• Opera MAMA – a sneak peek at early results for headings, images and summary.
• Combining title and alt text on images – from David Dorward. Just say “no” I say.
• Standards.Next – Informal bootcamps about tomorrow’s web standards today (yes, today) kicks off with an HTML meetup June 27th after @Media in London.
• Appetite for China – I know I have. Proper authentic recipes…
• Refreshable braille displays on the web – a video demo from Bruce Maguire – who took on the Sydney Olympics website for being inaccessible and won.
• Vote Richard Madeley for Speaker of the House of Commons – Come on, he needs a new job and we need a new speaker.

• Brain Twitter interface -  Helping people who have ALS, brain-stem stroke or high spinal cord injury Similar to Brainfingers Tweet.
• Fuck the foundries – From Mark Pilgim, who’s had enough of restrictions of use of web fonts. “Open distribution always wins” say one commenter – discuss. If you want a list of non-proprietary fonts there’s always Open Font Library.
• Everything you need to know about browser testing- some quick tips on cross-browser testing, not forgetting YUI’s graded browser support.
• Jaws scripting accessibility link: recently Bruce Lawson put forward a suggestion for rel=accessibility in HTML5. Leonie Watson have put together a Jaws script that enables the user to move backwards and forwards between links with the rel=”accessibility” attribute value. Yay Leonie!

And finally Careless Whisper from the Gossip…who rock.

A few weeks ago I twittered about having a CSUN Tweetup thinking there couldn’t be a better time to get some of some the best people in the business together to talk Twitter, social networking and accessibility.

Before I knew it Jared Smith and Mike Paciello were on board and hey presto we have a CSUN Tweetup website, a time and a place:

Date: March 18th
Time: 6 – 7.30 pm
Place: Los Angeles Airport Marriott, Executive Suite 2, 18th Floor

We’ll be holding 5 minute lightning talks in anything covering the accessibility ot Twitter, social networking or evangelising over Twitter. If you want to come then simply let us know via Twitter using the hash tag #csun09.

If you can’t make it worry not as the  Tweetup will be webcast and real-time captioned, thanks to CSUN and LetsGoExpo! Many thanks also to the Opera Developer Network who are sponsoring this together with Jared Smith from WebAim and Mike Paciello from The Paciello Group.

Kudos also goes to Jared who slaved away at putting together the website over the weekend.

Quite often when I blog I Tweet about it and get lots of lovely feedback via Twitter but not so much on my blog. Feedback of any sort is great but I kind of wish that it was on the blog so others could read and comment on it too.

So, dare I ask, has Twitter  killed commenting?

Update 29 June, 2009: As some sort of compensation Comment Catcher has come to the rescue. This is a handy plugin for all blogging platforms that allows you to capture comments linking to your blog from Twitter, Friendfeed and Identi.ca. Not a bad alternative when trying to keep an eye on everything. That said, you need to keep an eye on what it publishes otherwise you get a long list of retweets which doesn’t make for great reading so it’s worth deleting them and keeping bone fide comments in tweets only.

Burma’s Junta have worked hard to keep access to the country by foreign nationals limited while the epicentre of China’s earthquake, Wenchuan, tucked away in the hills has meant that no news was forthcoming for days due to collapsed passes and mountainous terrain preventing even helicopters landing there. Power outages have also meant that making calls to find loved ones has been impossible. Texting and Tweeting however has been far more accessible.

In China in particular news posted by Chinese Twitterer’s has been phenomenal not just in terms of information but also reporting opinion and comment on how the government have responded to the disaster; people’s voices are coming through loud and clear. Having lived in China and considering it my second home, following people Twittering from China has given me a huge sense of connectedness that I’ve not felt before outside of China.

Just as I, as an individual, am following closely what is happening in China, the Chinese government is equally aware of scrutiny from other countries on the eve of the Olympics. Coverage on Chinese Central Television (CCTV) has been constant beaming not just images of the quake but also Premier Wen Jiabao visiting Chungdu, the capital of Sichuan province, within days. Something Bush infamously didn’t do after hurricane Katrina struck in New Orleans.

What’s important to remember however is that access to this news from these inaccessible places using Twitter would not be possible without the use of mobile phones. In countries such as China mobile phone usage is significantly higher than access to the web via desktops. Despite Chinese subscribers to Twitter numbering less than 3000, when traffic peaked in the days immediately following the quake on May 12th, Twitter played a disproportionately large role in the dissemination of first hand information. As reported by Rory Cellen-Jones on the BBC blog:

Let’s see, as this story unfolds, whether this is the moment when Twitter comes of age as a platform which can bring faster coverage of a major news event than traditional media, while allowing participants and onlookers to share their experiences.

It’s not just a comparison to traditional media that is relevant however but also Twitter’s unique ability to enable more people to simultaneously broadcast to the world faster than any other channel on the web. This, combined with being able to Tweet on the move using mobiles, is what really gives Twitter it’s edge.

Sources

• If you’re interested in listening in to what’s being said in China right now check out the Twittervision’s China page.
• For quality Tweets follow Fuzheado, Shanghaiist, Niubi and Shizhao (if you read Chinese).
• For in-depth analysis of how Twitter was used in China during the quake check out The Chinese earthquake and Twitter: crowdsourcing without managers.
• For discussion on the future of Twitter see Why Twitter matters.