Here’s a quick list of 5 that have enhanced my own use of Twitter this year and why:

1. TweetDeck

TweetDeck has become my primary Desktop Twitter client over the last 6 months of the year and has quite literally changed the way that I Tweet on a number of levels.

One of the biggest impacts that it has had is in the way that it builds ‘groups’ into my twitter workflow. This has helped me immensely to manage the noise that is associated with following and being followed by thousands of people.

Groups enable you to select any number of Twitter users to follow in a special window. This means that if you miss their twees in the ‘all tweets’ timeline you are likely to see their tweets in the group you’ve set up.

Also powerful in TweetDeck is the ‘Search’ feature which enables you to track keywords and who is using them right from within your Twitter Client.

I’m also a big user of TwitScoop so having the ability to have it included in a window within the client is handy too.

I guess as I think about it – the reason I like TweetDeck is that it enables me to use a variety of tools that could be accessed by a variety of services – all within the one client. I’m not constantly having to run to a search tool, logging into TwitScoop, checking individuals twitter pages – it’s all happening on my desktop in the one application.

I also love that it can be run quite effectively in a single column view or opened up to a more comprehensive one across the full screen.

The fact that TweetDeck is still only at version 0.20b excites me – there’s obviously a lot more to come!

TweetDeck is my Twitter application of the year!

2. Twitterlator Pro

Another massive change in my use of Twitter mid year was when I started using the iPhone as my primary mobile phone. I’d been looking forward to this for a long time (Australia only got the iPhone with the new 3G version.

Being able to Tweet from the road, local cafe, while waiting for the Train, at the football…. etc was quite a new experience and so I needed an iPhone Twitter client that was up for the job.

I tested them all – starting with the free applications and then progressing to the paid ones. I settled on Twitterlator Pro (itunes url) for a number of reasons.

Perhaps the biggest reason was the ‘replies’ page. Again – my biggest challenge with Twitter is that I am following a lot of people – so to follow the timeline for everyone that I follow is just not practical. When on my iPhone I tend to live more in the ‘replies’ section and Twitterlator Pro has one of the best of these.

I also love that you can manage multiple Twitter accounts from the one application, that you can see Twitpic pictures within messages, that it has a ‘nearby’ feature to find out who is twittering close by – etc. Many of these features can be found within other iPhone Twitter clients but for me Twitterlator Pro simply ‘fits’ with my Twitter workflow.

Note – there is a notable up and coming iPhone Twitter client that could just take the place of Twitterlator Pro.

In the last month or so Tweetsville (itunes url) was launched and while I’m hooked on Twitterlator Pro Tweetsville (website) has been getting more and more of my iPhone Twittering attention because – well, its got most of the features that I use on Twitterlator Pro but just seems more intuitive.

It’s in its early versions so still has room to improve but I suspect will become my #1 iPhone application in 2009 – the only reason I didn’t name it in my main list is because I’ve been using Twitterlator Pro for six months and so it’s really been more useful to me this year than the one month I’ve had with Tweetsville.

3. TwitterBar

I almost overlooked this application when planning this list – simply because it’s become such a part of my Twitter workflow that it has almost become invisible.

TwitterBar is a Firefox Add-on that allows me to share links on twitter from the address bar of Firefox.

As I’m surfing – if I find a site that I like and want to share all I do is simply add a few words that I want to include with the link to the address bar (before or after the URL) and then click a tiny little grey button to the right of the address bar. Doing this posts the URL and my message to Twitter.

If I’m not sure if I have enough characters left I hover the cursor over this little grey button and it tells me how many I have left.

There are other tools for sharing URLS on Twitter and I’ve tested many of them – but this little add-on is quick, easy, quick and unobtrusive…. and I use it 10-20 times a day!

4. TwitterFeed

I know some on Twitter don’t like tools that automatically post links from blogs – but…. well I’m a blogger and my Twittering centers around blogging. Add to that that most of my followers are online when I’m asleep because I live in Australian and I needed a tool that would do what TwitterFeed does.

In short – TwitterFeed checks the RSS feeds to my blogs every hour (you can change this frequency) and if something new has appeared in the feed it takes the link and tweets it for me. It allows me to customize the tweets so I can add a little message (“New from TwiTip:” for example) so followers know what the link is.

