I saw this on a car this morning. ‘Cheep to Run’ ‘Escellent Condition’. Oh Dear.

Here is a little thought that has been kicking around for a while. I believe Twitter is evolving as more and more services plug in to it as the main ‘channel’ for connection and communication. Take foursquare as a perfect example. I can live on foursquare alone as I can connect with others and they can see when I check in. But the real growth of foursquare the app, and the growth of it for my usage comes from Twitter.

Yesterday, I checked in to Doggetts pub in London. The check in was tweeted and picked up by an old school friend whom I had not seen for well over 15 years. So, we hooked up and had a beer. That connection would not have happened without Twitter.

So this backbone thing means that in time people may be signing up for Twitter to access other services and not even participate in the whole ‘what am I doing’ thing. And if Twitter becomes equally important for its transport ability than its ‘conversational’ ability will we see an API type usage fee for services using this backbone.

Its just an idea – what do you think?

OK it’s been a little while since I did some Sunday Songs. Today’s song is a proper classic, and one you will all know. Solsbury Hill, by Peter Gabriel.

I have been in the West Country for a few days and was playing with Google Earth to work out what was around me and stumbled upon Solsbury Hill. Yes, the Solsbury Hill. Of course, I knew the song but not what it was about. This being Gabriels’ first single after leaving Genesis, the song was about his decision. I checked the lyrics and found they were indeed about leaving and thinking “what have I done?” [Open doors will soon be shut.]

Climbing up on Solsbury Hill
I could see the city light
Wind was blowing, time stood still
Eagle flew out of the night
He was something to observe
Came in close, I heard a voice
Standing stretching every nerve
Had to listen had no choice
I did not believe the information
I just had to trust imagination
My heart going boom boom boom
“Son,” he said “Grab your things,
I’ve come to take you home.”

To keep in silence I resigned
My friends would think I was a nut
Turning water into wine
Open doors would soon be shut
So I went from day to day
Tho’ my life was in a rut
“Till I thought of what I’d say
Which connection I should cut
I was feeling part of the scenery
I walked right out of the machinery
My heart going boom boom boom
“Hey” he said “Grab your things
I’ve come to take you home.”
(Back home.)

When illusion spin her net
I’m never where I want to be
And liberty she pirouette
When I think that I am free
Watched by empty silhouettes
Who close their eyes but still can see
No one taught them etiquette
I will show another me
Today I don’t need a replacement
I’ll tell them what the smile on my face meant
My heart going boom boom boom
“Hey” I said “You can keep my things,
They’ve come to take me home.”

There doesn’t seem to be a video for the song, which is understandable back in the day. I like the original, not the live versions so just use your ears!

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• CD Review: Peter Gabriel, “Scratch My Back” (popdose.com)

I picked up a few badges from Wuiper at leWeb and they have been sitting around for ages. So, in an attempt to clear the decks I will share this with you, although I don’t know much myself.

So, it is French, you get a badge with a code and other people, who have a Wuiper account can text you or email you anonymously. Make sense? Me neither, but then I am not French nor even close to the target market.

They have a video on site which may help explain it. Regrettably I can’t embed so click on the image below to be transported.

This is a great graphic to help  you understand the social maze and what it can be used for. Clicking on the graphic will take you to a better example that allows you to interact with the prism.

The Conversation Prism by Brian Solis and Jesse Thomas

#mce_temp_url#Today I hosted an app swap shop, sharing some of my favourites and taking suggestions from the wonderful people at London Media Camp 4. This is the net result, if I have forgotten some apps, or you wish to add more, then please leave a comment.

So, we didn’t get much traction on desktop/web apps apart from my suggestion of using wakoopa to track your software use and find ideas for new software. From the tweets, this wasn’t a great idea for some. We also discussed where apps stop and software starts, Tweetdeck and Spotify being two examples of ‘desktop apps’ that could also be software. We’ll leave that discussion for another day.

Twitter naturally became an animated topic with most of the audience favoring Tweetdeck on computer and on mobile device.  Tweetie was suggested as my personal favourite with Seesmic‘s Android app getting good reviews. Hootsuite gained some recommendations for its analytics power, although I personally feel it has been blemished by a lot of automated tweets which aren’t my bag. A British entry, Dabr was suggested by Caron @pcmcreative which is a good but basic Twitter client.

Oneforty.com was suggested as a good Twitter app store and  Socialoomph was mentioned as a tool to boost your productivity but I am not sure which category we stick that into.

Push notifications of emails, twitter replies and other information can be handled by Boxcar which I use on the iPhone. The app works to push notifications to your iPhone, automatically from Twitter (replies and DM’s) and by receiving forwarded email (that you set up) to your app. I find it very useful but find Boxcar is regularly minutes ahead of the actual message appearing on Tweetie or in my email account.

Tweetbeep was suggested as a better tool than Google Alerts to receive notifications of specific topics or keywords mentioned on Twitter – it is more of a service than an app.

