Twitter and the Attack of the Twitter mash-ups — What are you =^..^=ing? — necoったー

What are you =^..^=ing?
I am telling you the story of 「necoったー」.

Well, if you have brainwaves you will know that twitter is ‘raging full-on‘, the story is the same here in Japan too. Crank up twittervision and watch the world-wide ‘tweet’-fest, live. Lots of tweets popping up from Japan and a lot from all over the world, popping up in Japanese.

Twitter is not only exploding all over the world among retail users, developers are piling on, making a so far endless stream of super funky mash-ups apps utilizing twitter’s API. This openness is of course is not only cool, it is going to be an integral part of communications and business — probably forever.

The only twitter mash-up app that I had seen from Japan was one that helps people automate adultery. Yeah, as sad as that maybe, not a first in Japan. The best twitter mash-up Japan could come up with so far. It ‘tweets’ predefined tweets at a predefined time. So, when you come home from a tryst and your spouse asks you if you were at a love hotel you can say, ‘Who me? No, no. I was…(alibi)’. Then, ‘See, look. Look at my twitter page.’ Spouse looks at the tweets and tweet times. Does that math. Feels relieved.

Today I ran into a something a whole lot nicer. It’s called neco.tter (JPN: necoったー) and I am still trying grasp it. ‘neko’ (猫) means, ‘cat’. たー is the not quite right pronunciation of the English …’ter’.

Instead of folks answering the question, What are you doing? It is for cat owners to answer the question, What are you =^..^=ing?

Cute! & Fun!

‘=^..^=‘ is a cat’s face. There are multiple variations; Happy cat. Sleeping cat. Angry cat, you cat owners get the idea. Someone will probably, or more likely, already has wikied the glossary.

And this mash-up is fresh. Officially release on June 19, according to their blog.

The developers have done a very clever job of branding on this. There are dozens of cat face icons to choose from. All very nicely drawn. Even though there are dozens of variations, anyone smart enough to be on twitter can easily recognize the iconic connection. They are branding the mothership. Any why not?

The ranking gallery shows the icons.

I spent a few minutes on the home page of twitter, hitting the reload button and there was usually a necoったー icon on the page (in the top 9, it looks like. twitter must be too cool for something as pedestrian as a ‘top 10′、笑).

So that is a little about how folks in Japan are mashing up twitter.

OK, now I have to get back to my own mash-up project…

necoったー

the twitter page

the company

Charlie Rockwave
Rockwave Development Team
This thing IS GONNA ROCK!
Skype me!: charlie.rockwave
www.aiping.jp