We keep coming up with useful tools at Fon Labs. Today it´s Twitxr. But before explaining Twitxr let me share with you what we do at Fon Labs.

By now all the different Fon Labs experimental products have been used by over a million people and all this work is mostly done by Victor and Albert Martin and myself with help with the rest of the Fon team (around 40 developers who we prefer that stay focused building the largest WiFi community in the world!). Many readers of my English and Spanish blogs have asked me why would Fon fund such a lab and how does this help Fon grow and make money. My answer is twofold. The first one is that I believe that what matters most in tech businesses is to experiment, and then sometimes money follows. Generally if you experiment hard enough and with smart enough people….money always follows. Secondly even if money does not directly follow on Fon Labs products these services promote Fon and that has value to Fon as a global brand as well. For example when we improved upon TinyURL by creating Fon.gs or Fon gets simple which is like TinyURL but you get to choose exactly what you want that TinyURL to be (for example www.fon.gs/empirestate) then all URLS say Fon and we get promoted while providing a service more memorable than TinyURL. Cause tinyurl is great but who cares if http://www.flickr.com/photos/martinvars/2237775222/ this long URL becomes http://tinyurl.com/ysvrjh. I can´t remember ysvrjh. Instead for me it´s easier if it becomes www.fon.gs/menorcatalk cause at least I know that that link takes me to a picture of the Menorca Talk. And that´s just one example. At Fon Labs we have also made a lot of improvements to Gmail. We made possible to send old emails from other email systems to Gmail with the Fon Uploader We made it possible to store spreadsheets, pictures, songs, word files and all sorts of files in Gmail with Gspace a tool used by half a million people and we even created Fonbackup a way to back up entire folders again using Gmail as the storage platform. And we keep coming with useful stuff. We have UnfoldingNews which is a search engine for news as they unfold. For example now that we just launched Twitxr I will follow it in unfolding news. Last week we launched Webhotornot which we just renamed Okorko (thanks for the reader who recommended the name change). Okorko is new website that acts as a start up discovery platform in which users vote if a new web site is OK or KO (dead) and we got over 60K people using it already. It all started as a practical joke on Hotornot fooling around with my friend David Sifry and now it has over 170K votes.

And how do we work at Fonlabs? Well somebody has an idea and we either kill it or go on with it. And now we are launching Twitxr, a collaborative project of Victor, Albert, myself and Pietro Saccomani and soon….you.

What happened with Twitxr is that we were looking at Twitter and… we all love Twitter. But the problem Twitter has for Fon is that Fon loves bandwidth intensive apps. We love them because WiFi is all about heavy bandwidth use. WiFi shows best for movies, TV, games, music, pictures. GPRS or EDGE for example work well with text and Twitter is text so why would you really need Fon to Twit? So we came up with a more bandwidth intensive twit and we called it to TWITX and we called the site Twitxr. We hope you like it.

Twitxr is like Twitter but with pictures and geolocalization. The idea is very simple, you take a picture with your iPhone or other device, you write something related to the picture and this picture gets posted on the Twitxr site where you have your followers. So your followers in Twitxr can get just text (but for that you´d better just use Twitter) or text with a picture and geolocalization. What is also interesting is that your “twitx” also gets posted as a “twit” with a link both to Twitter and to Twitxr so people can read your text in Twitter but see your picture and text in Twitxr (and in my case they started appearing in my blog). So if Twitter answers the question of what are you doing now (which I never answer in my twits but I will in my Twitxs including pix), Twitxr answers what you are doing, plus gives an image of how you are doing it or who you are doing it with. And not only that but Twitxr takes information directly from your mobile device and tells WHERE you are doing it. Moreover all this goes in your Facebook as well so your friends get the Twitxs. They get at once a pix, plus your geolocalization, plus your text message.

