As reported by Brian Briggs at BBspot.com, The Twitter business model is finally changing. Up until now, Twitter was a free service that didn’t charge a penny. It didn’t even have ads on the site. Today they announced that is all changing. It’s been rumored for a while and now they are creating premium accounts in 4 tiered accounts. Though they will be keeping the basic free account as well. Since the article didn’t have any direct links to the confirmation, I’m wondering if it is a prank or not. What do you think?
Sparrow ($5/month) – Users get 145 character limit, 5 extra random followers.
Dove ($15/month) – Users get 160 character limit, 25 extra random followers, 1 random celebrity follower, auto-spell check, “Fail Whale” T-shirt.
Owl ($50/month) – Users get 250 character limit, 100 extra random followers, 2 random celebrity followers, 30 minutes on recommended list, auto-spell check, “Fail Whale” hoodie.
Eagle ($250/month) – Users get 500 character limit, 1000 extra random followers, 3 celebrity followers of their choice, 5 hours on recommended list each month, Twitter Concierge for Tweeting while user is asleep or busy (and more), auto-spell check, “Fail Whale” tuxedo, custom “Fail Whale” page when service is down.
What is Apple doing to their products? The past week, Apple released a new iPod Shuffle. They moved the controls to the headphone cable, which is a feature I like. However, people have found a mysterious little chip embeded in it that many people suggest is a DRM enabled chip. If this is true, you could only use Apple branded headphones with it. If any third party company created headphones for it that bypassed the chip, then under the DMCA from 1998, it would be considered breaking a digital lock and be illegal.
So I’ve been addicted to a little game called Spore in recent days. I know, I know.. this game came out last year already so why am I first writing about it now? Basically, because I finally got around to buying a copy of it. There has been a lot of ink on the game and rightly so. Both good and bad. I’ll start with the bad. One acronym sums it all up.. DRM. To you non technical people, it stands for Digital Rights Management. It’s purpose is theoretically a good one. It is to prevent people from pirating your works. It has been included everything from mp3′s, video games, to movies. The bad thing about it is that if you legitimately own media – you have the legal right to back it up and make copies of your software, in this games case… you can only install it 3 times before it becomes non functional. After that, if your hard drive goes bad, or you buy a new computer, guess what? Too bad! You need to purchase another copy of the game. That has turned many people off to the game. On top of this,the method of enforcing this may involve root kits which is basically software they install on your computer that tracks what you do and sends back data to them which raises privacy concerns.
Now onto the good… It is made by Maxis… Which if you are my age, you grew up with the classic game Sim City in your elementary and middle schools. This game is a larger scale version of that.. it’s at the species level. You start out as a single cell creature. Then as you grow and mate, you evolve. You can choose what changes your organism takes and shape the way your organism evolves throughout it’s history. Once you get so far, your creature comes up on land and you must now make nice with other creatures or become enemy’s and after that, you create cities, the world, and then colonize the galaxy.
The gameplay is fun, and the animations are amusing. I would recommend this game to anyone who is looking for something to take their mind off of the real world for a while.
Brett Favre has informed us of his intention to retire from the Green Bay Packers and the NFL. He has had one of the greatest careers in the history of the National Football League, and he is able to walk away from the game on his own terms – not many players are able to do that.The Packers owe him a tremendous debt of gratitude. He has given Packers fans 16 years of wonderful memories, a Super Bowl championship among them, that will live on forever. Brett’s many accomplishments on the field are legendary. He leaves the game holding virtually every career passing record, plus his consecutive starts streak, which may never be duplicated.The uniqueness of Brett Favre – his personality, charisma and love of the game – undoubtedly will leave him as one of the enduring figures in NFL history.
Movie studios are now more welcome than ever in Wisconsin. On Jan. 1, 2008 tax incentives for the film industry to film in Wisconsin had started. Only a few major movies have ever been filmed here. Off the top of my head are “Back to School” with Rodney Dangerfield, “Last Kiss” with Zach Braff, in Madison and “The Blue’s Brothers”, “Mr. 3000″, and “Major League” were all filmed in Milwaukee.
The latest movie to come to Wisconsin will be “Public Enemies” with Johnny Depp and Christian Bale. “By producing in Wisconsin, the company could earn approximately $3.9 million in tax credits. The company said it expects to spend nearly $20 million in the state by conducting a portion of the filming in Wisconsin. Individual community locations are still being determined, but Baraboo, Columbus and Richland Center have been scouted by filmmakers.
Depp will play gangster John Dillinger in the film, and Christian Bale will play an FBI special agent. The film will be directed and produced by University of Wisconsin-Madison alumnus Michael Mann.”
We’re Brothers Forever – AKA
I Am Your Brother (Your Best Friend Forever)
So I was watching American Idol last night and they really saved the best performance for last. Renaldo Lapuz came on the show wearing a crazy white furry hat with the name “Simon” on it. He was also sporting a shinny silver cape. He sang his own song named “I am Your Brother” which consisted primarily of only two different refrains. The song as you may tell by his hat, was totally aimed at Simon. Paula and Randy caught onto this right away and started giving him grief. This had to of been one of the funniest moments I have seen on the show. The song was actually kind of catchy, but Simon did not let him through to the next round. Even after all of this Renaldo still praised Simon and the show made Simon appear like Christ with a heavenly glow behind him. My prediction is already coming true, I believe he is the next William Hung who was a contestant on the show that was horrible, but had a huge cult following. Renaldo already has tons of spoofs on YouTube, and many posts about him online. You can see the audition in it’s entirety below.
Chadwyk Krueger - Information Systems Processing Consultant, Apple fanboy, internetaholic