There are options for what is shown (you can show the title, title and description and description only) and you can even filter your tweets by keywords (so that only some links get posted).

TwitterFeed offers you a range of URL shortening services – I use Tweetburner (twurl) which allows me to go to Tweetburner and check what links are being clicked on most (handy to know as a blogger interested in tracking what posts are connecting with readers most).

Again – there are other tools out there including some good WordPress plugins that do it from your blog – but I use TwitterFeed because…. well it works (99% of the time).

5. TwitScoop

This is another tool that I’m constantly looking at (more than I realize). As mentioned above – I use it largely because it is built into TweetDeck but do use the actual site too.

There are a number of things that I use it for including:

1. It’s my newspaper in the morning – one of the first things I do in the morning is to check TwitScoop to see what is ‘hot’. I’m amazed how much news I find through it over my morning coffee.

2. As a blogger is is a fantastic tool for watching for hot trends and topics that are being discussion right now. A number of times I’ve been able to break stories simply by watching what is ‘buzzing now’.

3. Conferences – it’s also quite useful when you’re at a conference, listening to a speaker or tracking a live event to see what people are saying about it.

Other tools that I’ve been using:

There must be hundreds of Twitter Applications and Tools available now so the above 5 just scratch the surface. I’d love to hear your own Top 5 list in comments below.

Before you do – here’s a few others that I use from time to time.

• TweetBurner – as mentioned above, I use this to shorten urls and track what gets clicked on (TwitClicks is another of these).
• Twhirl – I used this a lot at the start of the year and still do on occassion – but TweetDeck has taken it over.
• Tweetlater – I only use it occassionally but it is useful if you need to set a Tweet to go off later.
• MrTweet – everyone’s been raving about this new service lately – it recommends people for you to follow based upon your network.
• TweetBeep – free twitter alerts for keywords
• TweetScan – another alerts tool
• TweetStats – interesting stats on your twitter useage

OK – so it’s over to you – what are your Top 5 Twitter Applications and Tools for 2008?

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



5 Twitter Applications and Tools that Made Me a Better Twitter User in 2008

Twitter, having been quickly adopted initially by key influencers, has grown into a mass-market communication tool, with millions of users.

If you’re publishing content, undertaking online marketing, and looking to keep up with the latest trends in anything web related then Twitter should be featuring highly as a ‘weapon of choice’.

In this article I’ll be assuming you are new to Twitter, and that rather than wanting to use Twitter as a way of simply keeping up with friends, you want to use it as a tool for valuable engagement and maximum effect, avoiding the white noise that Twitter can also create if used incorrectly.

I call this ‘Using Twitter, the Smart Way’.

So, in a nutshell . . . Twitter allows users to post updates (known in the Twitterverse as ‘Tweets’), which consist of text-based posts of no more than 140 characters. A Tweet can include a website link if you wish.

Updates are displayed on the Twitter profile page of the user who submitted the Tweet, or alternatively through a desktop Twitter application, such as Twhirl or Tweetdeck (more on these later), to other users who have signed up to receive them (‘Followers’).

To get you up to speed, before I go into any further detail, it’s worth checking out the Twitter in Plain English video, from the talented folks over at Common Craft.

This will give you a simple and entertaining outline of how Twitter works and how it is most commonly used.

So, Why Should I Use Twitter?

As I’ve mentioned, if you use Twitter smartly, it’s an outstanding tool for engaging with key influencers in your niche and also with your own target audience.

Twitter is immediate, it is fast and it is extremely effective.

Twitter is also invaluable as a means of posting, sharing and recording your own ideas and links, as you have them or come across them (the ones you think others would benefit from hearing about that is!). Think of it as sharing your own virtual notepad.

Some Other Advantages

• Twitter helps you cut down on the clutter created by wading through blogs, newsletters and RSS feeds for the odd gem of useful information, and gets information in front of your eyes with more immediacy, allowing you to filter and favourite ‘on the spot’ (especially if you’re using a desktop application, which you should be)
• It shows you as a keen follower/adopter of the latest tools and apps to your peers and general website audience – always a good thing
• Helps you get your name known with those that matter (to you)

So, how do you get started then?

