Groom updates Facebook, Twitter at the altar

At nearly every wedding, there’s that picture-perfect moment when the couple seals the nuptials with a kiss.

This moment is usually proceeded by vows to love and obey. However, Dana Hanna of Abingdon, Md., took the time to whip out his cellphone and update his relationship status on Facebook and peck out a Tweet, declaring he had just been married. (He also handed a cellphone over to his wife to do the same.)

Lucky for you the whole ordeal was posted on YouTube -- by Hanna himself.

Hanna explains on YouTube that he did it for laughs and that the gag was a surprise to everybody in attendance except the minister. This would explain his wife’s look as he pulled “his” and “hers” cellphones from his tuxedo pockets.

 “This was just done to be funny -- we really don't Facebook THAT often :),” he wrote on YouTube. “I have a lot of family scattered around the country and we all use Facebook a lot to keep in touch.”

Here's that tweet from the altar: “Standing at the altar with @TracyPage where just a second ago, she became my wife! Gotta go, time to kiss my bride. #weddingday”

Hanna’s Twitter moniker is TheSoftwareJedi. And looking at some recent tweets it looks like he’s caught some flak for wanting to keep the world updated on his personal life on a second-by-second basis.

“To all the criticizers of my video out there questioning my sanity: You don't get it. I was having fun at MY wedding! Loosen up, have fun!"

-- W.J. Hennigan

The future of media is ... Ashton Kutcher?

Ashton Kutcher, new media mogul. Credit: Hermann J. Knippertz / Associated Press.

A panel of thought leaders trying to figure out the future of the media business -- how to pay for the journalism, music and entertainment that are now so thoroughly disrupted by technology -- was asked this morning if anyone out there was getting it right. The answer, at least from one panelist: Ashton Kutcher.

"He has an amazing number of Twitter followers -- the greatest number," said Catherine Hays, director of the Future of Advertising project at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business. And, she said, the actor-turned-Tweeter has parlayed his newfound popularity into a social media consultancy, Katalyst Films. Hays said it's a "mashup of entertainment, of him understanding a social media marketplace, of him creating mini-episodes, and providing different narratives for different media. It’s taking off. It’s very viral."

Hays, speaking at the Supernova conference in San Francisco, cited Kutcher's use of his race to 1 million Twitter followers to help a malaria nonprofit amass thousands of mosquito nets for people in Africa. "It was engaging, it was people-oriented, people cared, and they shared with others, and he created a media company," Hays said. He is now up to more than 4 million followers on Twitter.

He is now using that company to consult with Pepsi and others, and his expertise this month landed him on the cover of Fast Company magazine.

The audience was not entirely convinced that Kutcher is the man to follow. "He was talented before he was on Twitter," one man said. Another woman added, "It's still the old model, he was just there first," meaning that Kutcher still provides content for others to consume. The future, all seemed to agree, gives the consumers more control over the content and the advertising.

"We’re transitioning from old to new," Hays said, "and he is kicking everyone’s ass, and look at him go."

-- Dan Fost

Twitter creator wants to give away Square, his credit card payment gadget

Twitter was just the beginning. After dreaming up the innovative communication medium, Jack Dorsey is looking to revolutionize another core aspect of society -- money.

On Tuesday, Dorsey announced his new start-up, Square, which will let anyone with a cellphone or iPod become a merchant and accept credit card payments.

Square is a small plastic device that plugs into a gadget's headphone jack. Buyers swipe their credit cards through the machine, which then transmits the payment data to an application running on a connected iPhone or iPod Touch. (Android and Blackberry apps are in development, and computer software will be available later.)

You don't have to have the Square gadget or app to pay. You just need a credit card and an e-mail address to receive a receipt.

A select few cafes and small vendors are among Square's first beta testers. Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea in Venice will be one of the first in Southern California, starting as early as next week.

Beginning sometime early next year, Dorsey wants everyone to use Square.

"I think we're going to give the Squares away for free," Dorsey said on the phone from San Francisco on Tuesday, "because they're pretty cheap for us to make."

Is 'Pulp Fiction' screenwriter Roger Avary tweeting from jail? [Updated]

Roger Avary pleaded guilty to vehicular manslaughter in September and may be tweeting from jail. Credit: Los Angeles Times

As is often the case with Twitter, screenwriter Roger Avary recently tweeted about what he had for lunch. It was soy, which, an acquaintance told him, contains a dangerous substance intended to shrink their genitals and reduce their sex drives.

