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Filed under: Social Software, Humor

Flutter: Like Twitter in 26 characters (but not really)

by Brad Linder Apr 5th 2009


If you've ever felt like Twitter's 140 character limit is just too restrictive -- because it gives you too much space to work with, Flutter is for you. OK, Flutter's not an actual service, but the folks at Slate have put together a mockumentary on a new "nano-blogging" service that forces users to send updates in 26 characters or less.

The video mocks both users and the companies trying to build and monetize micro-blogging, life-streaming, and social media in general. But it's the kind of funny that you laugh at, and then go and forward to your friends on Facebook and Twitter. It's not quite as mean-spirited or dismissive of micro-blogging as some other parodies.

[via Mashable]

Tags: flutter, parody, slate, video

Filed under: Internet, News, Web services, Yahoo!, web 2.0

Create your own presidential debate with Yahoo! candidate mashup

by Brad Linder Sep 12th 2007

Yahoo! Candidate Mashup
It seems like there have already been more debates in the 2008 presidential race than there were in 2004, and it's not even 2008 yet. We're also not claiming there actually have been more debates. Like we'd bother to count.

But if you're suffering from debate overload, or if the debates just haven't been run the way you'd like, you can get directly involved. Kind of. It turns out that even when average citizens got to ask the questions in the recent CNN/YouTube debate, the candidates pretty much gave stock answers.

But now no matter what the candidates say, Yahoo! is giving you the chance to twist their words. As if you wouldn't have anyway. But seriously, Yahoo! is teaming up with the Huffington Post and Slate to create a candidate mashup. Charlie Rose is asking each Democratic candidate a series of user-submitted questions today. Tomorrow the answers will be available online, and Yahoo! is encouraging users to edit the video.

Want to see how Hillary Clinton and Dennis Kucinich stack up against one another? Because we know that's what you've really been wondering. Go ahead and put their answers back to back and make it a two-person debate. You'll be able to mix and match the answers and share your mashup with other users. It looks like Yahoo! will provide all the tools on its own site, rather than letting you download and re-cut the videos, so mashup might not really be the best word for this, but it's the word Yahoo! is using.

Yahoo! plans to launch a similar candidate mashup featuring Republican candidates soon.

Tags: candidate-mashup, election, huffington-post, slate

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