Twellow – Find Twits Near You!

Twellow is a Twitter user directory with two approaches. The first is a directory of Twitter users (Twits) organized into industry categories. This is handy for anyone on Twitter if they’re looking to follow some new people who work in or are interested in a specific topic. It’s also helps you gain new followers when you list and edit your own profile on Twellow.

The second approach is based on location. You can browse through twits by country, province or state. It tracks 5,000+ twits in British Columbia and 12,000+ twits in Washington. You can track it down right to a specific city – my hometown of Kelowna has 127 people listed – not bad for a city with a population of 110,000.

Android Paid Applications

It’s a slick process. You sign into your Google account, venture into the Android Marketplace and find the application that suits your needs. Hit the “buy” button and voila, you have your new app. When signed into your Google account you’re automatically signed into your associated Google Checkout account, making purchases completely seamless.

Independent game and app developers often step in at the 99 cent price – even well known developers often sell their products for less than $3. Thinking back a year or two to my Bell Mobility experience, when using their marketplace, I couldn’t even find demos for 99 cents. The average game was $5 and ringtones were usually $1-$3. I was a victim until I found some websites with loads of free content – $5 data package and I could download all the content I wanted.

None the less, it’s an interesting evolution. Mobile phones and their carriers begin to support the Internet and the carriers try to cash in big. The unrealistic prices open the flood gates for more creative approaches which lower price and make more content available. What everyone seems to forget is that 1-3 year period where data cost $50/mb to prevent you from downloading your own content via the web. Your only option was to use the built in services with ridiculous per download prices.

As web ready phones become more popular and network speeds increase, eventually these games and apps will just be monetized by in-game/in-application advertising. It has already been around for a while, and is surely going to take a chunk out of paid downloads as the web experience improves on the average mobile phone.

Maqui Berry Resource

I’ve started a new website to cover all things about the maqui berry. After running Acai Resource since July, 2007 and seeing that niche grow from <100,000 pages in Google to 6 million pages in Google, I wanted to start a new site on a related topic that didn’t have quite so much competition in Google. The maqui berry grows in Patagonia, versus the acai berry in the Amazon Rainforest. There are many similar qualities between the two berries, but what makes the maqui berry stand out is it’s amazing antioxidant levels – it boasts an ORAC score higher than any known fruit, so I have high hopes for this new berry. None the less, Acai Berry Resource will remain a priority.