Here are the web links I’ve found for 10 February 2009, posted automatically.
- Twinfluence: Twitter Influence Analyzer: Another stupid pseudo-science numerical analysis of people’s Twitter followers which supposedly measures “influence”. It completely fails to consider the quality of communication rather than quantity. Useful for impressing dumb old-school PR and marketing types, maybe, since they seem so obsessed with raw numbers.
- Resilient Nation | Demos: A project by UK think tank, Demos, Resilient Nation notes that the government’s power and authority is shifting across to the private and third sectors and down to regional and local government. Our ability to respond to disasters needs to be re-examined in this light. There are noises about starting an Australian version. Stand by.
- Exchange Connector POP3 Connector/Downloader for Exchange Server 2007/2003 | Quantum Software Solutions: A third-party (and Australia made!) replacement for Microsoft’s POP3 Connector for Exchange. Apparently more reliable, with better logging and more features — including the ability to download email every minute instead of only every 15 minutes.
Regarding your comments on “Twinfluence”. THANK YOU. I have been foaming at the mouth with barely surpressed disgust and rage ever since I heard about Loic Le Meur’s instance on some kind of “authority” measurement/search system for Twitter. Authority is a difficult enough subject without trying to measure or quantify it by way of an ephemera-centric service like Twitter. It would be like saying that the kid who got the most valentines in school was obviously the go-to for any questions you might have. That sickening confusion between popularity and expertise really makes it difficult for many intelligent people to be taken seriously, I think. Services like this one just don’t help matters, either.
P.S. On a totally unrelated note, I did get around to finishing Name of the Rose and it was absolutely delightful.
@Giania: I couldn’t agree more. When I want medical advice, I don’t go to the medical author who’s written the most best-selling books and pulls the biggest audience on Oprah. I go to my own GP, who’s probably only known to a few hundred people — but who has a decade and a half of knowledge of me and my health issues.
Loic Le Meur’s claim that Twitter needs a system to measure authority is bunkum. We already have such a system: people’s own brains, which can soon judge whether what someone says is being taken seriously or not by watching how other people react. Or by following their own gut feelings.
Glad you enjoyed The Name of the Rose, though personally I don’t know whether I could be bothered ploughing through such a tome these days.