readers are awesome -- yesterday, when I posted the link to the online server alert page (which, yes, wasn't all that new, but lots of us hadn't seen it before), I suggested that it get hooked up to Twitter somehow, and sure enough, Scyntinth and blkmasta55555 wasted no time creating @WoWStatusUS and @WoWStatusEU, respectively (Ed also pointed out the EU status page). Tsaavik created an RSS feed for the alert as well, if you'd rather use that. And those aren't the only way to track Blizzard's realm status on Twitter -- looks like @wowalerts has been in action for a little while, and @pikestaff pointed out to me that @wowrealms tweets about realm downtime as well. And, hey, even your friends here at WoW.com are on Twitter keeping you up to date with the latest at @WoWInsider.So yes, there are tons of ways to track what's happening on your favorite realms via Twitter or any number of updating services.
The Daily Grind: Do you follow us on Twitter or Facebook?
You kids and your crazy social networking these days, I swear. When I was a lad, we socialized in pre-assigned AOL chatrooms and we liked it. Ok, so we never liked it, but still. With the popularity of Twitter and Facebook lately, it seems the only way many of us keep in contact with each other anymore. Not to be outdone, we at Massively have had our own Twitter and Facebook pages for quite awhile now, but we figured they needed some love.So now is the real question: Are you following us on Twitter and Facebook? If not, you should be! In addition to a concise summary of our biggest topics throughout the day at our main Twitter page, a few brave writers have agreed to share their personal Twitter names for you follow, point and laugh. Maybe your favorite Massively writer is on the list! (hint: I'm at the bottom) Krystalle Voecks: @krystalle James Egan: @jamesegan Lesley Smith: @lesleysmith Colin Brennan: @sera_brennan Tateru Nino: @taterunino Lemuel Pew: @lemmo Brendan Drain: @nyphur Jon Shute: @jonshute Kyle Horner: @kylehorner Tim Dale: @vanhemlock Shawn Schuster: @sschuster
NPD joins the Twitterverse
Retail number lords, The NPD Group, have a couple of Twitter accounts for those interested in industry financial figures. There's the NPD account and another for the organization's analyst, Anita -- Miss Frazier, if you don't know her like that. @NPDgroup - The "official" page, carrying only blog entries and press releases. @NPDFrazier - Who knows?! Perhaps we'll gain insight into the life of a fabulous analyst. Let the stalking continue. Ah, Twitter. Where you talk to "no one ... and everyone."
Oops! 1 vs 100 US beta news shelved at zero hour
If you decided to sit comfortably next to your computer tonight, with a nice glass of wine waiting on 1 vs 100 US Beta information, go to bed. According to the 1 vs 100 Twitter account (verified as official by Major Nelson and in an email from Microsoft PR), the promise of news regarding a US beta for the Xbox Live Primetime game has been put on hold.A tweet earlier today doled out the bad news: "A few more things need to be in place before we can share the good news w/you." While the update promises news on the horizon for US players, as of now, the 1 vs 100 beta is reserved solely for those lucky Canadians.When asked for comment, the nearest American available, editor Alexander Sliwinski said, "Apparently free health care isn't enough for you people."
Sega's #FreeStuffFriday includes lip balm! (And boring video game stuff)
Sega is at it again, giving away lots of free swag for its #FreeStuffFriday via Twitter. Up for grabs this week are lots of cool goodies including an autographed The Conduit poster, a MadWorld soundtrack, Bleach plushie and more. Without a doubt, though, the coolest part of the swag pack is the Sega branded lip balm. Just imagine the shock on your friends' faces when you whip out one of those bad boys to sooth your horribly chapped lips.Winning, appropriately enough, is as easy as following Sega's Twitter account (@SEGA, duh). Sega will, in turn, follow you. This Friday (that's tomorrow) at around 2:00 pm UK time, @SEGA will post a swag pack and a code phrase. The first person to send the code phrase to @SEGA via direct message wins the swag.Good luck nabbing that lip balm, though. That sucker is ours.
