twitter

Though in it's earliest stages of development, a new app from Ordinal Malaprop, one of Second Life's more interesting dvelopers, promises to help Twitter users visualize their friends timelines, and incoming presence indicators known as "tweets" in 3D. I was privileged to spend a little time with Ordinal yesterday evening talking about the new tool, it's possible usefulness and the limitations of the Linden Scripting Language.

As you can see from above, at present the system is fairly basic. A proof of concept, if that. The potential is there though I think. If limitations in the LSL code that powers the generation, placement and deletion of the colored tweets you see can be overcome, it could prove to be a really fun way to visualize incoming data from friends' timelines on Twitter.

The biggest problem right now seems to be the limitations on memory. If you have a lot of friends, your SIM may get tweeted to death! As I left, Ordinal was thinking her way through that,and also about to ad some kind of conectors to the tweets radiating from "bomb" to make the whole visualization clearer.

Whether a truly useful tool emerges from this remains to be seen, but it sure was a fun app to see, and I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes from here.

In aproximately 3/4hr we'll hold the first Metaversed Geek Meet. An informal gathering of friends new and old to talk tech, web and SL. Teleport to this location [SLUrl], all are welcome, particularly newcomers!

If you need a hand, drop a comment, or IM me in Second Life. See you there!

Metaversed will hold it's first "Geek Meet" today at 8am SLT/PST, in combination with the popular Twitter users bi weekly meet ups! If you've never been to one of these informal, friendly get togethers then you're in for a treat: They're fun, and very newcomer friendly, so do join us, as we'd love to see you!

Typical topics of discussion include web apps such as Twitter, Jaiku, Tumblr and integration apps for web2.0 and Second Life. Mostly though, it's just a bunch of nice geeky folks meeting up to chat about tech!

How to Get There

Just teleport to this location at 8am SLT/PST today, or IM 57 Miles in Second Life for a Land Mark.

Hope to see you there!

If you've never been to one of the Twitter Users of SL meetups then we'd love to see you Today at 8am SLT. Just follow the link above for details on how to get there, or IM me, 57 Miles for a landmark or teleport into the meeting. We'll be discussing web technologies like Twitter, Jaiku, Tumblr and all things in between, with particular emphasis on those that play nice with SL :)

Hope to see you there!

If you use Twitter.com (see my page here, Metaversed updates here, Jaiku page here) or similar services such as Jaiku and are active in Second Life (or would like to be) then please join the Metaversed.com Twitter Users meetup on Friday 18th at 8am SLT (PDT) where we'll talk about Twitter, and other cool web technologies.

The group is friendly, informal and fun. New members are most welcome, we'd love to see you come so if you have any questions do drop them in the comment box below, or email me direct at nick@clickinfluence.com

Join the Twitter Users Group

The easiest way to stay up to date with group meetings, and ensure that you get a reminder nearer the time is to join our Twitter Users group inworld. Simply follow these instructions to join for free:

1. Login to Second Life and hit the Search button at the bottom
2. Enter Twitter Users in the search box
3. Join for free.

If anyone has suggestions for topics, please let me know also.

You can also see the web page for the event here or just search for "twitter" under the events tab in the inworld Search.

Thanks everyone. See you there!

Sometimes when you have such a clearly defined focus, such as virtual worlds business and technology, it's annoying not being able to link to other things you might find interesting in virtual worlds and other areas of more general interest. With that in mind, I spent half an hour last night setting up The Metaversed Tumblelog! If you don't know what a Tumblelog is, think of it as a super-easy scrapbook: A middle ground between blogging, and something like Jaiku [my page]. It's a very very fast way to throw quotes, links, pictures and other types of post to a central spot where anyone can follow via web feed or simply hit the regular page from time to time.

If you're interested in getting a Tumblelog yourself, it takes about 30secs to sign up, and you don't have to have a domain name. It's very addicitve and fun, and you can get it all set up at Tumblr.com

If you have one already, tell us about it in the comments...

