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It seems that the hottest name in tech town these days is Twitter and no one can resist talking about it. From New York to Los Angeles, from Silicon Valley to Tinseltown, from Melbourne to London, Twitter has them all aflutter. What began as a side project by the founders of popular blogging site Blogger.com is now a global phenomenon.

Twitter is still tiny compared to more well-known social networking sites such as Facebook and Myspace, but it is grabbing far more attention than the other two combined. Recently, Facebook claimed a user base of roughly 200 million people, enough to make it the world’s sixth most populous nation after Indonesia. Twitter’s number of users, on the other hand, is comparable to that of Jakarta’s population during a busy day.

Read more at Jakarta Globe

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Let's face it, Google is gearing up for world domination. By e-mail. What, you didn't know that? But seriously, the e-mail service called Gmail that they rolled out a little under five years ago during April Fool's Day has really taken the world by storm. It is now one of the most dominant e-mail services in the world. Gmail is available for both individuals and businesses of any size, in both free and paid versions.

For the uninitiated, Gmail offers one of the most flexible e-mail options available today. Initially providing 1 gigabyte of storage at a time when other services were offering a maximum of 20 megabytes, Google now provides over 7 GB of space for Gmail users.

Read more at Jakarta Globe

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Many of us have become simply too busy to tune in to shows on television or radio. Some people have decided to turn away almost completely from traditional broadcast programs because they have become disinterested with what is being offered. And while some people have made the move toward subscription channels, others subscribe to a completely different media category.

This new category is called podcasting.

Read more at Jakarta Globe

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Apple Inc. recently updated its line of notebook computers to include some of the most significant changes made since 2001. The MacBook and the MacBook Pro have essentially been merged into a single line, sharing similar designs and specifications. They are physically differentiated only by screen size, speaker grilles and availability of ports.

Previously, Apple split professional- and the consumer-level Macs, not only by design but by materials used as well. For example, back in 1999, PowerBooks were sleek black notebooks that used rubber and plastic casing. They looked professional and went well with corporate wear.

In stark contrast, iBooks were bright. There was initially a choice between tangerine and blueberry. These colors were later replaced with indigo, key lime and graphite, with translucent plastic and colorful padding made of rubber-like material. When these colors were made available, Apple remodeled the PowerBook, giving it a titanium base for an even more professional differentiated look.

Read more at Jakarta Globe

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Oct. 27 is Indonesia’s National Blogger’s Day and as such, there was supposed to be a huge event called Pesta Blogger on Oct. 25 in Jakarta. For various reasons, it’s been postponed until Nov. 22.

Nevertheless, Pesta Blogger 2008 is shaping up to be a much bigger event than in previous years. Bloggers around the country have been gearing up for this massive event by holding local mini events in the lead up to the ultimate gathering of writers and journalists this Saturday. After all, Indonesia didn’t become one of the top 30 blogging countries by just reading blogs.

Admittedly, we are still far from having prominent blogs with as much reach or influence as the top international blogs but we are certainly getting there.

What better time then to introduce you to the easiest and most practical forms of blogging?

Read more at Jakarta Globe

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That social interaction even extends to a segment of the community that is, counter-intuitively, among the world’s most socially connected people: home-workers. The irony of working in a formal environment is that although you are surrounded by people, you may know little about them outside of work. This is mitigated only by those famous “water cooler” moments of chitchat. 

But I discovered a funny paradox about people who do not work in offices and do not even get these small moments of interaction: they are actually able to socialize with a greater number of people. And this “underworld” of social interaction has never been more evident than today, with always-on technology giving you access to almost any spot on the planet.

You are probably thinking about phones. Well, yes, but they are limited. If you are not the recipient of a call or text, you are being left out of the loop. No, I am talking about microblogging, also known as life streaming. 

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