Link to the launcher text
Just a quick tip for those of who may be stranded at work and thinking about World of Warcraft (which, during the day, is probably all of you?) I've never seen a link to this page (though we've snuck it in some maintenance posts before), but fortunately the good folks at the WoW LJ community have spotlighted it: Blizzard's welcome screen notice is just a text page online, and it's publicly available. So even if you can't load up the WoW client, you can still keep track of realm downtime on maintenance days, or just keep an eye on what Blizzard is posting about lately.It's a little thing (and truthfully, there's probably not much there that you really need to know anyway -- if you're away from a WoW client, obviously you can't log in even if your realm is back up). But you never know, someday when you're thinking about World of Warcraft, far afield of your installation, and really need to know what Blizzard has to tell you, it could come in handy. Definitely earned a place in my bookmarks, just in case.And having it in quick and easy online text form means we can script it to go elsewhere, right? Anyone want to try hooking a Twitter account up to this thing?
1 vs 100 US beta date announcement by tomorrow [Update]
Update: Microsoft PR has just confirmed the 1 vs 100 Twitter account referenced in this story is run by the team responsible for the game; however, no other details were shared at this time.According to a 1 vs 100 Twitter page, a US beta for the Xbox Live Primetime games service is planned and will be announced within the next 24 hours. Of course, as natural skeptics, we bothered Major Nelson to confirm the account is actually affiliated with the upcoming game. According to Major, "The 1v100 team put that up. So, yes it's real." However, when contacted for comment, Microsoft PR hastily denied the Twitter account was connected to the game and insisted no announcement was planned. Thus, the miscommunication parade from Microsoft continues. Over the last month, Microsoft's communication guns have been firing blanks, beginning with accidentally claiming a Wolverine demo was available weeks before it was actually scheduled, followed by the incorrect pricing of Lode Runner and Blazing Birds and mistakenly categorizing Bionic Commando Rearmed as this week's Xbox Live Deal. Joystiq has since contacted Microsoft again, hoping that both hands of its communication arms consult and come to some kind of mutual conclusion. [Via GameShark. Thanks, Jeff M.]
WoW.com FAQ is up and running
First of all, I need to thank each and every one of you for participating in our Beta launch, and providing your comments, bug reports and suggestions. Keep them coming!We have had many questions today, which has helped us refine our Help Guides, and prompted us to write up a FAQ. Because this is a Beta test, you can expect that we will add to it as the site develops. We would also like to request that before you send in your questions and bug reports, you check out the aforementioned official FAQ to see if we've already written up answers. And don't forget to hop onto Twitter, because we're using our page as a platform for giveaways, news, and launch-related information!
Fox Mulder gets all up in your Second Life
Realizing the vast amounts of time honest to goodness citizens spend on social media sites and in virtual worlds, the FBI has decided to jump aboard the Web 2.0 train to aid in their never-ending search for terrorists, fugitives, missing children, and new potential recruits.The Federal Bureau of Investigation now has a presence on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, iPhone, and Second Life. They even have widgets you can embed almost anywhere to show your support. If staring at billboards plastered with America's most wanted and assorted recruitment ads is your idea of fun, you might check them out. This isn't just a lame PR attempt, though it may seem that way at first glance. The FBI is truly interested in reaching out to individuals who may be able to help them with their mission, "To protect and defend the United States against terrorist and foreign intelligence threats, to uphold and enforce the criminal laws of the United States, and to provide leadership and criminal justice services to federal, state, municipal, and international agencies and partners."
Mountain Dew Game Fuel site launches for reals
Update: This promotion seems to be US only. Sorry, rest of the world. Hopefully you guys will get something like this soon as well. China had a Coke promo, so maybe the EU/Oceania will get a turn sooner or later.The Mountain Dew Game Fuel site is officially live, and we're all free to earn lots and lots of tokens. You'll need to register first, so be prepared to hand over a fair amount of personal information. They want the usual things, like your name and birthdate and home address. If I had to guess, I would say they need all of that for contest reasons. You always need to ask those things so you don't run into any regional legal issues.Now, tokens. How do you get tokens? There's a full list of ways to earn them on the official site (that you need to be logged in to see,) but I can tell you this: Almost all of them involve clicking on some random links scattered around the internet. Watching videos on their site, clicking banners on Facebook, going to their Twitter page, all of that sort of thing. Time to start setting up a Mountain Dew bookmarks folder, folks.There's also an FAQ that confirms one of our suspicions: Yes, a WoW vanity pet is one of the potential prizes you can win. It doesn't state what it is, but we can all safely assume it's the battlebots we posted about previously. Among the potential prizes is a trip to BlizzCon as well, so if you can't afford the trip yourself, you ought to start hoarding tokens.
