Poke Me, Friend Me, Any Way You Want Me

Earlier, I spoke about my first experiences with Google Buzz and how I think end-users might run into trouble with the new social networking service. Part of that discussion was talking about the behavior of Twitter and FaceBook, and how it compares to Google Buzz.

Having given this some additional thought, it occurred to me that Social Networking as a paradigm has become overly complex and baroque in its implementation.

Click Here to read the rest of this article at ZDNet Tech Broiler.

Oy with the Buzz!

So yesterday I was anticipating, with much excitement, of getting “Buzzed”. After watching the demo and reading everyone’s coverage of Google’s social media features for GMail, I was ready to jump ship from Twitter into possibly something better.

But as with the Google Wave hype of 2009, that excitement faded very quickly into frustration. In Buzz’s case, it morphed into full blown anger and rejection.

Click here to read the rest of this article at ZDNet Tech Broiler.

NYC Dining: Ann & Tony’s

Ann & Tony’s
2407 Arthur Avenue, Bronx NY 10458
(718) 933-1469

Web Site: http://www.annandtonysonline.com

Ann & Tony’s restaurant in the Arthur Avenue section of Belmont in the Bronx is one of the oldest continually operating Italian restaurants in the borough, dating back to the 1920s.

Twitter is a very interesting phenomenon. I’ve only really started using it in the last year, initially as way of sending automatic updates from OTB and Tech Broiler to people who actually cared about using the service. A year ago, I thought the idea was pretty pointless, with these limited 140-character messages that people send out that everyone on the Internet can see, which seemed to focus on fairly dumb, exhibitionist status updates such as “eating a Cannoli” or “This alfredo sauce is @#$%ing awesome dude!” so I stayed away from issuing my own updates because I didn’t want to look like a total ass. I knew a lot of people were LOOKING at Twitter, but I didn’t feel like engaging in it beyond the “let’s feed my blog updates into it and see how it goes” capacity.

But then something else happened. I joined FaceBook, which hooked me up with a lot of old friends and many other foodie and technology industry colleagues. But FaceBook, like Twitter, requires you to enter updates about what is going on with your daily life to make your friends feel like you haven’t fallen off the face of the earth. So if I was now committing to doing FaceBook updates, I might as well start updating my Twitter as well. So I downloaded Twitter software for my Blackberry and my PC and started sending updates to Twitter, and automatically syncing those to FaceBook.

So now I’m addicted to Twitter. I have TweetDeck running constantly in the background on my PC and whenever I’m traveling I have TinyTwitter running on my BlackBerry. When people have questions, such as when Eater “Retwittered” a particular person’s inquiry about where to eat in the Bronx on Arthur Avenue, I offered up some advice. No later than 10 minutes afterward, I get a message from Twitterer @RalphNapolitano:

@jperlow saw your tweet about Arthur Ave. When are you coming to eat in my restaurant…LOL!!!

So I look Ralph up. Along with this brother Anthony, he Co-owns Ann & Tony’s, one of the many Italian-American restaurants on Arthur Avenue. Normally, when restaurateurs want me to come visit, I usually get  an email extending an invite to an open house or a press event, or sometimes even a phone call from a publicist, but receiving a challenge over Twitter to come eat was a first. Okay, then, I’ll play. What kind of guy broadcasts a message like that to the entire Internet and not expect a serious foodie like myself to take him up on it?

I told him I was coming over that very evening, with hungry wife and friend in tow, and he had better be ready to face the consequences if the food wasn’t any good.

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Twitter: All the Cool Kids Are Doing It, and Now So Am I

If you look at the upper right corner of the screen you’ll see a new button, “OTB Twitter Feed”. If you don’t know what Twitter is, well, then you’ve been living under a rock (or you have a real life).

Twitter is essentially a group instant messaging system combined with electronic wall graffiti — it permits the user to broadcast a 140 character message, with embedded hyperlinks, to a constantly updating “ticker”. Periodically, over the day, I’ll post a status update as to what I am eating, cooking, photographing, or any random stupid thing I might be thinking about at any time. If you join Twitter, you can get instantaneous updates via your favorite Instant Messenger service when I post updates to the blog. If you’ve ever felt like cyber-stalking me but felt it was too creepy even for you, well, now’s your chance. And you can see the status updates of all the cool people I follow as well.

Check it out — http://twitter.com/jperlow