Is being the “world’s first Twitter mobile device” a good thing? Ask the Twitter Peek, the $199.99 device that is dedicated to updating and reading messages on Twitter. It’s like your smart phone, except it can’t make phone calls, send or receive text messages, go online, take photos or run applications. For $199.99, the Twitter Peek is an anemic device.

The Wall Street Journal says the Twitter Peek was a collaboration between Twitter and Peek, but doesn’t quote anyone from Twitter in their article. I would find it hard to believe that a company that can’t smoothly roll out new software features is all of a sudden moving into the hardware space. I haven’t read anything besides the Wall Street Journal article that somehow implies Twitter is involved in the Twitter Peek, even on the official website of the device. It certainly seems like that should be something that the Journal double checked before publishing, right?

The Twitter Peek boasts that it is “TwitterPeek is designed for Twitter, so it’s easier to use”. Meanwhile, I’m pretty sure that Tweetie 2 was also designed for Twitter and only costs me $2.99 with my currently existing iPhone. I get unlimited data with at&t, despite their poor service, so I’m not really worried about my 140 character Twitter messages pushing my data usage to the extreme. I’m not the only one who is skeptical, check what CrunchGear had to say: The TwitterPeek is a Peek that tweets.

For $99, you can buy an iPhone 3G. For $200, you can buy a Motorola Droid or iPhone 3GS. When you pay for your data service, YOU CAN ACCESS TWITTER. Someone feeling so dedicated to their Twitter account that they feel the need to be “always on” past the point of what a smart phone can offer is someone who needs to get out more often (maybe that’s the point of the device). Anyone who uses Twitter for professional reasons or represents a brand on Twitter has more than one account. You only have access to one account with the Twitter Peek, so if you really need to manage your personal and professional account be prepared to pony up for two Twitter Peek devices.

If you want to view a website, tough luck pal. According to Peek, they “plan to add support for previewing links in the near future” and TwitPic is the only mentioned photo service for viewing. The Twitter Peek doesn’t have a camera, so dont think that you’ll be uploading photos either. You’ll also need to carry around your smart phone for that. Or, if you already own a Peek device that isn’t OMG FOR TWITTER, you can just use the Peek App Peek Feed to read and update Twitter using Ping.fm. Remind me why I should buy the Twitter Peek one more time?

The device was panned on Jimmy Fallon when it debuted, being laughed at by the crowd when it was explained what it does. Check it out:

Who the hell is this thing aimed at? My money is that Twitter addicts already have a smart phone from which they update Twitter with and can also take photos, browse the web, check Facebook. As a matter of fact, the only friends I have that don’t have smart phones don’t give a hoot about Twitter anyway. I’m interested to see how this goes. In the year that the Peek has existed, I’ve run into exactly one person who owns one. This includes multiple Podcamps, Blogworld and SXSW. Somehow I don’t think I’ll run into anyone with a Twitter Peek anytime soon.

Vook might found the future of publishing. That’s a tall order to fill, but it seems that this is the direction the company could take with it’s book + video (VOOK) platform. Vooks, or video books, combine the text of a book with well produced video. The videos and book stand on their own but also compliment each other.

The books Vook has been working with are either instructional or non-fiction, as that content lends itself well towards this kind of project. Complimentary media is nothing new. Call out boxes and infographics have lone done the explaining that text could never do. With people reading more on electronic devices, extra information doesn’t have to be static.

Even movies have gotten into the action. No matter what you think of the movies, the Matrix trilogy was enhanced with the video game Enter the Matrix and the series of animated shorts The Animatrix. The animations and video game explain the story to a higher degree than the movies could. Each stand on their own, as the movies stand on their own as well. When I was at the New York Sun, we sought to make our articles come alive through similar types of extra content. You can still find that content on the New York Sun blip.tv page. The impressions that additional / supplementary media can have on readers is huge. The time spent on the page increases when it is done right. What Vook is attempting to do is just that for authors. While the current title selection leaves much to be desired, the potential is clear. For the price of Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion in hardcover on Amazon, you can have the Vook, a text of the book and a series of videos that compliment the book’s content.

The current downside of the platform is that when you purchase a Vook, you are locked into the device you purchased it for. If you buy Crush It for the iPhone, you can’t watch it on your computer and vice versa. This will hamper their sales, as people expect more and more to choose where they have access to the content they purchase. When you purchase a song on iTunes, an audiobook on Audible or an ebook on the Kindle, you can access that data with multiple devices. The Vook roadblock hurts consumers, and an emerging platform should be as open as can be to encourage consumers to buy in. I often wonder if my parents would understand why they weren’t allowed to play the videos and read the book on the iPhones (if they had iPhones) when they can read ebooks on the Kindles and iPhones (they don’t have Kindles either).

The perfect platform for the Vook doesn’t yet exist on a mass market level. While the iPhone provides a fantastic way to view media while on the go, it’s not a great device for reading and some complain about watching movies on a 3.5″ screen. Computers provide a great reading experience, but most people don’t want to read full books on their computers, and not everyone is comfortable bringing their laptops to bed.