Just another day in Ventura County Jail.

Avary, who won an Oscar for writing the "Pulp Fiction" screenplay, appears to be sending updates to Twitter from the big house. He received a jail sentence in September after pleading guilty to vehicular manslaughter following a fatal crash last year.

We can't confirm that the Twitter account, @avary, actually belongs to Avary. But a second account, @rogeravary, points to the companion profile and contains photos of sci-fi author Neil Gaiman and the Dresden Dolls' Amanda Palmer.

[Updated, Nov. 27, 2:40 p.m.: L.A. Now reports that Avary was tweeting while serving time in a Ventura County work furlough program. He is now in full-time custody.]

Twitter adds business model

Feeding the Twitter bird. Credit: wharman via Flickr.

The twitterati today are aflutter about a few crumbs that Twitter Chief Operating Officer Dick Costolo dropped during an interview with TechCrunch's Michael Arrington on how the microblogging service plans to make money.

With millions of people, organizations and businesses now using the service, there is keen interest in keeping the little blue Twitter bird alive. The question has always been: How?

Costolo today supplied a partial answer: Ads. But these won't be your father's Chevrolet ads. Twitter ads will be "fascinating," "non-traditional" and "really cool," Costolo said. "People will love the ads when they see it."

Another potential source of revenue: Charging customers who want to see their Twitter data, such as how many people click on the links and who's following whom. In industry parlance, such data are called analytics, and they give users an idea of which of their tweets are more effective at reaching an audience and whether readers are acting on those tweets.

Costolo dropped another morsel when he singled out Foursquare's Dennis Crowley as a "genius." (Foursquare lets users broadcast their geographic location, along with what they are doing: "In Century City, looking for good Indian food.")

How does this fit in with making money? Costolo didn't say. But the ability for advertisers to know where people are and what they are in the mood for is incredibly valuable.

With $155 million in venture funding, Twitter isn't in a huge hurry, but Costolo promised that the ads will be rolled out in 2010.

-- Alex Pham

Follow my random thoughts on games, gear and technology on Twitter @AlexPham.

Betting that Brizzly will be huge, ex-Googlers are working on things

Thing Labs in their San Francisco office. Chris Wetherell, middle left, and Jason Shellen, middle right. Credit: Mark Milian / Los Angeles Times

The mad scientists at Thing Labs have a very impressive track record.

On the sixth floor of a trendy building in San Francisco's recently renovated Mint Plaza, four former Google employees -- scratch that: five former Googlers, with today's addition of FriendFeed's (now Facebook's) Ben Darnell -- and a few others are working on things. Some very interesting things.

Founder Jason Shellen is purposely fuzzy with his description of ongoing projects. Whereas Google famously has "20% time," a policy that lets engineers spend one-fifth of their day working on anything they want, Shellen says his workers get "100% time."

For the last five months, the majority of that time has been spent building Brizzly, a Web application that combines your Twitter and Facebook profiles into a single interface.

After gaining some viral interest through its invitation-only sign-up system -- a strategy that has worked exceedingly well for Gmail and now Google Wave -- Brizzly is unlocking its doors today. Anyone can sign up and plug in their social network credentials.

But Brizzly remains in beta despite having tens of thousands of users. The product is ahead of most desktop apps in its stability and interface but is not yet a replacement for Facebook because you can't fully browse friends' profiles, view events or upload pictures. And the app currently lacks some newer Twitter features like geolocation, which is available in only a few programs anyway, and standardized retweet, a project originally spearheaded by Thing Labs' vice president of technology, Chris Wetherell.

So why should you care? There's plenty of websites and apps for accessing Twitter. TweetDeck and Seesmic, like Brizzly, can pull in Facebook as well. And while Brizzly is stuffed with potential even now in such an early stage, Shellen's track record hints that there's much more to come.

In Los Angeles, it's the attack of the Twittering food trucks!

The Kogi BBQ truck started the Twitterin' truck trend. Credit: joshuaheller / flickr.

Take a walk down Main Street during one of downtown L.A.'s Art Walk nights (the second Thursday of every month), and you will see an element that does not at first blend in with all the paintings, sculptures, high heels and hipsters.

