Twitter, as a company, has made its share of mistakes over the years. These include implementing its own retweeting system that makes it significantly more difficult to see how many people retweeted you and who they are (not to mention the fact that when I use the Twitter retweet, I can’t add my two cents to the original tweet, it all kind of defeats the purpose), the Twitter URL shortening service, which seems to break more links than it shortens, or many others. But the good news was that with all these issues, I always had Tweetdeck to fall back on. Then Twitter bought Tweetdeck.

Wait, let’s back up a little for those of you who are not familiar. Twitter, as I am sure most of you know, is a microblogging service that allows you to share short updates of 140 characters with your followers. You can also add links to external articles, photos, videos, etc. Except, contrary to what all the hype might lead you to believe, Twitter is just the foundation for an entire ecosystem of applications that use the Twitter API (not going to explain that term, feel free to read more about what an API is), it is not the end, just a means.

So there is an entire world of Twitter developers out there from Windows applications such as Tweetdeck and Seesmic, Web apps like Hootsuite and Twimbow, iPhone apps like Echofon and Tweetlogix, and Android apps like Twicca and Twidroyd. Other platforms also have their share of Twitter apps including Ovi (Gravity), Windows Phone, Playbook, and the list goes on. There are of course apps that are available cross platform and the leading name in that category is Tweetdeck.

I have been using Tweetdeck for years, since pretty much day one, and I have recommended it to hundreds of people. Not only is Tweetdeck the best Twitter client on PC and Mac in my opinion, but the team and especially Richard Barley, who was the Community Manager till recently, is super responsive and professional.

Like I said, then Twitter bought Tweetdeck, which at the time was good news since, as I mentioned, I love the team and thought they deserved the acquisition. Many commented over the past few months that Tweetdeck updates, which were a frequent thing until recently, had slowed down. All that did not matter as far as I was concerned because Tweetdeck still blew its competition out of the water. Until now.

Tweetdeck recently rolled out a new Tweetdeck for Mac and PC, which came on the same day that Twitter released a new Web UI and a new app for iOS. The interesting thing about the new Tweetdeck is that it is native, as in a regular application like Office, Skype, or any other software you download to your computer. Until now, it is was an Adobe Air application, which is a pretty buggy and resource hogging technology. So, I was optimistic.

Then I tried the new Tweetdeck and all that changed. The interface is different, the options are gone, the customization abilities are missing, and overall, the experience is far inferior to its predecessor and even other competing applications. That makes me sad, especially knowing that this is the only choice moving forward and the old version will no longer receive updates or support. I used the new Tweetdeck for a few minutes then went back to my old version and have not looked back since.

The following are four ways that Twitter is effectively killing off Tweetdeck as the industry leader in Twitter applications:

 1: No More Old School Retweets

With the new Tweetdeck, there is no more retweeting someone the way people used to in the good old days. Not to get too technical here, but in the old Tweetdeck, you can press Retweet and a tweet is automatically generated with the letters RT and the person’s name before their tweet. In the new Tweetdeck, you can only use the native retweet option, which as I mentioned above, is problematic, to say the least.

There is also a “Quote tweet” option, which essentially adds quotation marks around the original tweet for you to add your two cents. Now, essentially the quoting option accomplishes the same thing as a retweet does, and some might say I am arguing semantics here, but this, to me, is a classic case of “If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it”. Retweeting is one of the things that made Twitter to enjoyable and viral from day one, I just don’t see why Twitter felt the need to go and change the way people retweet each other. Do you?

2: More Clicks, So Many More Clicks

Using the new Tweetdeck, it’s as if Twitter gets paid per clicks. The most basic functionality, that required one, maybe two clicks in the old Tweetdeck, now require for or five, sometimes, even more. Retweeting someone for example was one click to prepare the tweet and then Send in the old Tweetdeck, now requires anywhere between four and five clicks depending on whether you want to retweet or quote.

Adding or removing someone from a list is the same story, only a whole lot worse. There is no option anywhere on the UI of the new Tweetdeck to add someone to a list, unless I am missing it, in which case, we have another problem… You have to click the person’s profile, click Lists, and… yea, even this doesn’t work. It seems Twitter forgot to add list support in the new Tweetdeck… Which brings me to my next point…

3: Screen Real Estate

One of the best parts of the old Tweetdeck was the fact that you were able to see all your feeds at first glance without even clicking once. I had seven columns open at any given time on my 24′ display. Why seven? Well, I have my Twitter account and I manage the Twitter account of Appboy and inneractive, that’s three. Then I have my direct messages column and three columns for my favorite Twitter lists. I follow over 8,000 people so Twitter lists make it possible to stay on top of the relevant updates and people without getting lost in all the noise.

In the new Tweetdeck, you can have a max of four columns on your screen with the fifth column displaying a huge arrow to scroll right and see the rest of your columns. To that I say, why?? An entire column for an arrow? That prime real estate could have been utilized by Robert Scoble’s Twitter list of tech influencers and instead it is populated by an arrow? That is what’s called a design flaw that is a deal breaker.

4: Follower Count on Tweets

With the old Tweetdeck, you could configure that under every tweet, the app would display that person’s follower count. It was a useful and unique feature to have. It is gone in the new Tweetdeck. Why was it useful? Not because you should judge a person by their follower count, that is just crazy talk. The reality is that with so much spam being sent daily on Twitter, you need an effective way to separate the real people from the bots.

