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February 17, 2008

Twitxr - Like Twitter, With Pictures. Yeah, It’s Photoblogging.

Michael Arrington

79 comments »

FON (better known for building a WiFi community) launched Twitxr today through their FON Labs group. Basically, it’s Twitter but allows picture uploads when sending a message (which makes it particularly useful for camera phones). FON founder Martin Varsavsky announced the product on his blog.

So, yeah, basically it’s a photoblog. You can easily set it up to automatically send your messages to Twitter and Facebook too, though, which is useful. My Twitxr account is here. Here’s an example of a message that was copied over to Twitter. Another feature I like is the fact that you tell it where you are, so location information is included.

Varsavsky says it’s specially designed for the iPhone, and they’ve created software that makes uploading text and a photo from the iPhone very easy. As a third party application, though, it isn’t officially available for the iPhone. You have to “jailbreak” the phone before you can install their application. It looks like you can’t simply grab a photo that you’ve taken normally from the iPhone, either. You have to initiate the photo through the Twitxr application. The application automatically adds location information to your photos and updates.

Twitxr is the upteenth variation of Twitter to appear (see Jaiku (acquired by Google), Pownce, etc. One clone has even gone to the deadpool. This isn’t even the first Twitter-variation to include photos - see Zannel . This is something Dave Winer has been working on with his FlickrtoTwitter project as well - which sends links of your new Flickr photos to your Twitter account. And photoblogging is nothing new. So as pretty as Twitxr is, perhaps FON should stick to wifi.

Update: I’m actually going to re-jailbreak my iphone to test the software - the fact that uploading is so easy and it adds location information is worth noting. If it works really well, this could actually be a reason for me to stop posting directly to Twitter.

CrunchBase Information
Twitter
Fon
Twitxr
Martin Varsavsky
Information provided by CrunchBase
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This entry was posted on Sunday, February 17th, 2008 at 12:46 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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Comments

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  1. Dave Winer

    February 17th, 2008 at 12:58 pm

    Mike, we’ve been sending pics to Twitter for ages using

    http://twittergram.com/flickrtotwitter/

    It’s wonderful!

    I wish the Twitter API had direct support for photos.

    BTW, I signed up on twixtr, my username is “dave” and I’m following you.

    Let’s go for JingJing sometime, it’s been too damned long!! :-)

    Dave

  2. Dave Winer

    February 17th, 2008 at 1:03 pm

    Do you know if they have an API?

    Ideally, they’d implement a superset of the Twitter API, adding the payloads feature I asked for ages ago.

    http://www.scripting.com/stori.....itter.html

    Have you asked these guys if they have a strategy for scaling beyond seat of the pants?

  3. Michael Arrington

    February 17th, 2008 at 1:06 pm

    Dave - yeah, hold on. I’m still working on the post (I sometimes post early and then continue to work on a post). Mentioned flickrtotwitter. They talk about an API but nothing is linked yet. Scaling is of course an issue, hopefully they didn’t steal any of twitter’s code. :-)

  4. Jomito

    February 17th, 2008 at 1:07 pm

    Well, well - nice features but still nothing new as http://www.albinogorilla.dk has been doing this since 2003 in Denmark :)

  5. Kevin

    February 17th, 2008 at 1:20 pm

    Mike – I agree with Dave. API and scalability is key. Also, have it running on many mobile web and rich clients (esp. low-end) ASAP. What your take on the micro-blogging market? Is it still growing or flat? I can’t tell from the Twitter #.

    Mike/Dave – Did you check out Fon11? Sorry, for self-promoting. We can twitter, but hesitating.

  6. Enrique Burgos

    February 17th, 2008 at 1:21 pm

    Great project from Martin’s Fon Labs…once again…

    Congratulations

    http://www.enriqueburgos.com

  7. Baher

    February 17th, 2008 at 1:27 pm

    It looks good, but do we need another web app just to post photos? why didn’t they use twitter API to build something over it?
    And what about the interface? I’m all for simplicity and minimalism, but some graphic design goodness would have been great.

    And…. it should support other mobile phones, for it to have a chance of being successful and standing up to twitter.

