Apps, tweets and websites for wine drinkers

Don't know which wine to have with a pepperoni pizza? There's an app for that -- as well as websites and Twitter.

The number of ways to discover the most suitable wine for a particular dish can be as overwhelming as walking into a large wine shop.

More than a dozen apps claiming to be the equivalent of a sommelier in your pocket are available for iPhones and iPods. And there are others for the BlackBerry and other mobile devices.

But among the most popular for both are Nat Decants Food & Wine Match and HelloVino. Wine blogger Natalie MacLean also provides the same information on her website (www.nataliemaclean.com).

If you want to find out which wine will go best with lamb vindaloo, MacLean, who has almost 400,000 wine and food pairings, recommends Shiraz for red or a white Chateauneuf-Du-Pape. She also suggests food pairings with beer, whiskies and cocktails.

HelloVino is a free app that suggests Zinfandel for lamb shanks, and even advises how to pronounce it. It also chose wines such as California Zins that cost almost $100 a bottle.

But some selections were more reasonably priced such as Chinon and Pinot Noir for grilled lamb or lamb stew that ranged from $10 to $22.

If you want to have a wine tasting without leaving home, the website tastelive.com (www.tastelive.com) uses Twitter to bring winemakers and U.S. importers together.

Started by three 30-somethings from Massachusetts who designed websites for wineries, tastelive tries to select wines that are widely available and not too expensive.

"We knew from using Twitter that people sure liked to talk about wine, but no one seemed to be tasting it," said co-founder Craig Drollett.

The website posts which wines will be tasted and when. Anyone with a Twitter account can give their opinion.
"Right now, the heart of it is users in the U.S., England and Spain, but we've had folks posting from 18 different countries," Drollett said.

"And the winemakers love it. We had Etienne Hugel (the French winemaker from Alsace) up at 2 a.m. tweeting from his kitchen with folks in California."

1WineDude, speaking of the Sauvignon Blanc, tweeted, "I haven't smelled this much grass since I laid sod down in my backyard!"

The SwirlGirls replied, "If the Sauv. B were a person, it would be a high-powered, no-nonsense, good-looking businesswoman."

Not surprisingly by the end of the three-hour tasting, the tweets became a bit less coherent.

"Too buzzed to make any more coherent remarks. Really enjoying the reds with our steak frite dinner!," NomeSane tweeted.

Source: Reuters

Google's Twitter Accounts List

Here is a list of Google's accounts on Twitter. (Source: Google Blog)
 
Google accounts on Twitter

twitter.com/Google -  central account

twitter.com/Blogger - for Blogger fans
twitter.com/GoogleCalendar - user tips & updates
twitter.com/GoogleImages - news, tips, tricks on google's visual image search
twitter.com/GoogleNews - latest headlines via Google News
twitter.com/GoogleReader - from  feed reader team
twitter.com/iGoogle - news & notes from Google's personalized homepage
twitter.com/GoogleStudents - news of interest to students using Google
twitter.com/YouTube - for YouTube fans
twitter.com/YouTubeES - en Espanol
twitter.com/GoogleAtWork - solutions for IT and workplace productivity

Geo-related
twitter.com/SketchUp - Google SketchUp news
twitter.com/3DWH - SketchUp's 3D Warehouse
twitter.com/Modelyourtown - 3D modeling to build your favorite places
twitter.com/EarthOutreach - Earth & Maps tools for nonprofits & orgs
twitter.com/GoogleMaps - uses, tips, mashups
twitter.com/GoogleSkyMap -Android app for the night sky

Ads-related
twitter.com/AdSense - for online publishers
twitter.com/AdWordsHelper - looking out for AdWords questions and tech issues
twitter.com/AdWordsProSarah - Google Guide for AdWords Help Forum
twitter.com/GoogleAnalytics - insights for website effectiveness
twitter.com/GoogleAdBuilder - re building display ads
twitter.com/GoogleRetail - for retail advertisers
twitter.com/TechnologyUK - for U.K. tech advertisers
twitter.com/InsideAdWordsDE - for German AdWords customers
twitter.com/GoogleAgencyDE - for German ad agencies
twitter.com/AdSensePT - info for Portuguese-language publishers
twitter.com/AdWordsRussia - AdWords news & tips in Russian
twitter.com/DentroDeAdWords - Spanish updates from the Inside AdWords blog
twitter.com/AdWordsAPI - AdWords API tips

