Month: March 2012

Twitter Commercials?


Today Twitter announced “Promoted Tweets on mobile: more options, starting today“.

Promoted tweets are advertisements in tweet form in your timeline. Previously, these tweets would only be shown only if you followed the advertiser. This seemed like a pretty limited option to me. Why would you follow, for example, Verizon Wireless? Isn’t that like tuning your TV to the Coca Cola channel? I really didn’t think advertisers would buy into that too heavily.

In today’s announcement we see the next step:

Starting today, we are expanding this test, enabling brands to target Promoted Tweets to mobile users that share similar interests with their existing followers.

So, if I read this right, this means Twitter is going to analyze everyone’s tweets and swizzle them together to determine in some way who has similar interests, and then use that information to distribute advertising in the timelines.

I’m not sure if I’m okay with this or not. Tweets aren’t private, so there’s no reason they shouldn’t be able to do this. (I’m assuming, perhaps wrongly, that Twitter won’t analyze private timelines this way.) They need to pay for the service, so they have to do something. I think what I’d really like to see is an advertising-free subscription option. Sign up for $2/month and you won’t ever see ads. I’d do that.

For now let’s just hope that the advertising doesn’t get too egregious.

Apple TV 1080p Not Too Shabby

This is a scene from The Amazing Race, purchased through the Apple TV. We have a 30 Mbps Internet connection and it started streaming immediately.

Full Screen 1080p Apple TV
Close-Up Detail 1080p Apple TV

Controlling My Own Destiny

Exhibit A on why I want to control as much as possible when it comes to web services: Posterous is Joining the Flock at Twitter

I used to use Posterous as my main blogging tool, primarily because it was so great at distributing content to the latest social media services. (My relatives are hip to different things, so I have to do the scatter shot.) I was always uncomfortable with that since Posterous had no clear means of generating revenue and could disappear at any time.

Now Twitter has acquired them and they could easily go the way of Gowalla and disappear with little notice. I’m much happier being in control of my own destiny and feeling relatively confident that the things I publish now (like this blog entry) will not go away unless I want them to. Even if it is more work.

For the same reason, I collect my tweets on this site. I’m not particularly thrilled with having them integrated here, but this way I solve two problems:

  • If Twitter should ever shuffle off, I’ve got a record of all that I wrote there (at least since I started collecting them).
  • There are those who have some interest in what I post to Twitter, but they’re not Twitter users.

Facebook? I never post directly on Facebook. Bleh.

Having A Clinic & Pharmacy On Campus Is Terrific

Cerner Pharmacy IM Conversation

When was the last time your pharmacy did an instant message conversation with you to ask where you’d like your prescription delivered?

Not only are the doctors at our clinic both very convenient and very good, but there’s nothing like having a pharmacy where:

  • they’re very friendly and greet me by name.
  • there’s usually no wait, and never a wait longer than 5 minutes.
  • the prescriptions are cheaper than anywhere else.