A profile picture is one way and nine out of ten times, a profile without a picture is a bot. Follower count is also an accurate tool. If someone follows a thousand people and has zero followers, there is something very wrong. Generally speaking, there is a correlation between follower count and the amount of time a person spends on Twitter.

Before you cut my head off, I am well aware of the amount of spammy tools that builds up follower count without the need for any engagement on the part of the user. When a person uses those tools, I will discover it in a matter of seconds by looking at their tweets, but when someone has a totally unproportional follower/following count, I am not even clicking through to see their tweets. Like I said, it was a useful feature in the old Tweetdeck. Any particular reason Twitter had to kill it?

Here is the thing, there are so many more issues with the new Tweetdeck to add to this list, but do I really need to go on when you  have a perfectly fine old Tweetdeck to resort to? Yes, the lack of Facebook, LinkedIn, and Foursquare support in the new Tweetdeck is a problem, but I didn’t even get that far when basic functions that I do a hundred times a day are not possible in the new Tweetdeck.

Combine all that with the fact that Twitter rolled out a new Web UI on the same day as the new Tweetdeck came out and you have one less reason to ever open Tweetdeck.

Sad but true, and something we see far too often when big companies buy small ones. Unless things reverse themselves, Tweetdeck is on its way down and with all the problems with the new Tweetdeck, it is taking the fast road too…

Truth be told, I kinda love putting these posts together, it helps me feel productive by seeing exactly how many posts I have written in the last week or month. The fact that people keep telling me they love them and use them as a resource to catch up on all the technology news they missed, well that is just the icing on the cake.

Anyway, here you go, folks, some of the most exciting tech news of the past ten days as told through the posts I have written on various sites:

Google

Android Dominates the Market… IN MOBILE MALWARE!: Many doubt the reliability of these numbers, but if they are even partially accurate, Google better get their Android act together.

Google Music Launches With the Cloud, Social, and Artists in Mind: Should iTunes be worried? Well, no, because software doesn’t have emotions, but that aside, Google Music looks pretty promising.

Google Updates iOS App and Brings the Mojo Back to iPad Search: Pretty sure this is the nicest Google iPad app out there. What a UI!

Apple

8 Valuable Lessons Steve Jobs Left as Part of His Legacy: This is my first book review ever and I wrote it just as I started reading Steve Jobs’ biography for the second time. Nope, not kidding…

Dominos Launches iPad App/Campaign, Fulfills Every Kid’s Dream: This app will amaze you, watch the video.

Mind-Controlled Siri: Maybe A Hoax, but Kinda Makes You Wonder: Real or Fake?

Seven of Steve Jobs’ and Steve Wozniak’s Craziest Pranks: Wow, Jobs and Wozniak were quite the trouble makers… I guess you gotta be to change the world they way they did!

Amazon

It Was Inevitable: A Side by Side Video of iPad vs Kindle Fire (and a surprise): The Kindle Fire is spreading like wild fire (pun very much intended) but the question everyone is asking is, how does it compare to the beloved iPad? Watch this video to find out.

You Knew it Was Coming! The Nook Tablet vs Kindle Fire Drop Test (VIDEO): Oh, come ON! You know you love to watch drop tests!

Samsung

New Samsung Ad Takes on Apple Fanboys and It’s Hilarious: Great advertising work by Samsung but wasn’t it once illegal to directly attack your competition in ads?

Microsoft

Windows Phone Marketplace Has Experts Modestly Optimistic: While many industry experts are putting their eggs in the Microsoft basket, the world’s largest software company has its work cut out for it if it is going to make an impact on the mobile space the way it did on the PC market.

Rovio

Angry Birds Are Everywhere, Even on The Simpsons: The Angry Birds phenomenon, as I like to call it, has gotten so ridiculous lately, these birds are EVERYWHERE.

 Angry Birds Comes to Life: OK, games, toys, cakes, pizzas, that is all fine. But Angry Birds in real life? Really?

Facebook

HUGE! Facebook and Skype Join Forces (Again) to Make the World Even Smaller: This is pretty big news as far as global communication ad video calls are concerned.

 Random

The Power of Words: A Video Every Human Needs to Watch: One of the most powerful videos ever, highly recommended.

So I just finished reading the biography of Steve Jobs and to say I loved every word of it would be an understatement. I wrote a review of the book and if you can only read one post, this one or that one, read my review. Of course, what made the book so amazing was not just my love for technology or Apple products, nor was it my admiration for Steve Jobs, it was the story of a man filled with contradictions who ended up revolutionizing anywhere between seven and nine industries, depending who you ask.

One of the more entertaining parts of the book was the story of Jobs’ childhood, his complete boredom with the material being taught in school, and his need to entertain himself by using practical jokes and pranks. Of course, when he later met Steve Wozniak who would become his partner in the founding of Apple Computers, they shared a deep love for pranks and sometimes took it one (or two) steps too far.

Some of the pranks they pulled had me laughing out loud, so I just  had to share them with you. Here goes:

1: Bicycle Locks

In elementary school, Jobs somehow, don’t ask me how, got every kid in the school to give him the combination of their bicycle locks. He then proceeded to switch all the locks and put people’s chains on their friends’ bikes.

When school was out, no one was able to open their bikes to go home. People stayed till late that night to get it all sorted out. Steve Jobs never was very concerned about how people would feel about his actions, but this takes that to a new level as these were his friends.

