I began using Twitter during July of 2008. At first, I was put off by what appeared to be a congregation of the egotistical. It was not until my Information Architecture professor required our class to use Twitter actively that I became engrossed and engaged with the Twitter phenomenon. In order to experience the maximum potential of Twitter, my professor encouraged my classmates and me to install and explore the many Twitterapplications available. Through my exploration, I found an application called Twitty Tunes.

Twitty Tunes is a companion application that works in conjunction with the Foxy Tunes browser application. The Foxy Tunes application allows users to export the music they play into an email signature.  It works with numerous music players such as iTunes or Winamp.

The application is integrated into the user’s browser where he or she can use the application to control his or her music player.

Twitty Tunes allows users to Tweet their “currently playing” songs as well as links to “currently browsing” websites, photographs, and videos.

By itself, Foxy Tunes is lacking, but when it is combined with Twitty Tunes, it becomes a robust and compelling tool.

The Twitty Tunes application is integrated in your browser. 

A small icon appears in the browser taskbar, and with two simple mouse clicks, you can share the music you enjoy with your Twitter friends and develop new connections with people that share your musical interest.

If a Tweeter uses the @foxytunesdj prefix instead of the five other music prefixes in his or her Tweet, then that Tweet will display on both the Tweeter’s Twitter profile and the @Foxy Tunes Twitter DJ Twitter Channel; however,  FoxyTunesDJ must be followed on Twitter by the user in order for it to appear on the channel. 

Twitty Tunes also allows users to post URLs to web pages they are viewing. You can choose among six preset prefixes or you can use the free style + URL option. The user only has to click the prefix such as “browsing:” while on the web page, and the prefix along with a short description and the URL will appear.

Users may edit the description or add their own comments. In addition, Twitty Tunes provides one click access to the user’s own Twitter page, to the Twitty Tunes homepage, and to the FoxyDJ Channel.

There is even an option that allows the user to change their Twitter password and to send feedback about the application.

Twitty Tunes allows users to expose their musical interests to a broad community of Tweeters. By utilizing Twitty Tunes, users may find that other Tweeters share similar interests and therefore make a connection with one another. People may begin to recommend other music the Twitty Tweeter may enjoy. For instance, if a user is in an unknown band in New Jersey and they Twitty the band’s songs on FoxyDJ, then other users may listen to the songs, and the unknown band’s music will spread to different regions of the world.

There are not many Twitter applications that compare to Twitty Tunes. It is a unique application that provides a distinctive service to its users. Blip.fm is similar to Twitty Tunes, but it is not an application. It is a website run independently from Twitter; however, Blip.fm has a similar interface as Twitter, and you can share your “blips” (the equivalent of a Tweet) on your Twitter page through the website. Twitty Tunes keeps the user connected to the entire Twittersphere, whereas, blip.fm is designed to be a contained community of music lovers.

Overall, I think Twitty Tunes is a valuable application. I think Twitty Tunes effectively connects users to other Tweeters with similar musical tastes. I think it would be interesting for Twitty Tunes to develop an auto-submit playlist feature, so that users can become their own DJ.

I have to agree with my classmate Zach Caruso's opinion, Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer, is by far my favorite book we have read in our class.  The author, Mr. Peter Turchi, chose one of the simplest metaphors for writing, map making.

It is so simple one wonders why no one has thought of using map making as a metaphor before Turchi.  He unfolds the metaphor further explaining that writing is comprised of two acts: exploration and presentation.  As writers, we are the reader's guide.  First we explore our writing, then we take readers on a tour.

One of the main reasons humans write is to make sense of the world.  Maps show geographically where we wish to go.  A piece of writing makes sense of a particular aspect of the world, just like a map makes sense the journey to go from here to there.

We begin with the blank page.  While most of us believe this is a beginning, that isn't necessarily the case.  One of the things I didn't realize before reading this was what the writer didn't include in their work is just as important as what the writer does include.  The great books tell us more by what they exclude rather than what they include because they require the reader to fill in the blanks.  A manuscript is like a map in that maps don't include all the features that replicate the geography the cartographer intends to copy.  If the map did, the map would be the area, instead of an approximate duplication.

Turchi tells us that one of the first lies of a map is that it is the truth.  This is also applicable to fiction.  Maps lie by telling us that it is in fact, what it represents.  The ability of a manuscript to convince us of the lie is within its authority which has little to do with objective reporting or getting the facts correct.

One of the most interesting metaphors Turchi addresses is the mediums with which information is passed.  Maps are usually created on two dimension posters or pieces of paper.  They are, however, representing three dimension images.  So, although they are not the actual thing they are representing, it is the map's purpose to convince us it is.  It is similar to when an artist draws an image of a person.  It is on a two dimensional canvas, yet to the image appears three dimensional.

A writer must decide what they are going to map, create a key to decode that map, and guide the reader along their journey without impeding the reader's progress.  Writing not only challenges us not just to select for telling and how to present it, but how to evoke, simultaneously, the "theater of the world".

All of this is extremely helpful to us because no matter what type of technology we are using, we still use writing to communicate to each other.  Instant messaging, Twitter, E-mail, Facebook, Myspace, all use writing to send the message we hope to send.

Maps of the Imagination; The Writer as Cartographer is an interesting book for anyone who would like to think about images and writing in a new way.  The first thing I noticed about the book was how the author included pieces from many other works; from maps, to art work, to book, and even poems.  I felt that this added a great deal of interest to this already interesting subject.  The book compares writing to forms of graphic representation, mainly maps.  It fully explores the concept that writers are cartographers and that both of them chose consciously or unconsciously what to put into their work and what to leave out.  These exemptions tell us just as much if not more than what is actually on the page.  To make his point the author Peter Turchi references a large number of other works including Robinson Crusoe, Treasure Island, Utopia, Lilliput, Brave New World, Invisible Cities, and many many more.  While I have read some of the books he talks about most I have not but would like to.  He does not however present them in a way that you had to have read them in order to understand his point.  They are only used to enhance or provide examples for what he is saying.

The author begins with a relatively basic idea.  That writing is usually thought of as exploration: some combination of premeditated searching and undisciplined, perhaps only partly conscious rambling…scribbling notes, considering potential scenes, lines, or images, inventing characters, even writing drafts…[And] Presentation. Applying knowledge, skill, and talent , we create a document meant to communicate with and have an effect on others.(Turchi 12) The author goes on to discuss the relationship that the creator, whether they are an author, poet, artist, cartographer, etc, has with their audience.  It does not matter what the person is describing they will still be doing it from their own point of view.  No matter how hard we work to be objective or faithful, we create.  That is not to say we get things wrong, but that, from the first word we write- even by choosing the language in which we write, and by choosing to write rather than to paint or sing- we are defining, delineating, the world that is coming into being. (Turchi 14) Everything from the order that things are presented to how much weight each thing is given is purposefully chosen by the author.  Every one describes things differently. Even if you are all describing the same object and because of that the reader will perceive the object differently.  This may not be of much importance if you are describing a tree in a novel, we all know what trees look like although the type of tree and condition vary greatly, but it is more important if you are making a map.