Here’s the Steps I Recommend:

Step 1

First you need to sign up with Twitter at http://twitter.com

I suggest that you use your name (no spaces) as your twitter account name, but that’s just a suggestion.

Next, you need to track down the people that are worth following. This you can do by using the Twitter search, or alternatively a Twitter directory service, such as TwitDir (listed below). Click ‘Follow’, once you’re on a person’s profile, to follow their Tweets.

Here’s some suggestions (by no means definative) to get you off to a good start. These fit well with TwiTip’s readership, but should also have pretty mass appeal:

• Mashable: http://twitter.com/mashable (blog reviewing all that is web 2.0)
• Scobleizer: http://twitter.com/Scobleizer (web 2.0 commentary)
• Jowjang: http://twitter.com/jowyang (senior social analyst at Forrester)
• Problogger: http://twitter.com/problogger (hugely popular blogging blog)
• Kevin Rose: http://twitter.com/kevinrose (Digg founder)
• Andy Beard: http://twitter.com/AndyBeard (web marketing blogger)
• Maki, DoshDosh: http://twitter.com/doshdosh (blogs about making money online)
• Rohit Bhargava: http://twitter.com/rohitbhargava (social marketing guru0
• John Chow: http://twitter.com/JohnChowDotCom (also blogs about making money online)
• TechMeMe: http://twitter.com/techmeme
• . . . and of course myself, the author of this article, Mark Ramskill: http://twitter.com/ramskill

It’s also well worth checking out the followers of those i’ve listed above as well. Read their profiles, visit their sites, and only add them if you feel they’ll bring value to your Twitter experience.

Step 2

Download a Desktop Client

I suggest Twhirl for light users, or for those who want to make frequent use of Twitter and build up a following that needs more careful management, try TweetDeck.

Twhirl makes it really easy to follow others and post Tweets. This desktop application functions in many ways like an instant messenger, whereby as soon as anyone you are following sends a Tweet to you, it is received in Twhirl and also flashes up in a small bubble in the corner of your desktop, for quick and easy reading.

When I began using Twitter as a light user, I wouldn’t have been able to use it in any kind of useful way without relying on Twhirl.

Once you’ve downloaded Twhirl and opened it for the first time (you may be asked to install Adobe Air), add your Twitter account information in your Twhirl settings (you can add more than one Twitter account if you wish) and away you go! I’ll let you know the four key methods of Twitter communication / engagement in a moment.

TweetDeck

As mentioned, I suggest you start using TweetDeck once you’ve built up a following. I moved across to TweetDeck when I reached 100 or so followers, although you may wish to use it straight away.

At a certain point users find that Twhirl becomes harder to manage, requiring a need to think about grouping people, according to what they do or their relationship to you, with replies and direct messages filed separately.

TweetDeck provides all the functionality you need to adequately manage posts, groups of followers, replies and direct messages, however many followers you may have.

TweetDeck, like Twhirl, is an Adobe Air based application, so as part of the installation process you make be asked to install this as well.

Step 3

The four key methods of Twitter communication / engagement

Ok, so you’re set and ready to go. However, before people will be prepared to follow you (barring those that add anybody) you need to start posting Tweets that others will find useful and that relate to your niche or your interests.

1. For general posts, simply either log in and type your Tweet in the message box on the Twitter website, or use the message box in your desktop app (140 characters is the maximum length of message).

2. To reply to someone, use the ‘@’ symbol, then their Twitter username, e.g.

eg: @ramskill your message, whatever it may be

Bear in mind that this reply can be seen publically, by your followers and the followers of who you are replying to.

3. To ‘Retweet’ / repost a Tweet from someone else, use ‘RT’, a space, the ‘@’ symbol, then their Twitter username, e.g.

eg: RT @ramskill your message, whatever it may be

4. To send a private direct message to someone, use ‘D’, a space, then their Twitter username, e.g.

eg: D ramskill your message, whatever it may be

That’s all there is to communicating and engaging through Twitter . . .

Step 4

Don’t forget to tell others that you have a Twitter account!

Now you’ve started following people yourself and you’ve begun Twittering, it’s now time to post about your Twitter accounts’ existence (www.twitter.com/yourusername) on your website or blog, email friends/collegues/relatives that share your interests and generally get people to follow you (remember: you don’t necessarily have to follow them back).

