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Filed under: Internet, Social Software, web 2.0, Web

Publicly ridicule arrogant jackasses with Tweeting Too Hard

Tweeting Too HardHave you ever wished that there was a way to call out someone for posting a completely self-indulgent, arrogant, whiny, or self-important tweet? If so, you're going to enjoy Tweeting Too Hard.

Tweeting Too Hard is a Digg-like user submitted voting site, where the submissions consist of tweets that readers consider to be intended to make the tweet's author seem important. If that description isn't clear enough for you, have a quick browse of Tweeting Too Hard's All Time Top posts, and you'll get the idea very quickly. Things that will get your tweet submitted to Tweeting Too Hard include random mentions of how rich you are, mentioning a book you wrote, being curiously obsessed with your good looks and discussing them, among numerous others.

Users' votes for the worst-offending tweets with Back Pats. At the time of this writing, the top three Tweeting Too Hard submissions are:

1979 Back Pats: OMG i was saying how i couldn't afford the gas to fly daddy's jet to the riviera this summer, and this barista totally rolled her eyes at me

1761 Back Pats: fan belt light came on in the 911 so now I'm driving the Cayenne Turbo S - the backup, backup car. Trying not to think about the Tesla...

1651 Back Pats: it makes me sad, the more I have success the more people don't like me....

While it's certainly easy to game a system like this, the entertainment value is high no matter what.

Tweeting Too Hard has a commenting system, so you can discuss the unique charm of your favorite tweet with other users. Maybe surprisingly, the level of conversation seems fairly high at the moment, though if Tweeting Too Hard gains some serious traction and popularity, it can pretty much be expected that the comments will suffer from YouTube syndrome.

It seems like a site like this is purpose-built to catch celebrities showing their asses, and so far there's at least one in the top 5 -- can you guess who it is? How long before the All Time Top list reads like the cover of a tabloid?

Filed under: Internet, Social Software, Web

Facebook introduces @mentions

Facebook has been pretty busy today releasing new features on the popular social networking website. In addition to launching Facebook Lite, a stripped down version of the social networking site, the company also announced a new way to connect your content to friends.

Status updates have always been one of the most popular and most used features of Facebook and today's introduction of "friend tagging" in updates is sure to make the it even more popular. Much like Twitter's @reply feature, tagging in Facebook status updates work by adding an @ symbol in front of the name of your friend or family member. Facebook recognizes this and will show you a list of your friends, making finding the right person quick and easy.

A plus to Facebook's version of this feature, is while the @ symbol makes including friends easy, it won't actually be displayed. You'll also soon be able to tag friends in applications as well. Friends you tag in your status updates will get a notification and a wall post linking them to your update. They can also remove the tag if they don't want to be linked.

Like most new Facebook features, most users won't see this right away as they take time rolling out the feature to their millions of users.

Filed under: Web services, Freeware, Social Software

Twitter Replies rebranded as "Mentions"

Twitter MentionsTwitter has made a change to the way users can track when they are mentioned by other Twitterers. The Replies page is no longer, and instead has been replaced by Mentions. To be more accurate, the Replies page has been changed into a Mentions page, though the URL twitter.com/replies remains the same.

What does this mean? In the sidebar of your Twitter page, rather than the word Replies, you'll see your @name, in my case @jasonclarke. That page now shows not only tweets where other people mention you at the beginning of the tweet (a regular reply), but also in any tweet that contains your @name. Fortunately, the setting that allows you to ignore @replies to Twitter users that you do not also follow still acts as you would expect.

It's an obvious move to give users the ability to see any time they are mentioned in a tweet, but it's a bit odd that Twitter chose to replace the Replies page rather than simply add a new Mentions one. It seems like it would be valuable to some users to be able to focus in on replies as opposed to any mention, particularly for heavy Twitter users.

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So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do. Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game. The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...

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