In October 2009, after 2.5 years of using Twitter every day, I wrote a piece that explained the limits of Twitter that we’ll have to look past Twitter to see solved, because Twitter doesn’t seem to be trying to solve them.

Tomorrow, we hear, Google will announce a product that aims to take on Twitter. If so, here’s a list of features to look for. Any of these features would give Google a serious edge over Twitter. Maybe they thought of some things I don’t have on my list. It’s always nice to put your stake in the ground. I did it with the iPad with some hilarious results.

So here’s the list of must-have features:

1. Reliability. Twitter still has trouble dealing with high-flow events like last night’s SuperBowl. Lots of Fail Whales. So if Google is able to offer reliability, no matter how much of an advantage Twitter’s installed base is, it won’t matter. When Twitter goes down everyone will reassemble on Glitter.

Read the rest of this post »

Update – NetFlix claims that the update in its roadmap was wrong. 1080p streaming will not be coming this year. However, closed captioning and 5.1 surround sound are a go.

Like a fine scotch, Netflix just keeps getting better with age. The company will rolling out 1080p streaming this year for its army  of subscribers.

The company is moving away from DVDs as quickly and strongly as possible, attempting to get out of the saddle of a dying horse. The CEO of Netflix has expressed pessimism with physical formats, a bold move for a company that was built on shipping DVDs at light speed.

The company will also be addressing a long time gripe among its customers, the 1080p streaming will support 5.1 surround sound. Many users through time were annoyed when some streams, labeled HD, did not have surround sound.

Read the rest of this post »

All those pesky Windows 7 battery issues? Nothing to fret about says Microsoft, Windows 7 is operating as it should be.

The battery warnings that are cropping up among upgraders to Windows 7 are in fact correctly labeled, says Microsoft. The company has stated that the reason that the batteries are being flagged for replacement is  that they are not performing up to specification. Simple enough.

Not performing well, and you should around to perhaps “consider replacing your battery,” as the warning in Windows 7 goes. Please note that the warnings for battery replacement are new to Windows 7.

This is why people who upgrade from an earlier flavor of Windows have been consued when the errors appeared.

Read the rest of this post »

Apple products repair company iResQ claim to have their furry paw all over the parts for the iPhone 4G (note that the name is a fabrication).

We have put the images below for your viewing pleasure. Notes and a second picture after the jump. From left to right, iPhone 3G, 3Gs, and the purported 4G:

Read the rest of this post »

Updated – please see the end of the post.

4-chan has reportedly been blocked on Verizon Wireless devices.

In a statement on the official 4-chan status blog, the site’s enigmatic founder ‘moot’ claimed, “we’ve received confirmation from Verizon’s Network Repair Bureau (NRB) that we are ‘explicitly blocked.’”

While it does not appear that the block has extended to Verizon’s FIOS or Home Broadband services, moot also claimed that Verizon users from these services had been complaining about intermittent outages over the past few weeks.

At this time, Verizon Wireless is claiming that “some 4-chan sites were disrupting our network.”

Read the rest of this post »

With the number of players that we now have in the global smartphone market, the battle for market share is becoming increasingly cutthroat.

If you want to grow faster than the product category as a whole, you have to take that market share from someone else. Lose too much market share, and your products just might be marginalized to nothing.

For the quarter ending in December 2009, versus the preceding three months, Android (Google’s offering) jumped from 2.5% to 5.2%. That equates to a 108% rise in just three months.

That was the good news. On the other side of the aisle, much of that gained market share seemed to come at the expense of Palm, which slid from 8.3 to 6.1%.

Read the rest of this post »

Google has just posted its first welcome post to its new Google Apps Developer Blog.

The post’s opening sentence explains that the blog is for “developers interested in building applications that leverage Google Apps.”

While Google Apps already allows developers to build for its Apps platform and has a marketplace for applications built, last week we brought you news of further developments into a full featured ‘Apps Store’.

Read the rest of this post »

Social startup Pip.io has been enigmatic from the beginning. Claiming to be creating a web based “social OS,” they used to bill themselves as “what Wave should have been.”

You can now get a full look at just what Pip.io has envisioned for the future, today. The company has finally reached the end of their beta cycle, and have released their 1.0 version of Pip.io.

Along with some very welcome UI tweaks, the core of the product has been fully upgraded and is now, according to corporate sources, 60% faster with a half-size code base.

Applications and other open items can now be minimized to the top bar from the refreshed sidebar removing the clutter that was something of a problem in earlier releases.

Read the rest of this post »

WSJ is reporting that Google will soon release a new Twitter like feature for Gmail.

The feature is reportedly designed to make it simple for users to share status updates, photos, videos with relevant people in their contact list via stream like interface.

WSJ reports that the feature could be made available as soon as this week, possibly as an integrated feature or initially as a Gmail labs addon.

The feature will apparently link to Gtalk’s status update feature but also  provide a separate area to view a Twitter like stream, presumably with replies/comments too.

Read the rest of this post »

Innovative mobile podcasting start-up AudioBoo has now added vanity URLs and profiles to its service and hints at more surprises to come as the team gets ready to join the UK’s Digital Mission to this year’s SXSW Interactive event in Texas.

AudioBoo initially launched its audio-blogging software as an iPhone app, followed by a similar app for Android users.  For those wanting to share their thoughts from any phone, the UK-based start-up introduced PhoneBoo and, late in 2009, added browser-based recording.

Last week, AudioBoo enabled users to add profile information their accounts and even register their own vanity URLs, but the team has also been making some even bigger changes behind the scenes.

Read the rest of this post »