  8. Jay

    February 17th, 2008 at 1:27 pm

    This highlights again why I should have an iPhone.

    As I opted for two non-iPhone purchases in the past few years… I’ll set up an email API call tonight to get the same effect until they have a native email option. :)

  9. Technology For The Masses

    February 17th, 2008 at 1:36 pm

    I am curious, why are people prematurely calling out scalability issues for twitter-like clones? Because of Twitter’s scalability issues, it’s like a knee-jerk reaction nowadays to automatically think that a Twitter-clone has scalability concerns right off the bat. This hardly seems fair.

  10. Wayne Sutton

    February 17th, 2008 at 1:37 pm

    I really like the features of Twitxr, but it’s another social network to manage. I wonder with its twitter like look and photo features how many twitter users will create a profile. The maps and facebook integration is a plus.

    I’m http://twitxr.com/waynesutton/ on & http://twitter.com/waynesutton

  11. Karim Baz

    February 17th, 2008 at 1:39 pm

    All these random start-ups with completely unoriginal ideas are really, really, really starting to get annoying. Not that it was much better before but come on– Twitxr?!
    – Karim Baz

  12. Dallas J Clark

    February 17th, 2008 at 1:47 pm

    Soooo what happens to this service when Twitter adds the same functionality? =) Which I would assume they would do right now.

    - Dallas J Clark
    http://www.dallasjclark.com

  13. CAR

    February 17th, 2008 at 2:12 pm

    i totally agree with you karim

  14. K

    February 17th, 2008 at 2:18 pm

    Interesting. Seems like they’ve got a somewhat muddled stance (lack of stance) on privacy.

    Also: http://www.techcrunch.com/2007.....-starters/

  15. Dave Winer

    February 17th, 2008 at 2:21 pm

    Karim, because Twitter already exists, a product that competes with it could grow very quickly.

    I first saw this effect when podcasting grew as much in its first year as blogging had in its first seven. The reason? The network of blogs existed so it could be used to spread the news of podcasting.

    A new Twitter that offers everything Twitter does plus something cool that Twitter doesn’t will grow *very* quickly because people who use Twitter will find out about it on Twitter.

    BTW, I wrote up the questions that come up from the existence of this product, here…

    http://www.scripting.com/stori.....ATwit.html

    Dave

  16. Wayne Sutton

    February 17th, 2008 at 2:30 pm

    To make Twitxr a true winner would be flickr integration. Example I post a photo to twitxr and it post to my flickr profile too. Like the facebook option.

    http://twitxr.com/waynesutton

  17. xabi

    February 17th, 2008 at 2:30 pm

    I was very critic with twitter cause I thought it wasn’t as innovative as so many people said, and now I love it.

    I think twitxr comes to improve my twitter experience with pictures and geolocalization. and I like so much because it’s simple to use… because it is similar to twitter.

    congratulations to fon labs!

  18. Johnny

    February 17th, 2008 at 2:38 pm

    I’m confused. Did FON raise capital to build out a global WIFI network or applications?

  19. Alaskan Carnivore

    February 17th, 2008 at 2:52 pm

    Hey y’all

    It’s been on TechMeme for about 48 hrs now.. Google is powering the GOP’s 2008 Convention?

    Looking for some insider take here..

    Anyone?

    A good primer here
    http://blog.insiderchatter.com.....al-muscle/

    GOP Convention Announcement here
    http://www.gopconvention2008.c.....spx?ID=511

    YouTube vid posted Feb 4 ?!? here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QR7ACiitLSc

  20. Andre de Cavaignac

    February 17th, 2008 at 2:54 pm

    Looks alot like my app that I released a while ago, http://www.gatsb.com

  21. Johannes

    February 17th, 2008 at 2:59 pm

    I like this geolocalization.

    @Johnny:
    They need some applications which require high bandwith to justify their WiFi access points (Apples iphone has WiFi)

  22. Francesco

    February 17th, 2008 at 3:02 pm

    I agree with Karim.
    I believe that Techcrunch only talks about startups that “they like” or that are in some way connected to techcrunch. I’d expect a more impartial approach.