2: Bring Your Pet To School Day

Pretty sure I laughed out loud when I read about this prank. Jobs created signs and hung them up all over school announcing “Bring your pet to school day”. Of course, there was never supposed to be such a day as far as the school was concerned, but that did not stop Jobs.

Well, the students all came to school with their pets and as Jobs describes it ” It was crazy, with dogs chasing cats all over, and the teachers were beside themselves.”  I would have liked to be a fly on the wall of that school.

3: Exploding Teachers

Remember when I said he might have taken it too far? Well in 3rd grade, the pranks became a bit more dangerous. “One time we set off an explosive under the chair of our teacher, Mrs. Thurman. We gave her a nervous twitch.”  Yea, not cool, Steve, not cool at all.

4: TV Noise Generator

If I had to choose Steve Jobs’ all time funniest prank, this would be it. “Wozniak and Jobs designed a pocket device that could emit TV signals. Wozniak would take it to a room where a group of people were watching TV, and secretly press the button so that the screen would get fuzzy with static. When someone got up and whacked the set, Wozniak would let go of the button and the picture would clear up.

Once he had the unsuspecting viewers hopping up and down at his will, he would make things harder. He would keep the picture fuzzy until someone touched the antenna. Eventually he would make people think they had to hold the antenna while standing on one foot or touching the top of the set. ” Genius, pure genius.

5: A Bomb!

In 12th grade Jobs built an electronic metronome that made a “tick tick” sound and resembled the noise a bomb makes, or at least the way it is portrayed in the movies.So he took the labels off some big batteries, taped them together, and put it in a school locker; he rigged it to start ticking faster when the locker opened. He was later called to the principal’s office and confronted by the police.

The principal had been summoned when the device was found, bravely ran onto the football field clutching it to his chest, and pulled the wires off. Woz tried and failed to suppress his laughter. He actually got sent to the juvenile detention center, where he spent the night. It was a memorable experience. He taught the other prisoners how to disconnect the wires leading to the ceiling fans and connect them to the bars so people got shocked when touching them. Oh man, why didn’t I think of that?

6: You got the Job!

When Jobs eventually returned to Apple after he was ousted, he did not agree to take the title of CEO, but rather iCEO, the I standing for interim. Kind of ironic though. Anyway, the board spent months searching for the next Apple CEO but to no avail.

 ”At one point Jobs and Ellison pulled a prank on a clueless computer consultant who was campaigning for the job; they sent him an email saying that he had been selected, which caused both amusement and embarrassment when stories appeared in the papers that they were just toying with him.” OK, that is just wrong on so many levels…

7: Blue Box

While some of the above pranks were mean and too far, this prank, as Jobs described it, paved the way for the forming of Wozniak and Steve’s working relationship, that would eventually lead to the forming of Apple, and the rest is history.Woz and Jobs created what was known as the Blue Box, which when connected to a telephone would enable you to make calls for free, anywhere in the world. It would become the first thing Jobs and Woz would commercialize, if you can call it that.

In any case, they used the box to make many prank calls with the funniest one to the Vatican asking to speak to the Pope and identifying himself as Henry Kissinger. Of course, they never got through to the pope, but the creation of this box involved breaking into librairies,  replicating the tones that routed signals on the AT&T network, and creating the world’s first digital tone generator. It is kind of ironic that the Blue Box story came to an end when one of the units were stolen from Jobs and Wozniak at gun point, which terrified them and made them move on.

There you have it, seven of the best pranks pulled by the famous duo, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Hope you enjoyed, I know I did. Now go read the book and thank me later. Enjoy this interesting video of Jobs from back in the day.

It has been quite a crazy month in and out of the tech industry and while I usually try to post these articles on a weekly basis, clearly, that did not work too well in the last couple of weeks. But since many (many) people seem to depend on these posts to get up to date, I am forcing myself to get back into the swing of things.

Here goes, the top tech news of the month written by yours truly! (Sheesh, I write a lot.)

Apple

Here you have yet another indication of just how much the iPad changed the world: You are going to want to watch this video

iPhone 4 VS iPhone 4S Speed Test (VIDEO): Worth the Upgrade? I am still on the fence, how about you?

A New Mobile Trend is Born: Retail Giants Creating Shopping Apps: THIS should be interesting…

It’s Here! All iPhone 4S Video Reviews in One Place! Now, To Upgrade or Not to Upgrade? So torn…

First iPhone 4S Commercial Airs: You might use Android, but no one competes with Apple on the advertising thing.

Apple’s 3 New iPhone 4S Commercials: Jobs Would be Proud: Three more 4S ads for your viewing pleasure

Apple Will Revolutionize Yet Another Industry This Week: Retail Shopping: Home computing, digital music, mobile, tablets, digital content, and now… Shopping!

4 of the Prettiest iOS Apps that Deserve an Award for their Design: If you have an iOS device, and have not tried these apps, you have not experienced iOS.

5 Interesting Social iPhone Apps Released in the Past Month: These are some interesting apps right here.

Apple to Sell 28 Million iPhone 4S Devices this Quarter, but Not Because of the Phone: And people were disappointed…

Adobe

R.I.P Mobile Flash: Can We Say it Now? Steve Jobs was Right. Again! Interesting turn of events.

How Steve Jobs Actually Prolonged the Life Of Mobile Flash and Delayed its Death: R.I.P Mobile Flash, see ya!

Google

Google Brings the Mobile Web, Search, and Native Apps One Step Closer: Google never ceases to amaze.

