Trending Topic is pretty useful for finding out what’s happening. Although most of the time it is filled with nonsense hashtag meme, there are time also time when Trending Topics reflect the latest breaking news. It is also good for finding out what event is happening. But for a country like Singapore, it is quite hard to get a local breaking news or events on the Worldwide trending topics.

Which is why a Singapore Trending Topic list is good news for us. Now it’s easier to discover what’s happening in Singapore.

But here’s the thing…. most of the Singapore Trending Topic are entertainment news related. To be exact, mostly kpop related. This could be because of the large number of local Twitter users being Kpop fans. A lot of Kpop celebrities use Twitter to communicate with their fans.

But that could also be because there isn’t much event happening in Singapore lately. Wait till we have events like Barcamp Singapore. Or during the election period. I’m pretty sure tthe Twitter Trending Topics will be put into better use.

That email itself looks like a phishing email. But it isn’t. It is really from Twitter and they really reset my password. That’s why I couldn’t login to Twitter.

NOTE: If you got similar email, I suggest that you do not click on the link. Instead, go to Twitter website directly and reset your password manually. Just to be safe, since you are not the person who requested for the password reset.

Mashable reports that this could be linked to @THCx user on Twitter. That explains why I was following that account yesterday morning when I’ve never seen that nick before. I didn’t thought that my account was compromised. I just thought that it might be a bug or I might have accidentally click follow. (Or some stupid website that makes me automatically follow their Twitter account after I use them)

I didn’t thought about reporting them or anything. Damn. Now I feel stupid. How could I just ignore this common symptom of a compromised account?

Twitter updated it’s status blog on what happen. It appears that for a number of years, a person has been creating torrent sites that require a login and password as well as creating forums set up for torrent site usage and then selling these purportedly well-crafted sites and forums to other people innocently looking to start a download site of their very own. However, these sites came with a little extra — security exploits and backdoors throughout the system. This person then waited for the forums and sites to get popular and then used those exploits to get access to the username, email address, and password of every person who had signed up. Additional exploits to gain admin root on forums that weren’t created by this person also appear to have been utilized; in some instances, the exploit involved redirecting attempts to access the forums to another site that would request log-in information. This information was then used to attempt to gain access to third party sites like Twitter.

Hmmm….. I don’t remember registering for any torrent forums. But it’s quite hard for me to pin-point which forum is that since they said the person might have waited for a number of years. Maybe I’ve registered for one several years ago but I forgot?

WHAT I do know is that I should change all my password. Serve me right for reusing my password for some accounts. This is bad bad IT practice. I know. They taught me in school. Never reuse your password for different websites login. I just choose to ignore it. Tsk tsk.

OK, you may laugh at me in the comment section.

Anyway, good news for all Indonesians Twitter users. Axis has partnered with Twitter to bring SMS notification to all Axis users. Well, you need to pay Rp 1500 per week. But that’s just S$0.22 per week! Wow.

Starhub also have similar service call MobiTweet. It’s free from now till 31 Dec 2009. After that, it will cost $5.35 per month. The only problem is that you can only receive SMS updates from up to 10 people that you are following. Oh well, better than nothing right?

I still remember there isn’t any twitter trend back then. No search. No RT and hashtag. No mobile site for twitter so all updates have to be done either via web browser or SMS to a UK number which cost $0.15. It is only until May 2007 that Twitter has a mobile site. And I didn’t have a data plan back then.

I still remember promoting twitter to my friends. Some of them love the service while other just didn’t get the hang of it. It’s harder to “sell” twitter back then because we still don’t know what’s the use of twitter other than broadcasting what you are doing. Things changed quite a bit over the past 3 years. Twitter has become an important tool, more than just updating what you are doing.

Oh, you might be wondering, what is my first tweet. Well, if you are expecting something interesting, sorry to disappoint you. My first tweet is rather boring. But then, that’s what most tweet are about back in the early days.

Its raining now….. And I’m suppose to go back to office. Argh

And I have no idea why am I going back to office on a Saturday afternoon. Oh, I remember why I went back to office on a Saturday afternoon. Fight fire, like I always do.

According to Twitter status page, Twitter is experiencing Denial Of Service attack. You should be able to access Twitter now, but there might be some slowness or time out as the hardworking staff are hard at work trying to fend off the hackers.

Interesting. I didn’t know that Twitter has a Twitter status page. For me, I usually go to Plurk to check if Twitter is down. You’ll surely find someone who report that Twitter is down on plurk. And yeap, that where all the Twitter withdrawal syndrome people go when Twitter is down.

PS: There are some reports that Livejournal and Facebooks are also experiencing some issues although I didn’t face any problems accessing them.