I'm pretty certain that Squawk's inclusion of support for Jaiku, a mobile presence app similar (and really, better, though less popular) to Twitter, is the first instance of Jaiku support within Second Life. Twitter, (see my account here and Metaversed post updates here) has a half dozen decent SL clients, including Twitterbox, SLTweets and Squawk (Metaversed profile here), but until now, Jaiku hasn't had a look in.

I've not tested it yet, but i'll be doing so later, as well as updating my Jaiku account to pull Metaversed feeds into (it already pulls in my Twitter tweets). - Details on how to get hold of Squawk for Jaiku users on the Squawk site.

If you use Twitter [my twitter page] and want to send tweets from within Second Life then you're a little spoiled for choice in terms of clients you can choose from, but if like me, you're happy with your gadgets being a little rough and ready if they're powerful, then you'll love Squawk by Vincent Shore. Right now there aren't even any instructions, but it'll be simple to figure out for most SL'ers (IM me if you need a hand). The client is configurable, and really simple to use and according to Vincent, there are big plans ahead for the Squawk client in terms of community, additional API/Service integration and paid features.

I managed to catch up with Vincent in the week and talk to him about his plans for the client, which by the way, you can find here [SLUrl].

The first thing that's apparent about Squawk is that it's not simply another Twitter gateway, there's a Website which aggregates Squawk users tweets on the home page, but also most popular places the client is being used from (currently that's Dr.Dobb's Island where I've been using it as a note taking tool during the Life 2.0 convention)

Among the plans for the future is Del.icio.us integration, giving Squawk a kind of crowd sourced popular places functionality similar to Sloog and also Digg in terms of voting. Some additional functionality does require a small payment, such as receiving tweets inworld (something i turned off pretty quickly..) and it's not clear yet how future additions ot the client will be billed.

If you're a Twitter / SL power user. I recommend you check out Squawk, and also that you join our bi weekly Twitter users meet today at 8am SLT - the group is fun and friendly and full of geeks, what more could you possibly ask for?

Just a reminder that if you use Twitter, or any similar app like Jaiku for example, or indeed just want to talk web tech and Second Life,, you're invited to join us at the Twitter Users of Second Life meetup today at 8am SLT (PDT). The group is fun, informal, and very friendly. New people are most welcome, especially people new to SL or Twitter.

How to get there

There are several ways to get to the meet.<

1. IM 57 Miles inworld for a teleport
2. Use the Event search for "twitter"
3. Join The Twitter Users Group and I'll notify you.
4. Add Nick Wilson on Twitter (my RL name) and Twitter that you need help
5. Hit me on SkypeNickWilson

Hope to see you there!

While Im working on getting interviews up on the blog here at Metaversed you can catch my commentary live, as i think it :) via my Twitter page. Dont know what Twitter is? See here.

Just a reminder that if you use Twitter, or any similar app like Jaiku for example and are in Second Life, you're invited to join us at the Twitter Users of Second Life meetup today at 7am SLT (PDT).

How to get there

There are several ways to get to the meet.<

1. IM 57 Miles inworld for a teleport
2. Use the Event search for "twitter"
3. Join The Twitter Users Group and I'll notify you.
4. Add Nick Wilson on Twitter (my RL name) and Twitter that you need help
5. Hit me on SkypeNickWilson

Hope to see you there!

If you use Twitter.com (see my page here or the Metaversed page here) or similar services such as Jaiku and are active in Second Life (or would like to be) then please join the Metaversed.com Twitter Users meetup on Friday 20th at 7am SLT (PDT) where we'll work through a loose agenda of Twitter related topics and share news, experiences , new applications and Twitter pages.

The group is friendly, informal and fun. New members are most welcome, we'd love to see you come so if you have any questions do drop them in the comment box below, or email me direct at 57@metaversed.com

Join the Twitter Users Group

The easiest way to stay up to date with group meetings, and ensure that you get a reminder nearer the time is to join our Twitter Users group inworld. Simply follow these instructions to join for free:

1. Login to Second Life and hit the Search button at the bottom
2. Enter Twitter Users in the search box
3. Join for free.