The Next Generation of NFC is Born: Android Beam: Yes, the future is here. Beam me up, Scottie.

Android Passes iOS in App Downloads, but Does It Even Matter? Spoiler: NO! It is heating up, can you feel it?

Amazon

Amazon Steps it up with 5 Million Kindle Fires Ordered and its Very Own Siri: I’ll have whatever Amazon is drinking, thank you very much.

Facebook

If Only Facebook on the Web Was as User Friendly as Facebook on the iPad is: Facebook for iPad at last!! Was worth the wait.

RIM

RIM Introduces BBX and Releases Playbook OS 2.0, Which Runs Android Apps (VIDEO): Could BlackBerry be back?

Nokia

All New Nokia Phones Running Windows Phone Mango 7.5: This new Nokia Lumia 800 that everyone is talking about, is high up on my list.

Nokia’s Back! Hate to Say it but We Told You So! (Infographic): Is Nokia back? Well not yet, but they are making all the right moves.

Nokia Interviews inneractive on Mobile Advertising and App Monetization: I am proud of this interview.

Rovio

Angry Birds Reaches 500 Million Downloads: 200,000 Years of Game Play (VIDEO): These numbers are downright ridiculous.

Twitter

Louis CK Talks about Mobile and Social Media in the Twitter Generation (VIDEO): If you watch one video today, watch this!

Tweetlogix is the iPhone Twitter App of All iPhone Twitter Apps: Best. Twitter. App. Ever

Appsfire

Appsfire is Killing it in the Mobile Space: Like mobile technology? Keep your eye on this startup!

inneractive

inneractive Named One of Globes’ Ten Most Promising Israeli Startups: Boom! In case  you don’t know, inneractive is where I work and this award made my year.

Appboy

The New Appboy.com is Live! Now here is a company operating outside of the box. Watch this space.

Wow, there you have it, folks. Might be a good idea to go back to weekly posts, this is kinda long. Anyway, I hope you made it this far and if you did, you deserve this seriously hilarious video.

The technology reporting scene on the Web is always full of excitement and drama. Paul Carr makes sure of it. The man is a constant source of entertainment both in his blog posts and on Twitter. The latest TechCrunch story brought out the best in Paul and as soon as Arrington was not permitted to choose his successor as the Editor of TechCrunch, Paul left, just like he promised he would.

As you will see below, Paul did not disappoint with his answers and despite the sarcastic tone of some of his responses, there are lots of gems to learn from. The following are eleven questions I asked Paul and his answers:

1: Who is Paul Carr? What is your background both personal and professional? How did you end up where you are today?

Oh man. Ok. Born in Dunfermline, Scotland in 1979. Degree in law, which I’ve wasted. Founded an email magazine called The Friday Thing at university, which lead to me writing about media-tech for the Guardian. Two failed startups — one in publishing, one a local social network thing before that was a thing. Returned to the Guardian, then TechCrunch. Left TechCrunch, now doing a startup. Written a dozen books along the way. Former drinker. Former mess. Hotel dweller. NSFW.

2: OK let’s just get this out of the way. Was AOL 100% in the wrong for the Arrington story? Should he have been allowed to invest in startups and write about them with disclosure? How would you have dealt with this issue differently?

I’ve written a ton about this, but in brief: AOL were fine with Mike starting CrunchFund. In fact, they put in half the money. I was fine with the fund, but not with the name as I worried that people would (wrongly) assume that other TC writers were involved, and thus conflicted. My preferred solution was for Mike to step down as editor, appoint his own successor and then carry on writing as a guest poster while being a GP at CrunchFund (exactly what MG Siegler is doing now, with AOL’s blessing).

Sadly though, the story became a STORY and Arianna Huffington needed to show she was in charge at AOL (which she is) and therefore at TC (which she wasn’t but is now). All but one of the team at TC stood firm on the position that Mike should be allowed to choose his own successor. Sadly that one person with no spine was the guy who Arianna approached to be her puppet leader. The end. What would I have done differently if I were AOL? No idea. I like Barry Diller’s take on it: “AOL should have said to Arianna — go back to your room”. It was none of her business. And I say that as someone who is, generally speaking, a big AH fan.

3: So a new startup, huh? Obviously, you cannot tell me all about it, but what can you tell me? 

The company name is Not Safe For Work Corporation. It’s going to be based in downtown Vegas. We’re going to have a lot of fun and probably not sell to AOL.

4: So talk to me about this hotel story. How did it start and why do you live in hotels? Give me the background.

My parents are hoteliers so I’ve always spent huge amounts of time in and around hotels. Then four years ago I decided I was tired of London (and of life) and of paying a small fortune every month to survive on cold pizza in a shitty apartment there. Then I realised that for the same as I was paying for my place in London (including local (‘council’) tax, heat, light, power, etc) I could check in to a decent hotel in Manhattan. Four years later, I’m still figuring out how to get better and better deals, still for roughly what I would be paying in London.

5: Now to get a little more tech. What do you think about Apple’s recent announcement of the iPhone 4S in light of the events that followed?

I’m not sure I can talk about the latter in light of the former. I’m pretty sure the iPhone 4S didn’t kill Steve Jobs. Honestly, I don’t care about a new iPhone — i’m sure it’s very pretty and nice and will sell well. Steve Jobs, on the other hand — well, wow. Revolutionised tech, media, entertainment, retail and countless other industries. Inspired a generation of entrepreneurs.

