The other day I came across a new micro-blogging service called chittR that founded in India. It was just launched in Alpha from a stealth mode, and a bit disappointed I did not found any detail on whom created this startup. However, as seen on the landing page, no one can argue that they’re not following the Twitter business model, therefore users that sign-up are allowed to send updates via IM or through the Web. It is a Twitter-like service that based on Adobe’s Flex 2. Therefore, if you click on any button, a Flash dialog box will appear in front of the page and loading of page for seconds is expected. For every user, once you sign-up, you’re allowed to post your update for a maximum 140 character per message, they preferred the word, chittRbox. On chittR, you also allowed to invite your buddies, following your friends’ updates, reply an update, post update restricted to your followers, find message through a system of tags, etc. What different from them with Twitter is Twitter was using “what am I doing” that drive the momentum of users in posting the updates, they distinguish with “What are YOU thinking ??”

Currently, they had less than 200 alpha testers, i.e. chittR-ers, many of whom signed up by the month of August. I feel it’s still too early to conclude its actual business model, given the immature of their technology, process and practice. I will report back on this startup when they officially launched in beta, stay tuned.

This week, Adobe has released the first version of Flex Builder for Linux operating system. It was a relatively new product concept, install as a plugin version and developers can use it to build the Flex applications on the Linux platform. Right from the beginning, Flex Builder was positioned as a cross platform and open source framework that helped developers to create Web applications. Realizing the difficulty in create the Flex UI (user interface) and due to the fact that the majority number of designers encountered the issues on designer/developer workflow, Adobe also developed another software, i.e. Thermo. It is still in the Adobe labs, and the main differentiator among the different products that Thermo offered is “the ease of use” feature. There are great examples can be found on this Thermo page, as one can easily convert an artwork into a working component and MXML file will be converted, according to this software and this is particularly useful for those who develop the front-end of a Web application.

Without using it before, I have to admit it is far too early to judge how good or how bad these Adobe Flex Builder and Thermo. However, there is a video clip that I found on YouTube may well explained its future prospect, as embedded in the below.