Allyson C. from
Kenner asks:
"I heard there's a way to use Twitter to get movie reviews. Do you know how this works?"
ANSWER:
FlixUp! began as an iPhone app that scanned
Twitter for what people were saying about current films. The software generated thermometer-like indications of whether people liked or disliked a movie and how much "buzz" the film was generating. Sources say the service uses an algorithm, called “Twitter Noise Assassin,” to cull useful movie tweets from irrelevant comments, and the company recently introduced an
online version, so you can sign-in with your Twitter account and use the service from any web browser. For more information, visit
FlixUp.com.
Priscilla H. from
Slidell asks:
"Is it better to use TinyURL.com or bit.ly to shorten Web addresses?"
ANSWER: The two free services are similar.
Each allows you to shorten a long URL to make it easier to share via email or other types of messaging. Sharing links using Twitter or text messages can be challenging, because of the 140-character limit.
TinyURL and
bit.ly both provide a simple online interface and/or toolbar to generate what is known as a "301 Redirect." For example, if you click on
http://tinyurl.com/techguru8, it will redirect you to my section of the
Fox 8 website.
Twitter originally used TinyURL, which had been around for years, as its default URL shortening tool. A new startup, called bit.ly, eventually took its place. Sources say the same investors are behind both Twitter and bit.ly, which might explain the switch. Nevertheless, if you need the smallest possible number of characters to share a Web address, bit.ly's shorter domain name gives it an advantage over TinyURL.com. Other than that, it's a toss-up.
