Welcome to the second of the irregular series “Mamba Query”, where we ask you a question and we expect answers, damnit!

This weekend’s question is:
Do you use Twitter, Facebook et al too much? Do you update your site far more often than is really necessary. Are all of your updates mindless dross that could be scaled back a bit?

My answer:
No, I don’t tweet enough. I do one or two a day for my own updates and occasional ones for @TechMamba, but not really enough for it to be a serious problem…

Feel free to leave your answer in the comments.

From the department of news-gathering labelled only as “Did this really need to be researched?” comes: Twitter is used for pointlessness…

Yes, someone with way too much time on their hands (Pear Analytics) has found out that out of a random sample of 2000 Tweets, that 40% of them are classifiable as “Pointless Babble”. The rest consists of conversation, spam and self promotion.

Although I would generally say the findings are probably accurate, I do feel that the 2000 sample Tweets checked are simply too few to confirm the findings. 2000 might be a lot, but there are many times more tweets sent on a daily basis, dwarfing the sample. Add in the fact that it’s only the public timeline tweets (ignoring private ones) captured every 30 minutes over a 2 week period, and it becomes really quite meagre. I would have thought that 20,000 or 100,000 Tweets would be a fairly decent amount to check from, but 2000? Seriously?

Pear Analytics have said that they aim to be doing this regularly. I hope next time they monitor more tweets, say, like ours?

It appears that Twitter is now the new CNN, in terms of news. @visitken (a blogger for LG) has unleashed some new pictures of the LG Chocolate. No, not the old one. The new one, the LG-BL40 of course!

This phone has a 4 inch wide screen. That’s all the statistics you really need, but if you really need more, here’s the press release blurb…

The fourth handset of the Black Label Series boasts a distinctive 4.0-inch wide screen high-definition LCD with an 800 by 345 pixel resolution for a superb viewing quality. The wide screen breaks away from conventional screen designs with a 21:9 aspect ratio for a panoramic, cinema-like quality and optimal mobile computing experience.

With the enlarged screen, users will experience a surprisingly convenient and efficient mobile environment. Browsing the Internet is made incredibly easy because with 800 pixels at one’s disposal, there is no need to scroll horizontally to read entire web pages. The 4.0-inch display also features a Dual Screen UI that can efficiently display two different types of content simultaneously.

[via Twitter]

As someone that really should be on the cutting edge of technology, it seems strange, but after a long and painful battle with my conscience, I have something to admit.

It’s taken me a while, but I am now a user of Twitter.

I know, I’m late to the party again, but hear me out.
When this microblogging thing came out, I just couldn’t understand the appeal of it at all. Why go from long and mostly informative communications, to short and extremely to the point posts with little or no detail added to make it interesting?
Cue attempting to use Pownce (I’m a closet Kevin Rose fan, sorrry). Unforunately the fairly limiting client given for usage didn’t help things along. There was little in alternative client development, so an Adobe Air client was what I had to put up with. And I just didn’t post much in that time.
Now, Pownce is in the coffin and lies in the cemetry after the project got wound up, and Twitter is the all-singing, all-dancing media darling being used by everyone, their zombie pets and Oprah.

I have already opened an account, and in the process have started to slowly “follow” people. Such as Stephen Fry, Kevin Rose, Brian Brushwood and, amazingly, Paul Daniels.

Over time I hope to be able to learn how to effectively use Twitter in a more full capacity than I am right now, maybe even by using my phone instead of waiting until I get to a PC, but for the moment would you mind Following Me?