So in order to prove the concept of Twitxing we started with the iPhone. The liberated iPhones are a great proof of concept for Twitxr (the iPhone tanked til it was open now over a million are estimated to be liberated) cause they have WiFi that works great with another Fon app the iFon app that turns your iPhone into a roaming WiFi device where there are many Fonspots (like in Tokyo). So with WiFi you can send your pictures to Twitxr very, very quickly. Also thanks to cell providers the iPhone also has some rudimentary geolocalization so that is tagged to the Twitx. So if you are lucky enough to have a liberated iPhones you can install iTwitxr from the installer (we may soon just call it Twitxr) and open an account in Twitxr and start twitxing away. And you can choose to just Twitx, or you can Twitx and Twit simultaneously, or you can do a triple whammy and Twitx, twit and Facebook all in one shot. If you use Facebook then your Twitxrs are shared with your friends who see the text, the picture and where you are. But you can of course also use Twitxr with any picture from any computer. You upload the picture to the Twitxr site and say what you want to say and your twitx is ready.

We hope you like this very beta product and give us ideas on how to improve it!

Last week I had lunch with Dan Dubno in NYC and it was a gadget fest. My kids were there, they loved Dan. And I loved that old phone handset that is really Bluetooth and works fab with my Blackberry. I owe you a better picture of it. The other two weird gadgets are surreal. One turns all TVs off wherever you are and the other one cuts all telephone conversations. Yeah! Screw others when they stand on the way to silence.

Of everyone I know I am probably the person who knows how to do the most things….badly. Allow me to explain. I am like a perennial amateur. Ok, one thing I seemingly do well which is to have original ideas, like Fon and turn them into businesses. And that I do well. Maybe not Michael Dell well, but well enough to have started and sold 3 businesses for over half a billion. But other than that I am an amateur at so many things that I love to do but others do better!

The list is enormous. I love to cook and I cook reasonably well, very fast, people enjoy my food but of course there are so many better chefs than I am. I was also a diplomat for 4 years representing Argentina during its worst crisis. And I did what I could, in the States some still call me Ambassador cause once an Ambassador always an Ambassador in the States, but frankly, how can an Ambassador be a blogger? I was not a good Ambassador because I like to tell what I believe in. So much for being a diplomat. And what about being a Jet pilot? Yes, I am a pilot with a private pilot license and I did my Citation Jet certification. I had to pass 11 exams, take many classes and I can fly a Jet. But of course I am a so so pilot compared to most jet pilots. I have no doubt that most jet pilots are better than I am, still I greatly enjoy piloting my plane. And how about sailing? I have sailed since I was a teenager, I sail around 30 days per year in the Mediterranean or the Caribbean and I am studying to be the skipper of my 92 ft sailboat that I have had for 8 years. And I do know a lot about sailing and my sailboat but I know very little compared with professional crews. Still I know enough and can sail my boat from an island to another island. And by next summer I will have my skipper title. Again an amateur.

And the list goes on. I write for newspapers, magazines and have been writing for them since I was in college when I was a correspondent for Spanish and Argentine media. But am I a journalist? Even though articles of mine have appeared in books and 300K people per month read my blog, I could hardly call myself a writer, even though in practice I am and I do spend an hour a day or so writing, like I am doing now.

Another job I have is to organize conferences and events including some very large ones like the ones we organized at my foundation, Safe Democracy or the Menorca TechTalk. But even though I spend a significant amount of time organizing events, I know many people who do that for a living, people like Klaus Schwab for example. And even though many heads of states have attended conferences that I have organized I am no Klaus Schwab nor a professional conference organizer. And as far as being a speaker I have been paid sums like 14 thousand euros for speaking for one hour. But I decided not to charge for speaking and only speak at events I enjoy and be an amateur speaker. Somehow I feel uncomfortable about getting paid to speak, I feel that my freedom to say whatever I want is restricted. So I speak in around 30 conferences per year but I would not call myself a professional speaker. I guess the common theme in all I do is not being a professional, that I am not except as an entrepreneur, but being extremely curious and being fearless about trying new things.

