When it comes to potential new features for Twitter, the Japanese version has always been a testing ground. For example, Twitter in Japan is supported by ads, which haven't hit the US yet (and nobody seems sure if they ever will!). While I'm just fine using Twitter without ads, we'd love to see an English version of Twicco, which basically adds group support to Twitter. You can test it out for yourself already, if you know Japanese or use something like Google Translate.

On Twicco, you can create a group account, and members can post messages that will then be distributed to the account's followers. The idea of a community account seems to add a lot to Twitter, especially for people whose normal accounts mix business and personal posts. Businesses could also benefit from using a community to open up a dialogue with their customers. That way, the rest of us don't have to read the ' tech support discussions and feature requests our friends are sending to companies as @replies: they can post them to the company community instead.

It's all about the future at FOWA. Well, what do you expect? It's in the conference title. Gary Vaynerchuck of WineLibrary.tv, one of our favorite video podcasts, is giving a talk on "How to Grow a Community in The Future" and we're liveblogging it! Gary is a machine and a heck of a funny guy, so before Friday afternoon turns your brain to cobwebs, follow along with Gary's presentation.

It's becoming harder and harder these days to exist at just one social media site or another. Some of your friends are sharing pictures at Flickr and Zooomr, while others are uploading videos to ImageStation and Vox. Making sure you keep all these communities updated with the pictures and videos from your adventures can be exhausting, but PictureSync from Holocore can make mince meat out of all that uploading. As a Mac utility for now with a Windows version coming soon, PictureSync allows you to select or drag and drop pictures and videos from the Finder, iPhoto, Aperture and more, and upload them to one or every media sharing community that PictureSync supports. As you add services to your one-click-upload toolbelt, the amount of time PictureSync can save you becomes exponentially immeasurable. Even better, PictureSync can handle metadata associated with your files such as iPhoto keywords, captions and ratings, and send them along to any compatible services. Still trying to keep track of how much time you won't waste using PictureSync?

As if all that wasn't enough, a new v1.8 update just released brings support for Microsoft Expression Media (which was once iView MediaPro) and Adobe's Lightroom. Along with support for more pro apps, however, comes a pro license: in addition to the $15 standard license, a new $30 license is being introduced for those who want to use PictureSync with the likes of Aperture, Expression Media and (possibly) Lightroom. On the bright side of this new license is the fact that you'll be seeing two: a $30 PictureSync purchase will include a second license for those who can't be bound to just one computer.

Be sure to check out the rest of PictureSync's features - like a full-screen annotation mode and upload memory - to see everything it has to offer. A demo is of course available for test drive.

Tumblr is a new tumblelog service whose FAQs probably describe itself a nutshell the best: "To make a simple analogy: If blogs are journals, tumblelogs are scrapbooks." It has the look, feel and functionality of a stream-of-consciousness blog, instead of the typical structure and theme/agenda that the traditional blogging platform has (sidenote: can we really refer to an aspect of blogging as 'traditional' just yet?). Everything that doesn't fit in another online space or blogging platform is probably a sure-fire candidate for a tumblelog. I also like to think of it as a linkblog on steriods, offering easy linkage and embedding of video, pictures, conversations, quotes and more.

A carefully-chosen tool set reinforces this linkblog ideal, offering a streamlined experience that oozes the "everything you need, nothing you don't" philosophy. The signup process is dead-easy, and after choosing a theme and a few other settings, Tumblr offers a simple though eerily intelligent bookmarklet that does all the heavy lifting when sharing that Flickr pic or embedding a YouTube video.

For those who want some control over their tumblelog, Tumblr offers some key features above and beyond the simple point and click. Customization is present in just about all the right places. The themes are 100% editable, and the official Tumblr blog says even more themes are on their way, with a "hugely robust system" for really strutting your stuff. You can also chose to redirect your Tumblr blog to your own domain, with fairly simple instructions in the FAQs.

All in all this tumbellog/linkblog is a fairly simple concept with much greater implications, and Tumblr's executing is fantastic. I'm already hooked, and I've added a new bookmark and 'marklet to my tool belt. The service is free and, like so many other web 2.0 startups, will remain free, with the possibility of a more feature-packed premium offering debuting at a later date.

[via Leo Laporte's Twitter]