How many times have you been to a product website and seen big bold letters proclaiming that you can CONNECT and ENGAGE and DISCOVER? Every time I see that, I hit the back button, and I bet you do too.

It’s because it’s vague. It’s supposed to sound exciting, but it’s not. It doesn’t say anything about what you can really do with the app.

Nobody wants to connect or discover.

— Brent Simmons on Twitter’s new nomenclature. Spot-on.

I absolutely agree with Brent Simmons’s statement. Having read the articles by Cody Fink and John Gruber, I believe that—at least for me—Twitter’s apps (including the web app) have finally jumped the shark.

The new Twitter iPhone app seems to be aimed at new users and “casual users”. Now, why did I use this word, almost devoid of meaning, “casual users”?
I don’t think “casual users” are those who sometimes check Twitter to see what’s up; from personal experience those users are more likely to interact with a small amount of friends/other users, meaning that the most important features of Twitter are the timeline, conversations and direct messages. DMs, for one, are hidden in the last tab of the app. From Gruber’s article:

“Me”. Oh boy. Stashed into this tab are your profile, your direct messages, your Twitter Lists, and the interface for switching to other Twitter accounts. This tab is the conceptual carpet under which Twitter swept everything that didn’t fit under “Home”, “Connect”, or “Discover”.

And that’s exactly what happened.
As I see it, Twitter is trying to hone-in on new users and what it thinks are “casual users”; users who sometimes check Twitter to stay up to date on the latest happenings, trends and product offers and interact publicly with their friends and acquaintances.

Again, Gruber:

Presumably, this Discover tab is the successor to the late and unlamented dickbar — where sponsors will be able to pay Twitter to promote products and services.

Yup. Combine that with what Fink found out about this tab:

Discover is supposed to get better over time. Depending on where you’re located, who you follow, or what topics you find interest in, Discover aims to offer suggestions around those things.

Until now Twitter’s applications allowed the users to make use of the service according to his/her needs, even the web app. Now Twitter is trying to steer users in a direction.
For me this direction is called “We finally need a way to monetize this service.”, which Twitter perfectly entitled to do.

Unfortunately that means many users will now (have to) steer clear of Twitter’s applications. Thankfully there are alternatives; Twitterrific and Twittelator Neue cater to what I think are causal users; as they integrate DMs and @-replys and photos nicely into the timeline and create a seamless experience.
On the other end of the spectrum there’s Echofon and Tweetbot; two clients help the user make the most of almost everything Twitter has to offer and give him/her quick access to almost any kind of information.

I have found what I was looking for in Tweetbot. Tweetie and Tweetie 2.0 even more so, were the evolution of Twitter on the iPhone; the first clients that were more powerful than the website. Everything Twitter did to it after buying it, was adding features and altering it. Tweetbot has everything I loved in Tweetie 2.0, but with even more useful features, all packaged in a design that makes everything very accessible and a pleasure to use.

jwisser:

Rick Perry:

I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a Christian, but you don’t need to be in the pew every Sunday to know there’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school.

This is one of the most breathtakingly offensive and reality-denying political ads I’ve seen from an American politician. It suggests that Christians are somehow persecuted, rather than the dominant religious and political force in the country. It suggests that gay people serving the nation that has long denied them full citizenship are something other than selfless heroes. And it states outright that children can’t “openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school”—both of which are blatant lies, unless something significant has changed without me hearing about it in the last six years. No, teachers can’t lead children in prayer—you may recall the establishment of religion clause, Governor Perry—but that didn’t stop a group of Christian students from gathering around the flagpole of my high school to pray several times a week.

Rick Perry is the same presidential candidate who yesterday said that improving the lives of gay individuals abroad was “not in America’s interests” and suggested that not being killed or imprisoned in nations like Uganda is a “special right”.

I’d really like to hear Rick Perry explain why it’s okay to burn over a trillion dollars to kill brown people overseas, ostensibly to prevent them from killing people, but it’s not okay to make American aid to foreign countries conditional on those countries not killing or imprisoning their own citizens based on sexual orientation.

Somehow I doubt Jesus would agree with Governor Perry’s priorities.

“Religious heritage”???

Correct me if I’m wrong, but the Pilgrim Fathers came to ‘The New World’ because of religious persecution and the wish for religious freedom.

Furthermore I think someone should slap him with the First Amendment until he understands it — and not only the parts regarding religious freedom, but also those on freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and interference with the right to peaceably assemble.

One last thing: Could this man be kindly reeducated on one of the pillars of modern democracy? It’s called ‘The Separation of State and Church’.
A quick quote from Thomas Jefferson:

“… I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.” 

If this guy gets elected president he might put the Spanish Inquisition and the Crusades to shame. I’m German—brought-up strictly catholic, turned agnostic—and I cannot do anything against scum like him, but crap like this video makes my blood boil.

chartier:

Maciej Ceglowski, calling the “start a free web service, refuse to implement a business model, and eventually get bought” shenanigans for what they are:

Whether or not this is done in good faith, in practice this kind of ‘exit event’ is a pump-and-dump scheme. The very popularity that attracts a buyer also makes the project financially unsustainable. The owners cash out, the acquirer gets some good engineers, and the users get screwed.

To avoid this problem, avoid mom-and-pop projects that don’t take your money! You might call this the anti-free-software movement.

That’s a great name for it. At this point, I am genuinely skeptical of free services or apps that can’t be bothered or flat-out refuse to implement some kind of a business model. I need tools and services I can depend on, not web services that get bought and shut down or pivot to chase the latest stupid trend, and definitely not free or open source apps that eventually get abandoned because they became too much work or the developers finally realized they need real jobs or had a kid.

This is one of the reasons why I wished Tumblr would start charging money for the service, even if only for some kind of premium variant. I love the service, but apart from a few themes I haven’t paid them directly. Tumblr going away—by shutting down or being bought—would mean a lot of work and headaches for me.

Many services could secure their existence and become even better by charging something. I gladly paid for Simplenote Premium for two years, because I wanted one of the premium features and wanted to support the developers.

I like free stuff as much as the next guy—hell, I’m a student for chrissakes—but I believe that where people see value, they’re going to pay.

Yesterday the sequel to ‘Infinity Blade’ by Epic Games was released. The initial reviews on gaming centric websites were almost unanimously positive.

I downloaded the game this morning and took a few minutes to check it out.
What I saw was impressive to say the least:

• Incredible graphics, diverse, changing environments and cutscenes
• Gone is the tedious repetitiveness of the first title
• New enemies with new moves and attacks, old enemies with a few new tricks up their sleeves
• Improved sound effects, voice overs and music
• New upgrade system for your inventory and a sleuth of new items

There are a few bugs, mostly small graphics glitches, imperfect localisation (I also couldn’t find a way to set the subtitles from German to English) and it’s still annoying to see advertisements for game-related things left, front and centre. I didn’t have any crashes so far, which wasn’t the case for the first one, and I’ve noticed that the game manages to get my iPhone 4S pretty warm.

I can’t wait to spend more time with this game. Go get it.