Don’t forget to link to your Twitter account on any other social sites you use, such as Facebook (most of them have functionality to add a link to your Twitter account or even take live feeds from it).

Step 5

Remember the importance of Twitter Etiquette!

A rapid way for Twitter users to unfollow you is if you spam them constantly, don’t respond to replies or direct messages, act obnoxiously or generally fail to bring value by Twittering about ’stuff’ that is of no use to them.

Think of your audience at all times. Act as you would if you were dealing with them face to face in a business situation, or sitting down for coffee with them. Respect is key.

Most importantly, remember that new people are viewing your Twitter profile constantly, and making a decision about whether to follow you, based on the Tweets and replies they see.

By all means Tweet about your website, blog, service or product, but also try and add value by making this just a part of your communcation. If you come across a website or service that could benefit others Tweet about it. You’ll soon build up a positive reputation as someone worth following and recommending.

What you give is what you get back. Apply that mantra and you can’t go far wrong!

That’s it. You’re set!

You now know how to use Twitter, begin following others and build up your own posse of followers. Most importantly you now know how to use Twitter effectively to communicate and engage with others.

Twitter Tools

So . . . now for the hot stuff! The Twitter tools . . .

The following is a list of the key sites or apps I have used, and continue to use, to enhance my Twitter experience:

• Mr Tweet (makes recommendations on who to follow)
• Tr.Im (url shortening service for Twitter, with stats)
• Tweetburner (alternative to Tr.Im)
• Tweet Later (schedule Tweets over a period of time)
• TweetBeep (track who is mentioning you)
• TweetGrid (live updates for any keyword on Twitter)
• TwitDir (a Twitter directory service)
• Quitter (emails you when someone stops following you)
• Twitter Grader (see how you rank on Twitter)
• TwitStamp (create a personalized Twitter badge)
• Twitterfox (Firefox Twitter status Add-On)

And if you want more – 27 Cool Tool and Resources for the Twitter Addict

In Summary

Hopefully, i’ve given you enough information to fuel your imagination and make you want to get started with Twitter and its associated apps and services.

In this new web 2.0 world, immediate access to information, and easy engagement with those that post it, is a necessity.

Twitter, if used smartly, helps you do just that!

Remember, i’m here to help.

Add me: http://twitter.com/ramskill

And feel free to ask me questions, or just say hello!

Mark Ramskill is the Marketing Specialist for SubHub, a revenue-ready content publishing platform.

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



Using Twitter… ‘The Smart Way’

Whether you’re a startup or an established company, your customers are probably on Twitter. And whether you like it or not, they’re going to complain and praise your company and products on Twitter. Let that sink in a for a second: they’re going to complain and praise your company and products in a very public forum. There is no escaping that your reputation can be, rightly or wrongly, negatively or positively affected because of a handful of tweets.

But I’m not here to scare you into creating a Twitter profile. What I’d like to do is tell you how wonderful an opportunity this is to engage with the Twitter community, in public, and win the hearts of this community.

The Key to Community Engagement is Monitoring

To know which members of a community you need to be talking to, you need to know who’s talking about you. On Twitter, that’s quite a feat. Think about the challenge you have: Twitter has millions of users. Some are very popular with thousands of followers (i.e. very influential) but most are not that popular. Some tweet very regularly and some tweet very rarely. Some simply whine about your product, some post wishes for features, some express frustration, some give constructive feedback, and if you’re really lucky, some sing your praises. How would monitor all this activity?

The answer begins with Twitter search. This is a relatively new service from Twitter. It used to be a startup called Summize that Twitter bought and integrated. By far, this is the best way to monitor Twitter. Type in a search and you get 15 hits per page (remember this number). I tend to keep the search’s tab open because the results update once a minute using AJAX: if there are new results, you get a message saying “X more results since you started searching.” Refresh the page and you get the new tweets. Also, when there are new results, the page’s title is updated to tell you how many new results there are so you don’t have to keep checking the page. How is that for real time monitoring?

