If the idea behind Twitter is to encourage constant bite-sized chatter, the majority of the online flock ain’t chirping:

It seems that Twitter is becoming more of news feed than a social network, said Paul Judge, author of the report and chief research officer at Barracuda Networks. And that raises questions about its growth potential, as well as how the Internet phenomenon will make money.

As of December 2009, only 21% of Twitter account holders were what Barracuda defines as “true users,” meaning someone who has at least 10 followers, follows at least 10 people and has tweeted at least 10 times. That indicates that most Twitter users “came online to follow their favorite celebrities, not to interact with their buddies the way they would on Facebook or MySpace,” said Judge.

On a basic level, this is normal: Most networks, online and off, are driven by a dedicated minority-vanguard of members. That’s the nature of any organization, social or not.

Still, the service’s nature does encourage a stalker-ish approach. Certainly, the celebrity accounts often sport a huge imbalance between “following” and “followers”, as practically a badge of honor. Their fans are bound to emulate that approach, even on a vastly smaller scale.

I’ll also point out that the notion of Twitter as more of an information stream, and less of a clubby hangout, is the chief reason I bothered to start using it. So maybe my instincts were right in the first place; or else the rest of the Twitteratti have come around to my viewpoint.

As with any techie-computer default setting, the “Sent from my iPhone” email signature has become a familiar sight in inboxes everywhere.

When the Mail app came to my iTouch, I naturally resented the inclusion of that inaccurate descriptor on my outgoing email messages. So I made a point of editing it to: “Sent from my iPod (not iPhone!)”. And the few people who noticed it got a kick out of it.

Now that I’ve got an iPhone, I suppose I can comfortably use the rest of the iNation’s default tagline. And yet, my previous declaration regarding my iTouch-origined email compels me to retain my previous qualifier. So then, my iPhone’s email signature reads as follows:

Sent from my iPhone (not iPod!)

For those that know my mobile-email history, it’s clear enough. For those that don’t, well, they’ll just have to wonder.

It’s been said before, so why not say it again: New York City’s Internet industry is on a comeback trail.

“Book publishing, advertising, media and even the fashion industry are all located in New York. These are the main industries that are being reshaped and redefined by technology and the Internet,” says AnnaLee Saxenian, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who studies regional economics and technology entrepreneurship.

To get a vivid snapshot of this new generation of Web innovation, one needs to look no further than the portfolio of Fred Wilson, co-founder of Union Square Ventures and a force within the New York start-up scene. Run through a list of Web darlings here — Boxee, software that pipes video from the Internet to a television; Tumblr, a microblogging platform; and Foursquare, a mobile social network — and Union Square is an investor.

“The software business has morphed into the Internet business,” Mr. Wilson says. “Ten years ago, maybe 80 percent of software was being built for enterprise. Now, it’s being written for consumers and is more media-centric than ever. And, historically, those have been New York’s strongest sectors.”

The thing is, the same claim was made exactly four years ago. That’s where the accompanying map came from; many of those lean-running operations are still around, and are thriving. Either this latest declaration of five-borough tech-blooming is the result of a critical mass having been established in the middle of the past decade, or else the concept is simply being periodically recycled.

In the space of 20 minutes of walk-around time this afternoon, my feet led me to two distinctly different ground-level encounters:

- As I first set out, a quick glance down to my shoes yielded my find of a shiny 25-cent piece, about which I duly tweeted.

- As I was heading back along almost the same paved terrain, a slippery-ish step made me look back — where I saw a squished bird that I had just re-trampled. (Unlike the quarter, I let this found object lie where it lay.)

Quite the swing in underfoot discoveries. If it portends the way this week will go for me, I’d better buckle up for a wild ride. (And no, the Twitter/bird parallel is not lost on me; hopefully my tweeting didn’t karmically trigger a dead-bird theme.)

In the same goofy vein as HugeURL, here comes ShadyURL:

Don’t just shorten your URL, make it suspicious and frightening.

So that populationstatistic.com becomes http://5z8.info/stoleniphones_i7q8e_molotovcocktail. Randomly so, I should add — no real rhyme or reason to it. And as you can see, it doesn’t really do the job as a URL shortener. So yeah, it’s all purely for fun. And for a low/no impact way to make like a big, bad Internet hacker.