Details on next GTA IV DLC 'coming soon'
With E3 2009 just a scant 17 days away, the hype machine has certainly started to build for quite a few game companies. And Rockstar Games is apparently no exception, teasing its upcoming GTAIV DLC via Twitter of all places. Stating as vaguely as possible, "Details on 2nd episode of GTAIV downloadable content coming soon," Rockstar has officially started the ball rolling on wild speculation. Though it's possible the company will bust out details on the next expansion to Liberty City pre-E3, we're not betting anyone's baby on it. But then really, who bets a baby? You monster!
Microsoft denies Twitter-sourced Zune rumors
The future of the Zune continues to be awfully cloudy: although the Twitter account @officethemovie was directly linked from Microsoft's Office 2010 promo site earlier today, company spokesperson Brian Seitz just pinged us to say that those Zune rumors posted to the account weren't exactly on the up-and-up: That account is bunk. Not run by Microsoft so I would not put much stock in what they say. The real Office movie account is http://twitter.com/office2010movie. Of course, that's a denial focused on the source of the rumors, not their content, so we're guessing something more serious is going on -- we've got a feeling whoever was running that account spoke out of turn, especially since Brian himself promised new Zune hardware this year. Regardless, the lesson stands: people on Twitter will lie to you until you are penniless and alone, and then they will kill and eat you.Update: Yep, the account is a fake -- the person who created it has fessed up to pulling the hoax as a publicity stunt for some rambling iPhone piracy article he wrote, which is an excellent way to be ignored forever.
WoW Insider Show live today on Ustream
Today on the show, it's an all-star cast of WoW Insider folks: we'll welcome Alex Ziebart and Adam Holisky both on the show to talk about the latest news from the World of Warcraft. And as usual, Turpster will join us with his own brand of silliness (don't miss our newest feature, Turpster's Tips, in which he tells you something that may or may not help you play the game better). And what is the latest news, you ask? Why, it's our interview with Tom Chilton (featuring mentions of dance moves, new Druid forms, and player housing), that legendary mace and who it's for, whether the Bloodlust love should have some spreading around, and Alex's general disappointment with the game world lately. The show starts up at May 9, 2009 3:30 PM EDT var date_span = document.getElementById("date"); var date = new Date(date_span.innerHTML); var monthname=new Array("Jan","Feb","Mar","Apr","May","Jun","Jul","Aug", "Sep","Oct","Nov","Dec"); var weekday=new Array("Sunday","Monday","Tuesday","Wednesday","Thursday", "Friday","Saturday"); var year = date.getFullYear(); var day_of_month = date.getDate(); var month = monthname[date.getMonth()]; var day = weekday[date.getDay()]; var hour = date.getHours(); if (hour > 11) { if (hour > 12) {hour -= 12} am_pm = "PM"; } else { am_pm = "AM"; } var minute = date.getMinutes(); if (minute < 10) { minute = "0"+minute; } date_string = day + ", " + month + " " + day_of_month; date_string += " at " + hour + ":" + minute + " " + am_pm; offset = -date.getTimezoneOffset()/60; if (offset >= 0) { offset = "+"+offset; } date_string += " in your time zone (GMT"+offset+")"; date_span.innerHTML = (date_string); over on our Ustream page.And we've got a full schedule in the coming weeks as well: next week, we'll be recording the show live on Wednesday, May 13th at 6pm Eastern, so those of you who aren't usually available on Saturday will have a chance to listen in. And then on the 23rd, we'll be back live at the usual Saturday time, not only with audio but with video, as we present our video show, to thank you all for boosting our Twitter page up to over 9.000 followers. We've got a lot of fun stuff planned -- trust me when I say it'll be a cavalcade of guests and jokes and good times.And then after that, we'll be welcoming on a special guest host. Brigwyn's charity auction raised a whopping $2,500 for Child's Play this past week, and some awesome, caring fan paid almost $480 to join Turpster and I on the podcast for a week. So stay tuned for that. We'll have them on soon, and they can disagree with me or argue with Turpster or do whatever they want for the whole show. Should be a lot of fun.