The other neat thing about Twitter search is the RSS feed. Every search can be turned into an RSS feed; you can find the icon at the top of the sidebar on the right. You can subscribe to this with your favorite RSS reader, but think about what you can do if you write monitoring programs that pull the RSS data and then analyzes it. So set up searches of your brands, products, etc, and watch them!

However, once in a while Twitter search will break, especially during peak hours when you see a delay in results coming in. More seriously, sometimes it misses tweets that clearly match the query. So make sure you don’t depend on it 100% but open up other communication channels like direct messages (more on that in a bit).

For completeness, there are other ways to monitor Twitter:

• Use advanced desktop clients like Tweetdeck and Twhirl.
• Use tweetbeep, which bills itself as “like Google Alerts but for Twitter”, and be sure to read TwiTip’s own Tweetbeep for Beginners guide.
• Use the search engines: Use the [site:] operator in Google or Yahoo!; example: [google site:twitter.com] to search for all mentions of “google” on Twitter. Also, if you have a Google Alert set up for your brand, it will pick up some tweets.

Talk to Them!

OK, so you know who you need to talk to, now what?

The first thing to realize is that most of your talking on Twitter is in public: everyone can see what you’re saying. Yes, this does mean that you must never make your updates private if you’re engaging with others on Twitter. Direct messages (DMs) are to be reserved for specific uses as I’ll explain below.

Here are the different ways you talk to people:

• Thank those that praise you and extend a welcoming hand saying you’re here if they need any help, got any questions, feature requests, feedback, etc. Basically, tell them how they can talk to you if they so wish. A good way to thank people on Twitter is to also follow them, and this opens up the possibility of them sending you a DM if they so wish.
• Publicly @reply to the people that speak negatively about you offering them help. The simplest offer of help is to give them an email address for them to contact you. If it’s a problem you’re working on, tell them a fix is coming soon. If it’s a new problem they’re reporting, thank them wholeheartedly and promise a fix soon (it’s a free bug report your quality assurance people missed). Don’t be afraid to ask them to contact you privately so that they can give you a better description of the problem and have them help test the fix. And of course, follow them. They might want to DM you something private, like their username.
• Give your community a way to contact you outside Twitter. We just talked about email, but your profile page should at least give a link to a website. I can’t decide what’s the best page to link to as your website on Twitter, so I’ll give you suggestions:
• • Your website’s home page
  • Your contact page
  • Your blog’s home page
  • A custom landing page
• And don’t forget to say something sensible in the Bio field.

One last tip: don’t use services to automatically follow all your new followers. It’s impersonal, and it’s obvious. Instead, get Twitter to email you every time someone follows you (or you can check your followers periodically), and follow everyone who’s not a obviously a spammer and send them a personalized DM thanking them for the follow. You can easily personalize it by finding out their name. It take 15 seconds to do this and it’s a good thing. Don’t expect any replies though.

Brand Your Profile Page

Yes, it’s a way of talking to your community as it shows effort and that you care. It’s also a quick confirmation to a new visitor that they’re viewing the right profile. Some tips to get you thinking, and you really should read Sara Rosso’s post here on TwiTip for more details:

• Change your icon/avatar photo. Upload a small version of your logo. Twitter will automatically resize that; it will not look perfect unless what you upload is a square because the photo is a square. I usually use a large version of the website’s favicon as that’s the correct brand and is also a square.
• Change your background. I’ve seen many approaches to how this gets done: some theme it exactly like the website; some create a custom theme but using the same color palette as the website, and some just choose a color. I suggest the following: the current Twitter design is centered on the page. So use the left hand side space to put some useful info: your logo at the very top, contact details, interesting web links, etc. I did mine (for @cligs) manually, but The Closet Entrepreneur has Powerpoint and Keynote Twitter background templates to help you. A rough rule of thumb for the space on the left is 150-200px.

Get Your Blog to Work With Your Twitter Profile

The root of this tip is that how you engage with your community is not a one-off or one-channel task, but an integration of multiple channels. To this end, blogs are a natural fit to complement your Twitter efforts. So how do you integrate blogging with Twitter? Some ideas:

• Promote your Twitter profile on your blog, and link back from Twitter to your blog.
• Automatically post your blog posts to Twitter. There are many plugins that do that automatically. For Wordpress, I recommend Alex King’s Twitter Tools or WP-To-Twitter.
• Integrate Twitter profiles into your blog comments. This is easy to do using Sean Walberg’s easy instructions on Problogger.