(Via http://5z8.info/peepshow_cgq Dustbury — and yes, I did steal that strikeout idea from him)

…And we’re back.

Anyone who pokes around this URL on a regular basis knows that there’s only one rule, content-wise: At least one post per day, every day. So the past two days of blog silence — the first since mid-2008 — should have a good reason behind them, right?

Well, they do: A big, honkin’ winter storm that dumped a couple of feet of snow hereabouts, and managed to knock out my Internet connection from Thursday night through to this afternoon. Yep, total Web (and, incidentally, cable TV) silence for an extended weekend. And I was obliged to stay home that whole time too, venturing outside only for short sprints — but, alas, nowhere close enough for a reliable Web access point.

It pretty much sucked. I can’t say it was unbearable, but it was definitely a major drag. I had a load of work to do, and basically couldn’t do it until today. So I’ve been scrambling to catch up, finally finishing less than an hour ago.

Not that I didn’t find ways to fend off the snowbound ennui. I acquainted myself with my new, barely-used Blu-ray DVD player, discovering that it can play music CDs — although it can’t read some of the extra media (music videos, basically) loaded onto older, turn-of-the-century discs. I also used it to re-acquaint myself with some of my DVD collection, taking in episodes of “The Larry Sanders Show” and “Aqua Teen Hunger Force”, along with an overdue re-viewing of The Falcon and the Snowman.

And now, to complete this crippled weekend’s entertainment: I’m restarting the consecutive blogging streak. Let’s see how long this one can go before Mother Nature intervenes.

I’d like to say that the following paragraph is the part of this compellingly raw-boned confessional from a boy-crazy girl that got me hooked:

so often i worry and act out when i don’t get the attention i want from every guy who comes my way. i don’t take the time to consider if i even like THEM! unless they’re a TOTAL dorky/ugly/pussy… THEN i don’t give a fuck! but I’d still have sexxx with a bizarre looking/interesting/successful dude! in a heartbeat! my friend Dallas thinks i have the worst taste in men cuz I’ve slept with fat, ugly, short, abnormally tall, sickly skinny, balding, and bald dudes. not all at the same time! don’t worry! I’ve only had one threesome, and it was with a girl and a guy who were both hipster/heroine chic. but that’s another story, for another time.

But I’ll be honest, and admit that the post title, alone, had me at hello. I’m not going to reproduce it here, but the eponymous URL is as close as a mouseover (above) away.

With our phones and other mobile devices delivering a virtual context for our attention span, our physical surrounding are increasingly taking a back seat:

Doomsayers have long predicted that technological progress would turn us into shut-ins who rarely venture from our game-playing, IM-ing digital cocoons out into the physical world. But the stereotype of the computer-addicted recluse in the basement has been blown away; smartphones make it possible to turn off the physical world while walking through it.

A recent Pew Research Center study found that “a significant proportion of people who visit public and semipublic spaces are online while in those spaces.” Parks. Libraries. Restaurants. Houses of worship.

And on dates, during family gatherings, etc. We’re there, but we’re not all there. The stigma is quickly wearing away, too: Because everyone lunges for their phone whenever it buzzes or beeps, no one can demand that you disengage in favor of undivided face-to-face time.

So instead of a war-forged walking wounded, you have the always-online “walking wired”. Casualties of waking life, and haunted by digital ghosts.

I’ll give the creators of Chatroulette credit for a unique concept in webcam-based chatting: Displaying your chat window side-by-side with some random stranger’s, then letting either of you hit the F9 button to bail and dial up another, more suitable random-chatter.

In practice, though, the concept hits cold reality. I’ve given the site a couple of spins, with webcam audio/visual on and off, and the results are pretty consistent: Rapid-fire F9ing by both me and the chat-other, resulting in a lot of spinning and little-to-no actual chatting. Like any other chatzone, there’s far too many guys, and far too much lewdness (now in grainy video!), to make real live communication with someone realistic. It’s definitely more game than social hub, but a pretty limited one at that.

