Tumblr narrowly beats Posterous in Mashable readers' poll

Who's the favorite in the "simple blogging" category? Well, in Mashable's neighborhood, Tumblr got 51% of the vote, with Posterous at a respectable 42%.

When we consider that Posterous is still somewhat wet behind the ears that's a really great showing. Leveraging what people already know to do, such as emailing and attaching photos, etc., is making Posterous a fave. Adding themes (including pulling in Tumblr's) is going to help, too.

Phone calls on Twitter?!

Twitter users on Thursday will, for the first time, be able to make voice calls directly to each other through the microblogging service.

A new third-party offering from Jajah known as Jajah@call is expected to go into beta Thursday morning that will allow Twitter users to initiate a two-way voice chat with other users by typing "@call @username"--where "username" is someone's Twitter ID--into any Twitter client. During the beta period, the company said, the calls will be limited to two minutes, but the company will evaluate that length during beta. However, it sees the two minute period--after which the call will end--as "the verbal equivalent of a tweet."


According to Jajah, an Internet communications provider with tens of millions of users, the service will allow a user to place a call to any other user, so long as the second person follows the first on Twitter and both have Jajah accounts. The service is free to use and is expected to work on any Twitter-enabled device, from PCs to smart phones.

Phone calls on Twitter? Blessing or nightmare - you decide.

Amazon terminates its North Carolina affiliates

Amazon has cut loose its affiliates in North Carolina rather than get hit with a new sales tax on items purchased on the Web. Domain Name Wire says it's a lose-lose-lose scenario:

Amazon gets less sales, affiliates lose income, and North Carolina doesn’t get the tax revenue it hoped for.

I hope my own state doesn't go down this path. I hope the current distress causes governments at every level to realize that taxing something can crush it out of existence.