All Black suffers Twitter withdrawal

Self-confessed tweeting fanatic, All Blacks winger Cory Jane, said Monday he was suffering severe withdrawal pangs after the team management imposed a Twitter ban until the end of the Rugby World Cup.

Although he's stopped sending messages, Jane said he's constantly checking his account.

"I'm battling. I'm checking it like every 10 minutes just to see what people are writing and what's going on. It's starting to hurt but rules are rules," he said.

"The worst thing about it is when somebody writes something you just want to answer and let them know... but we're not allowed to."

Jane's tweeting has landed him in trouble with the All Blacks in the past, notably when he revealed in 2009 he had not been selected for a Test against England 24 hours before the team was officially released.

Coach Graham Henry admitted then he did not know what Twitter was and "thought it was a new guy playing five-eighth (fly-half) for England."

Jane said that while he struggled with the ban on responding to the many messages he received, he was not tempted to use a pseudonym because of the consequences of being caught.

"I'm not going to do that. I don't want to get kicked out first of all. I'll just abide by the rules and keep checking it every 10 minutes."

Meanwhile, the England team management have told their players they can tweet during the September 9-October 23 tournament as long as they don't reveal team selections, criticise the management or taunt the opposition.

Xbox 360 Dashboard: Facebook, Twitter, Last.fm, and Zune!

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Isn't there anything that Social Network Services (SNS) like Facebook, Twitter, etc. won't touch? It's not a surprise that tech, social, and gaming geeks have come full circle in Microsoft's Xbox 360 Dashboard coming soon.

Facebook's even better on Xbox 360!

From what I gathered from Joystick's preview is that the Facebook integration is even better on the Xbox 360 than it is on the PC!

Whereas the dot com site is plagued by a sluggish AJAX design, the Xbox app loads photos and galleries instantly, making it much faster and easier to browse through your friend's pics. On the Facebook website, you'll see ads clutter the screen as you browse individual photos. On the Xbox, however, each photo gets the full-screen treatment, with captions minimally presented at the top of the screen.

What's even better is that in the future, games will autopost via "Facebook Connect" all your game achievements and gameplay videos. Talk about bragging to the world that you've pawned the biggest and baddest boss in the game, eh?

Twitter's a small bird, Last.fm's ok, Zune Marketplace rocks!

Twitter is such a big phenomenon online but in the Xbox 360, it amounts to nothing more than a vanilla version of itself. Yes, you can post and read your friend's status and trending topics but that's it. No clicking on links nor viewing pictures. Ouch.

Another "why bother" is the installation of Last.fm. You can listen to music and view slideshows of the band/performer but there's no way you'll be playing music while playing a game. Sorry but you can't listen to your fave Barry Manilow song while killing zombies.

Besides Facebook, the saving grace of Xbox 360 seems to be the Zune Marketplace. Video and music downloaded to your Xbox 360 and then transferred to your Zune. Sorry rental lovers but this is only for purchased items only. If you don't have a Zune, you can still watch movies running at 1080p--yep streaming movies! It's not a Sony DVD Blu-ray killer (yet!) as the quality is not yet as high.

Source