You've probably all heard about the iPhone app gold-rush, but what about the Twitter tool windfall?

You may be asking yourself, what's a Twitter tool? Simply put, it's an added on service to the social micro-blogging site Twitter that's recently taken off.

Companies are flooding the Web with thousands of tools—many of them free of charge—that simplify a number of common tasks on Twitter. For instance, some services let you automatically search for Twitter posts (tweets) that mention a company or person. Other programs let you easily organize the tweets that you follow, or manage how multiple employees use a single Twitter account. But forget outside sites, Twitter is also trying to cash in with these tools and says by year’s end, it will launch several new features of its own for commercial use, such as a directory of business users. The Wall Street Journal Journal has a good rundown of some of these Twitter Tools.

No word yet on how companies plan on making money on these tools if they're free of charge, but profit and Twitter (and most social media sites for that matter) has always been a touchy subject.

So my Twitter friends, keep toolin' along and come tweet us @voxuspr!



-posted by Andrew

WTIA broke the networking event monotony with a text-voted music competition at Seattle's Pyramid Brewery last night. The event featured five tech bands from a mix of genres. The Linkin Park-like Lions Ambition ruled the jungle with Audience Choice and Most Innovative Awards. These guys from Boeing did a great job of entertaining the crowd.

Lions Ambition



-posted by Lindsay

I found this recent WSJ article very puzzling.  It talks about the effects of social media on learning... well kind of. That's what the title implies, but then the extremely high level research basically just states the obvious: if you interact with content socially, you have a better chance of learning and retaining that content.  Well, duh. Thank you Captain Obvious.  We often point out good articles and interesting information. I had to take this opportunity to give the WSJ two thumbs down... or maybe I just wasn't able to interact with the information enough.



-posted by Justin

BSkyB (also known as British Sky Broadcasting) will launch Europe's first 3D television channel in the UK next year - offering movies, sports and entertainment programming. According to an article in the UK's Guardian, BSkyB, a satellite broadcaster that thinks 3D TV may be reality within the next few years, is planning to get moving on an all-3D channel, after getting a major boost in subscribers to its Sky+ HD set-top box, which is also capable of broadcasting in 3D. Once the channel is available, customers can use their current Sky+ HD box, but will need to get a special televisions set, and will need to get their own 3D glasses. 

With this on the horizon, I think it's time UK designers start work on lines of fashionable 3D glasses - right? If people are going to be able to watch 3D TV at home all the time, disposable paper glasses just won't do... 

If this works out well, it might not be long until we, here in America, are crowding around our own TVs to catch a baseball game in 3D.

-posted by Stephanie

So if the title didn't capture your attention, check out this video taken from last night's TechFlash Summer Event attended by yours truly (check me out at :48 in). The summer schmoozer was held at Seattle's Georgetown Ballroom and included a four hour ping pong tournament, bar consisting of beer and wine, some great catered barbeque, and hundreds of people from the Seattle tech community. Great event held by TechFlash. Look forward to the next one!



-posted by Andrew

In relatively big consumer technology news, online retailer Amazon has agreed to buy online shoe retailer Zappos for $850 million. Amazon said the Zappos management team in Las Vegas will remain intact and Zappos will continue to operate as its own brand.

Following find a video of Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos telling Zappos employees of his company's purchase. Bezos make a point of saying how similar the two companies are in this surprisingly low-tech, informal message.



-posted by Andrew

One of the best geeky rap spoofs I've seen in a long time. "My G4 had more ports than a wine store."


-posted by Justin

We have some great news to share: CEO Aaron Finn has been named to the prestigious Puget Sound Business Journal's "40 Under 40" listing. Selected from more than 200 nominations, Finn was recognized for his entrepreneurial and civic accomplishments, which include co-founding AdReady, and supporting his local community.

Aaron will accept his award at the Honoree Bash being held at the Seattle Repertory Theatre on September 15. 

Way to go, Aaron!

Earlier this year, the Washington Technology Industry Association named AdReady "Service Provider of the Year" in their 14th annual Industry Achievement Awards.

-posted by Lindsay

At VOXUS, I'm thankful accessing a Facebook account during work hours is not only OK, but encouraged to a certain degree to support our client efforts. This is in stark contrast to many of my peers that are locked out of social networking sites, or cautioned not to use them while clocked in. According to a survey from WorkPlace Media covered by MediaPost's Online Media Daily, 55 percent of workers that have access to the Web at work maintain a social networking site. Only 43 percent of workers access it at work and usually for less than half an hour a day. A whopping 89 percent of the social networking survey respondents held Facebook accounts.

But what this survey didn't find out is who has borrowed their co-worker's Swingline stapler and not returned it.  Now that's a real office crime.



-posted by Lindsay

Slate V (the online video magazine from editors of Slate, one of five online properties produced by Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive) has a fun video up today, in honor of the Apollo 11 moon landing anniversary, that takes a look at how today's media might cover the news if it happened in 2009. Many of the clips, including those of celebrities saying how amazing the news is, were actually taken from media coverage of the 2008 presidential election and are in reference to President Obama.

Watch the video here.

-posted by Stephanie

In a silver lining to otherwise horrific unemployment figures (currently the U.S. unemployment rate was 9.5 percent in June); it appears public relations professionals among others are bucking the downward spiral.

According to an article in the Baltimore Business Journal, professional staffing firm Robert Half International Inc. claims only 0.1 percent of public-relations managers (like me) claim unemployment. Now this could be due to many PR professionals being independent consultants and also the fact that in general public relations has low overhead… but WOW. Some other impressive fields with low unemployment according to the firm include budget analysts at 1.1 percent, lawyers at 2.3 percent and financial compliance officers at 2.3 percent.

Now I’m not about to do the happy dance, but this is some encouraging news for many colleagues in the PR field. One could take it as further recognition that even during this downturn, good public relations support is a valuable commodity that one cannot do without.

-posted by Andrew

Yum, lunch time.

Robotic Technology Inc. is creating a robot that is sure to garner public support - NOT. EATR, or the Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot project, is designed to develop and demonstrate an autonomous robotic platform able to perform long-range, long-endurance missions without the need for manual or conventional re-fueling, which would otherwise preclude the ability of the robot to perform such missions. The system obtains its energy by foraging – engaging in biologically-inspired, organism-like, energy-harvesting behavior which is the equivalent of eating. In other words, eating dead soldiers or casualties of war? WOW. They do go on to say it can ingest plants, animal matter, etc. Hopefully they'll integrate audio -- nothing like a bunch of organic matter ingesting robots roaming the planet saying "I'll be back."

For more creepy information (and a complete overview), visit the website.

I'm picturing this:



-posted by Justin

Oh, Robot Girlfriend... need I say more.





-posted by Justin