Tomorrow, Ashton Kutcher will appear on Oprah talking about Twitter. Oprah has secured the @oprah address and already has 43k followers before she's sent one tweet.

This is huge.

Forget that Ashton Kutcher will be talking about his sparring with CNN to be the first to have 1 million followers. Forget as well that the act of appearing on Oprah talking about Twitter will drive huge numbers of new users to to the site. Forget that some silly people are already saying silly things like the inevitable crash of Twitter's servers will send people rushing to their competitors.

The huge event here is the possibility that Oprah herself will actually start to use Twitter. That she'll recognize the impact she could have with Twitter, and add it to her communications quiver.

If Oprah does start Tweeting, and assuming at least some of it is her doing it herself, the argument over who got to a million followers will be ancient history. Oprah will storm past both CNN and Ashton Kutcher within weeks and leave them in the dust. Neither of them will ever be in first place again, and nor will anyone else. She will cement her place as the person with the most followers on Twitter. Oprah - Queen of Twitter.

Good luck @ev and @jack and @biz the founders of Twitter for their own battle tomorrow.

Ta ra Facebook ...a footnote?

Posted by Alx Klive at 1:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Apple is closing in on 1 billion app downloads and they're making it a public occasion by putting a counter on their website. They're offering a decent prize to the person who makes the 1 billionth download.

The prize includes a $10,000 iTunes gift card, a laptop, a time capsule and an iPod Touch. No doubt lots of people will be interested in this, this writer included, and many people will be trying to get the 1 billionth download.

Having dug under the hood of the counter I can tell you a bit of a secret that will put you at an advantage.

Apple's 1 billion app counter is not actually a live counter but a rough approximation. You can see this in the way it always seems to update at a constant rate. True counters don't work like this - they come in fits and spurts.

The counter is actually simple javascript which reads a text file upon loading. The text file contains two numbers... the total number of apps downloaded at the top of the last hour and the number of apps downloaded in the preceeding 60 mins. This text file is updated every hour.

With these two numbers the javascript can work out an approximate point to begin its displayed count and a rate at which to display the numbers increasing. Only at the top of the hour and immediately thereafter is the counter likely to be accurate. This is because the rate at which people download apps is changing all the time. At the time of writing for example (4am Pacific on Easter Sunday) it is 155,000 per hour. Look at the last number in the text file to see what it is now.

Since it is likely that lots of people will be trying to win the competition, the rate at which people are downloading will increase as it gets close to the magic figure of 1 billion. This will mean that that the counter is almost certainly going to be 'slow' and behind the real figure.

To win you should keep an eye on the text file and consider how close to the top of the hour the 1 billionth app download is likely to be. Factor that the rate will be increasing substantially the closer it gets. Also keep an eye on the website counter as this will be what other people are looking at. Ultimately the 1 billionth app will come before the counter displays 1 billion. Only you can decide how much.

I'll be posting more about this on my Twitter page nearer the time including an update on when I expect it to be. It currently looks like the 1 billionth app will be in about a week.

Have fun... and good luck! (Oh yes. Please digg this if you like it)

Posted by Alx Klive at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Ever wanted to know where Balamory really is? Or every TV show shot in London? Or all TV series that are set in Newcastle?

Question no more thanks to this great geographical map of UK TV series put together by Guardian Head of Communities Meg Pickard.

She's done a super job pulling it all together and has even gone way back to the likes of Hancock's Half Hour and the Good Life.

I asked her via Twitter why in fact there were two Balamory locations and she explained that it is set/filmed in Tobermory but one of the character's houses is in East Lothian. So there you have it.

The map was inspired by a map of US sitcoms put together by cartoonist Dan Meth who has one of the all-time best personal blog photos I've ever seen.

Posted by Alx Klive at 8:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)