Did it all w/emithout feeling the need to be the nicest human being alive, and still came out of it a saint. Kudos. Again, I don’t think the latest iPhone will be any more his legacy than a particular breed of duck would be God’s.

 6: What phone do you use and why? 

Blackberry. It makes people think I have a job.

7: What are five tech trends you think we can expect to see dominate in the coming years?

Fuck only knows. The possibility I’m most excited about is the Angry Birds franchise expanding into the other stages of grief. Angry Birds was fantastic but I can’t wait for Birds in Denial, Bargaining Birds, Depressed Birds, Accepting birds… Actually, that last one will probably be shit. Just birds that you click on and they shrug.

8: Now that you left TechCrunch and are starting your own thing, where can people expect to read your writing? Will you continue to blog? 

Yeah – http://blog.bringingsomething.com a. Also supposed to be writing for the guardian again, if they send me a contract. Oh, and I’ve written a book about addition for Byliner.com. That’ll be out soon. I think.

9: What are five tips you would give someone getting started in the tech startup world?

1: Never

2: Ever

3: Sell

4: To

5: AOL

10: What do you think about the whole social media buzz and the sites that capitalize on it? Is it here to stay or is it a passing phase?

Who cares what *I* think? I’m just a professional writer, and a recognised expert on the subject. What do thousands of other people think? Let’s ask them on Twitter.

11: So, I usually stick to the ten question format, but I had to ask this. What do you think about some of TechCrunch’s competition such as Mashable, TheNextWeb, RWW, and AllThingsD? Are these competitors? Do you have any favorites?

Mashable is just shit, isn’t it? I mean, real crap. Next Web I’ve never really read, but Europeans seem to like it and their conference is supposed to be very good. RWW is getting better but I still almost never read it. I’m not supposed to like AllThingsD but I do — Kara acts like a snarky little school bully sometimes, but she’s a good reporter, has real sources and is really the only competitor to TC in that list.

Actually, including ATD in that list is a bit mean to Kara. I’d put Business Insider on a list of TC rivals before I included RWW. And what about Om? He’s good too. But Mashable? Jesus. Awful.

This week will most definitely go down in the books as the most monumental week in its effect on the tech industry. Except, I mean that in the worst possible way. We lost the father of tech, the legendary Steve Jobs, and many industries will never be the same.

The following are the posts I wrote throughout the week, some about Jobs, some about the iPhone 4S, and some about completely unrelated tech news:

 Apple

MY PERSONAL TRIBUTE TO STEVE JOBS: Not an easy post to write

Rumors of App Rentals Coming to iOS: Well the Apple keynote came and went and no mention of app rentals, but that doesn’t mean we won’t see them in the near future.

The iPhone 4S Keynote Summarized in a 6 Very Funny Minute Video: This guy definitely has a talent of making geeky news funny, even very funny.

iPhone Siri Concept Video: Well this video did not end up being too far from reality, Siri is awesome.

All the iPhone 5 Rumors in 3 Infographics: There were plenty of rumors going around, these graphics summed em up pretty nicely.

Siri in Action!! Welcome to the future.

Jobs is Gone, but the Stories Keep Flowing in: Some of the best Jobs stories and posts written about the man soon after his passing.

One of Steve Jobs’ Last Video Interviews: Besides being one of his last, it was also one of his all time best interviews.

Jobs Talks about Mobile Ads: A short video of Steve Jobs talking about mobile advertising.

A funny Parody iPhone 4S Ad: Might be a little much, but still funny, kind of.

Skype

Skype Incorporates Ads into iOS Apps: Skype joins the long list of names of developers who use ads to keep their apps free or cheap.

Facebook

Just How Strong is the Facebook Effect? An eye opening video if I ever saw one

Amazon

Kindle Fire and iPad Competitors? I say no! The Kindle Fire will never put out the iPad’s traction, and it is not trying to.

It is that time of the week again, time to sum up all the tech news of the previous week in one easy-to-read blog post. This edition of Above the Fuld is a little shorter than usual, as I was on vacation for three days this week. That means no coverage of the Amazon announcement for example, among other things.

OK here goes:

Apple

Ever wonder what it is like for Tim Cook to fill the shoes of Steve Jobs? ok ok, maybe slightly immature on the part of College Humor, but c’mon, you know you laughed.

What would a tech summary be without an iPhone 5 rumor? A very interesting video shedding some light on the specs of the upcoming iPhone 5. Or is it called iPhone 4gs? Who knows…

iOS5 will have some pretty neat features, this one leads the pack: We might just finally discover why Apple bought Siri back in 2010. Check out this demo video of the upcoming iOS5 Assistant feature.

Google

Google+ for iOS gets a major update: Finally, the Google+ iOS app is on par with the site and its competitors. Especially the mobile hangouts, which bring video chatting to a whole new level.

Another interesting solution for monetizing Android apps: Startapp definitely thought out of the box on this one by giving developers an easy way to monetize Android apps via search.

Amazon

While I was on vacation for the announcement, I discussed the Amazon tablet here: Looks like someone has understood that Apple’s success is not hardware or even software-related. It is all in the ecosystem and Amazon has a nice ecosystem of its own!

Microsoft

Finally! Mango is live! An interesting video demo of Windows Phone Mango. Is it interesting enough though or is Microsoft falling behind the curve?