If anyone has suggestions for topics, please let me know also.

Thanks everyone. See you there!

So I finally worked out how to publish an discussion event to the Second Life Search. That makes it official! The first Twitter Users coffee and chat discussion will be held at 8am SLT Friday 6th April at the Metaversed.com discussion area, which naturally, is still being constructed :)

I'll finalize the agenda later today, so if you have any topics you think ought to be covered, or just want to know more, then drop a comment in the box below, or email 57@metaversed.com and we'll get it sorted.

Join the Group!

If you use Twitter, and are in SL, then do join the Twitter Users group. It's dead easy, and will help me send out Teleports and reminders of discussion times. Here's how to join:

1. Log in to SL
2. Hit the Search button at the bottom of your screen and chose the Groups tab
3. Key in "Twitter Users" without the quotes, and pay $0 to join the group

Look forward to meeting as many of the current group as possible and new faces as well on Friday...

Unless you live under a rock, you'll have heard of Twitter.com by now right? No? Then start here. There are a ton of cool toys built for Twitter, from the addictive Twittervision to desktop apps like Twitterific. There's even one for Second Life, and it's fantastic!

Firstly though, login to SL, hit the Search, and then the groups tab - and key in "twitter users" and join the SL Twitter Users Group. It's a new discussion group for.... Twitter users! and we'll be holding our first informal get together on Friday (time to be arranged).

SLTweets is a simple HUD, or Heads UP Display, that sits on top of your window and allows you to do a bunch of useful things, like:

• Post to your Twitter account
• Store and tag notes for your current location (great for explorers..) and
• Read your friends Tweets

It's very simple to get, setup and use. Simply go to SLTweets.com and follow the instructions. Then to post, it's simply a matter of chatting "/123 post your message here" and you're Twittering direct from the Metaverse!

I do have 2 issues with SLTweets though:

1. Why can't I hide the HUD? I dont need to see the damn thing as I only want to post, not read in SL. If anyone knows how, please let me know!
2. Reading is next to useless. The text escapes the HUD's window and is pretty much illegible. As I prefer to read Tweets from a browser though this doesn't bother me as much as #1

Get Metaversed, and Me on Twitter

You can get updates from Metaversed at Twitter.com/Metaversed and from me (incl. inworld tweets) at Twitter.com/NickWilson.

If you use Twitter.com, then firstly go add Metaversed to your friends list, and after you've done that, join the newly formed Twitter Users Group inworld. Here's how you do it:

1. Login to Second Life
2. Hit the Search button, and choose the "Groups" tab at the top right
3. Search for "Twitter Users", and join the group for $L0

As soon as the group has a few members, we can schedule the first discussion.

The idea of this group is to discuss ways in which we might further use the Twitter service and to discover new tools and services to help us better communicate using Twitter.

Join today, and i'll notify you as soon as the first discussion group has been scheduled!

Hey, we've been online less than a week and the first "new feature" is being added, yay! Im a huge Twitter fan. If you've never heard of it, the brief summary is this: A web service that allows you to get "updates" via IM, SMS or web in real time. Sounds "eh? WTF?" right? Yep, so says everyone till they try it...

Go to the Metaversed Twitter Page

Once you're there, you can join, then add Metaversed to your friends, or if you're already a member, just hit the 'add' button on the right hand side. It's dead easy.

Once you're in, go to settings (top menu) and configure how you'd liek to be notified and enjoy real-time updates on business side of the Metaverse!

If you have questions, or need help, drop them in the box below, or use the contact form here.

Enjoy!

Notable links for Tuesday 20th March include Twitterbox, an inworld client for popular service . Don't know what all that's about? Here, see my Twitter page for a stream of cool virtual and RL links. via Mark Wallace.

Also of note is the fact that Stefan Geens, the guy behind the Swedish Second Life Embassy, is blogging the construction process. Very cool.