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Twitter was born as a text messaging service; tweets are 140 characters because that is the length of a text message, minus a few characters for the author’s name.Today, though, most people in the United States think about Twitter as a Web tool, and they use it either online or via smartphone apps.But Twitter has not forgotten about all the people in the world who do not have fancy phones. On Friday, the company announced that it had acquired Cloudhopper, a Seattle text-messaging start-up.There is “untapped potential” with Twitter text-message use “Mobile is clearly where the majority of usage will happen,” Evan Williams, Cloudhopper has already been working with Twitter to connect its service directly with mobile carriers around the world, in part so that users do not have to pay extra to send or receive text message tweets. Twitter has long had problems with this, and in the past has had to disable text messaging in certain countries because of high fees.Read more at bits.blogs.nytimes.com

Imagine a world where by simply texting a word, like "Sandwich" will result in a quick and seamless transaction so you could  go about your day.  Think about how much easier our lives would be if we didn't have to wait in line, handle cash or be turned away from food or beverage if we don't have our wallets in hand

What if texting wasn't just meant for communication, but also designed for transaction?

Today, most people take more precautions about carrying their mobile devices than carrying their wallets or purses.

In the past 20 years, a lot of research has been done towards visual information retrieval on pictures and video files. Not all of it has been successful. But on the last years, the quality of these visual search engines has reached levels that are beginning to be acceptable for eDiscovery, compliance, law enforcement and intelligence applications.

More and more electronically stored information (ESI) is non-text based or does not contain any searchable text components: sound recordings, video and pictures are growing exponentially in size and more and more collaborative and social network applications support (only) these information formats.

In addition, a whole generation is growing up that no longer uses written communication forms such as letters or emails: they only use social networks and other new media forms for communication and collaboration.

Facebook Updates Open Graph, Lets You Share EVERYTHING You Do Steve Kovach | Sep. 22, 2011, 1:53 PM | 3,626 | 3 A A A   x Email Article From To Email Sent! You have successfully emailed the post. inShare30 See Also: Eight Fascinating People You'll See At IGNITION THE MICROSOFT INVESTOR: Microsoft Could Play Kingmaker In Potential Yahoo Sale Facebook Users Are About To Riot Over Massive

Facebook announced the latest addition to the social graph. Instead of "liking" objects, you can participate in events. That means watching movies, going on trips, reading a book, whatever

Everything shows up in the new ticker, the real-time update list in the upper right corner. Zuck says this will make it possible for people to develop social apps based on the acitivities people do. Starting with media: movies, music, news, books, etc.

SoundTracking, a social mobile application that allows people to create “musical postcards” that can then be shared with friends on social sites,  announced Tuesday that it had received $4.75 million in financing.

To use SoundTracking, people take pictures, log their locations and attach the songs they are listening to at that moment.

“We are making sharing the core experience and discovery is a bi-product.”

A 2009 analysis from Juniper Research (News –Alert) of the $110bn NFC opportunity forecasted that one in every six mobile subscribers (about 17 percent) globally will have an NFC enabled device by 2014. Adoption was expected to be highest in the Far East,with use very limited outside of that region.

The latest forecast from Juniper Research suggests that at least 20 percent of smartphones will support NFC by 2014,about 300 million phones.

By 2014,Juniper now predicts that North America will account for just under half of NFC smartphones,followed by Western Europe.

Mobile payment start-up Square, is set to deploy its credit card readers for smartphones in Wall-Mart Stores at locations in the US, according to reports.

According to online media outlet businessweek.com, before being made available in Wall-Mart stores, Square’s device has been sold via about 200 Apple stores, as well as via Target, RadioShack and Best Buy outlets.

The technology employed by Square for this device works on Apple’s iPhone and iPad as well as Google Android. The card reader is plugged into the headphone jack of the mobile device which allows merchants to swipe customers’ credit or debit cards.

Near-field communications (NFC) technology will be built into one in five smartphones by 2014 as mobile payment and interactive promotions take off, according to a report from Juniper Research.

Over 23 million NFC-capable smartphones are expected to be in circulation by the end of 2011, said the NFC Retail Marketing & Mobile Payments report.

This willl rise to around 300 million by 2014, and half of these devices are expected to be active in the US.

NLP goes by many names — text analytics, data mining, computational linguistics — but the basic principle remains the same. NLP refers to computer systems that process human language in terms of its meaning.

Apart from common word processor operations that treat text like a mere sequence of symbols, NLP considers the hierarchical structure of language: several words make a phrase, several phrases make a sentence and, ultimately, sentences convey ideas. By analyzing language for its meaning, NLP systems have long filled useful roles, such as correcting grammar, converting speech to text and automatically translating between languages.

NLP can analyze language patterns to understand text. One of the most compelling ways NLP offers valuable intelligence is by tracking sentiment — the tone of a written message (tweet, Facebook update, etc.) — and tag that text as positive, negative or neutral.

It is interesting to see gamification now being applied in a marketing/website/community context, because many marketers and community managers have already been using these techniques to build engagement for several years.

there are many ways to incorporate game mechanics into a community and which ones are appropriate depend a lot on the make-up of your community audience and what the ultimate goals for the community are.

my belief is that you need to gradually introduce new elements into a community and make sure that any new features are fully explained and documented.

Sir Richard Branson4 clicks has personally invested an undisclosed amount in SF mobile payment start-up Square. This investment comes shortly after a $100 million round of investments, and before Square tries to launch globally.

When asked about the investment Branson said, “I’m very passionate about helping people start and grow successful businesses, and Square is an incredible technology that inspires and empowers everyone to be an entrepreneur.”

Branson loves the fact that anyone can go to Square’s website and get a free credit card reader to plug into their phone or tablet and start processing payments. It is also hard to ignore the massive growth of the company. In only a year Square has shipped out 800,000 card readers, and just recently passed processing $10 million dollars a day in payments. They are currently processing $2 billion in transactions annually.

Thanks to augmented reality technology, a tiny version of Rihanna actually seems to emerge from the cap of a jar of Nivea Creme to sing her song “California King Bed.”

The app, which went live this week, is an attempt to “create engaging digital advertising experiences,” says a statement from the company. Nivea tried to create such as experience this summer with a “Co-Star with Rihanna” Facebook campaign that let users star in a short, alternative version of the music video for the song by editing themselves into the action.

For the AR component, all you have to do is buy a tin of Nivea Creme or print one out from Nivea’s website and hold either up to your computer’s webcam. Then, voila, Rihanna appears.

Shazam, potentially one of the most magical apps ever, has partnered with Delivery Agent to let you discover consumer products in TV shows and ultimately purchase them.

First to jump on board with the service is NBCUniversal, more specifically the program Covert Affairs, with other programming to follow. Just like you Shazam music you love, the service will let you tag Covert Affairs episodes, which will then serve up different products that are relevant.

So let’s say that Covert Affairs main character Annie is getting dressed on the show, and you notice that her outfit is exactly what you’ve been looking for. Simply tag the episode and voila! Delivery Agent pulls any items available for purchase right into the Shazam app.

If mobile video sharing is to follow in the footsteps of its more desirable mobile photo-sharing cousin, which application will users want to use to shoot, share and discover video clips? It’s too soon to tell, but startup Klip joins the fray and is now vying for your video attention. The startup released its application for iPhone on Monday with a focus on letting users share super-short 1-minute video clips — on Klip or with Facebook, Twitter and Youtube — and helping users discover clips from friends or other users based on topics of interests. “Klip re-invents the way consumers experience the world by organizing mobile videos in real time and by connecting consumers with the people and the topics that interest them,” the company says.