Facebook

Looks like Facebook for iPad will finally show its long overdue face this week: Facebook is expected to announce a new HTML5 app store along with its new iPad app. Check out some of the screen shots in the post.

Skype

A new Skype iOS app is born with Bluetooth support, Anti Shake technology, and (drumroll please) ads! Looks like yet another leading mobile developer is adopting the mobile advertising model to monetize. I wonder if Microsoft was involved in this decision.

Foursquare

Boom! My interview with Dennis Crowley, founder of Foursquare:  Took me over a year to land this interview but it was well worth it. Whether you are an entrepreneur, a mobile fanatic, or just a plain old geek, you will find some gems in this interview.

I recently tweeted this question. Out of the tens of responses I got to the question “What services do you use daily” almost half of them included Foursquare, along with Gmail, Facebook, and Twitter. If you are not familiar with Foursquare, it is the undisputed king of location-based services. The concept is simple. You “check in” to locations and let your friends across the Web know where you are.

Now, here is the thing with Foursquare. Over the years, there have been many apps/services that I, and many others swore “I would never use that. Why would I use that? Why would I feel a need to share my location at every given moment”? Now, two years later, I use Foursquare every single day. I cannot put my finger on it, but something about location mixed with gamification and the cool thing to do has me checking in to work and other places every day. I am not alone and Foursquare has well over 10 million users. Think about that number. It is truly remarkable.

Foursquare, in my opinion, should be a model that inspires entrepreneurs across the globe. The reason I say this is because the service has overcome all the challenges startups face from the initial pitch, which I am sure was not a trivial thing in Foursquare’s case, to traction to mass market, monetization, and eventually making it to the top and killing off all competition of any kind. If Foursquare can do it, anyone can.

I have been trying to interview Dennis Crowley, Co Founder of Foursquare, for over a year, but as you will see from his answers (especially the first one), the man has zero extra time. Thanks to my persistence (ie nudging the crap out of him), I finally woke up to Dennis’s answers in my inbox. You can also read more about Dennis here and see how he lives his life here.

As you will see, Dennis did not just answer the questions to get the interview over with, he clearly dedicated time and thought to what he was saying and for that, I thank him.

The man is a true tech legend and I cannot thank him enough for this opportunity. Entrupeneuers, pay close attention to Dennis’s answers below:

1: Please tell us a little bit about yourself, your background and how you got to where you are today, professionally and personally.

Long story short:  from Medway, MA, went to Syracuse for undergrad (Communications major), moved to NYC, my first gig was as a research firm called Jupiter Research, started tinkering w/ code & building cityguide stuff while at Jupiter, dodgeball 1.0 (cityguide) was eventually born from nights and weekends of teaching myself how to code ASP out of a book, used dodgeball to parlay myself into a gig at Vindigo (Palm Pilot cityguide), got laid off in dot-com crash.

Went back to hacking on dodgeball and dodgeball 2.0 (friend finder) was born, 9/11 happened, moved out of the city, took a job as a snowboard instructor (Attitash, NH), applied to grad schools, moved back to NYC in the fall, started at NYU / ITP, met Alex, worked together on a bunch of projects (one of which became our thesis: dodgeball 3.0), graduated, gave ourselves 6 months to make something happen with dodgeball.

12 months later we were acquired by Google (where I met Harry), spent 2 years at The Goog before going to work at a buddy’s games-that-touch-the-real-world startup called area/code (where I met Naveen, he shared office space), left area/code after about a year and went traveling for a bit (Thailand, Scandinavia), got bit with the “croudsourced city guide” bug, came back to NYC and teamed up w/ Naveen to start hacking on projects to “make cities easier to use”, Google announced they were shutting down dodgeball (Jan 09), Naveen and I picked the SXSW festival in Austin to launch something new, we hustled, launched it… and here we are 2.5 years later.

2: A crowd sourced question for you (from @hamutalm of @dapsem): “As I see it, 4SQ is paving the way to a whole new world of biz models, ours included. did you envision that? Where do you see it going?”

 We didn’t really anticipate any of this. foursquare started as a replacement for dodgeball…  something for our few hundred friends to use after Google was going to shut down the service.  I remember when we were try to raise our first round of funding, someone asked me when we thought we’d hit 1,000,000 users and I remember thinking, “1 million users?  that’s crazytalk”.

Fast forward to 10m+ users later… because we’ve been thinking about this space for, what?, almost 10 years, we have a very strong and clear sense of what we want to do / the problems we want to solve / what the product should look like 12 or 18 or 24 months from now.  We never expected any of this to happen, but now that we’re in the middle of it, we know exactly where to go.

Without tipping our hat too much, what you see in foursquare now is just the beginning.  We’re building things that encourage people to go out and explore, that help connect people to places (and places to people).  I’m writing this from the Global Hackathon we’re hosting in NYC and I’m surrounded by 100 developers building on top of our API – they’re creating everything from tools for merchants, to real-time neighborhood heat maps, to networked jukeboxes where the person with the most checkins has more say over the playlist. It’s really incredible to watch.

3: There are certain words we hear over and over again among new startup founders, one being “We are the Foursquare of…” How do you explain this virality?

A few weeks ago, Caterina Fake (Flickr co-founder) wrote a great post on how she’s been by inspired “the stuff that people make”.  I’m the same way — video games, baseball cards, websites, startups, grad school projects, etc. have all inspired the things you see in foursquare:

http://dpstyles.tumblr.com/post/9754026763/people-ask-me-who-inspires-me-this-often-stumps

… anyway, the “foursquare of XYZ” stuff is just that, people being inspired by us in the same way we’ve been inspired by others.  It’s a great feeling to build something that inspires other people to get out there and build too.