Usually, the downtime will be at those wee hours so that not many users are affected. (And also torture the technical guy) But for a site that has users all over the world, there isn’t a thing call wee hours. Wee hour at one part of the world can be peak hour at another part of the world. So usually they will either take the wee hour of the part of the world where the site is created or wee hour for most users. But not this case for Twitter.

In a very interesting move, Twitter and their webhost NTT America Enterprise Hosting Services (Not related to our NTT) decides to reschedule the downtime to 2pm PST. That means it would be 2pm in San Francisco, 5pm in New York and 10pm in London. Not an issue for Singapore since it would be 5am here. Its an interesting move since most countries are still awake when the server is down for maintenance.

The reason is very simple. Twitter is currently playing as an important communication tool in Iran due to the elections. The 2pm PST downtime is chosen because it will be 1am in Iran. (assuming that there won’t be much breaking news at 1am.)

Good move Twitter and NTT America.

Update: It was the US State Department that requested Twitter to postpone the server maintenance. Thanks to Tony for informing me about this.

Wait…. it’s not end of the world yet. We are still alive. Twitter is still up and running. I’m still blogging at Starbucks while drinking a cup of Mocha. SO what is Twitpocalypse?

Twitpocalypse is like the Y2K bug of Twitter. Each tweet has an unique identifier associated to it. The number has exceeded 2,147,483,647 recently on 13 June 2009 at 7:52:04am Singapore time. 2,147,483,647 is the maximum value for a 32-bit signed integer in computing. While twitter itself can handle this scenario, some 3rd party application using twitter might have problem.

Which explains why my favorite iPhone Twitter application, Twitterrific, isn’t working since yesterday morning.

Life is painful without Twitterrific. I tried going back to web based on my iPhone but I miss the interface and features on Twitterrific. I tried installing other Twitter clients on iPhone which is not affected by the Twitpocalypse, but the look and feel are just not the same. I still love Twitterrific.

Let’s hope Twitterrific release a bug fix on Apps store soon.

This Twitpocalypse raise a minor concern. While it is impossible for all developers to cover all aspect and prevent bug like this from happening, there is a need for a central warning system (maybe via newsletter). This will provide developers early warning about potential problems like this and allow them to fix the code before it happens. All sites that open their APIs to 3rd party developers should have such a warning system.

Recently, I saw this new application for twitter call TwtBizCard. Its a cool way to exchange Business card with fellow Twitter users. All you need is to go to their website and fill in your details. The site allows you to enter details like Your company, position, address, country, office, fax and mobile number and email address.

To send someone your TwtBizCard, all you need to do is to write a tweet reply to the person you want to send your tweet card, a short message (optional) and a hashtag #twtbizcard. The person would be able too access TwtBizCard website to view your Business Card.

I think this is a great application. Pretty useful during Tweetup or social media networking event. And its environmental friendly too. Your privacy is also protected. If you didn’t send someone your TwtBizCard, the person won’t be able to see your address, phone number and email.

Somehow, this sort of reminds me of the good old days when PalmOS devices are still very popular. It’s common for people to use their PDA to beam Business Card to each other, especially during those Palm Beaming Gathering (PBG). Really missed those days.

So if you are active on the Social Media scene, why not give TwtBizCard a try. It’s a great way to exchange contacts. Save the trees while impressing some hot babes on Twitter.

PS: This also reminds me of a device call Poken which Preetam showed me couple weeks back. Well, that’s for another blog entry.

Sorry, but whenever someone post a #followfriday tweet, all I see is a long list of twitter-ers whom the person thinks is interesting. But I have no idea why that person is interesting and why I would also be interested in following that person’s tweet.

I was thinking, instead of posting a long list of people whom you think is interesting, why not just post one person per tweet and have a brief intro on the person and why you think he/she is worth following.

Here is my first #followfriday tweet which I did last Friday.

This is the first time I do #followfriday. @siewkumhong. I really respect him for his contribution as Nominated Member of Parliament.

Would this be better compared to just listing out twitter-ers whom you think is interesting?

Its interesting to see a shopping mall using Twitter to update followers on the events and promotion at the shopping mall. Things like “Get a limited edition Uniqlo bag with a minimum $150 purchase” and “loves the jazz band at the atrium. Last performance for the day is at 8pm“. Wait, there is a Jazz band performing at Tampines 1? How come I didn’t see it during my last visit? Maybe should check it out. But Tampines 1 is very far from Jurong West leh.

Good to have a shopping mall like Tampines 1 make use of Twitter and new media. They mentioned that they are new to Twitter and still trying to learn new media. I think they are doing a good job. Let’s hope they continue to update this twitter account after the initial hype. Oh ya, Tampines 1 have a blog too.