O'Malley's Mashup: Enhance your Twitter feed

omalleysmashup.jpg

Twitter‘s great. It’s like a secret club where people in the tech sector go to talk about the inanities of their lives… and it’s horrendously addictive. It may surprise you to learn though that Twitter can also be used for some genuinely useful things.

Okay, that was obviously a lie. But there are many things you can do that will enhance your Twitter feed, and give it the virtual 140-character equivalent of bells and whistles. For this week’s mash-up, I’m going to go through some services that you can hook into Twitter.

Twitter gets a redesign

Twitter.jpg

I don’t think there’s anything else in my life that I have such a love/hate relationship with as Twitter. The addictive microblogging service is down several days each month, annoying for my Facebook friends (because I update 10 times a day) and annoying for those around me. I’ve never gone this far though.

Snowl: Firefox messaging hub for those too lazy to use other applications

Firefox_logo.jpg

If you live in Firefox then one of Mozilla Labs’ latest add-ons could be for you.

It turns the web browser into a “messaging hub”, allowing you to view a “River of Messages” which displays email, Twitter, and RSS feed updates on a single web page. If the concept is popular, Mozilla will develop the application further.

At present there’s no integration of true instant messaging clients, but Mozilla says that it’s “particularly interested in feedback on how messaging might fit into the browsing experience and if there are other interfaces (or refinements to the two interfaces built into the prototype) that would make it easier for users to have online conversations.”

Twitter ramblers targeted by all-new data-mining trojan

twitter-fake-profile-hacking.jpg

Users of Twitter, the minutiae-documenting waffling programme with no discernible purpose whatsoever, have been coming under attack recently thanks to a fake profile offering, predictably enough, free porn.

Some poor people have, while in the process of telling precisely zero readers what they had for breakfast, been sent messages from this fake account and then – here’s the stupid bit – clicked on the links supplied. Then they also clicked on “YES” to install…