It is safer than the more famous form of roulette associated with Russia. Although after having a half-dozen or more cam-strokers cue up on the Chatroulette screens, don’t think I wasn’t tempted to pick up the nearest pistol and start spinning the chamber…

If tweeting your every waking thought and action just isn’t enough, Blippy is here to let you add your credit-card purchases to your online lifestream:

It might sound like ridiculous oversharing, but Blippy is serious. While there already are plenty of Web sites focused on what people are purchasing, the site’s founders think it offers a new way to learn about deals and new products. And knowing your spending habits are being transmitted to a flock of friends might make you think twice before spending $500 on a pair of designer shoes.

So the benefit for users is less to brag on what you just bought, than to instill preemptive shame for a potential impulse purchase. That’s a tough sell for Blippy when it comes to recruiting business partners, who otherwise might like the possibilities of peer recommendations/influences on purchases.

Although I wonder just how many people are serious about “sharing” their status-updated transactions. Glancing over at the Blippy-stream for the past hour, the most prevalent posting goes like this:

“[Blippy User] spent $0 at iTunes”

In other words, folks don’t mind disclosing all the free apps they “purchase” with their iPhones, since it’s all free. But when it comes to laying down real e-money? Apparently, that’s still too close to the vest to just webcast willy-nilly. Societal attitudes don’t seem to be in sync with this level of Web transparency (yet).

I can’t believe it’s taken this long for this idea to come about: Wireless Internet on schoolbuses, for keeping otherwise restless students productively occupied.

“It’s made a big difference,” said J. J. Johnson, [driver of an Internet-enabled schoolbus in Vail, Arizona]. “Boys aren’t hitting each other, girls are busy, and there’s not so much jumping around.”

On this morning, John O’Connell, a junior at Empire High School here, is pecking feverishly at his MacBook, touching up an essay on World War I for his American history class. Across the aisle, 16-year-old Jennifer Renner e-mails her friend Patrick to meet her at the bus park in half an hour. Kyle Letarte, a sophomore, peers at his screen, awaiting acknowledgment from a teacher that he has just turned in his biology homework, electronically….

Internet buses may soon be hauling children to school in many other districts, particularly those with long bus routes. The company marketing the router, Autonet Mobile, says it has sold them to schools or districts in Florida, Missouri and Washington, D.C.

Basically a students’ version of the increasingly-popular BoltBus. I guess this makes the bus ride actually fun, which wasn’t the case when I was a school-lad (although I’m going by second-hand accounts, since I never needed the yellow transport while growing up — school was always within walking distance). And alas the now-quaint custom of passing notes across seat rows and aisles; now the kids just IM back and forth.

Deeming that the National Hockey League lost the battle to get serious television exposure long ago, Washington Capitals owner Ted Leonsis is aggressively cultivating online social media:

“Where we should be advantaged is our customers are younger, more educated, Web-savvy than the NFL audience, which is older, less wired. So let’s pick a fight we have a shot at winning, and if our consumers are younger, and they love video games, and they have shorter attention spans, and they love interactivity, and they love social media, and everyone blogs, and everyone’s on Facebook, why wouldn’t we put ourselves right in the middle of that?”

Leonsis has been at the forefront of advancing his team into what he calls “the new world,” starting with launching a Web site for the Capitals soon after his purchase and becoming the first NHL owner to make available his direct e-mail address.

The Capitals have more than 95,000 fans on Facebook and more than 11,000 followers on Twitter. Players with accounts include defenseman Mike Green, who Twitters as GreenLife52 and has more than 6,000 followers, and forward Eric Fehr, who only recently began using the social networking Web site at the suggestion of the Capitals.

This is, in fact, the latest evolution of Leonsis’ longstanding plans to grow his team via the Web. I remember reading about his plans to emulate baseball’s Atlanta Braves, who built a national following in the ’90s via their exposure on budding TV superstation TBS. Leonsis had intended to use America Online — where he was a key executive when he bought his team — as the online platform to make the Caps the hockey equivalent of “America’s team”.

That was then, of course, and it never did come off. But Leonsis, owing to his background as a Web business maven, is sticking with the online avenue for growth. It’s consistent, if nothing else.