So Does it Work?

Short answer: oh yes it does! I’d like to illustrate this with three examples.

• Comcast: The prototypical example of using Twitter to engage with your community is Comcast. The “Comcast Guy” is Frank
  Eliason @comcastcares and he can work some magic apparently. Michael Arrington (of TechCrunch) wrote up his experience of publicly complaining about Comcast on Twitter back in April, and how Comcast responded (by very quickly fixing his connection). And that’s not unique: googling brings up a lot of stories, some even proclaiming new love for Comcast. Now that’s magic.
• Google: There is a great write-up about a Google Webmasters Tools user, Gary Cope, having a problem. Gary blogged about it and that got automatically fed into his Twitter account and that got picked up by Sagar Kamdar (@skamdar), the new Webmaster Tools PM. Sagar publicly notified Gary on Twitter that the problem is being looked into, and then personally replied to Gary’s blog post the next day saying the problem is fixed.
• Tweetdeck and Twhirl: These are my favorite examples of one person making a big difference using Twitter. Tweetdeck is a popular Twitter client written by Iain Dodsworth. Iain uses Twitter as a very powerful support channel. To see it in action,
  just look at the @tweetdeck feed. Likewise for Twhirl, another popular Twitter client, the @twhirl feed is just awesome.

And these are not the only examples. ReadWriteWeb has more, and just search using your favorite search engine.
It really is amazing what a good Twitter engagement can do to your business. It builds good will, gets you rave reviews, makes people like you more (or hate you less ), not to mention creating buzz and generating links. Comcast hit it spot on when they named their account ComcastCares, because that’s what you should be doing: caring. If you care enough, a community will build itself around you. And Twitter is a very easy channel to demonstrate that you care.

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



How Your Company Can Build A Community on Twitter

Image by me and the sysop

If you’ve been using Twitter for a while, you might notice that some of the most successful folks on Twitter make a concerted effort to help out their friends / followers. And they seem to ask for nothing in return!

Many folks believe, including me, that this practice of selfless giving is central to all success, personal and professional.

The problem is that no matter how helpful you want to be, no one’s invented a way to get 25 hours out of a day.

Until Now

Using a combination of Twitter tools, you can practice enlightened self-interest without the need for prescription drugs.

Following are examples of how to save time with Twitter tools to find out 1) what your friends need, 2) collecting that information, and 3) giving them that information.

Note: Don’t try this with ALL of your friends, just a few – or you really will go mental!

What Does My Friend Need?

Most of us have a general idea of what our friends need, but may have missed the few tweets about problems with a client project or thesis.

TweetStats can be used to find out details about your friend (in a non-spying way, of course . After you’ve entered your friend’s twitter ID, Study the TweetCloud:

Mousing over the tweetcloud shows 49 mentions of “coffee” in Darren Rowse’s twitterings. Is this useful information? You decide.

How Can I Find It?

Once you know what your friend needs, use a combination of the following automated search methods:

• Test Keywords With Monitter.com – This snazzy tool let’s you compare the frequency of three different keywords. In Melbourne, Australia, “coffee” occurs more often than “cappuccino” or “tea”:

You can then subscribe to updates on your search using the RSS feed.

• TweetBeep works much like Google alerts, but you can combine keyword searches with location criteria. It also allows you to be alerted whenever a particular web-site it tweeted, even if the URL is shortened!

• Don’t Forget Google! Google alerts will pick up anything outside of Twitter. Set the alert to “as it happens” so that you can quickly send any valuable content to your friend.

How Can I Get It To Them?

Beyond TweetDeck, iTweet, Twhirl and Twitter.com, here are two pain-free ways to get information to your friends:

TwitThat: This is a firefox add-on that lets you quickly post the URL of a website you’re reading. The cool thing is that you can create a “reply list” of your friends in a drop down menu:

Clicking “twit” automatically posts the webpage in twitter as “@Problogger – found this:” Saves much more time than copying and pasting URLs and headlines. Also, having your friends listed in this drop-down keeps them foremost in your mind.