Developer & technical
twitter.com/GoogleResearch - from research scientists
twitter.com/GoogleWMC - Google Webmaster Central
twitter.com/GoogleCode - latest updates for Google developer products
twitter.com/GoogleData - Data APIs provide a standard protocol for reading and writing web data
twitter.com/app_engine - web apps run on Google infrastructure
twitter.com/DataLiberation -  initiative for complete import/export of all data
twitter.com/GoogleMapsAPI - about using Google Maps embedded in websites
twitter.com/GoogleIO - Google's largest annual developer event

Culture, People
twitter.com/googletalks - notes from  @Google speaker series
twitter.com/googlejobs - the voice of Google recruiters

Country or Region
twitter.com/googlearabia - news from the Google Arabia Blog*

twitter.com/googledownunder - Google activities in Australia & New Zealand
twitter.com/GoogleDE - Google in Germany
twitter.com/GoogleKorea - News & notes in Korean*

twitter.com/GoogleLatAm - Latin America (en Espanol)
twitter.com/GooglePolicyIt - Notes on Google policy issues in Italy

Twitter may impose fees

Have you ever seen advertises on Twitter? Have you ever seen any affiliates on Twitter? Did you ever get corporate offers on Twitter? No. Then how does Twitter make money? The answer to this question is, Twitter is yet to start making money.

Here is the answer to how Twitter will make money.

Twitter's co-founders, Evan Williams and Biz Stone have suggested they might impose fees on companies interested in mining the data about consumer preferences, trends, consumer's behavior and mood and peeves that pour into Twitter. Talks are already going on with "Someone". Williams said he has been discussing possible deals with some of the Sun Valley conference's other guests.

The buzz is that Twitter may also consider a small amount of fee with its users once they get addicted to it. Twitterers have already been started getting addicted to it and they won't mind paying fees to access it if the fees are considerably as low as $5 per month or so.

Warren Buffett confided that he enjoys watching YouTube so much that he would be willing to pay a $5 monthly subscription for access. It may be the same case with Twitter.

So this is how Twitter is going to make money.

Twitter users purchase more Music - Reports

A research company's study has revealed that Twitter users buy 77 percent more digital music downloads compared to non-twitter users. 12 percent of those who have bought music in the last three months also reported having used Twitter, versus 8 percent of overall Web users.

"Based on their music-purchasing history, active Twitter users are simply worth more to record labels and music retailers than those who are not using Twitter," says NPD entertainment analyst Russ Crupnick.

A third of all Twitter user reported buying a CD in the prior three months, and 34 percent reported buying music digitally, compared to 23 percent and 16 percent for overall Web users. Another one-third of Twitter users listened to music on a social networking site, 41 percent via online radio and 39 percent watched music videos online. Overall, they are twice as likely than average Web users to visit MySpace Music and Pandora.
"Twitter has the potential to help foster the discovery of new music, and improve targeted marketing of music to groups of highly-involved and technologically savvy consumers, but it has to be done right," Crupnick said. "There must be a careful balance struck between entertainment and direct conversation on one hand, and marketing on the other. Used properly Twitter has the power to entertain -- and to motivate music fans to purchase more new albums, downloads, merchandise, and concert tickets."

Source: Reuters

Iran put Firewall to Censor and Monitor the Internet Media

Source: Mashable 
When it comes to online censorship and monitoring online activities, the first country that usually comes to mind is China and its Great Firewall. This, however, may soon change, as it seems that Iran has built one of the most advanced systems for monitoring all online traffic, with the help of technology built by Nokia and Siemens.

