nanoblogging

I have a Twitter account. So do a handful of CNET's other bloggers (Rafe is Mr. Popular). Maybe you have one, too. Want to know who else does? Several of the telescopes at the University of Manchester's Jodrell Bank Observatory in the UK, that's who.

A British astronomy fan, who operates the aptly-named Astronomy Blog, has set up Twitter accounts for the observation targets of several of Jodrell Bank's telescopes and is aggregating the feeds here. You probably won't see these Twitter feeds saying "starbucks run" or "cat knocked over flowerpot, arrrgh,&… Read more

There were a number of presenters at Tuesday night's New York New Tech Meetup, but the one that everyone seemed to want to know about was Gatsb, which has the potential to be one part Twitter, one part Radar (previous coverage here), and one part Yelp. I say "has the potential" because those comparisons largely sprang up from the audience at the Tech Meetup. Founder Andre de Cavaignac, who was demonstrating the site, just portrayed it as a cool way to share camera phone pictures online with location data.

(And, yes, it's pronounced "Gatsby.")… Read more

Over the weekend, a weird thing happened on the nanoblogging service Twitter (Twitter review; Twitter how-to): Its most popular contributor, Leo Laporte, announced that he was leaving Twitter for a competing service, Jaiku (review). And that he was taking his fans with him. See Laporte's blog for his explanation.

The reason: An unfortunate coincidence of naming. Laporte runs the popular technology podcast, This Week in Tech--aka TWiT. After embracing Twitter and winning the most users or "followers"--more than 4,000, surpassing even megablogger Robert Scoble (Twitter feed)--he realized that there could be brand confusion between Twitter and TWiT, and thought it best to depart Twitter while he and Twitter's business team got things sorted out. The departure played out in blogs and on Twitter itself, and to everyone's credit there doesn't appear to be animosity among the players.

But it's a pain in the neck for bystanders. The "Laporte effect" has had ramifications for users of both services. First, the influx of users to Jaiku overwhelmed the service, causing it to become intermittently nonresponsive (shades of Twitter). Second, it leaves users with a dilemma: if you want to play in the nanoblogging universe, which site do you use and hang out on? And as I wrote on Twitter over the weekend, "I'll be damned if I'm going to update Jaiku and Twitter too." So, what's a nanoblogger to do?

The easy answer: sign up for both services, and add your personal Twitter RSS feed to your Jaiku account. That way, when you post a Twitter item, it'll show up for your Jaiku users as well. Here's how:

… Read more

Tumblr blogging service, which launched last month, gives people the chance to publish brief or full-length, media-rich posts using their browser or mobile phone. It's a happy medium between a tidbit posting service, such as Twitter, and a full-fledged blogging tool, such as WordPress or Blogger. Tumblr is aimed at folks who feel they may not have enough content or time to write a full blog, yet still want to write and share links and media.

Each Tumblr user gets their own "Tumblelog," a short-form blog that contains one of six types of media: word posts, photos, videos, quotes, URLs, and IM conversations. Each type of content has its own visual style and corresponding form for publishing. It's delightfully simple, and within minutes you can add a wide range of content. There's also a bookmarklet for your browser's toolbar to post items without having to navigate to Tumblr's home page.

Tumblr comes with some pretty advanced options for power users. You can give your Tumblelog its own domain, and even set the length for stories on your RSS feed. There are five themes to pick from, and you can customize the color of every aspect of the interface. If you are integrating Tumblr into your blog or Web site, there's an option to paste in your CSS.

What really sets Tumblr apart is its speed. It's blazingly fast. According to founder David Karp, the service gets in excess of 10,000 posts an hour, something you can visually track using an in-house tool called Radar. Currently in alpha, it shows the last 20 pieces of content published to the service. It's a little bit like Digg's DiggSpy, but without autorefreshing.

If you're on the fence about blogging or just want an easy way to publish interesting tidbits you find while browsing, give Tumblr a try. Our semiofficial Tumbleblog can be found here.

Note: From 2003 to 2007, Tumblr creator David Karp was a partner and CTO of UrbanBaby.com, now owned by CNET Networks, publisher of Webware.com.… Read more