TwitterFeed is a utility that automatically posts updates of any RSS feed. Like TwitThat, you can also create a “reply to” prefix of tweets. In our example, we could post updates from the Starbucks blog and post them with “@Problogger – Coffee News:” at the beginning of the tweet.

This is perfect for those situations where someone is working on an urgent project and would love to receive helpful information from you, even while you’re sleeping!

If used thoughtfully (in a non-stalking way ), these techniques can help you be useful on Twitter without going mentally insane.

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



How To Be Useful On Twitter Without Going Crazy

Twitterific is the most popular Twitter client application for the Mac. It is simple, has a clean interface, and is easy and intuitive to use. It has some tradeoffs for this simplicity, as we will see. Twitterific can be used free of charge without limitation, but advertisements are displayed once per hour. If you pay the IconFactory $14.95 US, ads are removed. Twitterific is available for the iPhone and iPod Touch, as well.

The Twitterific screen is completely resizable, and is usable even at its smallest widths and heights. It is possible to go into full screen mode with a keyboard shortcut. The white-on-black appearance may not be very eye-friendly to everyone.

As seen in the screenshot, replies and direct messages are a different color. Twitter errors are shown inline as a yellow box if you have configured your preferences to show them. If you are using the freeware version of Twitterific, advertisements are shown inline as well. Tweets that have been read are dimmed.

All of Twitterific’s options are available at the click of your mouse when a tweet is highlighted — user tools, replying to a tweet, and the person’s website. Buttons for going to your Twitter home page, preferences and refreshing are at the bottom left, next to the tweet entry area.

Twitterific has an extensive set of keyboard shortcuts that make using it even faster. There are only a couple actions that are keyboard only, and these are the standard Mac screen shortcuts such as command-W to close the screen.

The user tools are accessed by clicking on the gear symbol when a tweet is highlighted. As shown in the screenshot, most Twitterific actions are available from this one menu. Keyboard shortcuts are listed as a learning aid.

Here’s where some of Twitterific’s shortcomings become apparent. There is no way to easily retweet a message in Twitterific. You have to cut and paste, which is not that much of a pain, but something that would be easy to add to the program.

There are several important features that are missing in Twitterific that are common in other clients such as TweetDeck, iTweet, and Twhirl. There is no shortening of URL’s within the program, nor is there an interface with TwitPic, TwitScoop or similar programs or URL’s — however, Twitterific can update your status in iChat, Adium, or Skype when you post a tweet. Although you can favorite a tweet, you can’t display favorites, friends, followers, or a list of replies and direct messages. There is no grouping of people as there is in TweetDeck.

One of the strong points of Twitterific is its configurability. The preferences window has tabs for Tweets, Window, and System. Among the things that can be configured are:

• Download tweets from the public timeline or just the people you follow
• Refresh times from never to every hour
• Window transparency, shadow, font size, whether it is a normal window or floats above others, and whether it pops up on new tweets
• Expand or collapse tweets. Collapsing presents the tweets as a list. When you click on one, it expands.
• Automatically start Twitterific on login
• After posting a tweet, update status in iChat, Adium, and/or Skype
• Behavior when new tweets come in: keep the same view, most recent tweets, or last tweet selected
• Automatic login with last account used

You can also change the notification sound to four different bird twitters. Personally, I found them loud and intrusive, so I found a more polite bird sound and inserted it into the program. Let me know if you want to know how I did it!

The “Help” button is a disappointment: It only takes you to the IconFactory’s Twitterific page. I suppose they think that Twitterific is easy enough that help is not needed!

One of the things I have found most convenient about Twitterific is the ability to keep the same view when new tweets come in. That makes reviewing those hundreds of overnight tweets simple and easy.

Memory and CPU usage

This is an important consideration if you are using a Mac with limited resources. Twitterific’s memory footprint is quite small, and it uses a low amount of virtual memory. It uses very little CPU time except when checking for new tweets and making its notification sound. It plays very well with older Macs.

In comparison with TweetDeck (read our review of TweetDeck), Twitterific uses less than one-third of the memory, two-thirds of the virtual memory, and only 5 percent of the CPU time. Compared with Twirl, it uses half the memory, two-thirds of the virtual memory and only 10 percent of the CPU time.