The Great Firewall of Iran, as it will undoubtedly be dubbed, involves deep packet inspection, a technique that examines both the header and the data part of internet data packets and can be used for eavesdropping, censorship and data mining.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Iran’s online monitoring and censorship system digs through data at one big choke point, which is made easy by the fact that the government owns a telecom which holds a monopoly over the country’s online communication. This is different from China’s Great Firewall, which is far more decentralized, but it makes it even more advanced than the Chinese version, since it’s easier to monitor traffic at one point than having to synchronize such efforts at many locations. This is enhanced by the fact that China has 300 million Internet users, compared to Iran’s 23 million Internet users......

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Twitter hit by Malware in Trending Topics - WARNING, Beware

Panda Security has recently warned about malware links that have started to invade Twitter’s Trending Topics.

Scammers are targeting the service, they say, by creating fake Tweets that include the name of trending topics. The idea is that you’ll search for a topic to find out what it means, and accidentally click through to the malware sites.

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Beware “Twitterbest” and “Zasaden” in Twitter Search

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The most common rogue links are called “Twitterbest [dot] mp” and “Zasaden [dot] mp” – do not visit either site. The sites are obviously scams based on the fact that the URLs usually have some pornographic phrase in them, but with the sheer volume of links being distributed it would be extremely easy to conduct a Twitter search and accidentally click a link.http://http://fakeantivirus

Once you click the link:

1. You’ll be taken to a page that prompts you to “upgrade your Flash player” or similar.
2. If you agree to this download, the software installs itself.
3. You receive error messages saying you have a virus and need to download a fake antivirus program they call “Fast Anti-Virus 2009″. This is the ultimate objective of the scam: to get you to pay $89 for the fake anti-virus software.

You can avoid these scams by being cautious of links in Twitter search that look like those above. More generally, it’s smart to avoid downloading software from unknown sites.

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The Twitter Trending Topics Scam in Pictures

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Here’s the full process of the scam, and screenshots of each stage supplied by Panda Security.

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Step 1: Malicious Tweets and Links in Twitter Search

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Step 2: Prompt to Download Flash or Other Video Software

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Step 3: Virus Warnings and Prompt to Buy Anti-Virus Software

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Real Time Search Engine - The Era has begun

The era of Real Time Search Engine has begun. The real new generation search engines are here. Today most of the internet users need results that are real time and most recent. People want real time, current and hot news which actually make sense. The recent examples of thousands of tweets on Iran Election and iPhone on Twitter are the evidences of how and what people are searching today and what actually they need.

The search user is now looking beyond traditional search-engines like google, bing and yahoo. With social networking web replacing the traditional ones, internet users are more inclined towards what's going on currently in real time rather than what is already there.

The launch of Real Time search engines like CrowdEye, Tweetmeme, Topsy (real time social search engines for Twitter), Collecta, and Oneriot has started a new generation in Search Engine. 

Twitter has already begun its real time search engine with search.twitter.com. There are also other handful of sites which have already entered into the RealTime search engine market. They are definitely going to have an upper hand if they continue to give Real real time results. Here the speed matters. There is no space for rotten news or search results.

Facebook is not behind. The largest social community has announced that it's experimenting the new real time search which is seen as a challenge and competition to Twitter's real time search. Facebook is testing its real-time search engine for the new feeds on Facebook.

Duo - Update Facebook and Twitter from your iPhone in Seconds

You want to update your Facebook & Twitter through iPhone in just few seconds and click??? Don't have enough time to go to your PC or Laptop?? Are you going to a meeting but don't have enough time to start your PC and badly looking to update your Facebook & Twitter?? Apple iPhone has a solution for you..It's an application called Duo.

Now you can update your Facebook & Twitter in just few seconds and clicks. iTune Stores have got Duo which can do your updates in just few clicks and saves lots of time.

Duo is an application by Apple which will update both Twitter and Facebook with just few clicks..The good thing is, it is free to download in iTunes Store...Go and Grab it....