You might think that the best way to gauge the success of Craigslist’s Missed Connections is by the number of people its gotten together. But no — in fact, the true measure of that online meat market’s effectiveness is its late role as creative raw material:

Billed as “ripped straight from the online pages of Craigslist,” “Missed Connections NYC” was an evening of 13 eight-minute plays based on the listings, and it ran for a week at the Ars Nova Theater on West 54th Street in Manhattan last month. The Ars Nova troupe’s group of emerging playwrights used the subject headings of posts — “Submit Party — From the Couple Having Sex Everywhere” (above left), “You Were a Mexican With Friends” (center) and “Doritos Boy” (right) — to devise literal or fantastical interpretations of the situations described. “It was really fun, really interesting, to see how the writers tackled the challenge,” said Emily Shooltz, the troupe’s associate artistic director. “I think the appeal was that everybody knows someone who was — or at least thinks they were — referenced in a Missed Connection.”

More or less an update of the old dadaist photomontage technique. Probably a more worthwhile endproduct than the improbable hook-ups that may or may not happen.

While blogs are routinely identified as part of the social media landscape, they’re losing ground among the youngsters:

Two Pew Internet Project surveys of teens and adults reveal a decline in blogging among teens and young adults and a modest rise among adults 30 and older.

What’s behind this trend? Basically, blogs represent too much work for those versed in online short-form:

The explosion of social networking is one obvious answer. The Pew survey found that nearly three-quarters of 12- to 17-year-olds who have access to the Internet use social networking sites, such as Facebook. That compares with 55 percent four years ago.

With social networking has come the ability to do a quick status update and that has “kind of sucked the life out of long-form blogging,” says Amanda Lenhart, a Pew senior researcher and lead author of the latest study. More young people are also accessing the Internet from their mobile phones, only increasing the need for brevity. The survey found, for instance, that half of 18- to 29-year-olds had done so.

Correspondingly, shorter attention spans are becoming the norm. Not that older folks aren’t as impatient with reading more than a hundred or so characters at a clip. If anything, this points to more of a distinction between online communication and online media consumption — status alerts and such are more in-the-moment pieces of information, while blog posts are more asynchronous and (intended, at least) for archiving and posterity.

None of this is any surprise. From the start, blogging has been a minority pursuit, best cut out for those comfortable with filling content wells, mainly with writing (sorry, podcasters/vloggers). Maybe by the time telepathic status updates are the norm, blogs will finally wither away and join stone tablets in the ol’ dustbin…

As far as I know, the Canadian beaver is not an endangered species. Its print counterpart, on the other hand, is a goner, done in by a 1-2 punch of the schoolyard and the Internet:

To be more precise, the title ["The Beaver: Canada's History Magazine"] was doomed by a vulgar alternative meaning that causes Web filters at schools and junk mail filters in e-mail programs to block access to material containing the magazine’s name… The trouble went beyond Web pages. The magazine found that its attempts to e-mail classroom aids to teachers were thwarted by its name, as were attempts to contact many readers.

It’s a sincere shame that a venerable journal like this has to succumb to such crude slang. And how primitive is Canada’s IT infrastructure that it employs such hamhanded filtering technology? In the face of these challenges, I guess it’s right to be worried about The Beaver.

Although the Canucks aren’t helping matters any with events like The Great Canadian Beaver Eating Contest…

I’m assuming the 2010 budgets have kicked in at various advertising agencies, which accounts for the three solicitations for blog-based marketing that landed in my inbox yesterday:

- One for Yarie, a niche-level competitor to Google AdSense;

- One on behalf of Dentyne, for some fab new packaging they want to promote;

- And one for MatchPoint, a PR clearinghouse for online pitches.

This, after months of no nibbles from the product-placement pushers. Always nice to be asked, even if it’s an obvious, relevance-free shotgun approach. I might just take the first two up on their offers; scant chance on the last one.

Whatever pangs of guilt I feel over carrying a couple of Lady GaGa songs on my iPod, at least I haven’t gone as gaga as these two GaGa medley-makers:

It is a rather spirited three minutes of musical tribute. I especially like the lyrical intertwining of “Poker Face” with “Paparazzi” — probably more than I like the songs. The gender mismatch in having a guy sing lyrics that were originally delivered by a woman contributes some awkwardness, but I suppose it’s worth it for the overall infectious effect.

This acoustic duo consists of Sam Tsui (voice) and Kurt Schneider (guitar). Since this little video of theirs has racked up one and a half million views as of this writing, it’s safe to assume that we’ll be seeing/hearing more from them.

