I have been using Twitter regularly now for more than two months, and I love it. Despite its frequent outages as it grows in popularity (remember that even Digg had “scaling issues” early on), Twitter is an amazingly unnecessary and yet completely addictive form of communication that when I’m not at my computer I think about all those “tweets” (Twitter messages) that I’m not seeing. But let’s take a step back and explain what Twitter is to those of you who might not know. Twitter bills itself as “a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?” Essentially it is a mini- (or micro- or nano-) blogging tool which allows you to post a short message (under 140 characters) via web or text message and allows your “followers” to choose how they receive your messages, again via web or text message. Twitter also has a powerful API which has spawned a whole host of third-party applications.

OK, now back to me: I use Twitter to participate in that “great conversation” that it allows by following various people (mostly internet celebs and other denizens of forums I frequent) and using @replies to designate a reply to someone. For this reason, my usage of Twitter tends to be more ‘real time’ so my issue was less how to keep everything updated (à la Keaven) and more how to manage the tweets that are coming in. My solution so far is twhirl, a desktop application (for Windows and Mac OSX) which provides frequent tweet notification (clearly distinguishing regular tweets from direct messages and @replies), cross-posts to Pownce and Jaiku, and performs various other Twitter-friendly things like shortening URLs and searching Tweet Scan. It’s the best Twitter client that I’ve found that does what I need.

So far this lengthy (and getting lengthier) post mostly has been about Twitter since that’s the network I use most frequently, but I did want to touch on a few others:

• I use Facebook quite a bit to post interesting links or videos I find and to interact with a smaller circle of people I know via the varied applications Facebook allows. (While I have a MySpace page that is fairly up to date, I almost never visit the site.)
• I mentioned Pownce earlier, but mostly I just receive other people’s posts (links, pictures, events) and usually only post there through twhirl unless it’s a reply. Among the advantages that Pownce has over Twitter, though, are that there is no character limit, you can post pictures and files, and they have threaded replies.
• I suppose del.icio.us can be considered a social network in that you can save links and share them with others, including the ability to mark a link as “for:” someone. I use del.icio.us mostly via their excellent Firefox extension which takes the place of Firefox’s Bookmarks and allows me to access my bookmarks wherever I am. (I also use it to submit story suggestions to Buzz Out Loud, my favorite audio podcast.)
• Similarly, StumbleUpon could be considered a link-based social network, although in a more aggregated sense in that when you “Stumble” you are shown pages thumbed-up by others with similar likes as you. I usually just use the toolbar to send Keaven links, though.
• I am also on LinkedIn, a network used to connect people professionally. For me, it’s just basically an online résumé.
• Getting back to Keaven’s post, he mentions seeing me as a fan of Brightkite on Facebook. Brightkite is a location-based social network where you can check-in to wherever you are and get notified when other users are in the area or see who has visited in the past. I was fortunate enough to get in the private beta early enough that my user name is actually “roy”. Awesome. Anyway, I haven’t used it too much, but it is an interesting concept that I hope catches on once it gets out of beta. (I have invites so let me know if you want one).

I think I have covered all the networks that I use, but if you think I’m missing one or you know of one that I just have to join, let me know!

In a lengthy and incredibly well-written blog post on their website, Revision3 CEO Jim Louderback details exactly what this DoS was, how it happened, and why it brought down their server. But he also goes on to describe how the evidence the attackers left behind led them to a subsidiary of Artistdirect called MediaDefender. MediaDefender is a company that, as ars technica points out, intentionally poisons peer-to-peer (P2P) traffic in a purported effort to fight piracy, and their clients have included Sony, Universal Music, the RIAA, and the MPAA. Now, Revision3 uses the Bittorrent P2P protocol to distribute its large volume of high-definition content (namely its shows) manageably and efficiently to its consumers. MediaOffender, ahem, MediaDefender had been injecting torrents into Revision3’s tracking server for months until the back door was found and Revision3 deauthorized non-Revision3 torrents. This caused MediaDouchefender, dammit, MediaDefender’s servers to attack Revision3’s servers by pinging them 8000 times every second, effectively bringing Revision3 to a crashing halt. It is interesting to note here how Louderback phrases this: “Revision3 suffered measurable harm to its business….” This certainly sounds like someone is laying groundwork for a lawsuit. Additionally, the FBI is investigating the incident so hopefully there will be repercussions for such an incredibly reprehensible and entirely indefensible attack on a business by an organization, funded by competing media interests, whose tactic to “fight piracy” is to undermine undeniably legal technology. I…am…so…angry…

Edit:
Here’s more of my feelings in the form of a comment (currently awaiting moderation) I left on Molly Wood’s Culture of Ownership blog:

I think there’s a little piece of the story that many people may be missing so let me quote from MediaDouchefenders’ website: “This last year, we have been leveraging our anti-piracy technology to market and promote on various Peer-to-Peer Networks.” My guess is that they not only put decoy torrents on Rev3’s network, but they have also likely been injecting torrents to “market and promote” their old media clients by hijacking/attacking their direct competition in new media. I also do not think it is coincidence that Revision3 was attacked given the founders’ connection to Digg, and we all know how much the AACS LA consortium (including MediaOffender client Sony) loved Digg after that encryption key was released. I don’t know. Maybe I’m thinking too hard, but that’s just how I see things.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley’d and thunder’d ;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

So find a poem, print it out, stick it in your pocket, and share it with others!

Oh, and lest you think that Deutsche Telekom invented the color magenta, I direct your attention to this passage from the IHT article linked above:

Magenta is “a color that dates from 1859 when a small Italian city by the same name was site of the battle in which French and Piedmontese troops defeated the Austrian Army. A new reddish pigment was discovered the same year and was named magenta, to mark the bloodshed in the town of Magenta.”

Is this the world we live in that corporate machines can copyright a color created 150 years ago and demand that the color not be used by anyone else? I don’t think I can adequately put into words the rage that builds every time I think about this. I will, however, direct your attention to a post on The Culture of Ownership, a blog which essentially sprang to life as a way for Molly Wood to elaborate on her frequent Buzz Out Loud rants.

Free the Magenta!!

In the current anniversary episode, they reveal the winning segments from their online poll and discuss what it was like shooting those particular fan faves. But I have to say that the opening alone is fantastic, especially if you’ve watched more than a few episodes. Basically throughout the year they have been singing a song (I won’t ruin it if you haven’t seen it yet) during the taping of each of the openings and compiled them all together into one amazingly cohesive segment. As a big fan, seeing that opening for the first time was (as I described to Keaven earlier today) like watching a twist in a movie that took a year to set up. EDIT: OK, so after another viewing I realized that the opening was actually created be re-shooting the earlier openings to make it look like they had been doing it all along. And, really, the fact that they had to get the clothes, props, backgrounds, etc. to match the original is pretty breathtaking in and of itself.

If you haven’t seen the show before, I’m not sure the anniversary episode is the right one to start with. On the one hand, it does focus on the fan favorites from the past year, but on the other hand, it contains a fair number of inside references, especially during the retrospective section. That being said [one of the inside references I mentioned] if you’re intrigued after watching this episode, I highly suggest you check out a couple more, particularly the London episode.

So here’s to another TRS-filled year. Keep the rad coming guys!