Archiving Tweets

Twitter has made it all the way to the Library of Congress!

According to the library of congress blog, your tweets will now be archived in the Library of Congress. Every tweet since the beginning of twitter history (March 2006) will be archived digitally and housed in the infamous Library of Congress.  These tweets will be made public.

The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world. It  receives copies of every book, pamphlet, map, print, and piece of music registered in the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States and serves as a research tool to congress and the public.

According to the Twitter Blog: "Today, fifty-five million tweets a day are sent to Twitter and that number is climbing sharply."

Why are our tweets going to Congress?

“Tweets and other short-form updates create a history of commentary that can provide valuable insights into what’s happened and how people have reacted,” wrote Dylan Casey, Google’s product manager for real-time search.

Our tweets are seen as a time-line of history that have recorded important world event such as the presidential election of Obama, and the earthquake in Haiti. The Library of Congress believes that are tweets can have a large contribution to history.

Also in twitter news: Google has created a wonderful new way to revisit tweets related to historic events.

You didn't think that the Library of Congress was going to take the whole cake did you?

It's called Google Replay.

"Since we first introduced real-time search last December, we’ve added content from MySpace, Facebook and Buzz, expanded to 40 languages and added a top links feature to help you find the most relevant content shared on updates services like Twitter. Today, we’re introducing a new feature to help you search and explore the public archive of tweets", says Dylan Casey, Product Manager for Real-Time Search.

with this "search engine" you can recount any subject that has been tweeted about in the past. Currently, you can only search back a couple of months, but soon you will be able to go back all the way to the beginning of tweeting time.  


How do you feel about your tweets going public?

Google Coming to Austin!

I just heard the news in class today! Google is coming to Austin! According to the Austin Business Journal, Google is looking for "30,000 square feet [of] downtown [space] for a [new] software engineering satellite office". This is great news!

Everyone has been up in arms lately regarding the economy. When will we recover? Graduation is only a short 13 months away for me and as a soon to be graduate here in Austin, I have been told it's going to be tough to find a job. I believe it.  I have been told to keep my connections open and continue networking because it's going to be all about "who you know".

Everyone has been suffering lately. You can see the evidence all over. Even the City of Austin itself  had to go through some serious budget cuts this year. One of the city's most iconic events, The Trail Of Lights, was cut short due to funding. Yes, Austin has felt the sting of the recession.

Luckily, for Austin natives, Google has decided to open a new office in Austin. This Austin based satellite office will employ more than 100 people. This is a great economic stimulus for the city. Google will generate jobs and therefore income. The more income generated in Austin, the more spending locally. This is also a great opportunity for those looking for employment after graduating one of the many universities in and around Austin.

Austin seems like the perfect place for a new office too. "Google is known for its youthful work-as-play culture, with employees navigating hallways on scooters and offices equipped with candy dispensers, pool tables and video games." Sounds like it would fit in perfectly. Austin is known for its creative, playful, and colorful atmosphere. We welcome innovative thinking. Further Google has quite the talent pool to choose from with the University of Texas & St. Edward's University just down the street.

What an honor to have Google choose Austin as it's next big step! It really says something about our great city when such a tremendous company chooses to move in. It helps keep Austin fresh, new, innovative, and creative. I'm sure Google will feel right at home in the liberating Austin atmosphere. 

Google Buzz

 

Google just announced Google Buzz on Tuesday; its newest push toward the social media movement!

Google Buzz is a feature of Gmail, so users must be a member of Gmail to be able to have access to Google Buzz. Google Buzz enables users to share statuses, updates, images and videos via Gmail. The Google Buzz features will not only be accessible via your home computer or laptop, but it will also be available on Android iPhone to provide users with "live" updates. Google hopes that Google Buzz will soon become the new Facebook, which is the new-ish Myspace. Some features include: The 40 people users chat with the most via Gmail & Gchat (instant messaging for Gmail users) will be automatically added as friends on Google Buzz. These individual's updates will show up automatically (like Twitter)as a live feed on one's Google buzz. When creating your own status updates, you can choose to make them private or public each individual time.One can also tag people in their status updates (like Twitter). Google Buzz gives people the option to like or dislike (unlike Facebook) statuses and filter out status updates that become frivolousand obnoxious. Google Buzz also recommends new friends to follow (like Facebook). Photos from Flickr and Picasa and videos from YouTube appear as thumbnails in one's Google Buzz. When you click them, they pull up (full size) on your browser. Users can also pull in tweets, from Twitter, (but not Facebook updates) into Google Buzz. Unfortunately, you can't export your Google Buzz updates out to Twitter. based phones as well as the

I personally wouldn't call this" innovative". It just seems like a new Facebook or Myspace, only exclusively for Gmail users. Some news Google, we already have a Facebook and it's available to everyone! We'll see where this goes. It could be a flop in the younger demographic, but a possible winner for business professionals. There are not enough users involved in Google Buzz yet to really foresee what will happen.