As for the virality of it all?  Not really sure how to explain it except for we love what we’re doing, we love what we’re building.  And I think people can see that in our products and our team.

4: Let’s talk about mobile app discovery. With 500,000 approved iOS apps, how do you recommend a developer stand out?

Build something awesome.  Sounds hokey, but if you sit around and think “hmm… what can i build that will just kill it in the app store” you prob won’t get far.  But if you start from “hey, i think i can make my life a little better / easier / more interesting if i can build this thing that does XYZ” then there’s a good chance that the thing you want to use so bad that you’re willing to build it yourself will also be interesting to other people.

5: What are three trends we will see grow in the mobile ecosystem throughout 2012-2015?

How about just the big one:  mass understanding of the idea of “phone as networked sensors” – something you carry in your pocket that let’s you know about all the interesting things going on nearby.  I think the idea of “hey, let me take the phone out of my pocket at ask it a question” is going to be augmented / replaced with the idea of “my phone knows what’s going on around me and buzzes to let me know about the best stuff w/out me even having to ask”

6: About app monetization, clearly 4SQ is unique on this front, but what model do you believe is most effective for an independent developer: Paid download, in app advertising, in-app purchases, or something else?

Eh, it depends on what you’re trying to do.  If you’re making something social that requires virality and millions of *everyday users*, its prob not the best idea to charge people a buck a download.  But if you’re making a service that *businesses* can’t live without, it probably makes sense to charge them a few bucks a month to use it.

Clive Thompson wrote a great piece in the latest issue of Wired that flirted with a lot of these issues:

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/08/st_thompson_onlineads/

Definitely worth a read.

7: So it seems your competitors Gowalla and even Facebook have admitted defeat, is there really no room in the checkin space for more than one player? Why did they quit?

I generally think there seems to be one dominant player for each “big idea” on the web.  Google owns search + maps + email.  Facebook owns “sharing with friends” (especially photos).  Twitter is shaping up to own real-time news discovery, stream of consciousness updates from friends / celebrities.  And foursquare is carving out the relationship between people and places – “what does it mean for me to be at this latitude/longitude right now / in the future / in the past”

This all starts w/ the checkin – but as I can see right now from everything being built at the NYC Hackathon – bleeds into all the *data that comes from* the checkin…. who’s where now, who’s been where, who knows what about Paris, who knows the most about coffee shops of downtown NYC, what’s the one thing I shouldn’t miss while I’m in Brattleboro, VT.  We’re getting very good at answering these types of questions.  And that’s going to be the thing we do better than anyone else.

8: Foursquare is available across multiple platforms, what are your conclusions about the different mobile OSs in terms of development, discovery, and overall user experience? Please include iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Nokia, and Windows Phone 7 if possible…

Well, we only maintain the iOS, Android and BB versions of the app in house.  The other versions (Nokia, Win7, WebOS) are built on our API by either our partners or the developer community.  App development is tricky and we have a great team of developers contentiously working to make our products great. 

A majority of our users are on iPhone though Android is catching up quickly.  Meanwhile BlackBerry is a huge platform for us outside the US (esp in Southeast Asia).

9: What are three of the most important tips you could give to a beginning entrepreneur in the tech space?

a.  Don’t let people tell you your ideas are stupid or don’t work.  Find a way to build a prototype and find out for yourself.   In the process, you’ll probably find a way to make your ideas work.

b. Don’t sit on good ideas because you don’t know how to code or don’t have a technical co-founder.  Either go find one or pick up a book.  I didn’t study programming or engineering.  I write really ugly, sloppy code, but you know what, its good enough for prototypes and it’s good enough to get the point across.   Something that works is better than nothing that works.

c.  Don’t sit on your prototypes, launch them.  The only reason foursquare launched is because we picked SXSW as a due-date (just like you’d have a due date for a term paper in college).  We could have worked on it for another 6 months and we still wouldn’t have felt it was “ready” for launch.  Letting your rough work go and getting it out there for people to play with is sometimes the hardest part, and it’ll be easier to do if you set your sights on a deadline.

10: Another crowd sourced one for you. (From Jon Burg of Digitas):”Please share some insight into your user lifecylce. What percentage of your users stick with your service, why do some leave and what is Foursquare doing abt it?

Well we have more than 10m users, we’re seeing well over 3m checkins per day and the average user is checking in 2-3x a day.  There’s now more than a billion checkins in our database (!!) that are being used to power our “Explore” recommendation engine.  That’s a big deal.  :)

I think one of the most interesting trends we’re seeing is usage of foursquare by people who don’t check in…  these are folks who are using the app just to check the tips at the places they go, figure out where to go using the Explore tab or take a look at what their friends are up to.

We’ve been starting to shift our thinking about checkins to the way that Twitter thinks about tweets.  Originally Twitter’s most important metric was the number of people who were actively tweeting — these days they’re more focused on the number of people who are *consuming those tweets*.

Same applies to foursquare checkins:  3m+ checkins per day is an impressive number, but every day those 3 million checkins are being consumed by more and more people… people who are using our apps to find their way around new cities and familiar neighborhoods.  The number of checkins per day is always going to grow, but the number of people who are *benefitting* from all this checkin data (searching, “explore”, tips, etc) is starting to increase at very rapid pace.