Twitterrific 2.0: It's real, and it's SPECTACULAR.
I'll be honest, I adore Twitter. I don't mean "Oh it's so cute and Oprah's on it," I mean in a way that is likely unhealthy. It was just another technology I had an account for but only sort of used until I found out that the Iconfactory created an application for my desktop called Twitterrific that allowed me to have a little corner of my desktop devoted to microblogging. So then I used it a little more.Then I got my iPhone 3G and the Iconfactory made a version of Twitterrific for that, too. Today, here I sit more than sixteen thousand updates later. Twitterrific was among the first desktop and mobile Twitter apps and terribly exciting. Then some other folks came on the scene, having re-imagined what an iPhone Twitter app could look like. We got Twitterfon and Tweetie, and I found myself very disappointed to have bumped Twitterrific from my home screen.All of that has changed. Twitterrific 2.0 is out and once again I have an Iconfactory app on my home screen. There are loads of changes, but the standout feature is the option to turn some of these off and on as you desire.Multiple account support was the revolutionary feature of other clients, and it has now been added to Twitterrific. Adding more is a piece of cake, and the nice thing about it is that your account(s) live on a "Sources" page with the public timeline, saved searches and a list of the current trending topics. I really like this view and it makes things very convenient, especially if you want to check the trending topics on the go.You'll notice you get three views of your timeline: A "mini" view with just a name and a tweet, the "standard" Twitterrific view of an avatar and bold name with a tweet, and an additional "mega" view, with a larger picture and the text a bit bigger as well (including the client). So far I am loving the mini view, since I can scan easily.In case a black background with lighter text isn't your thing, you also have the option of three different color schemes, Raven (the classic black), Snowy (lighter, with some 3D elements for selected tweets), and Basic (a black and white option). Right now Snowy is the one that's working for me. I really like the way selected tweets stand out.Now you can also pick your reply method which is one of the most impressive features. If you have a tweet selected when the entry window comes up, you get your pick of whether or not to tweet, tweet a public @ reply, or DM the author of that tweet based on which tab you choose at the bottom of the window. You can also hide the keyboard to peek back at the timeline in case you want another look at the tweet. This is a really elegant method for entry since a lot of times I want to reply via DM to someone who sent me something publicly, or inadvertently have a tweet selected but I don't want to reply to it. Every time I use this interface I am happier with it in a new way.To keep from using a lot of screen for the buttons for different views (one each for your timeline, replies, and DMs) there's a little funnel you tap that pops up a bar with those view options in it. As a fan of the mini view this helps me pack even more information on the screen and I like how it's implemented. Next to this icon is a little snowflake/asterisk icon you can tap to get buttons for a link to a selected tweet, retweet, reply to the author, the author's info page, see the conversation thread, email it, or favorite it. You also get a button to mark a tweet. Marking a tweet is like a favorite, but currently those marks are only saved on your phone (it has been mentioned that this will sync with the desktop version eventually).Other features I really like: the left-handed option made it forward from the previous version, configurable options for tapping an avatar (1, 2, or 3 taps can be set to different actions like show the author or the conversation, add it as a favorite), and there is a notes field on authors so if you are out and about and add someone you can take note of where you met them or how you know them or whatever else you can sometimes want to keep track of.I love the new version, and I like to think it came about because others came along and innovated which made the Iconfactory step up THEIR game, so now there are a variety of easy to use and nice looking Twitter clients for the iPhone. Now, on to the desktop!