The perfect device or the Vook experience is that rumored Apple media tablet. While I don’t want to go too far into the rumors about the tablet, many have argued between the focus being books or movies. Vook nicely rides the line between those two worlds. While no one at Vook I spoke to knew anything about an Apple device, they did assure me that they would be developing Vook to work with whatever Apple releases. Also, Creative is working on a MediaBook. A Creative VP explained that the device is meant for “videos, pictures, text and services in one device that supports a media-rich experience” which sounds like what Vook is attempting to create.

Vook is in a good position to help book publishers move beyond the single format of the book, but their device locked formats are a cause for concern. As notable authors sign up for the service, we will see how people understand the format. If the right authors sign up for Vook, we could be looking at the future of the book publishing industry.

What do you think? Would you buy Vooks?

Not too long go Kevin Kelly posted his 1,000 True Fans idea t othe internet and set my imagination on fire. I immediately thought about artists like Jonathan Coulton and Brad Sucks. Not long after that, Trent Reznor gave Nine Inch Nails fans the opportunity to buy their album ‘Ghosts’ in many formats, including the ultra-super cool LP’s of the record, individual tracks for remixing and so on and so forth.

A few months ago I was turned on to the band I Fight Dragons by someone on Twitter and became a huge fan. I got an email announcing the band is now selling 100 “Lifetime Memberships” to the band. For $100, you get all the music the band has ever produced on a kick ass USB-card, all the future releases from the band and admission to every show they will ever play.

This is an extremely forward thinking idea from I Fight Dragons, and I think it’s brilliant. If I were to quit life and follow the band around from city to city on their US tour with MC Chris, the band would theoretically lose money on my lifetime membership, but what they gain is an evangelist for the band. Someone who will be playing their music for their friends, talking about the band pretty much non-stop and most likely 100 friends too.

While not everyone can sell a lifetime membership to their art, this makes me think about what other kinds of businesses could do with this kind of idea. Alternatively, how much money is a lifetime membership to your work worth?

The news came in yesterday that Twitter signed a sear ch deal with Microsoft and Google. Microsoft’s Bing and Google are going to have access to the real time stream from Twitter, which is commonly called “the firehose”. The firehose something that not many companies are given according to Twitter own Frequently Asked Questions.

Up until now, Twitter has relied on the technology of Summize, a company it purchased in July of 2008, for search within Twitter. (ref. “With Summize, Twitter to Buy a Clue from GigaOm) Twitter doesn’t allow for historical search through its search interface, as messages seem to go back as far as two weeks. Those interested in real time search are satisfied to see why “RIP Kanye West” is trending, but if you’re interested in something someone said four months ago you’re out of luck. It’s one of the reasons why I’ve been archiving my tweets. If you’re interested in searching in Twitter Bing offers a very useful Twitter search page and Twitter results will be included in Google searches. This is a departure from the usual actions towards extending Twitter functionality the company has taken in the past.

When Twitter announces new features, usually an announcement would benefit the developers that helped drive attention to Twitter. The recent addition of location into published messages is an example of that. The search deals with Google and Microsoft’s Bing are the first steps Twitter has taken while thinking about itself and not the community of users and developers. This move is something that directly benefits Twitter and does harm to the developer community. It’s a selfish move from a company that has been very giving.

The ecosystem of companies who allow you to use Twitter for more than 140 character status updates is very rich. If you want to include video in Twitter, use 12Seconds. Photos? TwitPic. Search was perviously done in an unofficial way by Collecta, OneRiot, Scoopler and Excla.im. These are sites that didn’t pay Twitter money to access search, I assume they used the Twitter API to put their searches together.

If Twitter is making money off of the search deals, then more power to them. While I don’t see any ads on the Twitter search pages on Bing, I assume they’ll show up soon, and barely anything Google Search related exists without advertisements. I imagine that if these companies are benefitting financially from including Twitter search results, Twitter will be seeing a share of that money.

money, I has it by Kris Taeleman via Flickr
magnifying glass macro <06.jpg by by stephenjohnbryde, via Flickr

The audio engineer in me has been tossing around how to pull off Taylor Swift’s “live” performance at the MTV Video Music Awards.

Here’s option #1:

So there’s an acoustic guitarist in the subway at Bryant Park and Taylor Swift is singing along with him. The she boards a train bound for Rockefeller Center and continues to sing to a band that is sitting on top of Radio City Music Hall. In order to do that, the music has to be mixed live, the audio signal would then have to be sent to a wireless receiver somewhere on the subway and then to Taylor’s wireless in-ear monitors, which she is either not wearing or is tiny. Keep in mind that the Bryant Park subway stop would have to be shut down on Sunday night around 9:00 pm. The live audience in the subway would have to be rocking to Taylor’s vocals a cappella because if you piped the band into the subway, it would echo in the mic. Then, the audio and video needs to be wirelessly transmitted without any delay back to the satellite site. Then when Taylor gets off the subway, the Rockefeller subway stop would need to be closed between the F train and the Radio City exit. Any lag would have to be dealt with as Taylor emerged from the subway station and into the street and performed with the same band that she’s been performing with from a quarter of a mile away.

or….

option #2: Tape it ahead of time extremely early in the morning except the live part right outside of Radio City Music Hall, and that part would have to be lip-synced, including the band.