  23. Noah Everett

    February 17th, 2008 at 3:18 pm

    Check out http://twitpic.com which was launched on Feb 5th. Basically the same thing, but it works off your twitter account, no signup required. Mobile posting coming this week and an API to follow.

    More information about TwitPic at my blog: http://www.findmotive.com/2008.....h-twitpic/

  24. Michael Arrington

    February 17th, 2008 at 3:24 pm

    Francesco - I’m actually drafting a post about this very subject. Those of you who don’t actually like startups really need to think about why it is you read this blog - and consider moving along.

  25. Jim Rube

    February 17th, 2008 at 3:24 pm

    This was already done with http://twitpic.com earlier this month.

  26. Auditing

    February 17th, 2008 at 3:33 pm

    guys work a lot, design an app, write the code, do everything as great as possible but when it comes to picking up domain they go and pickup something that not only is impossible to pronounce but also hard type without looking at it at least three times.

  27. Noah Everett

    February 17th, 2008 at 3:37 pm

    The main difference between this and http://twitpic.com is that twitpic is built on twitter’s api to allow posting of photos to twitter itself, its not a separate twitter clone platform.

  28. Keith Shepard

    February 17th, 2008 at 3:47 pm

    Hmmm….This may be very good for cell phone Porn.

  29. Keith Shepard

    February 17th, 2008 at 3:53 pm

    Damn. It would be nice of the Twitxr RSS feed passed along the thumbnails of the photos. It would be great for my blog.

  30. Keith Shepard

    February 17th, 2008 at 3:55 pm

    Oops…the RSS feed does. Gah.

  31. techmine

    February 17th, 2008 at 4:12 pm

    Phone support is bad I think. Why didn’t they implement the post by e-mail? Just type the email and send the photo to that address. The photo will automatically become a new post. There are lots of sites that are already doing it. Flickr, Vox etc have this feature. Whats new here?

  32. Alex Ibrado

    February 17th, 2008 at 4:26 pm

    Hope they set up a proper SSL cert soon. ;-)

  33. Keith Shepard

    February 17th, 2008 at 4:33 pm

    Okay. Gave it a whirl. Some thoughts:

    Good:

    - Very fast for now. Excellent uploads.
    - Love the “Global/Local” time-lines.

    Bad:

    - Google maps aren’t working well. If I’m located in Michigan, their maps put my IN Lake Michigan … and not the middle of the state.
    - Uninspired name. Do we need more Twitter name bastardizations?
    - Pownce does photos a bit better and with more features (unrelated to photos or Twitter).

    Parting Thought:

    Nothing new really, but nothing too horrible either. It’s Twitter with photos, but with a heinous name and an affinity to drown people from Michigan.

  34. zeta

    February 17th, 2008 at 4:56 pm

    Since when is FON based in the USA? Last time I checked their headquarter was in in Spain.

  35. aleks

    February 17th, 2008 at 5:15 pm

    I have used their service and like it quite a bit. We are looking at another company with a similair product. More info at: http://www.techbus.com

  36. Mike

    February 17th, 2008 at 5:20 pm

    Dave,

    Quote: “A new Twitter that offers everything Twitter does plus something cool that Twitter doesn’t will grow *very* quickly because people who use Twitter will find out about it on Twitter.”

    So why isn’t Pownce growing huge by now, and overpassing Twitter?

    Just because something exists already, it doesn’t mean that something that looks like it will automatically just grow. It has to add some -real- value, and a feed of pictures with geolocation is something Flickr provides already, I honestly fail to see what twitxr brings to the table. Oh, the iPhone client is nice, but you can post by email to Flickr too.

  37. Michael Arrington

    February 17th, 2008 at 5:30 pm

    Tried to upload the app via jailbreak and it failed. I guess I’m running iphone software v 1.1.3, which jailbreak doesn’t work with yet. so no go on testing the iphone twitxr software…

  38. No New Ideas

    February 17th, 2008 at 5:35 pm

    I would argue that there are in fact no new ideas ever presented on the Internet - rather just better iterations of existing ideas done better.

    i.e. Myspace - the new Friendster
    i.e. Facebook - the new Myspace - just done better
    i.e. Youtube - video was not new, they just made it better
    etc etc etc

    Any service “really” produced is actual just an interation of another service. Is this really a “new” (per-see) idea ? Not 100% sure - most “ideas” are just existing core “ideas” presented better.

