Apparently, people haven’t tired of Twitter.

According to Royal Pingdom, the social networking juggernaut had more than 1.2 billion tweets in January, which marks the most tweets in Twitter history. Considering CNN ran an article in late January on how tweets have dwindled since August 2009, Twitter’s resurgence has taken many by surprise. But not Evan Williams, Twitter's CEO.

Just last month Williams tweeted: “Across all metrics […], yesterday was Twitter’s highest-usage day ever (and today will be bigger).” Williams, not surprisingly, is confident that the volume of tweets will increase throughout the month of January and all of 2010.Continue reading...

Best Buy will introduce an e-cycling program in all of its 1,006 stores on February 15. It’s part of their “Greener Together” initiative, which enables consumers to recycle, reuse, or trade in “end-of-life” (EOL) electronics.

Customers can recycle up to two units – an old cell phone and a DVD player, for example – per day, per household. Also, recycling kiosks at the front of every store are available for smaller items like ink cartridges, rechargeable batteries, cell phones, CDs, DVDs, and PDA/smart phones. It’s done for free and for a good cause: literally tons of old cell phones and DVD players end up in landfills each year.Continue reading...

Before 7:00 AM (EST) this morning, popular Gawker Media tech blog Gizmodo posted a story: "Apple Store Down."

That was it. That was the whole "story." Gizmodo wasn't the only blog to post this development. Its competitor blog Engadget posted the story "Apple Store down globally, let the speculation begin." Geek.com, SlashGear, and Electronista were just a few other tech blogs that followed suit with the same news. Mashable's "Apple Store Down" announcement was retweeted nearly 900 times.

Within a few hours, the Apple Store was back up. The reason for the outage was a refresh of Apple's Appeture software suite. Of course, as one reader correctly noted: "In case this wasn't obvious to people – a web page and online store doesn't have to be shut down to update it." Continue reading...

Foursquare fans – those who find Facebook updates too static and oh-so-2009 – will soon “check in” to learn that the geosocial networking site has executed partnerships with several media brands, according to Mashable.

Foursquare, which runs on mobile devices and leverages their GPS locators, takes status updates to another level: As the New York Times describes the service, it’s not about what you’re doing right now, but “Where are you, and can I come join you?”

A Foursquare user “checks in” at her current location so friends know where to find her. Foursquare encourages frequent check-ins by presenting itself like a game, offering virtual badges that are unlocked by visiting particular venues. Many of these venues, along with their related brands, offer their own badges, as well as tangible rewards such as discounts or freebies.Continue reading...

Google has announced plans to add social media-esque updates to its Gmail program. Currently, Gmail users can update their availability through the Gmail chat feature, but it simply consists of “available” or “busy” settings, along with the ability to add a custom message.

According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, Google products YouTube and Picasa will also be part of the status update stream. The new feature will allegedly allow individuals to see status updates, much like Facebook and Twitter. But, the big question is: will the new features include Twitter and Facebook updates as an aggregate or will they rival the two?Continue reading...

It may not have the high brand recognition of American computer manufacturers Dell and HP, but the Taiwanese company Acer is on the move.

In the third quarter of 2009, Acer beat out Dell to become the world's second-largest personal computer maker behind HP. Interestingly, Acer also competes with Lenovo, the Chinese company that acquired IBM's PC division in 2005.

Acer markets Aspire One netbooks and notebook computers to consumers. The company's Ferrari line, red notebooks that bear the famed automaker's logo, sell for more than $2,000.

Now Acer is setting its sights on the business market with plans to emphasize higher-profit servers designed for business use.Continue reading...

Those of you who were hoping to skirt American Airline's $25 checked baggage fee by flying Southwest Airlines instead, might want to think again – at least American Airlines has free Wi-Fi.

Although passengers may now board Southwest with two bags at no cost, the airline is putting a price on its upcoming wireless Internet feature, which the brand will begin installing in April.

Southwest can expect an added boost in sales. The US Bureau of Transportation Statistics reported that popular airlines received almost $2 billion in the third quarter of 2009 from baggage, in-flight Internet, food, and drink costs, generating almost seven percent of total operating revenue.Continue reading...

Now kids with only an allowance can enter the virtual economy – courtesy of Kwedit.com. The Mountain View, CA. start-up, has teamed with FooPets and Puzzle Pirates, for starters, to encourage anyone without a credit card or a debit card – no matter how young – to “purchase with a promise."

FooPets is signing up 20,000 to 25,000 new members daily, the core demographic being 12-14 year old girls, who can “adopt” digitally animated pets and then care for and feed them with virtual goods. They can do this independent of their parents or any adult. A seventh grader can buy a virtual 40-pound bag of Purina Puppy Chow for her web Fido.

Here’s how:Continue reading...