Last night I heard about Twitter acquiring the Tweetie iPhone application.  Tweetie, often raved as the best Twitter iPhone app, will now be offered for free instead of $2.99.  On Twitter’s blog, the company justified its acquisition, “People are looking for an app from Twitter, and they’re not finding one.”  I think they are right, and I’m happy they will be giving away the app.

When I heard the news, I was not surprised that they had released a native application, but I was surprised they had acquired another company to do it.

After waking up this afternoon (hey, don’t judge; I was up working until 10am), I was linked to this story on CNET. As the story shows, some view Twitter’s move as an attack on third-party developers and have compared it to Apple’s move with iPhone OS 4.0 (a move I do have reservations about).

To me, Twitter’s actions are significantly different from Apple’s, and significantly better for users and developers.  As I see it, Twitter is simply re-entering the market that made Twitter what it is.  It is NOT moving to block any third-party development.  The developer community is understandably nervous about any acquisitions and freebies, but, in this case, I think the anxiety is misplaced.

I’m a firm believer in competition and transparency. Twitter seems to be, too.  They have certainly encouraged developers to create external solutions through their API (application programming interface).  The Twitter API is well documented and allows access from a variety of languages and platforms, unlike Apple’s approach, which rules out anything not written in Objective-C.

Services like Seesmic go beyond a simple read/post interface and offer an expanded service (ability to post to updates to 50+ services), serving more than a generic recreation of Twitter. In contrast, Tweetable offers a generic read/post service that integrates with the admin panel of my blog, making Twitter available in a unique location.  I’m all for that.

Ultimately, innovation and improvement are the two greatest assets in any business model. Twitter’s acquisition of Tweetie shows it understands this logic well.  I wouldn’t be surprised if Twitter follows up by buying more related services or expanding internally in similar directions.

Quoting Thoreau on this blog might be a bit odd, yet the quote sums up my feeling for the plugin. When I read about Tweetable on Mashable, I thought sarcastically “hurray, another Twitter plugin.” After setting it up, being swayed by their referral, I really enjoyed it’s presence. The plugin places a quick Twitter interface in the admin panel, allowing the admin (or authors) to interact on the blogs Twitter account.

“Simplify, simplify.” – Henry David Thoreau. A quote stuck in my head after starting to read On Writing Well, by William Zinsser.

To me, it comes as a blessing. As I have been trying to force myself to concentrate on my blog, I’m excited that I now have access to Twitter without the need of another tab or application.

Along with the embedded Twitter application, the plugin publishes my posts to Twitter and places a TweetMEME icon on my posts. Two tasks which had been handled through other plugins.

While not a selling point, the posts are tagged with the application you name during setup. Which is why in the image above you see “from Michael Lipson,” named after my blog.  Just a little extra personality for the 140 character social network.

I received Gmail access to Google Buzz yesterday and had a chance to poke around with it away from a mobile platform. There’s a lot that needs to be worked out, however my opinion has changed quite a bit since playing around on the phone.

Naturally, my first impression was filled with concerns about privacy with the location tagging. From a mobile standpoint, I still feel quite the same. The difference with the Gmail based interface is that it doesn’t seem so invasive on that front. Overall, it actually functions really well (considering the hiccups with Wave) and feels more private then Twitter and smoother then Facebook.

Jason Calacanis posted a note on his blog claiming this was the end of Facebook. After receiving the Gmail access, I’d have to agree that in the long run it could be a direct competitor due to Facebook’s recent downward spiral. Naturally, Gmail has a great customer base to enter the market, but I think it has a lot more to deal with the presentation. Presentation and simplicity was the highlight to Facebook’s original success, however as the social site grew they moved in the opposite direction.

In previous posts, I’ve talked thoroughly about the simplicity of designs and ease of use being a strong point to the success of websites. Facebook had been an example, however even before the most recent redesign the networking site had fallen away from “networking” and became more of an entertainment site. With the addition of applications and games, Facebook was able to attract a whole new audience at the cost of detouring others with constant Farmville updates from peers. I remember wanting to quit Facebook over the first “best friends” invitation, because it resembled MySpace’s sparkling hearts.

Google Buzz has none of the added pizazz which attracts the easily excited. Rather, Buzz allows for peer to peer communication through a clean interface. Since there are no bells and whistles, at least distracting ones, Buzz becomes a feed from those you’re following. Almost a more business like approach to network, which is fitting because it is nested in a powerful email client almost always used for business.

