Kevin Kwak’s Blog

I been itching to write about Twitter, fast-growing microblogging website few months ago. Like many other social networking users (i.e. Facebook, Myspace, etc.), I did not know what the fuss was. Twitter did not have any unique feature that made me want to hop on its bandwagon. But months passed and after playing with Twitter.com, I realized why it has gained substantial “followings” and growth momentum early 2009.

Twitter.com founders did not define a single purpose on how to use Twitter and you’ll discover numerous ways to use Twitter. It is easy to get started: register your account by providing your name, username, password, and an e-mail address. Then go confirm the registration by clicking on the Twitter e-mail in your inbox. You are set to start tweeting which means to post new updates.

You can then search for your friends via the ‘Find People’ link on the top navigation. Four ways to find people you know: Find on Twitter (type in their name), Find on other networks (logon into Facebook and email accounts), Invite by email (type in friend’s email), and Suggested Users. All self explanatory.

Unlike Facebook where friendship is mutual, Twitter is one way. You actually follow the person and he/she may or may not follow you back. Celebrities and renowned authors tend to follow only their colleagues and not strangers. Most of the times, when you follow an individual, they will follow you back. It is up to you whether you want to follow that person because their tweets (updates) will now be visible in the twitter timeline. So it would not make sense if you follow someone that updates irrelevant posts that does not interest you. On the other hand, if you’re the one that wants to deliver your post (contents) to as much number possible, you want to follow as much twitters and hope they follow you back.

Twitter allows you to post a maximum 140 characters in your tweets. Therefore most tweeters shorten their web links (URL) to fit within the 140 character limit, and Twitter does it automatically for you if you decide to post the URL directly. One major downside to shorten URL is that the end user who clicks on the URL does not know where they are being redirected to because the shortened URL link does not reveal the destination. In the past and even in the month of April, people with bad intentions abuse twitter by sending the twitter user to a malicious virus-infested website, or send self-replicating computer program to deliver spams to twitter accounts. Twitter has been on alert mode looking for worms and other illegal activities.

Desktop programs like Tweetdeck is an alternative to using Twitter on your desktop and not on the website. Tweetdeck is free to download, available for both PC and MAC, and has lot of cool features.
* Tweet directly from TweetDeck
* Stay up to date – view all new tweets in real-time
* Use columns to create your personal dashboard
* Create Groups to easily follow friends, colleagues or other interest groups
* Update Facebook and follow your Facebook friends
* Follow topics in real-time with saved searches
* View @replies and direct messages and manage your conversations
* Never miss an important tweet with notifications
* Share your photos and videos with Twitpic and 12seconds
* And many more Twitter favourites including Stocktwits, Twitscoop and all the most popular URL shortening services

The other popular way to use Twitter is via your mobile device. You can tweet directly from your cell phone by sending in a text message to 40404. You need to configure the mobile setting in your Twitter account to use this. There are over dozen other free programs to tweet on your cellphone (google “Twitter mobile”). For those that have a Facebook account and currently use T-Mobile wireless service, you probably know that you CAN NOT configure Facebook Mobile because T-Mobile is not one of the service providers. I found out that Facebook has a Twitter application where you can connect the two so that Twitter mobile updates will also appear as a Facebook status update. This can be quite useful for T-Mobile users.

EDIT: If you know where I can watch the past episodes of “Idea How Much,” please send me a message. Thank you in advance!

A late night television show I watch is a Korean “pitch your entrepreneurial idea to the CEO” show on a Directv channel. For those that have the Korean channel package, the show is broadcast by Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) and is on channel 2081 Thursday at around 10:20pm PST.

An inventor is invited to the show “Idea How Much” with their new invention and the goal is to pitch their idea at the highest market price to a group of corporate Chief Executive Officers (CEO). There are exactly 20 CEO sitting on the assigned section awaiting for the live auction. Did you just say auction? The inventor briefly introduces and demonstrates their invention, and the auction begins with the help of a female auctioneer. The CEOs decide beforehand whether they want to participate in the bidding and will compete with each other to claim the rights to the acquired idea. Eventually two CEO are engaged in a bidding war.

Three hours prior to the auction broadcast, the group of CEO gets a chance to listen and watch a demonstration by the inventor. Questions are asked as well as feedback provided to the inventor, and then the CEOs decide whether they will bid on the idea and what their maximum bid amount would be. The last point is crucial because when you are in one of the 20 hot seats engaged on a bidding war, they can get carried away. But I doubt that would ever happen.

Qualifications
In popular Korean shows, the program director (PD) carefully selects the participants to come to their show to increase the show ratings by making it more enjoyable to watch. But in “Idea How Much,” there are three product analysts that calculates the estimated market value of the given invention and determine if there is a potential market to sell the product(s) to. Meeting this few requirement would qualify the inventor into the show. Surely there will be hundreds of applications to get on the show but only the selected few with excellent ideas will get accepted. And many of these ideas fetch into the six to seven digits category because of the potential marketability of the idea. We’re talking worldwide sales and not only in South Korea.

