Sol Young

Out In His Elements

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Entries from June 2008

Crossing the streams - large numbers of Twitter updates

June 29th, 2008 ·

Chris Bilson (@cbilson) had a good description regarding my post about Twitter’s scaling/architecture challenge.
“Kevin Rose and Leo Laporte tweet at the same time = crossing the streams”
I dunno if Proton Packs have exponential load challenges, but the end result for a server can feel similar. Is my post I pointed out that Twitter has to [...]

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Tags: Architecture · Blogging · Database · Micro-blogging · Microblogging · Social Networking · Software Development · Twitter · Web Services

Roz Savage is rowing across the Pacific

June 28th, 2008 ·

Thanks to new Twitter user @waileacapital for posting about a British woman, Roz Savage attempting to row across the Pacific (she rowed across the Atlantic already). If she succeeds she will be the first woman to complete the journey.
Roz blogs on a daily basis during a trip at http://rozsavage.com/blog. Her main site is at http://rozsavage.com. [...]

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Tags: Blogging · Energy · Twitter · YouTube

Twitter’s one-to-many scaling impossible?

June 27th, 2008 ·

Twitter has been having all kinds of scaling challenges. There have been hundreds, if not thousands, of posts on the subject. Dave Winer pushed an idea for a decentralized Twitter (and has since admitted the power of Twitter is in its centrality). There is a single, simple, reason for Twitter’s challenges - Math is against [...]

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Tags: Architecture · Blogging · Flow · Math · Micro-blogging · Microblogging · Social Networking · Software Development · Twitter · XMPP

Scoble and Gary in DC

June 26th, 2008 ·

MCCXXIII
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Last night I headed down to MCCXXIII, a club at 1223 NW. Connecticut, for a DC Social Media meetup. The meetup featured Robert Scoble (@scobleizer) and Gary Vaynerchuk (@garyvee) as guests.
I’ve been following Scoble more than usual this week, as he’s come to DC to interview politicians and government officials with Rocky (@RocmanUSA) and his [...]

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Tags: Blogging · Economics · Education · Energy · Social Networking · Twitter · Utterz

Mobile phone GPS a security risk? Only to those who follow you

June 25th, 2008 ·

Steven Hodson, in a post over on Mashable, describes security risks and the waste of information that mobile phone GPS use brings (when pinpointing and announcing our locations). He poses some extremely valid points in regards to announcing one’s geolocation via Twitter, Brightkite, or FriendFeed being useless noise.
Telling people via a highly conversational medium such [...]

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Tags: Etiquette · Facebook · Flying · FriendFeed · GPS · Geolocation · Jaiku · Life Streaming · Micro-blogging · Microblogging · Pownce · Security · Social Networking · Twitter · Wearing

BlackBerry Bold in your region

June 24th, 2008 ·

Just got an opt-in email from BlackBerry on the new BlackBerry Bold. Not sure if this is a “keep you hungry” note or more along the lines of “we’re almost launching.”
In the email:
“Stay tuned for more updates - we’ll let you know when service providers in your region begin offering the exciting new BlackBerry Bold [...]

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Tags: BlackBerry · Bold

More ideas on mobile GPS mashups

June 24th, 2008 ·

Photo courtesy U.S. Department of Defense
Just a couple ideas on GPS, tied to proximity of a mobile phone…

Proximity based ads (walk by Banana Republic and get a coupon via SMS)
Location based music (Last.fm channels playing artists from your location)
Mobile OnStar

Think of your favorite services on the net and add a GPS component… It probably enhances [...]

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Tags: GPS · Geolocation · Life Streaming · Wearing