Music! Bloom on the iPhone was well received as an expensive (relative to app costs) tool to create ambient music pieces. Apparently there are whole albums made from Bloom, so I must go and find them. Bloom has been created by Brian Eno and sits alongside Trope and Air, which are also from the same stable but not as good as Bloom. I am still looking to see if there is indeed a Bloom 2 out there [update: nope,not yet.]

Voiceband was shown by Dean. This iPhone app allows me to make noises [technical term] into the app and it will translate into musical instrument sounds, great for laying down some demo ideas. Four Track, Eight and Sixteen Track were also mentioned as worthy of a look. Wallander’s Wivi Band (premium and light) which makes brass instrument samples is another one on the musical list.

Shopping. I suggested Amazon as an awesome iphone app for shopping.Not only does it seamlessly integrate with my Amazon account but it also makes great use of the camera. The Reminders function of the app allows me to take a picture of anything, then by syncing the picture to the Amazon server, finds the product and shows you the price. 9 times out of 10 this works and has helped me many times.

From using the camera to take pictures, to using it as a barcode scanner, of which there are many apps available for both Android and iPhone. Couple this with an app like Shop Savvy which will take the barcodes and find the best price for your scanned item. Coupon App was also mentioned which needs some more research.

QR codes, again of which there are a number of readers [try this for iPhone, check this article for Android] were mentioned but are not used as much in the UK as they are in other European countries.

Location Based sharing and information was covered by my love of foursquare and other tools like Layar and Gowalla. foursquare, ‘the biggie’ allows any user to share their location by ‘checking in’ – either to a location someone has already added to the database or by adding your own details. Points are offered for adding new entries, checking in etc. which are then ranked against your friends that you have added from your twitter account and other sources. Points don’t make prizes but they could get you a free coffee or a cupcake from Hummingbird Bakery. Depending on how  you use it, foursquare could be a perfect tool for a hitman trying to follow  you. I’m trying not to think about that… Foursquare is on iPhone, Android and Blackberry.

Layar allows the user to see information relevant to their location, whether that is twitter peeps around me, panoramion photos or Brightkite information. There are also augmented reality apps available which could be cool.

Community GPS? Waze for the iPhone offers a free app that allows you to navigate streets based on content provided by the user, which could be cool in a highlly populated and connected city, but not so good if your in the jungle…

Harold was taking shots using panolab (free, premium), enabling mutiple shots to be easily stitched together, I will see what he has. Dean and Caron were also taking live streaming video of our session using bambuser and QIK respectively. I plan to make a separate post comparing the video quality of these two apps.

For iPhone users connected to Microsoft Exchange we had the recommendation of IM Notes, plugging a hole in the current Exchange set up. With IM Notes, one can sync the notes ‘over the air’ which currently can only be achieved through wired connections to your computer. I’m struggling to find a link for that so I’ll have to come back to it.

For offline reading of articles and web pages we had a good recommendation of Instapaper which allows you to save pages and files from your computer to the Instapaper serve/app (and to the Kindle) and then read them when offline (you will need to sync the app for it to work.) The Tweetie iPhone app has an option to save content to Instapaper. Of a similar nature is Read it Later, which does the same job.

Talking of Kindle, the Kindle app for the iPhone works well to connect your Kindle account and ensure you have the books and content available on your Kindle and on your iPhone. The coolest thing I heard about this was that it will remember your place in the book (the Kindle does) and will share this with your app, so you can keep reading, regardless of platform.

For those of  you on roaming data contracts or GSM, iCall was suggested as a cool alternative to Skype, the neat feature allowing you to transfer a mobile call to iCall and keep talking. I need to try that one.

Want mobile search, proper mobile search? Try Taptu - it is a search engine for mobile devices that delivers results based on mobile optimisation (sites that work on mobile) rather than the standard Google algorithm.

And finally, something we didn’t cover – for those of you looking for amusement, or more importantly, distractions for the kids, try Balloonimals (watch the video) (light, premium).

So, thank you to all the attendees of MediaCamp London 4, that was a great session (lets do it again, soon!) I am sorry I haven’t mentioned yo all in this post, leave a comment and I will happily credit you for your finds. Did I miss anything? Let me know.

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If you want to see more app suggestions, have a look at www.thenextweb.com/apps where I write, along with a host of other talented writers, part of the wider www.thenextweb.com.

I have seen this video a few times at various conferences. Whilst it is old (6 months) it is still very powerful. If you haven’t seen this before, enjoy. Full credit to Dean for sharing at #mcl4.

This is my first post from the wordpress iPhone app. It seems useful, allowing me to publish content or save it locally which is very handy.

I can include tags and it has all my categories saved but doesn’t recognise the additional plugins. So, to add my SEO data, and the homepage image I will need to log in ‘properly’.

I’ll add a photo now but expect this will also need to be resized. Actually I can’t do that – cab get the picture onto wp but not into the post. Something for later then. (update, it actually worked!)

It is useful, though and quite quick to write so I will use it again to get initial blogs written but may not actively publish from here due to the factors outlined above.

I’ll publish now and tidy up later.