Twtr has scale probs. At SXSW, twtr netperf :( Cook said SXSW wifi :(, but 30 twtr srvrs not enuf. http://tiny.cc/UEbhb

Okay, that's borderline incomprehensible. We won't be doing that again.

As the Macworld article linked above shows, there was a problem at SXSW with people sending and receiving twitter messages. Twitter founder Blaine Cook claimed that the WiFi of SXSW was being overloaded (which is one network performance issue) but added that Twitter - with 30 servers and adding more - is having trouble scaling to handle the network demand.

There's more to the SXSW coverage, which includes the OpenMoko and an encouragement to pay attention to what happens in government if you plan to work with mobile platforms in any respect, which is good advice - we said as much a while back. What seems to be interesting is that the mobile phone providers - including Apple - want to lock down everything that they don't directly control on their platforms, when in reality, it would be simpler, and more useful, simply to use prioritization and QoS to make sure the network runs smoothly.

I think mobile computing is here on the consumer end - we see Japan using cellphones more than computers for all types of communication - but the United States remains technologically inert with advances coming slowly, in fits and spurts. This is mostly because of the desire of cellphone companies to create very limited services - so that they can charge app developers for the right to use their phone network, and can charge consumers more for the right to use those services.