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The New Sunday Express I March 20, 2011

i.witness TECHNOLOGY: TRENDS AND GIZMOS p

Button Up

The drift of Twitter

Though a 2009 survey found most of what was on Twitter ‘pointless babble’, Adarsh Mathan finds that the
micro-blogging site is still spewing similar venom and junk, and is more popular than ever

A
s Japan was ravaged by
a tsunami last week,
the third most popular
Twitter trend was
Godzilla. It was trend-
ing because people, despite the trag-
edy, were making jokes about Godz-
illa coming out of the Fukushima
nuclear plant if there were a nucle-
ar disaster. For a topic to trend on
Twitter, millions of its users have
to use that hash-tag. In this particu-
lar instance, they were divided
between a majority making fun of
the disaster and a minority who
were condemning the jokes.
Since its inception in 2006, the
micro-blogging site has achieved
quite a lot. For one, it single-hand-
edly killed blogging as we knew it.
People are no longer writing long
passages about their opinions but
are posting their thoughts in 140
characters. It grew into a global
phenomenon after Facebook and at
last count has 190 million users,
half of them American, and about
one per cent Indian. It is credited
with toppling dictators, finding
jobs, crowdsourcing, writing books,
and at times like this, making you
lose faith in humanity.
A 2009-survey by a market-
research firm found that 40 per cent
of the traffic on Twitter is ‘point-
less babble’. While I doubt this
would have decreased since the
study, Twitter has become more
popular and is certainly spewing
out more junk than ever before.
Charlie Sheen is a case in point.
The highest paid TV star in Ameri-
If you take some time
out to check various
Indian Twitter
accounts randomly,
you will realise one
thing. Most of them
are people who have
never tweeted but
are just following
celebrities
ca is obviously mentally ill and in
need of psychiatric help. He is an
addict who has lost his million-dol-
lar job due to his public antics. But
within weeks of joining Twitter, he
has amassed a following of two-and-
a-half million users who were clear-
ly laughing at his “tiger blood”
tweets. A man who should have
been sympathised with and who
should have been sent to rehab and
a psychiatrist was enjoying enor-
mous fame and was thinking all was
good because of his followers who
had no empathy for him and were
only laughing at him.
What old timers call lowering of
standards, around the world in edu-
Game on
cation and ethics, combined with a Sony Ericsson has unveiled
very bad celebrity culture, is lead- the world’s first Playstation
ing this Twitter revolution with certified smartphone. The
trending topics like tiger blood XPERIA Play might look like
and Godzilla. What is more alarm-
ing is what New York Times editor
a gaming console but on
Bill Keller calls the “the American closer inspection, it is an
Idol-isation of news”. When the Android smartphone with
editor of one of the most respected dedicated game controls. For
papers on earth says, “once-serious starters, it runs on Android
news outlets give pride of place not 2.3 Gingerbread powered by
to stories they think impor- a 1GHz CPU and packs a
tant but to stories that are 5-megapixel camera and a
‘trending’ on Twitter”, it 4-inch touchscreen display.
is time to take note. This
is much more evident
The slider reveals the
gaming controls, which you
and like everything else,
much more chaotic with might not have seen in a
a dash of rabble-rousing phone so far. The embedded
in India. graphics engine promises to
Five years after its conception, deliver 3D mobile gaming at
the government and most of the 60fps. And when you are not
political parties do not understand
Twitter. And if you take some time
gaming, you can surely tuck
the slider in and use it like a
out to check various Indian Twitter
accounts randomly, you will realise
normal touchscreen phone.
one thing. Most of them are people The handset is expected to
who have never tweeted but are just launch in India in April at an
following celebrities from Amitabh estimated price of `30,000.
Bachchan to Barkha Dutt, people
(called trolls) who use Twitter to
spew venom about a particular
Cheap one!
caste, religion, person or region and Though Apple has sold 100
who use it to abuse so-called celebri- million iPhones till date, the
ties. Twitter would have gotten cost of the device has
Binayak Sen out of jail in Egypt. remained expensive despite
stiff competition from the
— adarsharp@gmail.com Android smartphones. While
most of iPhone’s sales come
from customer contracts, the
company might be working
on a prepaid offering as hint-

ZITE AND THE QUEST FOR Varun Krishnan is Chief Blogger at FoneArena.com and has
been blogging about mobile phones since 2005. FoneArena is
one of the most popular mobile blogs and has readers from
around the world. Varun enjoys travelling and exploring
ed by Apple COO Tim Cook
recently. Cook suggested
that the company did not

A SEARCH-FREE WORLD
the latest mobile phones. varun@fonearena.net

This genie of an app creates a personalised

magazine on the fly, without asking users to pick Dell Venue Pro
content sources, says Bala Murali Krishna If you want to give a shot at
Windows Phone 7, the Dell Venue Pro
is your best bet. The handset offers

