Because you're worth it

Ok this isn’t quite mobile per se. But we’re all geeks here, yes? So I could use your help. Right now I have no speaker system for my Mac Pro. I used to have a JBL Creature set — but that’s at my other place. So right now I’m using the Mac Pro speaker — which, I’m not afraid to say, is rubbish.

Occasionally I stick in some headphones but it’s just not as good, especially if you want some music in the background.

Therefore when news of the Bose Companion 20 multimedia system arrived in my inbox, I was ready to react. In fact, reading the blurb, I had a mini feet-stamping moment, asking myself why I don’t have one. I then went straight into spend-more-money-mode, listing the reasons why I should definitely go out and buy one. I’m rather taken by the ‘unique control pod’ which I imagine sits in front of your monitor, enabling you to control audio volume and connect headphones or another device.

This particular set from Bose comes with two speakers – no woofer. I won’t bore you with the audio gubbins and words like ‘fidelity’ and ‘frequency’. It’s Bose. They’re brilliant. We move on.

Although I haven’t tried these Companion 20 speakers, I think they might be worth a look. As for the price, well — it’s Bose. £199 is the RRP. So what do you think? Should I be hunting for these on Amazon?

What do you recommend for audio playback on PC/Mac?

I get it now.

I’ve always got the status concept — and the ‘immediate immediacy’ that is Twitter. But I’ve been seriously, seriously bothered by the complete and unmitigated rubbish that many Twitter users engage in (e.g. I had bacon for breakfast. It was nice.)

Having found a way of dealing with that, I’d like to open my mind a lot more.

So if you’re into Twitter, if you’re a Twitter genius, if you’ve got something to say about Twitter that demands recording, I’d like you to pitch me.

Pitch me, because I’m paying.

I’m going to take some people for dinner at One Alfred Place. And I’m going to ask each person to talk for 10 minutes about what Twitter IS right now, where it’s going and what we should all be doing about it. If that’s you — if you think you’ve got a viewpoint I and the MIR audience should hear — then I’d like to take you for dinner.

I’ll take copious notes. I’ll bring the HD camera and we’ll get you on film — and we’ll put your viewpoints out to the site.

I’m thinking maybe 5-10 people, plus a few more who might want to come along and learn a bit.

Who’s up for it?

We’ll do it after Mobile World Congress. It’ll be in London (i.e. One Alfred Place is just off Tottenham Court Road). I’ll give plenty of notice.

Drop me an email — ewan@mobileindustryreview.com — if you’d like to come along. That’ll help me get a gauge on the interest and work out just how much cash I’ll need to stump up.

And if you’d like to speak and tell me and the MIR audience your thoughts on Twitter, I’d especially like to hear from you. Send me your pitch (same address, above).

To qualify to pitch — that is, to warrant my attention and the attention of the MIR readers — you need to have a viewpoint. A position. A concept or a ‘take’ on Twitter that you can tell us about for 10 minutes or so. You don’t need to be a social networking expert. You don’t need to have 8,000 followers. You don’t need to be Stephen Fry. You just need to have an opinion and the ability to express it. I — and the MIR audience — would like to hear from as wide a community as possible.

I’ve got a few people in mind that I’d like to ask to participate but I have a complete open mind. So if we haven’t talked before, don’t let that stop you from getting in touch.

Here’s some issues/questions I’d like to cover:

- What is Twitter
- How to use Twitter for business. Forget the ‘Dell does $1m business’ stuff. We’ve heard that and we’ve got the t-shirt. What’s next?
- Celebrities and Twitter
- News and Twitter
- Mobile advertising and Twitter
- Twitter use models. Seriously, do you actually SIT on Twitter all day? If so — and that’s perfectly fine, no value judgements — but do you have a trust fund? Or is your boss just stupid. Or are you actually adding value?
- Things we need to know about Twitter
- Personal examples of Twitter usage
- Twitter applications. What applications and services do you use? Why.
- Operators and Twitter. They just don’t get it (Witness not doing a deal with Twitter UK to enable folk to keep Twit-SMSing) Or, operators seriously get it — look at Germany’s Vodafone doing more revenue via Data than SMS.
- Twitter and messaging. Will Twitter kill SMS? IS Twitter killing SMS?
Is Twitter the new SMS.