Get My Goo (http://goo.gl/9wd5) has just lanched, making it easy to create goo.gl short links without using the Google Toolbar or Google Reader. Simply enter your URL and a cool goo.gl URL will be instantly created.

The cool bookmarklet allows you to create a short-link for any page you are visiting. Have a look at this screenshot:

Facebook are to charge £14.99 per month to access the site, in plans to be implemented July next year. Or so a Facebook group says.

Now, you would expect the ‘average’ person to see that this is a rumour. But over 800,000 members (currently growing strong at 250,000 per day) have signed up to demonstrate their naïvety. What’s more is that many people are already making plans to head back to MySpace. Maybe Facebook should put them out of their misery?

Wow.

A few days ago, I was thinking of ways to drive more traffic to 22Talk. Unlike my other websites, 22Talk’s traffic is more time dependent in that more than 1 user must be online at the same time for it to work at all (and lots more for it to work effectively).

I tried StumbleUpon Ads a few months ago, and that worked well: I managed to get around 50 simultaneous users online (for about 15 minutes, though). Unfortunately, only a small number of users from these campaigns returned to 22Talk, making the site useless again. And at $0.05 per visitor, I was unable to see how I would re-coup my costs.

But then, on Saturday, I had an epiphany: Rather than drive users to 22Talk, why not drive 22Talk to the users? And then, 22Talk on Facebook was born. It is more-or-less identical to how 22Talk worked before, but in the more social environment of Facebook. Because of Facebook’s great API, I have been able to make the site more user-orientated: If you find someone you like, you can now add them as a friend for life! (You can also go completely Anonymous, if you prefer).

The app is brand new (not in the directory yet). At the moment, you could be waiting a while for a stranger to come along — but please do wait. Please tell all of your Facebook friends to try it out, blog about this, and let’s see whether we can get enough users to get 22Talk rolling.

Merry Christmas!

It seems crazy that the media always seem to have something to say about Twitter. Yet, 99% of us don’t actually care.

Recently, BBC News published an article — ‘Fry ends row with Twitter critic‘. That’s fair enough … but is it really that news-worthy!? What is really annoying is that it is published under ‘Entertainment‘ (it’s not entertaining), and featured on ‘Technology‘ (it’s not really anything to do with technology), and mentioned on the front-page and  ‘UK‘ (where most people don’t care about Twitter [or Stephen Fry, for that matter]). Strangely, in the most suitable place, ‘Also in the News‘, it is not mentioned at all.

I’m not specifically attacking the BBC here (actually, I am): this problem is widespread. We don’t care about Twitter. We don’t care about individual tweets on Twitter. And we don’t care about ‘controversial‘ moves for people leaving Twitter. So, to all media: GET A GRIP!

Many people will turn to Twitter to break and discuss news. However, I feel as-if Twitter, on its own, is not a great medium for distributing and discovering news and events. Although there exists a ‘Popular Topics’ feature, there is no obvious attempt to actually connect with the news and events; rather, there is just short, vague and duplicated statements, lacking the editorial quality we are accustomed to from respected news providers.

In an attempt to resolve this issue, I have been working on a little project to connect Twitter with news. Right Now (http://RightNowFeed.org) is a simple web-service combining data from Twitter and News sites, such as the BBC, CNN and Reuters. While news sites provide the quality coverage, tweets from Twitter are used to rank the items’ relevancy. It is designed to replace any news feed you currently have.

In all, it took less than a week for this project to come from idea to launch. Please give it a go, and tell me what you think — Right Now is a long way from perfect, and you opinion and suggestions will help in getting there.

-Brendon.

It seems that the media cover a story on Twitter every day. Here are just 5 of today’s publications from some reputable media outlets:

• Why is Darren Bent on Twitter? by the Telegraph.
• Debate is delayed by Twitter row by BBC News.
• US start-up finds way to pay via Twitter by guardian.co.uk.
• Twittering your way to happiness by Times Online.
• For Companies, a Tweet in Time Can Avert PR Mess by The Wall Street Journal.

From this, you could easily be lead into the belief that Twitter is a popular service. But, is it really? I mean, put the media and the wanna-be-cool companies aside, and what do you have?

Well, in short, you have nothing. Nearly all of Twitter’s users tweet “Signing up for Twitter” and never come back. So, that just leaves thousands of businesses trying to reach-out to their customers, but who are in fact just tweeting to themselves.

The “ordinary” Internet user does not understand Twitter. It is a linear, one-to-many, restrictive messaging facility. What are they supposed to do with it? They are not bloggers. (Or micro-bloggers, even). They don’t want to talk to the world. They want to talk to people — known and new — to share information with who they choose. Well, you can do this with Twitter; but, the lack of space to express anything useful and the linearity of the service is what makes it so inaccessible.

The features which make Twitter so inaccessible are the same ones that make it wholly unique. While it is great for bloggers to post “Look, I’ve posted this new article [LINK]“, it is really difficult to express anything more using just the service or to have bi-directional (or multi-directional) conversations. And even if it wasn’t, what does it have to offer to compete with Facebook, Instant Messaging and good-old E-mail?

One thing Twitter is claimed to be good for is spreading information fast. In fact, I quite often read about tweets breaking a news story 20 minutes before the BBC or whatever. But, still, I and many others heard it from the BBC — not Twitter. And who would I have to follow to get the news first? Everyone? While many people may post about events as-they-happen, it still takes a long time for those listening to hear anything, unless you are closely associated with certain people. And even then, you only manage to get 140-character snippets: vague opinions and small notes of the event.

So, Twitter isn’t a social network. Its very simplicity has made it difficult to use. And, it’s not even that good at spreading information. So is it useful? Really?

(I know this may be too critical, and I sound obnoxious. I do think Twitter is a very useful service. But, its usage is very unique and not the kind of service which is useful for everybody; or most people, even).

StumbleUpon is one of the best sites on the Internet, in my opinion. But, this is why I do not like you (in no particular order):

1. You thumb down a page and write a bad review based on your ignorance.
2. You thumb up a page and write a good review based on your ignorance.
3. You thumb up a page because you a humoured by the SU user’s criticisms.
4. You criticize a user for submitting duplicate content, as if he committed murder.
5. You keep sending me to your blog (outside of my interests) because you “really need” the popularity this week.
6. You never stumble; your recent reviews are all from the same site (yours!).
7. You only stumble; you never write any reviews.
8. I send you a page, and you send me a one back and plead that I give it a thumbs up; it’s not a traffic exchange!
9. You state the obvious.
10. You never say anything interesting; just “cool”, “sweet” and “wow”. (It’s fine in moderation)
11. Your quotes are too large.
12. You only quote.
13. You thumb up and review software or services because “they look good”.
14. You tag too little.
15. Your tags are irrelevant.
16. Your review is nothing to do with the page.
17. You have 2,000 favourites, but 3 reviews.
18. You are an optimist.
19. You are a pessimist.
20. You have no sense of humour.
21. Your profile sucks.
22. Your avatar sucks.
23. You use too many superlatives.
24. You are pretentious.
25. You (only) point out flaws in others.
26. You apply logic in places where logic in not needed.
27. You don’t apply logic in places where logic is needed.
28. You think you are better than everyone else.
29. You spend too much time on SU.
30. You thumb everything up.
31. You thumb everything down.

If a particular SU user ticks you off, simply send them this page along with a list of the applicable items.

Please share any other reasons you have…