Still, there are several things Buzz needs to improve to gain a faster share of the market. First, there needs to be a way to collapse or skip comments on individual and individual buzz. Second, there needs to be mobile implementation beyond browser interface that doesn’t urge location tagging. Third, and final, better arrangement of the Google Profile page. It’s just hideous.

When the announcement came through, I passed on the basic information to a friend who said “ugh, Google, stop it.” While I’m not cynical, thinking Google is out for the world, I thought to myself “what added features could Buzz really bring?” While I don’t have access through Gmail, I do have access through my Google profile and my G1. Naturally, the first step was to browse the Orlando area looking for local updates to see what people were saying. The first updates I read involved being distracted in a lecture, some friendly trash talk between friends and someone making a reference to privacy.

As powerful as Buzz seems, I think the last point is the strongest concern many will have. Google Buzz requires your Gmail credentials, most often linked to your Google profile. For a lot of people this will be discouraging, however I’d imagine managing the privacy settings on Buzz will only be more difficult for those who use Gmail as their email client (not just service). Further more, with location based updates there’s almost the immediate concern as to who is looking to see where you are.

While the intentions are certainly good, the follow through seems a bit weak. Other location based social applications, like Gowalla and Foursquare are task centric. You’re checking into a location, not binding an update your updates to a location. If Buzz was more centered around being a social network feed, it might have been a bigger hit with me out of the box.

Further note: visiting http://buzz.google.com/ from my G1 shows only considerations about Android 2.0. More on that later, though.

Initially, my first response was feeling less than impressed because I thought back to the days I used Facebooks app on my old Blackberry 8320. The reason I liked the bb application so much was because it was simple and fast.

Now for the Android application, it seems to be pretty smooth and functional. I have not put it through rigorous testing, as I do other apps I write about, but I have come to the conclusion that it is an app for “the new facebook.” While I can appreciate the continuity here, I am not the biggest fan of the new Facebook design.

I am yet to receive notifications from facebook over my phone, however the settings for the notifications seem rather limited. However, the basic notification settings are probably ‘just right’ for the more popular Facebook users.

I have seen numerous complaints on the Android market about chat being disabled. I didn’t write the application, but I’ll take a guess at the thought pattern behind ditching chat (which is available through other applications). My primary guess is that writing it in to the app would have concluded with large headaches, as the primary focus is showing friends activity on the ‘wall.’ My next guess, would be that it would be a bother to most people, in the case that you accidentally left it ‘online’ and drained battery like woah.

Anyway, the end result is a functional app for Facebook, which isn’t exactly what I want but will settle on.

Initially, I was thinking.. “how functional is streaming audio going to be over a 3G connection, let alone an Edge connection..” the answer is that it works just fine, despite my sketchy 3G connection. The layout is also impressively simple and easy to navigate. It did, however, take a long while to load until loaded Cyanogens new 4.16 rom. Now it flies, and I probably should thank Cyanogen.

I think Pandora is a must for Android users, like wptogo is a must for bloggers on Android phones.

Aside from the reinforcement of rewarding the least amount possible, I just don’t see how it’s plausible to generate such income with these plans.  Commonsense would tell you that if someone was making this much money, they wouldn’t be encouraging competition.

It started three weeks ago when I put my resume on Monster.com and CareerBuilder.com (Yes, I’m looking for a job), and received numerous emails saying “send us $29.95 a month and we’ll show you how to make $303,303,432 a year simply posting Google links.”  There have always been advertisements on Google Ads, but I’ve never paid them any attention as I figured the ad just linked to a page full of advertisements that I wouldn’t have been interested in, if I was lucky they might have a valid news letter for the minimal $50/week subscription.

If I were to start selling such propaganda, I’m sure I could outsell any of these people. But at what cost, personally the largest reward I receive on any project that I work on is that my client is 110% satisfied.  While I often include a no-refund clause, like these schemes, I actually devote myself completely to the project until all parties are satisfied.  However, these advertisements and emails are selling an unrealistic idea to customers who just barely have enough to cover the “courses.” I’ve also noticed that they all use the same formula to devour the same clients who are unknowledgeable about what they are getting into.

Disclaimer: I did not get rich quick, on the contrary, I’m NOT rich. I do a lot of work with a “pay it forward” attitude, if it’s going to change someone’s life or if I’m going to learn a lot from the experience.