    Think about mobile - how much can you really do ? Get mobile photos, videos, location, text. There are only so many things you can do with it - before all services start to repeat each other. Its just who does it good, and who does it better that counts :)

    Chew on that !!

  39. Faramarz

    February 17th, 2008 at 6:15 pm

    This is retarded! yet another needless service.

    first of all, why would i want to show my pictures to random people? I want my friends to see it, but they wont be part of this service to see it, because facebook and flickr already do superb job at mobile computing.

    beyond the fact that i have to create another base for my friends, separate from everything else, these guys can be wiped dry in a day if/when twitter comes out with the photos addition.

    it’s a case where if it’s not broken, why fix it? this is shit! it doesn’t make any sense

  40. Tim Davis

    February 17th, 2008 at 6:53 pm

    Yeah @ 39 I wrote a similar topic on Creating Products and the best way in my opinion to do it via the website above.

    Love to here your thoughts! ;)

  41. Wayne Sutton

    February 17th, 2008 at 7:08 pm

    I have the Twitxr iPhone app, it works great. The only thing I don’t like is that after each post the app closes each time. Hoping for flickr feature and Twitxr will be my twitter, flickr, iPhone app of choice

  42. Mark yang

    February 17th, 2008 at 7:17 pm

    Well, Check out this site. The original idea is similar to Twitxr.

  43. Mark yang

    February 17th, 2008 at 7:18 pm

    Well, Check out this site. The original idea is similar to Twitxr.

    Sorry, Here is the Address.
    http://teethyou.com/single_ite.....8021308114

  44. Lisa Brewster

    February 17th, 2008 at 7:39 pm

    Signed up, but did I miss something? No shortcode / email address to post to? Logging in via a browser takes way too many steps on a phone, not to mention that file upload doesn’t even work on Palm OS. Weaksauce.

  45. Brij

    February 17th, 2008 at 7:58 pm

    Michael, this is interesting space as we are yet to massive photo-twittering around big events.

    Messagedance rolled out this feature last week. No s/w install is required, just use Twitter account info and send pictures from iphone/mail client.

    See some pictures - http://www.messagedance.com/solvang

    Though service is still in private beta but Twitter users can sign up here - http://www.messagedance.com/twittermail

    Brij

  46. simplebucket

    February 17th, 2008 at 9:11 pm

    if you guys remember yappd, it was pretty much twitter+photo but they disappeared into the wild when they were “acquired” last year with no mention of who and how much…

    Maybe twitxr was the who acquired them?? Yes ? No??

    Techcrunch writers.. maybe its time to do some investigative blogging and find out what happened to the yappd founders

  47. Kurt Stoll

    February 17th, 2008 at 10:10 pm

    If you want to see photo blogging / twittering done right, check out http://www.natuba.com . They have all of the iPhone integration worked out and everything.

    Natuba is a startup based out of Houston, TX. If you want to read about other great startups in Houston, check out our blog http://www.startuphouston.com

  48. Jeff

    February 17th, 2008 at 11:09 pm

    Copied without any shame!

    What happened to the originality of Martin Varsavsky?

  49. Chris Heuer

    February 17th, 2008 at 11:45 pm

    Hey Mike - sounds a lot like my client http://utterz.com/ except Twixtr doesn’t have as much functionality - further, with Utterz you don’t need a special software client on the phone.

    Wayne, Utterz already does the cross-post to Flickr, Twitter, your blog, Facebook and other Web sites through a widget - and it can post video and audio too, from your mobile phone or your computer.

    Also, if anyone doesn’t know this, you can of course send images in from your phone directly to Flickr (and I believe all the other major photo sharing services).

