The latest fad riding the nerd wave of the current Internet Web 2.0 resurgence bubble is a new application from Obvious Corp called Twitter. Twitter is a web-based application that allows you to post short messages (up to 140 characters) that anyone can subscribe to.

What’s the point of it all I hear you asking; well in my opinion not a fucking lot. Essentially the majority of Twitter’s ever increasing user base (60,000+ with a growth rate of 20% per week) use the service to post updates on their regular day and whereabouts. “I ate a pie”, “On my way to Maccas”, and ”Going to work by car” are some rather random examples of dullness you can expect from your average Twitter. These messages are often displayed on their owner’s blogs and websites linking into the Twitter service similarly to the way Flickr allows you to display your most recent photos on a web page, using a custom API (Application Programming Interface).

So why is it so popular? It’s rather a good question actually. It seems the tech gods have rather smiled on this little side project with some of the world’s top tech celebs jumping on board, Leo Laporte being one of them is currently one of Twitters most active users according to Twitter monitoring site Twitterholic. By subscribing to Leo or any other number of celebs cashing in on the service’s current popularity you can follow their lives in an almost stalker like fashion but who really wants to subscribe to Joe Blogs from LA’s feed and see what type of sandwich he just ate? Family & friends perhaps? Maybe but I doubt even they’d care that much!
It seems that others are using the application as if it were a permanently online instant messaging service. You’ll often see messages beginning with “@Veronica” meaning your latest post is directed to the user Veronica but this requires that all your friends use Twitter and your entire conversations are open for the world to read. Why wouldn’t you send an email or a text message?

Presently there is no advertised strategy behind Twitter; no business model to support the tool and perhaps there will never be one but without it like many Internet fads I believe you’ll soon find the sign up rate dropping off and the user posts rapidly declining. My biggest problem with it is who could be fucking bothered?! What incentive do I, a regular nobody, have to be doing this and who could give a flying fuck?

Strategically for the application to have some legs will require some business acumen. There’s always that age-old Internet trait of popping in advertising but frankly that would just piss everyone off, no one wants ads in their messages unless the user’s getting some bank as a result. The one area I haven’t seen any real mention of is business, using Twitter as notification tool for example, perhaps providing a licensed installer to deploy the application on a local network, these are areas I think will need to be explored for there to be any longevity in the project.

There’s plenty of people out there who are in love with this product and plenty who aren’t. It’s quite a fiery debate at present but Twitter to me is nothing more than another fad in a long list that will die a natural death. I wont be signing up for an account any time soon but please feel free to try it out yourself and let me know what you think.

Some Twitters to check out:

• Veronica Belmont
• Leo Laporte
• Darth Vader
• Technorati

Twitter Links:

• Twitter
• Twitterholic

Directed By: Edgar Pegg
Starring: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost
Running time: 121 minutes
Links: IMDB | Trailer
Rating: 3.5/5

“Hot Fuzz” is the second film from writing duo Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg, the same couple that unleashed the surprise cult hit “Shaun of the Dead” on the world a few years ago. Not since Guy Ritchie’s rise to fame has there been such hype over an English produced film. Fortunately just as Ritchie did the English proud by wowing us with “Snatch” Wright & Pegg have done the same. Lets just hope for their sakes they don’t follow any further in Ritchie’s footsteps and make a “Revolver”*.

The film revolves around Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg), a London police officer that is making the rest of the force look bad by doing his job too well. Because of this his superiors have decided to have him shipped off to the small village of Sandford where the biggest crime for the month is a run away swan. Nick’s joined by his new partner Danny Butterman (Nick Frost) to patrol the sleepy town where they discover there might be something deeper the series of deadly actions of late. In addition to Pegg & Frost is a fantastic supporting cast including the likes of Bill Bailey (Black Books), Timothy Dalton (ex James Bond), Martin Freeman (The Office) and Bill Nighy (Love Actually) to name a few.

To begin with “Hot Fuzz” is your classic fish-out-water flick, it spends a good 30 minutes establishing the story with little hilarity only to be followed up by another 30 minutes of plot development littered with sight gags and slapstick. That’s not to say it’s not funny, quite the opposite actually, Pegg & Frost’s on screen partnership is comedic gold, it’s just that you find yourself expecting them to be funny in every scene and at times you seem to be waiting an eternity for something funny to happen. The second half of the film is where it truly comes into its own right. You can quickly forgive the slow feeling of the prior hour as the story unfolds into a creation that could only come from the minds of Wright & Pegg.

Forget all that crap though, lets just cut to the chase; what’s better, “Shaun of the Dead” or “Hot Fuzz”? Well for me it was the first. “Shaun of the Dead” reinvented British comedy for me and although “Hot Fuzz” was extremely funny in its own right I couldn’t help but feel that it dragged on that little too much at first. “Shaun of the Dead” on the other hand kept a much more constant flow of laughs. That’s your decision to make though, I have friends that disagree and if you’ve never seen “Shaun of the Dead” do yourself a favor and go rent it today!

All in all “Hot Fuzz” is a fantastic, funny film that you shouldn’t miss. If you’re a fan of British comedy and enjoy TV shows like “Black Books”, “Black Adder” and “The Mighty Boosh” you’ll love this too.

* Never heard of “Revolver”? Don’t feel too bad, it had a theatrical release that lasted a couple of weeks (or should have) and anyone that has actually seen the film doesn’t know what happened and couldn’t tell you what it was about. Mind you that didn’t stop me paying 15 squid to see it opening week while I was on holiday in London. Yeah I got screwed!