Theoren Fleury is not playing in the National Hockey League this season, and he really thinks he should be:

The report says that Fleury believed that his performance at Calgary’s training camp last fall during his comeback attempt should have been enough for him to make the squad.

“At one hundred and eighty pounds, I finished 11th out of 56 guys at camp in the fitness test and scored a historic shootout goal in an exhibition game after being out of hockey for six years,” Fleury reportedly wrote. “What does that say about the talent level in the NHL? 4 points and a plus 4 rating in four exhibition games and I get cut. What a joke! Craig Conroy goes the first 37 games of the season with zero goals. I wonder how many I would have had?”

That rant came from Fleury’s blog, on a post that’s since been removed. In addition to the media report, the original lives on on various hockey forums. Looks like typical publish-first-think-later blogging.

The thing is, I’m somewhat in accord with Fleury on his getting a bum rap during training camp. In fact, I used it as a test case for how inefficient pro sports training camps are:

On something of a flip-side, 41-year-old Theoren Fleury’s comeback attempt was snuffed by the Calgary Flames. Even with the odds against him — age and six years out of the NHL — he posted four points in the preseason, and certainly didn’t look out of place. Still, Flames brass deemed him not good enough to crack the team’s top six forwards. What more he’d have to do is undetermined.

I’m hoping I didn’t inspire Fleury to post his legacy-threatening comments. Although if I did, the least he could have done was sent me a trackback link…

As was the case on my flight from New York to LA, I’m once again, on the return trip, blogging from 36,000 feet thanks to GoGo Inflight Internet.

And, like last time, I’m paying nada for it. The other promo code I found worked for this session. So I got about 26 bucks’ worth of free wi-fi-in-the-sky on this cross-country sojourn. I’ll take it!

I’ll keep surfing until this netbook dies on me. And then probably connect with my iTouch.

One thing about GoGo: Their slogan reads, “The sky is no longer the limit”. That’s the same retro-futuristic tagline used in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, for the never-realized Pan-Am passenger space jet. Just throwing that out there…

Since I can’t fathom going more than a couple of hours without being online, I’m tapping the InterWebz while in-flight to Los Angeles. I’m blogging this post from 36,000 feet, thanks to GoGo Inflight Internet, the wi-fi provider for Delta.

It ain’t free (exactly). The cheapo in me resents having to pay for Web access, especially on a 6+ hour flight. Only a few years ago, Delta and other domestic airlines were providing free onboard wireless. But I guess I knew that wouldn’t last. And it’s hard to blame them for taking advantage of the situation — this is the ultimate in a captive audience. We’re lucky we’re not paying for our oxygen…

Anyway, I am getting this hookup for free. While I did have to register for an account (which I did last night, anticipating that this particular jet would be wi-fi enabled), I came across some free promo codes. Luckily, the one I chose worked! I only get to use one for this account, so unless I can create a new one (actually pretty likely), I’ll probably have to pony up the $12 for wi-fi on the return flight to NYC. But for now, I’m set.

The connection seems pretty good. If anything, I’m more concerned about having to access it via my HP netbook. The battery’s draining all too quickly; I doubt it’ll last more than another hour. And I’ve yet to get used to the cramped keyboard and generally slow processor. Still, it’s better than nothing. Besides, if the netbook conks out too early, I can always switch to my iTouch…

In the meantime, I’ll have to flag down the flight attendant for a bag of peanuts, and perhaps a mojito or two. Ah, the vagaries of air travel…

The stats don’t lie: This here blog has been getting a distinct uptick in Web traffic over the past couple of days. And the tracking confirms that the reason is the odd little photo above, which I first used on New Year’s Day 2009.

That year-old post pondered the upcoming chronologically-delivered demise of these goofy double-zero party specs. Based on all the Internet searches landing here, I guess party people aren’t ready to give up the ghost on these glasses just yet.

I hope everyone looking for these oh-10 accoutrements finds a source. Obviously, I’m not selling any — heck, I have serious doubts that the photo on display here is even Photoshopped-free. But at least I can provide a point of reference.

And with that, and with the strategically-set timestamp at the foot of this post (think 24-hour time), I’d say it’s time to usher in the new year-slash-decade…