Calling all Twitter users

The Setting: Phone calling is coming to Twitter.

Using a third-party tool from Jajah, Twitter users will be able to make phone calls to each other through their twitter accounts. The person receiving the call must be a followerr of the person making the call and both must have Jajah accounts.

The service is expected to work on any Twitter-enabled device, from PCs to smart phones. During the beta period, the calls will be limited to two minutes which, according to Jajah, will be the "verbal equivalent of a tweet."

Why not just make a phone call? One of the features of this tool will allegedly be the ability to make the voice calls while keeping your cell phone number private from the people you chat with on Twitter. Hmm... we'll see.

Read the article about phone calling coming to Twitter here.

Voice chat coming to Facebook

The Setting: So does this mean I will be able to talk to other gangsters right before I kill them in Mob Wars? Woot!

Using a plug-in from Vivox, Facebook users will soon be able to voice chat one-on-one or hold large group discusions with anyone on their friends list. Vivox is the company that provides integrated voice service for virtual worlds Second Life and EVE Online. I occasionally use the voice feature within Second Life and the quality is very good. Non-Facebook users will be able to call in to existing conversations using free dial-in numbers.

I'm curious to see how people will use this feature in Facebook. I'm envisioning that instead of just using the text chat feature to communicate with my niece who's in college on the other side of the country, we could switch to the voice feature and have an actual conversation. For free, without cutting into precious cell phone minutes. Pretty cool. According to the article, the voice can also be integrated into any of the third-party Facebook applications, such as games.

When this feature becomes available, I'll definitely check it out. Click here to read the article about this upcoming feature.

Tweetdeck adds Facebook and MySpace

The Setting: Tweetdeck is a free client that helps you more easily filter your Twitter messages. It's one of the many tools out there that makes Twitter a lot more manageable.

Tweetdeck has been updated to allow it to work more smoothly with Facebook and MySpace. I don't use MySpace but the Facebook feature is really cool. You can now see more than just your friends' status updates. You can see their Likes and Comments, you can click Like, make comments, and write on someone's wall, all from within Facebook.

The updated Tweetdeck makes it easy to drag photos and links to the composing window. It then automatically shortens the URLs for you. I'm still discovering all the features, but I really like it so far. I'll let you know about any other cool things I learn.

Here's where you can download Tweetdeck for free. Here's some more information about updated Tweetdeck.

Cool iPhone Apps

The Setting: One of the reasons I want an iPhone is because of the cool apps. I'm a geek, you see.

Here are some favorite iPhone apps from some tech enthusiasts. I've heard of Bump and I think it's pretty cool. I've also heard of Geocaching, although I don't fully understand it. Yet.