Twitter ~ Create something that you want to see in the world!

Evan Williams, chief executive of the popular microblogging service, said he's focusing on making the service more useful, not on earning revenue
Mr. Williams founded several companies before Twitter, including the Blogger service that he eventually sold to Google. One lesson he has taken from them all: “Create something that you want to see in the world,” not what some M.B.A. brandishing a business plan suggests.
“I am motivated by the world telling me I am going to fail,” Mr. Williams told journalists gathered in San Francisco.

Even after snagging $100 million in new funding from investors, Mr. Williams seems to feel no pressure to come up with a revenue model for his popular service.
According to him, the company is focusing more on building value using different approach, such as through the new Twitter Lists, which will allow anyone to create a custom list of Twitter accounts that can be shared publicly or privately.
While lists are one step towards taming the chaos of Twitter, a robust search tool is even more important.
In an interview after his keynote presentation, Mr. Williams acknowledged that the current Twitter search engine is too basic and the company has a “significant search team” working on improving it. The next goal is to eliminate the duplicates and other “noise” that come up in most search queries.
Mr. Williams said recently, the company is also releasing a tool for developers Friday that will allow geographic locations to be embedded in tweets.
So there is a lot to look forward in future!

Microsoft ~ reprieve in Word case

Recently, in an appeal the court has granted Microsoft's request to put off an injunction that could have forced it to stop selling its Microsoft Word software next month.
In response to a case against Microsoft, centered on Lucent's claim that Microsoft Outlook's calendar function infringed one of its patents, Microsoft had appealed a court decision from mid-August that gave it 60 days to stop selling Word products that allow users to create custom XML documents.
The ruling, which also includes additional damages Microsoft must pay, stemmed from a patent infringement suit filed in 2007 by i4i. The court has ordered Microsoft to pay more than US$290 million in damages in total.
The most common versions of Word on the market now -- Word 2003 and Word 2007 -- both allow users to create custom XML documents. Custom XML lets people create forms or templates so that words in certain fields are tagged and can be managed in a database. The technology is used by large companies and government agencies.
If the appeals court ultimately upholds the injunction, Microsoft could potentially develop a workaround that avoids using the disputed technology or strip the capability from the products.
I4i's patent covers a technology that lets end-users manipulate document architecture and content. It filed its case in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, and the injunction had been set to begin on Oct. 10.
Microsoft said it was pleased with the appeals court decision and that it looks forward to presenting its case at a hearing on Sept. 23.