Is Twitter Finally Getting A Competitor?

Twitter your days alone at the top of the micro-blogging mountain may soon be ending. UberMedia, which owns major third-party mobile applications for the Twitter platform, is said to be building a service that will compete directly against Twitter. If it’s true, the move would come on the heels of Twitter briefly suspending the company’s apps for alleged use policy violations.

Citing unnamed sources, CNN.com reported today that UberMedia is looking to attract users to its own microblogging service by addressing common complaints about Twitter, such as its rules on message lengths as well as how the service can be confusing to new users.

UberMedia declined to comment on whether its programmers are building a new microblogging service. However, in an emailed statement to Computerworld, company marketing chief Steve Chadima said, “Our foremost desire is to continue to innovate on the Twitter platform and bring more users and usage to Twitter.”

UberMedia owns UberTwitter, which is for the BlackBerry platform; Twidroyd, for Android devices; and UberCurrent, which can be used on iPhones and iPads. The company also has been in the news in recent months because it’s moving to acquire popular Twitter client TweetDeck.

TweetDeck competes directly with Twitter’s Web and mobile clients.

Ezra Gottheil, an analyst with Technology Business Research, said he wouldn’t be surprised if UberMedia were to go after some of Twitter’s business, but the company would have an uphill climb.

Terror Alerts To Be Issued Via Facebook, Twitter

The U.S. government may start issuing terror alerts via Facebook and Twitter, according to a news service report.

The Associated Press reported Thursday that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is working to re-design the current color-coded terror alert system. The new system, according to the report, would have only two levels of alerts — elevated and imminent.

Those alerts would be conveyed out to the public in part via social networking sites Facebook and Twitter . The AP article is based on a 19-page draft of the plan that the news service obtained.

“The new terror alerts would also be published online using Facebook and Twitter ‘when appropriate,’” the news agency reported, “but only after federal, state and local government leaders have already been notified.”

The new system is expected to be in place by April 27.

Zeus Kerravala, an analyst at Yankee Group Research, said the fact that the U.S. government is entrusting something as critical as terrorist alerts to Facebook and Twitter shows how important social networking sites have become to people’s lives.

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Mobile Panic Button Coming Soon

The U.S. State Department is putting its money where its mouth is, according to the Daily Mail. It is funding the creation of an application that will allow pro-democracy activists to delete all incriminating evidence on their mobile phones with a single click while sending out an alert to their fellow activists.

The “panic button” will send out a text message to everyone in the user’s address book, then erase both that address book and the phone’s call history. This will be an important tool, given how thoroughly governments go through dissident’s communications devices as a matter of course these days.

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Google Launches Online Magazine

Google has decided to launch its own quarterly online magazine, Think Quarterly, out of its centers in the U.K. and Ireland, saying that “in a world of accelerating change, we all need to take time to reflect.”

The first issue of Think Quarterly is already freely available online and is focuses on data, including data obesity, data impotence, data overload and open data.

“Think Quarterly is a unique communications tool that brings together some of the world’s leading minds to discuss the big issues facing businesses today,” the magazine says on its Twitter bio.

The magazine’s Twitter feed says it launched on March 21, though there is no mention of the magazine on Google’s blog, Twitter feed, Facebook page or newsroom.

In a note on the magazine’s website, the managing director of Google’s U.K. & Ireland Operations, Matt Brittin, said, “Think Quarterly is a breathing space in a busy world. It’s a place to take time out and consider what’s happening and why it matters.”

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Android Takes Top Spot

Android smartphones bested iPhone and BlackBerry devices for the first time in the U.S. in the latest Nielsen Co. survey conducted right before Verizon Wireless began selling Apple’s iPhone.

Android devices made by several phone makers were used by 29% of the U.S. market in the November through January reporting period. That compares to 27% each for both Apple iPhones and BlackBerry devices from Research in Motion, Nielsen said.

In Nielsen’s most recent report from December, the three top smartphone operating systems were in a statistical dead heat, a Nielsen spokeswoman said Friday.

Microsoft’s Windows Mobile and Windows Phone 7 smartphones garnered 10% of the U.S. market from November through January, while the WebOS from Hewlett-Packard gained 4% and Symbian from Nokia earned 2%.  Read More…

Verizon Caps Data

Verizon Wireless will join AT&T in implementing data caps in the very near future, probably in mid-summer, Verizon CFO Fran Shammo said at an investor’s conference Tuesday.

The exact timing for the move to a tiered-pricing structure has not been announced, however. AT&T squashed unlimited data plans for new customers last year.

Verizon has been selling the iPhone 4 since Feb. 10 with a $30 unlimited plan, which also applies to other smartphones it sells that are on the Verizon CDMA/EV-DO network.

Shammo said some of the details of the data caps and tiered pricing will come when Verizon launches the HTCThunderbolt on LTE soon. Thunderbolt will have a 4.3-in. screen and run Android, Verizon said in January. Read More….

Goo.gl Link Spreading Malware via Twitter

As if we don’t have enough to worry about when it comes to potential attacks of all kinds. First there were reports about the social media site Facebook and its highly infected news feeds now there appears to be yet another mischief seeking internet fiend sending out infected Goo.gl links via Twitter. Users are being warned not to click these suspicious links as they might direct you to malicious sites.

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Nokia Adopts Windows Phone 7 OS

Nokia will adopt Microsoft’s Windows Phone as its main smartphone strategy, the company stated today, after days of speculation on what it would do to compete with Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android.

The companies will also partner on mobile ads- Nokia will use Microsoft adCenter in mobile devices and on mapping- where Nokia Maps will become part of Microsoft’s Bing search engine. Nokia’s application and content store will be integrated into Microsoft’s Marketplace.

Before today’s announcement, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop had stated that Nokia needed to “decide how we either build, catalyze or join an ecosystem” to change its fortunes. In the end it decided to partner with Microsoft and join the Windows Phone 7 ecosystem.

Nokia will contribute its hardware design and language support to the partnership, and help bring Windows Phone to a larger range of price points, market segments and geographies, the companies said in an open letter from Elop and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. R ead More……..

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