TwitterPeek: The Twitter-Only Gadget Destined for Extinction
Ablang
JR Raphael, PC World
Nov 3, 2009 2:51 pm
TwitterPeak: The Twitter GadgetGee willikers, have you heard? They've
just invented a new device that can let you use Twitter, even if you
aren't at a computer! This could be the biggest thing in made-to-be-
obsolete technology since the standalone Wi-Fi text messenger!
Okay, okay...I'll set my 50s-style faux-enthusiasm aside for a moment
to explain. A company called Peek has just announced a new gizmo known
as the TwitterPeek. The device lets you read and write tweets on the
go, and -- well, that's actually it. You pay a hundred bucks for the
thing, then another $8 a month on top of that for the standalone
Twitter access. (You can also opt to buy a $200 model that includes
service for the lifetime of the device.)
The company's selling point is that not everyone has a Web-enabled
smartphone, and the TwitterPeek could be a more affordable way to keep
connected with the Twitterverse. But is Twitter by itself reason
enough to buy a $100 standalone device and pay a monthly access fee?
Even if you don't want to cough up the extra $22 a month that could
get you unlimited data on your $100 smartphone, there are still plenty
of other more practical options.
But hey, maybe I'm missing the big picture here. Maybe we'll all soon
be carrying around individual devices for every single service we
need. Just think of the possibilities:
• The iRumor: Forget your other Internet-connected contraptions -- for
the low price of $59.95 (plus $5.49 a month), this device will
automatically check a dozen different Mac blogs to bring you the
latest Apple-related rumors every hour!
• iRumor Plus: The expanded iRumor Plus doesn't stop with Apple. It
pings TechCrunch at 30-minute intervals to collect every
unsubstantiated tech rumor, Apple or otherwise, published on the Web.
• The FaceBook: Keep in touch anywhere with this book-like gadget that
does nothing but show your Facebook news stream (and let you update
your status with remarks about how cool your new FaceBook gadget is).
• The TwitTrend: An even more economical version of the TwitterPeek,
the TwitTrend connects to Twitter but displays only trending topics
such as #LoseMyNumber and #HesNotThatIntoYou.
• The Tap Tap Metallica Player: Why shell out the cash for an iPod
Touch when you can buy Tap Tap Revenge: Metallica on its own dedicated
device? (Note: Metallica may end up suing itself over this thing, so
buy at your own risk.)
• The Windows Mobile phone: Get basic phone functionality without all
the bells and whistles by picking up a Windows Mobile phone. You'll be
able to make and receive calls and texts, even connect to the Internet
and download exciting passable applications from the Windows Mobile
Marketplace. You'll almost think you're using one of those popular
smartphone devices everyone else has!
Wait a minute...that last one actually does exist. But still.
Robert Maas, http://tinyurl.com/uh3t
> TwitterPeek: The Twitter-Only Gadget Destined for Extinction
> top of that for the standalone Twitter access.
That's overpriced. For appx. %30 you can buy an ordinary cell-phone
that uses Virgin Mobile, then top-up $20 every 3 months, and spend
$5/month of that for up to 5 megabytes InterNet access per month,
including Twitter and Google Images and http://TinyURL.Com/Portl1
and anything else that is fitted to that tiny cell-phone screen,
leaving $5 every 3 months to accumulate in your account unspent,
available any time you may need it for phone calls (18 cents per
minute) or additional InterNet usage beyond 5MB/mo by simply
purchasing your next $5=5MB month pass (a.k.a. "data pack") sooner
than you normally would, thus sliding your $5/mo schedule earlier
in time (one warning: if you exhaust your 5MB before the end of the
month, without buying a new month pass, and continue to use
InterNet, they start charging you $1.50 per day for 1MB/day, which
you want to avoid by purchasing a new month pass before you've
completely used up the 5MB of the previous month-pass).
> The company's selling point is that not everyone has a
> Web-enabled smartphone,
So, why spend $100 for a Twitter-only device when $30 will get you
a Web-enabled cell-phone and $5/month will get you a reasonable
amount of InterNet access?
> Even if you don't want to cough up the extra $22 a month that
> could get you unlimited data on your $100 smartphone,
Why would you need *unlimited* InterNet data on your cell-phone??
Why isn't 5 megabytes download per month, with option of buying
a little more at the same $5/5MB rate, *enough* for most users?
$22/month is a strawman comparison.
> there are still plenty of other more practical options.
Yup, like I said, $5/5MB from $30 cell-phone. (I personally bought
a Cyclops camera-cell-phone, normally $50-60, for only $28, when it
was on special at Target a couple years ago.)
> But hey, maybe I'm missing the big picture here. Maybe we'll all
> soon be carrying around individual devices for every single
> service we need.
More likely the opposite: One cell-phone that uses
http://TinyURL.Com/NewEco for most online services, including
not just browsing the latest rumors but checking the truth-futures
market on them to see whether they are likely true or not,
not a direct interface to Google Images but a better organized
system that lets you quickly navigate the WikiPedia-style disambiguation
menu to see *only* the photos that really show the person or place
or thing you want without the many false matches that Google Images
provides, and not just FaceBook streams but a prioritized event
system to let you know only when something new happens that is
important enough (to you personally) to be worth your time right
now, and many more services configured to work well on one-inch
screens with limited bandwidth. And currently a single Twitter
update from a cell-phone costs you 10k bytes, whereas a
super-efficient version through NewEco would cost only 1k bytes,
thus reducing the cost from one cent per update to one cent per ten
updates! To vote on which services you'd most like to have
available on your cell-phone via NewEco, watch
http://TInyURL/Com/EcoSur for my progress toward implementing
surveys/polls, then as soon as I announce it's installed on the
main server ready for you to use, connect to
http://TinyURL/Com/Portl1 and create an account and log in and
select surveys and express your wish for services.