  50. why bother

    February 17th, 2008 at 11:55 pm

    what are people hoping twitter, qik, seesmic and now twixtr become. Does anyone really need to know everything about everyone all the time. This is another waste of time that only the A-list narcissists will use.

    I wonder if Scoble has the most “friends” signed up yet.

  51. Mathys

    February 18th, 2008 at 1:30 am

    Mobypicture does the exact same thing plus much more.
    Cross posting and referencing…

    You upload your photo, then the photo gets posted on all your assigned platforms. If you use Twitter or Jaiku, you can even select where the link directs your friends to (Flickr, your blog, your social network)

  52. Robert Nasiadek

    February 18th, 2008 at 1:43 am

    It’s… microphotoblogging! :-)

  53. Francesco

    February 18th, 2008 at 1:44 am

    Hi Michael,

    I don’t dislike startups at all and I’m often baffled by your choices of which to write about. I use a lot of useful web service but you don’t talk about them. I’m sure that they contacted you but you prefer to talk about services that are clone of clone of clone. Simply I’m confused from your choices.

  54. Caution Entrepreneurs

    February 18th, 2008 at 2:00 am

    Martin,

    Copied TinyURL, HotorNot, Twitter … what else?

    You are an investor and a leader. Is it ethical for a person like you to keep copying/stealing ideas? Clear conflict of interest.

    Shouldn’t you just stick to growing FON? It seems like your original idea.

    Best Regards.

  55. Ruben

    February 18th, 2008 at 3:15 am

    All is done years before by http://blogs.xanco.com, simple photo blogging from mobile; including a friends network. They will launch an impressive new version in the coming months.

  56. Ruben

    February 18th, 2008 at 3:16 am

    I meant http://blogs.xanco.com/

  57. Mark

    February 18th, 2008 at 3:28 am

    Is it really twitxr, not twixtr? How much more awkward can these “web 2.0″ names get? People there are still many good and comprehensible names available just use your imagination! (Ok maybe you dont have one)

  58. Reid Funderburk

    February 18th, 2008 at 4:51 am

    Clippl.com - Like Twitter, With Pictures & Video. Yeah, It’s Photo-Video blogging.

    It’s sooooo cool. it addicting but is a good way.

  59. Rushabh Choksi

    February 18th, 2008 at 8:37 am

    haven’t checked the site yet. but will certainly do. hopefully i wont be disappointed.

  60. Paul L. McCord Jr.

    February 18th, 2008 at 9:49 am

    I do not see the SMS feature on there. Maybe I am wrong but I cannot see Twitxr, Pownce, or any of the others becoming as wide spread as Twitter if they do not have SMS. Sure you can go log into the web and check to see if you have messages but there is somehting about receiving an SMS that gets your attention. My phone uses GSM/Edge so it is still slow on the web making sending messages through web an arduous process.

    Am I wrong here?

    Paul

  61. Phillip

    February 18th, 2008 at 1:17 pm

    Agree with Mathys. I send everything to mobypicture, which then sends the text out to twitter, jaiku, and my blog - the picture to flickr - and keeps a log on moby. Been using for at least 6 months.

  62. Brad

    February 19th, 2008 at 3:49 pm

    Should check out http://SnapFoo.com. Just like Twitxr, but has a LOT more features. More of a blogging feel too.

  63. Robert

    February 25th, 2008 at 8:03 am

    Another microblogging platform, with photos and locations:

    http://www.faceroller.com

    At the moment they’ve got j2me client, but not iphone one.

  64. janice

    March 4th, 2008 at 7:41 pm

    Twitxr only can send photos when I opened my Twitxr account. There’s another similar site http://www.mobicue.com is a multimedia blogging service where can post music, video and so on. It’s more powerful to use it.

    With the facility, I can add any file with any format to my iMobicue account (hyperlink to http://www.mobicue.com/personal/25.shtml), and yet I have choice to show on public or keep in private. The nice thing about this is that Mobicue friends are based on all of my own friends. It has gateways to Gmail, MSN and Yahoo (all link to mobicue invitation page). The client can be used with all popular phones, especially on Nokia and Sony Ericsson phones (all link to mobicue download page).

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