I
n recent years — no, make that several
years — we have been told the PC is
dead. I am writing this piece on one.
For a much shorter period of time, we
have been told the e-mail is dead. I had
to e-mail this article to my editor when I
was done. Similarly, the browser died with
the advent of apps and in recent weeks, we
are told the blog is dead. But, believe it or
not, I still get paid to write a thrice-weekly
pan-Asian news blog run by a British entre-
preneur. The point is: technology gurus, not
to mention their acolytes, love to pose as
visionaries, no matter how many times they
are wrong, and forever seek epiphanies.
In that spirit, it tickles me to suggest one:
the death of search. Or let me moderate
that. After all, Google is not going to go
belly up anytime soon. Search, as we know
it, is fundamentally changing and in some
cases in a fun way. Look at Zite, the new
iPad app that creates a personalised maga-
zine (not my term) on the fly. (Take that,
Rupert Murdoch, creator of the $30 million
iPad journal, The Daily.) It then throws all
the content into an elegant template that
exploits the rich features of the touch-based
tablet computer. This, by and large, has
ended my searches for most types of read-
ing — news or otherwise.
Zite — in urban lingo, apparently a web-
site that sucks — is actually a variant of the
German Zeitgest, or spirit of the times. The
app is not the first of its kind but might be
the most intelligent yet. In the early days of
the Internet, PointCast “pushed” news on
to your desktop. It died a quick death. In
recent years, we have iGoogle and Google
Reader for personalised reading. Even
Google Desktop can deliver news that can
be somewhat tailored by the user. But Zite
is a true genie.
Unlike Flipboard, an iPad app with which
it has been frequently compared, Zite
doesn’t ask users to choose the content
sources. This is a big plus to men who,
pathologically perhaps, are always more
curious about what’s on in the other chan-
nels. So, this allows a user to discover con- want its
tent that would otherwise remain below his both a touch screen and a portrait products to
radar. And Zite’s grasp is all-encompassing slide out keyboard.
— all of half a million websites including be “just for the
some eclectic blogs and Faking News. What’s Good: Unique design, New OS rich” and is working
At the outset, when you open the app the What’s Bad: The price, Windows on addressing the pre-
first time, Zite seeks your preferred inter- Phone 7 is still not perfect. paid market. So our
ests, interprets your Twitter feeds and han- dream of a cheaper iPhone
dles, and Google Reader data. You can also Price: `34,990 MRP might finally come true soon.
add unlisted subjects (for example, cricket
and Bollywood). Zite then compiles the
magazine you can flip through and read (or
Limited 3G?
Samsung Galaxy Pop While the 3G auction win-
ners were announced last
It’s one of Samsung’s entry level Android phones. If you ever
year, Indian consumers had
wanted to try Android on a small budget, there are lots of not fully benefited from the
choices compared to a few months ago and the Samsung Galaxy high speed internet services
Pop will give you a nice taste of what Android has to offer. as operators had initially
delayed their roll out. BSNL
What’s Good: Android 2.2, 3G, WiFi and MTNL have been offer-
What’s Bad: Low resolution screen, poor camera. ing 3G services for quite
Price: `8,999 MRP some time but it’s only now
that private operators are
starting to market their 3G
offerings. Tata Docomo was
the first to launch 3G servic-
es last year followed by
Nokia 5233 Reliance. Airtel has launched
its services in few cities now.
The 5233 is one of the cheapest smartphones available Aircel’s Pocket Internet ser-
in the market. It runs on Symbian S60 fifth edition vice has been quite a hit
and packs a decent amount of features for the entry among the youth and it has
launched 3G services last
level category.
What’s Good: Value for money, Symbian, Touchscreen
Unlike Flipboard, Zite What’s Bad: Feels cheap, poor camera
Price: `6,299 MRP
doesn’t ask users to
choose the content
sources. This is a big
plus to men who,
pathologically perhaps,
are always more curious
about what’s on in the week. Vodafone has done a
soft launch of its services in
other channel some cities. Though consum-
ers have choices when it
watch in the case of video). Users can comes to picking an opera-
change their settings at any time and the tor, the common complaint
Zite engine quietly keeps analysing what is that the tariffs are not
you are reading to tailor further changes.
For users of Flipboard, Zite’s design is
very affordable and that
only comparable, not matching. But I expect there are no unlimited plans.
Zite to quickly spruce up. What Zite deliv- BSNL has replaced its
ers, of course, is far from perfect. It is a lot Unlimited 3G plans with lim-
different from my morning newspaper or ited plans. Airtel has
Google’s automated news page. But then, it launched a FlexiShield Plan
is only a few days old and is still trying to which prevents your data bill
read my mind, in a manner of speaking. If from going above `2,000.
there are some annoyances, it is in throwing
up similar news articles (I really don’t care
to read two agency copies on the same sub-
Blackberry Torch Operators have voiced out
their opinion that there will
This is the first Blackberry to feature both a touchscreen and be no price war in 3G servic-
ject). What I like, and look forward to each
night when I spend an hour reading on my a full slide-out keypad and run a all-new Operating System es. So it’s clear at least for
iPad, is the anticipation of what Zite would that is bound to make BB fans happy. the time being that 3G tar-
bring up that I missed through the day. What’s Good: Design, New OS, Blackberry goodness, Multimedia. iffs are not going to decline.
— bmkrishna@expressbuzz.com What’s Bad: Slow Processor, Price. — VK
Price: `35,000 MRP