Lining the curbs from 4th Street on down are a caravan of parked food trucks, part of L.A.'s growing army of Twitterized mobile eateries, originated by the now-famous Kogi Korean BBQ truck.

But now the roving bands have expanded to such variously named rolling restaurants as Nom Nom Truck, Let's Be Frank, and the upcoming FrySmith, a "truck with fries that eat as a meal." 

There are sushi trucks, ice cream and shave ice trucks, Indian food trucks, Philadelphia cheese steak trucks (couldn't find the Twitter address but I saw it with my own eyes), coffee and sweets trucks, and even a food truck for vegans!

No doubt I have omitted a few trucks from this list, but the L.A. Metblog listed more of them a few months ago, and there's even a page that tracks tweetin' trucks.

-- David Sarno

Twitter-equipped bathroom scale tells the world how much you weigh

This bathroom scale knows how much you weigh and it can blab it to your Twitter friends. Credit: Withings.

The most embarrassing new tech product of the year just got more embarrassing.

Last month, we let you know about the Wi-Fi Body Scale, the first bathroom scale equipped with a wireless connection to send your weight and body fat information directly to your Web page and iPhone.

But weight, there's more.

Today the French company behind the scale, Withings, announced it has added Twitter capability to the scale, enabling the user to automatically tweet the weight/fat info to followers.

In a news release, Withings declared the Twitter function would be a great help to users, "further motivating them by sharing their progress with followers."

Right.

What's next for Withings? An app to let the Twitterverse know how much debt you're carrying? How about a public questionnaire to rate how far you are from achieving your life dreams?

Come to think of it, either might be preferable to letting the weight info hit Twitter. This is Los Angeles.

-- David Colker

A Twitter bug and two Facebook viruses are spreading

How's this for public embarrassment? A bug spreading through Twitter today causes infected users to send direct messages to friends promoting a product that makes them "feel great and look good," as the messages say.

The product? A colon cleanser.

As you can imagine, those attacked by the colon-clearing trick aren't so happy to offer up the free promo. We received messages from former colleagues and business associates discussing their supposed weight loss secret.

Tweets contain links, some through Bit.ly and others through a secondhand redirect that starts with a "q" and ends in ".Info." Once clicked, they redirect to a site promoting a product called Cleanse Pro X, which appears to be a fruity pill that washes your body of human waste.

The Bit.ly link has been clicked more than 4,000 times, but we don't have data on how many people have actually found their way to the site. It's unclear how users were affected.

Meanwhile, Facebook warned of two new viruses today that target its social network. The tricksters send e-mails purporting to contain password information from Facebook, but instead unleash a virus on the user's computer.

-- Mark Milian

Google starts testing Social Search. 'Creepy,' naysayers mutter. [Updated]

Just about any social-networking-focused product that Google rolls out brings a group of naysayers pointing fingers and calling it creepy.

Right on cue, those folks are welcoming Google's new real-time search feature with less than open arms: "Google Social Search is creepy.... Just perfect for child preditors [sic] to use," wrote Greg House on Twitter.

OK, let's turn it down a notch.

Google Social Search is available for testing in Google Labs, a section of experimental search features. Social Search stems from a deal Google recently struck with Twitter.

[Updated at 6:28 p.m.: An earlier version of this post incorrectly said Google had announced a deal with Facebook.]

Microsoft announced a similar deal and promptly rolled out BingTweets along with news of a partnership with Facebook. No one has yet disclosed financial terms.

Google’s Social Search works much like its standard search, but instead of sifting through the Web at large, it culls links from friends’ pages on the user’s social networks. 

In order to know who your friends are, Google asks you to fill out a profile that includes links to your pages on networks like Twitter and FriendFeed -- which is now owned by Facebook. A deal with Facebook could be on the horizon -- at which time, Facebook's notoriously change-averse users would no doubt bemoan the feature.

Are today's reactions any worse than the ones to Google Web History, which shows you a list of past searches? Or to Google Latitude, which shows you where on a map you and your friends are? Or to Gmail's targeted ads, which, for example, promote concert tickets if you receive an e-mail about U2? Or to Google Voice, which logs your phone usage, voice mails and text messages?

Maybe not, but what happens if Google rolls out Facebook search?

-- Mark Milian

Twitter: @markmilian