Anyway, hope all this is helpful to your readers!

Dennis, thanks again for this, I think I speak on behalf of my readers when I say that your answers definitely shed some light on a lot of important topics. Appreciate your time and all I can say is, keep on rocking!

If you are new here, I  have been summarizing all the content I write throughout the week in one weekly post called Above the Fuld (as in Above the Fold but since my last name is Fuld…)

Here is what transpired over the past week including new Google+ features, Facebook’s new colossal announcements, a new Instagram, and an exciting development in mobile advertising.

Google

Google and Facebook are Going Head to Head: It is no surprise that Google+ and Facebook are competing over you, but the level of competition reminds me of two 4 year olds fighting over a toy.

Hilarious Guy Will Give you Some Perspective on Google+: This guy will make you laugh with his coverage of the new Google+ features.

The Future is Here and It is Called Google Wallet: You might have heard of Google’s new initiative to kill the wallet, but watching it in action in a NYC cab is a totally different ball game.

Facebook

Zuckerberg Just Declared Ownership of the Worldwide Web: Call me dramatic, but the new Facebook Open Graph basically means Facebook will own the world of content discovery and by extension, the whole Web.

TechCrunch

My Thoughts on TechCrunch Disrupt 2011 and the Strong Israeli Presence: Disrupt is behind us and many people have covered the event. With so many Israeli companies in attendance, what is left now is to decide whether the next TechCrunch Disrupt will be held in Israel…

Instagram

The Most Popular iOS Photography App Just Got a Whole Lot Better: Instagram users, all 9 million of them, are now enjoying Instagram 2.0, and with increased speeds, more filters, and other great options, this is now THE photography app to beat.

inneractive

(Disclosure: I do their marketing)

 inneractive Just Reinvented Mobile Advertising: Rich media such as HTML5 and video is the future of mobile advertising. inneractive is the first company to partner with all the rich media mobile advertising providers and integrate them into one SDK.

Daps’Em

 Daps’Em Lets You Bump Fists using Social Media: Check out my review of an app that is pioneering a new space of giving shoutouts to people you like and respect. A very interesting new category of apps with Daps’em leading the way.

And check out the video of Google Wallet below…

I wasn’t always such as a geek. In fact, my true geekiness started at a pretty advanced age. I still remember going to camp as a teenager and everyone giving each other their email addresses on the last day. I did not have an email address yet. Same goes for IM. My friends can testify that when people had been using IM for years, I was just beginning to be fascinated by the concept that I can send someone a message across the world in a matter of a split second.

The reason I am telling you this is because I remember when I first started using Foursquare, the location service that lets you check into venues and tell your friends where you are in real time. Others had already been using it for months before I started. I was very disappointed at first. I remember thinking that if this is the cool thing to do, to “check in”, then Foursquare should do it for me. The fact that I had to manually open the app and click Check In every time seemed primitive to me. I wanted the process to be automated.

Now, I did not know too much about how location technology worked, nor did I care if this automation was possible, but that just seemed to be the logical way for such a service to work. Now, a few years later, I understand more about Foursquare and use it daily.

Zuckerberg got on stage yesterday at the f8 conference and announced some major new changes to the way Facebook is going to look and act in the coming years. The new Facebook profile will now show up as a timeline or as he put it “a story of your life”. Sounds pretty creepy, right? Yea, well, it is awesome. If you would have asked me yesterday if I would say anything that Facebook does is awesome, I would have said no, but the timeline is beautiful, practical, and pleasant on the eyes.

While the Timeline is what it is, the major shift that Zuckerberg announced yesterday was Open Graph. To make things simple, and because I myself am not a developer so I am sure I don’t understand all the techie mumbo jumbo, I will say that from here on out, everything you do throughout the day will appear in your Facebook stream. Yes, this is serious stuff.

Facebook launched this new platform with many partners. Partners in the music industry, partners in the food industry, and partners in the movie industry. Now when you listen to music  on your phone for example. which is something we all do, the app you are using to consume that content will automatically share your activity with your Facebook friends.

No more need to check in or click Share, it is all going to be automated. The new Facebook has a news ticker on the side and from now on, you will see updates appear in real time about what music your friends are listening to, what apps they are installing, what food they are eating, what TV shows they are watching, and the list goes on and on. And on…

Facebook just announced this new platform yesterday and now developers will be integrating their apps with Facebook. I see this huge announcement killing many startups that focused on the discovery of new content, whether that is apps, music, movies, books, pictures, news, blog posts, or pretty much anything else you do on the Web. Facebook will now rule them all.

While this might seem scary to you and me, the truth is, there is no need to panic. If you don’t install the app, your activity won’t be shared. Of course, for people like me, telling me to not install Foursquare or Foodspotting is like telling me not take oxygen into my lungs, so that is going to be a problem.

At the end of the day, this was a clear next step for Zuck and the gang and while it brings the term online stalking to a whole new level, assuming it is implemented well, it is going to give me and many people a lot of new reasons to spend time on Facebook.

As many have pointed out, Google+ is trying hard to compete with Facebook. The problem is, it it competing with yesterday’s Facebook. Today’s Facebook, with the timeline and Open Graph just blew Google+ out of the water. This discussion is over, sorry Google. Well, I don’t know about over, but let’s just say the ball is in Google’s court now.

Good play, Zuckerberg, your work here is done, you now rule the worldwide web as we know it.