In the video preview below of FRONTLINE’s Digital_Nation, Patrick Stewart explains why its not his style to talk to people in only 140 characters or less in Twitter.  Also, he explains why he loves his iPhone and e-mail.  Even though he’s putting down Twitter, which is what I think is a great piece of communication technology, the way how he says it so eloquently just makes me nod and say “ok.” Damn you and your awesome voice.  Maybe when Twitter converts to HD, he’ll join us “Twatters.”

Remember Clippy? That default character in the old Microsoft Office suites? Yea, annoying little fella. Well, if you thought he was dead, guess again.  He’s just been drinking and giving people more advice via twitter.

iF U tYpE LiKe tHiS, it implies you’ve added an unconventional artistic touch to your writing. Also, that you’re an idiot.

Did you just choose Comic Sans? Comic Sans. Really? Why not just type “I’m A Virgin” in 72 point font.

Clippy finally tells it like it is.  So, I suggest you follow him for more thoughtful advice.

In an article on Techradar, Mark Zuckerberg says that “69 million active users are using FarmVille alone, that’s more users than Twitter.” Wow. That is a lot of farming. If Farmville was a free-to-play MMO or turned into one, they would have Blizzard’s baby, beat. I myself have never played this game or any Facebook game. I don’t know what all the fuss is about, but now I have to check it out to see.

Do you play any Facebook games? Do you play Farmville? If so, what is it about the game or games that keeps you playing?

It’s that time again, time to review some of my cherry picked smaller stories of the week for those that might have missed them. This time round we’ve got an Adobe Flash update that doesn’t suck. OK, sucks a little less. Flash 10.1 beta was unleashed to the willing public with GPU video acceleration for certain Nvidia cards on Windows, but perhaps more importantly reduced CPU usage across all platforms. What does this mean? YouTube that doesn’t make your Mac or PC red-line that’s what. A step in the right direction Adobe, maybe Flash isn’t a lost cause after all. I’ve certainly seen some improvements on my netbook and Mac. (more…)

Santa has finally got around to creating his own Twitter account. But, it seems as though he is truly micro-blogging all his most inner thoughts and feelings this season. Apparently, he doesn’t give a flying fuck if you get coal or nothing at all. If you’ve asked for anything nice this year and you’ve done your very best to be a good person, you’re still screwed because Santa could care less about the list.

[via Twitter]

So as I mentioned recently, I participated in and “won” the Battlecry contest hosted by Blizzard’s @Warcraft account on Twitter.  Blizzard hosts at least 3 accounts, @Diablo, @Starcraft and @Warcraft.  Around the date Blizzcon was about to go down, these three accounts started having little twitter contests.  Naming items in Diablo, Starcraft memories and a faction specific Battlecry from Warcraft.  All simple little things, all rewarded some prize.  Or did they?  I know the Starcraft account was giving out Starcraft 2 Beta keys for its contest winners.  You can see all three contests listed, along with their premises on WoW.com and Blizzard’s own forums, so this isn’t something a few people hallucinated. (more…)

The cool people at Twitter are now testing out Twitter lists.  Start following all of us using our staff list. Sam, Raul, Andrew, Bill and Aaron are there for you to read up on.

http://twitter.com/pixelatedGeek/staff

I have also started a Pixelated Geek fan list.  If you want to be a part of it, just send an @ reply to PixelatedGeek saying so.  Once we get a good amount of people on our fan list, we’ll be giving away prizes to random people on it.

http://twitter.com/pixelatedGeek/fans

Watch out, tweeple. There’s a new scam going around via DMs.  Always be suspicious about the links you are given via DM and @ replies.  If you’ve received a link like the one below, just delete it right away.  Nothing will happen to your computer or Twitter account if you just read it.  But, if you click the link, your Twitter account credentials will go to the scammer. So, be careful out there.

[via Mashable]

Facebook has been busy lately, first introducing Facebook Lite, a stripped down simple version of the site for those who don’t want to wait or sift through the main site. The second introduction today is the inclusion of @mentions in status updates. Taking a page from Twitter, people can tag their friends in updates using the @ tag to induce a user selection screen. The @ symbol isn’t actually displayed in the update, but it just goes to show that the @mentions that started first with Twitter have transcended the social networking site to become a more universally recognised tag.

[Via Facebook Blog]

This shouldn’t really come as too much of a surprise, but anyone wanting to enjoy Twitter and Facebook on Xbox Live will have to pony up for Gold member subscription, the same premium prerequisite currently needed for Netflix Instant Watch and pretty much all online gaming. Silver membership will be given a “free trial,” but exactly what limitations that entails, or if they’ll be an option to “upgrade” to the full version, is anyone’s guess.