Twitter’s Growth (From the Time Article Linked Above)

April 2008 visitors -- 1.22 Million

April 2009 Visitors -- 17.10 Million (Up 1,298%)

You can also follow me on Twitter at Twitter.com/JustinCresswell.

Mashable: China Blocks Twitter (And Almost Everything Else)

CNN Europe; Moldova: Romania to blame for Twitter riots

Washington Post: Obama Set to Create A Cybersecurity Czar With Broad Mandate

Information Week: Anti-U.S. Hackers Infiltrate Army Servers

Information Week: Cybersecurity Review Finds U.S. Networks ‘Not Secure’

CNet: ‘Nimda’ worm strikes Net, e-mail (From September 18, 2001)

Thank you to everyone who called in  Send your questions to talk1300@wsg.net or call us again next week.

As promised, here is some more information on domain names:

Domain names in the news recently:

Newt Gingrich’s Lawyer Blames Tucows for Tweet
Politician Uses Generic Domain (and Wins)
Bank of America Gets Split Decision in Domain Name Dispute
Jay Leno Tries to Tackle Cybersquatting Problem

This video is a good overview of how domains work.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBi8GCxk7NQ

According to the Domain Name Journal, below is a list of the top 10 most expensive domain names.
1. Fund.com, $9.99 million
2. Porn.com, $9.5 million
3. Diamonds.com, $7.5 million
4. Toys.com, $5.1 million (I was wrong on the air when I said $10 or $14 million for this one.)
5. Vodka.com, $3 million
6. CreditCards.com, $2.75 million
7. Computers.com, $2.1 million
8. Seniors.com, $1.8 million
9. DataRecovery.com, $1.66 million
10. Cameras.com, $1.5 million
10. Tandberg.com, $1.5 million

According to iWhois, these are the 100 oldest registered .com domains
1. 15-Mar-1985, SYMBOLICS.COM
2. 24-Apr-1985, BBN.COM
3. 24-May-1985, THINK.COM
4. 11-Jul-1985, MCC.COM
5. 30-Sep-1985, DEC.COM
6. 07-Nov-1985, NORTHROP.COM
7. 09-Jan-1986, XEROX.COM
8. 17-Jan-1986, SRI.COM
9. 03-Mar-1986, HP.COM
10. 05-Mar-1986, BELLCORE.COM

Head over to DomainTools.com to see their updated count of how many domain names are in existence and how many have been deleted.  Very interesting.

Remember -- I want your questions too! Whatever technology area or topic interests you probably interests other folks too.  Won’t you share? Email us during the week at talk1300@wsg.net and we’ll read the best questions on the air.

Below are some questions I either took form recent technology-related headlines or just made up. Call in with an answer approaching the truth and we’ll reward your adventurousness with a t-shirt or a Talk 1300 golf shirt.

1. What is Wolfram Alpha?

Wolfram Alpha computational knowledge engine that no one seems to know what to do with at this point.  Good piece on Slate about WA.  See it for yourself here.

2. What does the term “3G” mean?

3G refers to the “third generation” of developments in wireless technology, especially mobile communications. 3G technologies enable network operators to offer users a wider range of more advanced services while achieving greater network capacity.

3. How old is Twitter?

Twitter was born in March of 2006.

4. What is largely thought of as the first social networking site?

Classmates.com: 40 million members. One of the oldest social networking sites around, Classmates was kicked off in 1995, and has proven to be a great way for members to to connect with old friends and acquaintances from throughout their lives.  Will also accept the Usenet answer by Jeff, who left a comment below.

5. How much does it cost to post something on Craigslist?

Trick question -- it is not always free.  In larger markets like New York City, there can sometimes be fees involved in posting to Craigslist.  Where demand is high, the fees are used to discourage ad-spamming.

Thanks for listening and be sure to check our site and blog for more information!

Hopefully all of our callers got their addresses to the station so we can get your t-shirts to you.  If not, please call me at 518-435-0682 or send me an email at justin @ wsg.net. Thanks goes to our friends at Barracuda Networks for giving me the t-shirts we offered up on the air today.

To clean unwanted items off your machine, including registry issues, you can download freeware Crap Cleaner.

Best to purchase a commercial product to manage your anti-virus and anti-malware and follow the recommendations.  PC World magazine has a nice review of some leading products.  Lavasoft has come free and paid products as well.

Vista issues, routers, backups, updates galore today.  Check here for one known issue.

For Adam, who called in with issues on his uncle’s machine: take a peek at this link for possible help.  Also feel free to reach out to me for further help.

Twitter is a free micro-blogging service which limits posts to 140 characters, and asks one question: “What are you doing?”  Users post their Tweets about everything from the profound to the ridiculous.  Your posts can be published using a variety or methods, and you are able to receive updates from the users you follow via the same methods -- text message, the Twitter web interface, browser plug-ins like Twitterfox, mobile phone applications like Twitterberry, Tiny Twitter for Blackberry users, and a host of available applications for the iPhone.  Desktop software like Tweetdeck is pretty helpful to segment out the many people you follow and keep track of people posting replies to you. Twitter provides a nice API (application programming interface) which has allowed numerous applications and tools to sprout up all over the web.

You choose other users whose posts you want to follow, and other users follow your posts.  You are able to view all of these posts in a thread where the most recent posts are on top.  When viewing someone’s Twitter profile, you see a count of how many users are following them, how many they are following and how many times they have updated or posted -- Tweeted to use the Twiter lexicon.  I’ve been using Twitter since the middle of 2008, and it is my favorite social network.

To experience it for yourself, head to Twitter.com and establish your own user profile.  Once you’re selected a username, you are able to make some simple modifications to your profile’s look and feel.  Most Tweeters upload an avatar (a graphical representation of you) and a background image as well as altering the color scheme of your profile page.

But that’s not what it is about -- it is about connecting with people, interacting, sharing and consuming what others have posted. You can send replies to each other, which are published in the public Twitter thread, or send direct messages (DMs) which are private messages to other users.

A reply is Tweeted by putting the @ in front of a username, like @dannybrown -- see below:

When someone puts the # in front of a term, like #olympics, this is a hashtag.  For big events or themes, users include them with their posts.  1300 listeners might be interested in #TCOT -- Top Conservatives on Twitter.

So, if you have read this far, you are interested enough to sign up for an account.  I could write another 1,000 words on Twitter, and still not cover everything.  Stop reading about it, and get involved.  It is fun.  As always, feel free to email me -- justin at wsg.net -- or call in to the station when I’m on the air with Paul -- Monday mornings at 9:05.

I’ll leave you with some fun things to use when you have your profile setup.  Follow me, I’ll follow you back and we’ll see what we have to talk about.

The station’s Twitter profile: @Talk1300

My Twitter profile:@JustinCresswell

1300′s Pat Ryan: @Prgagm

1300′s Angela Austin: @AngelaEAustin

Search.Twitter.com helps you find people near you, in your field, those with common interests.

Tweet Stats shows you how you use it with pretty charts.

Twitter Grader shows you how you’re doing and suggest peeps to follow.

Twit Backs will help you create a free, custom background.

PS -- The Today Show ran a feature on Twitter this morning -- see it here.