I also have this necessity to be the boss of everything I do which is probably a disease. So if I am in a car I want to drive, in a boat I want to steer, in a conference I want to speak, in a plane I want to pilot, in a kitchen I want to cook. I know I should just let go, rely on others, and to a great extent I do as I have pilots, crew, driver, etc. Being a blogger is a good example. I used to write more for newspapers and magazines and I know that if I continued to do so I would have more readers. But being my own editor and publishing what I want when I want is more important than being read by tons of people. I prefer to publish in the Huffington Post which gives me total journalistic freedom than writing for Newsweek as I once did and had to deal with an editor telling me to add or take away words and change my piece. And I do write for the leading news magazine in Argentina, Noticias but that is because they are crazy enough to publish articles that are sometimes 9 pages long unedited. And I guess people like them cause they are now complaining I have sent nothing for a few months.

In short, in a world of professionals I am a perennial amateur. I do what I do out of love and probably a sick desire to be the master of my own life. I don´t care about doing things perfectly well. I care about doing reasonably well and having fun in the process.

Facebook is the second largest social network in the world quickly gaining ground over Myspace. But if Facebook is number two as far as I am concerned Facebook is a distant number one as of my hundreds of acquaintances and friends only a childhood friend of mine who is a musician is in Myspace. Everyone that is…who speaks English. But the issue here is that I am Argentine/Spanish and so far a great part of my social circle has not been able to enter Facebook and nor have my French and German friends. This is a subject that I spoke about during my first visit to Facebook last year in which I was shocked by how well the company was managed and predicted that Facebook would be worth over $10bn (sorry I know its pathetic to think so much in terms of money). So back to social life and friends I have great news for my Spanish, Latin American, French and German friends and that is that Facebook will be in Spanish, French and German in the next weeks. In Spanish as early as next Monday! Moreover in Madrid, at Teatro Lara (disclosure I partly own the theater) Fon will host a developers event for Facebook to launch the apps platform in Spanish. This event will take place on Monday February 18th but it is in Spanish only as the purpose of the event is to recruit Spanish coders to come up with great apps in Spanish. We at Fon will present our plans for our own Facebook app at the event. If you are interested in attending the event please write to developergarage@fon.com. If you developed or are working on a Facebook app in Spanish, you are invited to demo it during the event, please write to Pietro Saccomani.

What follows is the press release from Facebook in Spanish.

Facebook lanza la versión en Español; Alemán y Francés en breve

PALO ALTO, California — 7 de Febrero de 2008 — Facebook ha anunciado hoy su primer paso en los planes de internacionalización, lanzando la versión en español. Las versiones en alemán y francés estarán disponibles en las próximas semanas. Aproximadamente 1,500 usuarios hispanohablantes de facebook decidieron formar parte del proyecto, traduciendo todo el website del inglés al español en menos de cuatro semanas.

Los usuarios que desean utilizar Facebook en español pueden cambiar desde ya el lenguaje en las preferencias de su cuenta. A partir del lunes 11 de Febrero, cualquier persona que acceda a www.facebook.com desde cualquier país de habla hispana accederá a facebook en español. Facebook tiene actualmente mas de 2.8 millones de usuarios entre España y Latino-América.

“Más del 60% de los usuarios de facebook vienen de fuera de los Estados Unidos y viven en países donde el inglés no es la lengua primaria,” dijo Mark Zuckerberg fundador y CEO de Facebook. “Nuestro objetivo siempre ha sido que la gente pueda utilizar Facebook en su idioma, así que hemos construido una aplicación que permite a los usuarios participar en la traducción de Facebook a sus lenguas y dialectos. Estamos muy agradecidos por todas las contribuciones de nuestros usuarios en la traducción de Facebook.”

Los usuarios de la herramienta de traducciones tienen la oportunidad de traducir el texto mientras utilizan Facebook normalmente. La comunidad de traductores decide cuales son las mejores traducciones vía un sistema de votaciones. Por ejemplo los usuarios seleccionaron “dar un toque” para traducir el término “poke,” creado por Facebook.

La motivación de muchos de los traductores es el impacto de sus contribuciones; estas permitirán que millones de personas que solo hablan su lengua puedan utilizar facebook. El mayor contribuidor fue responsable por 1.284 de las traducciones seleccionadas por la comunidad, o casi un 3% de todo el texto del interfaz de usuario de Facebook.