In a recent episode I watched, an inventor introduced a bed pillow that produced relaxing music to help the user get a better sleep. The pillow was unique as only the user themselves can hear the sound and the person next to it won’t hear a thing. A small controller was attached to the pillow so that the user can control the volume and change the music being played. An experiment took place using the invention with six subjects that had difficulty sleeping either from a nightmare, insomnia, or other sleeping disorder. Four of the subjects went into a deep sleep, one had a good light sleep, and only one could not get a good sleep. The fascinating part of the experiment is that the pillow actually helped young students improve their memorization skill after getting a quick nap using the pillow. There are scientific studies that daytime nap do improve mental sharpness and this pillow is like the ultimate tool to restore it. The results impressed several of the CEO.

The online research still continues as I prepare for this year’s triathlon. My training schedule has not been finalized yet as I had other priority work that needed my time. I did though manage to find out the second triathlon I might register for depending on my physical condition by March. Why March? The registration for the Nautica Malibu Triathlon opens on March 2, 2009 online. And the race date is Sunday, September 20th, 2009. Funny thing is several years ago, I completed both my first and second marathon race in the very same year: 20th Los Angeles Marathon and 1st Las Vegas Marathon. I might as well complete my first and second triathlon this year too!

The Nautica Malibu Triathlon is sponsored by Toyota which is also one of the sponsors for the Los Angeles Triathlon. The triathlon is a half-mile ocean swim, an 18 mile out-and-back bike course, and a 4-mile run. The triathlon starts off at the beautiful Zuma beach, then you transition into biking where you get to ride on the pacific coast highway right next to the beautiful pacific ocean, and finally transition into the running course which is also on the pacific coast highway. How awesome is that! September will be nice and sunny.

The registration fee is $125 plus $10 for non-USAT (USA Triathlon) members. I was also looking into getting a full wetsuit for the triathlon races and the entry level wetsuit starts at around $150. So was a wetsuit really necessary and was wondering if I could also use it for surfing if I pick up in the future but unfortunately the material of triathlon wetsuit is too thin for surfing and diving as they can rupture or tear.

Can you believe how nice the weather is here in Southern California in this time of the year? I just love the sunny outdoors and can’t imagine living in the east coast because of the freezing weather. So I am staring outside at work and wishing how I could get in the car, go to the beach and ride a bike next to the pacific ocean.

I finally made the decision to physically train hard this year to participate in the 10th Anniversary Los Angeles Triathlon taking place in Venice Beach down to Los Angeles Downtown Nokia Theatre LA Live. I have high anticipation for this event as it is my first triathlon competition and the last time I participated in a high endurance sports was the 20th Los Angeles Marathon.

The Los Angeles Triathlon offers various categories (self-explanatory) for its competitions:

Individual-Olympic Distance
Individual-Sprint Distance
Relays (sprint and olympic)
Professional
Elite Amateur-Olympic Distance
Collegiate
High School Student
Bike Event Only

I am signing up for the Individual-Sprint Distance. The difference between Olympic and the Sprint Distance is the distances. Sprint triathlon consists of 0.47 mile swim, 12.4 miles bicycling, and 3.1 miles running. The Olympic is twice the distance of the Sprint triathlon (0.93 mile, 24.8 miles bicycling, 6.2 miles running).

Since this will be my first attempt to complete this high endurance physical sports, I been perusing the internet for every useful information: beginner’s training, nutrition, training schedule, and the right equipments. Speaking of equipments, this is not a cheap sports to partake as I will lay down the estimated costs to completing the Sprint triathlon.

Registration fee = $150
Wetsuit = $100-200
Bicycle = $300-500
Bicycle Helmet = $50
Running Shoes = $100
Sun Glasses/Cap = $100
GPS/Heart Monitor/Watch = $200
Training Book = $20
Food and Supplement Nutrients = N/A

I don’t know if I want to invest in all the above items because I may not continue this sports after 2009 but who knows, they say you get hooked on it after your first triathlon. This is a rough estimate and who knows how much the food alone would costs. Triathletes must have proper nutrition and we eat a lot throughout the training days. A wetsuit is optional but the majority do use one to trim down their time. The temperature in the month of October may be a bit too chilly though to swim shirtless so there is a slight chance that I need to pick one up and if I do, I can happily use it for surfing and other ocean activities in the future.

Being a neophyte, the swimming aspect is most frightening because I have not experienced ocean swimming for half a mile straight. Better start on those calf and hamstring stretches because I sure don’t want leg cramps in the middle of the ocean swimming.

My brother has been volunteering for the Kollaboration non-profit organization for many months and one of his responsibilities is to get the word out. The volunteers and staffs are preparing countless hours to bring this yet another soon to be SOLD-OUT event for the Los Angeles people.

Saturday, February 21, 2009 at the Shrine Auditorium
Singers, comedians, dancers, rappers, poets, musicians, videos, celebrity guests, celebrity judges, and much more. Our flagship show in Los Angeles this coming February will be an electrifying experience.
Tickets to our 2008 show at the Orpheum sold out weeks before the show.
www.kollaboration.org

Kollaboration have been very active in promoting the non-profit organizations through this exciting and memorable events in different parts of the United States. Kollaboration events are being held in major cities like Los Angeles (CA), Chicago (IL), New York (NY), Toronto (ON, Canada), Atlanta (GA), and Washington D.C.

Each and every year, Kollaboration tickets are sold out sooner than you think. The event is two months away from today so be sure to order and reserve your tickets soon as possible. The ticket price also includes a Kollaboration Acoustic CD!
http://www.kollaboration.org/Tickets/Los-Angeles/PK-Tickets.html. I have not gone to one of the past Kollaboration but I might have to look forward to this. See you at the Shrine Auditorium!