Facebook planea seguir dejando en manos de los usuarios la traducción de las nuevas funcionalidades conforme estén disponibles. Adicionalmente la herramienta de traducciones estará disponible para que todos los desarrolladores de aplicaciones en la plataforma de facebook puedan dejar en manos de la comunidad la traducción de sus aplicaciones.

Los usuarios de Facebook también pueden desde ahora acceder a Facebook en cualquier lenguaje soportado desde cualquier teléfono móvil con acceso a Internet. Cualquiera puede registrarse en facebook vía www.facebook.com , o vía m.facebook.com desde cualquier teléfono móvil.

Acerca de Facebook

Fundado en Febrero de 2004, Facebook es una herramienta social que permite a la gente comunicarse de forma más eficiente con sus amigos, familia y compañeros de trabajo. La compañía desarrolla tecnología que facilita el flujo de información a través del gráfico social, el mapa digital de las relaciones existentes en la vida real. Cualquiera puede darse de alta en Facebook y comunicarse con la gente que conoce en un entorno seguro. Facebook forma parte de la vida de millones de usuarios, y la mitad de estos lo utilizan todos los días. Facebook es una compañía privada con sede central en Palo Alto, California.

I am concerned about the fact that ex communist countries such as China and Russia are outgrowing the USA and the EU by a big margin. USA and EU grow at a combined rate of around 3% now rapidly falling as a result of recent financial turmoil while Russia and China are growing at a combined rate of over 7%. At that rate former communist economies double in size every decade. As the democratic West accumilates debt the former communist countries pile cash and grow faster. Watching Russia for example moving away from democracy with most Russians actually in favor of Vladimir Putin´s consolidation in power reminds us that it was not lack of freedom that brought communism down: it was lack of prosperity. Many of us were simply wrong when we thought that the fall of the Berlin Wall was about democracy. People who were leaving Soviet Russia and its satellites were not really looking for freedom, they were trying to make a decent living. At the same time as recession approaches it is sad to remember that it the main driver of Nazism was rapid economic decline. And while in the EU and in North America there´s little risk of moving away from democracy it is in the swing states of the world where we now see that given a choice between prosperity and freedom most choose prosperity. The latest example of this trend is Serbia, a country in the heart of Europe that has chosen to align itself more closely with Russia than the EU.

Ok, we had no idea that so many people were going to come to webhotornot so we are taking it more seriously and turning this practical joke into a better tool (or a better practical joke). In the first hours since we blogged this we got over 1000 sites submitted for voting and over 40K votes. Still, we know that Webhotornot is never going to be as popular as Hotornot as we can´t compete with guys trying to get laid (or wank) but even though people will not show so much excitement over rating web sites we can still do a decent sex appeal platform. So this is what we are doing and all this is without consulting Sifry who is asleep now (we are awake in Spain he is asleep in California zzzzzzzzzzzzzz).

-people were submitting so many websites that we did not have time to get the screenshot and most sites offered for voting had no screenshots. Now we changed this and if there´s no screenshot we don´t offer it for voting.

-we are going to make it easier for people to go and vote not only randomly but at least once for the sites they love or hate.

-we are going to have battles for example Techcrunch vs GigaOm so people can have fun (thanks Eduardo Arcos for the idea).

-we are going to introduce a ranking of the 50 hottest sites with more than 50 votes. Then we will change the rankings and let people make their own rankings. The problem with rankings is that they influence outcomes and we will end up with the Google aristocracy problem that some sites always win (but then life maybe like that!)

-we are going to explain to people what this site is about and ask them to vote on sites they have tried and not just on looks.

And now to eat some paella….

I am reading what Techcrunch and Paris Lemon wrote about Webhotornot and they got it wrong. First of all Webhotornot was made in Spain at the Fon Labs based on a funny idea that Dave and I had. Webhotornot is a spoof of Hotornot, a hotornot for geeks. If anything a web doodle a divertimento, a practical joke and if anything useful comes out of this hack that was put together in a few hours by the coders at Fon Labs would be that investors may use it to gather geeks opinions not on babes but on sites. But this site is not a venture, there´s no company behind it or anything and this is not Dave Sifry´s new company!