AppleScript

Twitterific is unique among the Mac Twitter clients in that it supports AppleScript. For those that might not know, AppleScript is Mac OS X’s built-in scripting language. Twitterific’s support of AppleScript is pretty basic, just enough to send a tweet. But that means that you can write scripts that will send a tweet while using any other program.

Conclusion

Twitterific, for all its omissions, is as easy to like as it is to use. Although I have used other clients extensively, I keep coming back to Twitterific for its simplicity and its light load on my older Mac. It has many endearing features, mostly connected to its ease of use and configurability. It also has some annoying “features,” and some missing pieces that I hope will be fixed in the upcoming 3.2 version.

Pro’s of Twitterific

• Simple, clean interface
• Easy to use, intuitive
• Fast, no lag on redrawing images
• Flexible configuration
• Multiple accounts
• Small memory and CPU footprint
• Works well with older Macs and those with limited resources
• Replies and direct messages are in a different color
• Screen easily resized and is usable at any size

Cons of Twitterific

• No grouping or any way to just display favorites, replies, direct messages, friends, or followers
• No search function
• No retweet without cutting and pasting
• Loud and annoying notification sounds
• No interface with a URL shortener, TwitPic, etc.
• White on black screen may not suit everybody’s eyes

Have you used Twitterific as a Twitter Client? What is your opinion and user experience of it?

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



Twitterific Review

Back on November 10th, Darren did a reader poll where he asked, Do You Log Into Twitter.com To Tweet? So far, I sometimes use twitter.com and sometimes a client is in the lead with 430 votes. However, I always login to twitter.com is in second place with 247 votes. This review of Twhirl should provide insight into what those who are not using this client are missing.

Start From The Beginning:

Thanks to the API and the tremendous amount of third party support for Twitter, end users have a ton of options to choose from when it comes to accessing Twitter from something other than the Twitter.com website. There are FireFox extensions such as Tweetbar and TwitKit, sending tweets via cell phone etc. However, the focus of this review will be centered on Twhirl which is a desktop application built on top of Adobe AIR. In order to install and use Twhirl, you’ll need to first download and install the Adobe AIR framework.. Adobe Air is available for Windows 2000; Windows XP; Windows Vista Home Premium, Business, Ultimate, or Enterprise; and Mac OS X v10.4 or 10.5. The Linux release of Adobe AIR is under development.

Post Installation:

After Twhirl is installed, it will open up a dialog screen asking for your Twitter username and password. (Whether or not to trust third parties with your account username and password is fodder for another post but in my experience, Twhirl has not done anything unacceptable with my credentials.) The first thing you should do is provide Twhirl with a Twitter username. Once the username is added, select it and click on the Connect button. This should bring up the password box. After providing Twhirl your password, you should end up being logged into your Twitter.com user account. The next step is to configure Twhirl.

*Note* It’s important to note that Twhirl accepts multiple user accounts. You can even log into them at the same time. Twhirl will end up providing you a seperate status window for each account that you log into. I’d prefer a set of tabs that I can control from one main window but that isn’t supported at this time.

Configuration:

The configuration of Twhirl is separated by four distinct areas. General, Visual, Notify, and Network.

General: From this panel you can configure Twhirl to open the logged in account when the application starts, decide if Twhirl is always on top and to hide the window when minimized. This is where you can also decide if profiles are looked up through the application or in the browser by default.

Retweeting has become a popular way to rebroadcast information from one tweeter to another. However, the text that is part of the retweet count towards your 140 characters so it’s important to keep your retweet text as short as possible. For example, the default retweet configuration is Retweeting %s: %t. A better configuration I have seen people use is, RT %s: %t. The latter saves you 8 characters. This can be the difference between getting your message published or not.

Another strong point of Twhirl includes supporting the ability to post status updates to both Pownce and Jaiku. However, reading messages from these services is not yet implemented. Identi.ca is supported whereas in a future version, laconi.ca will also be supported.

Visual: As one could guess, the visual configuration deals with how the application looks and feels. This is where you can configure whether or not the tweet input is shown at the top, auto-hide the tweet input area, prefix tweets with sender’s name, and mark received tweets as new. The opacity configuration deals with how see-through the application window is when it is inactive. For instance, you can leave the Twhirl window open on your desktop with a low opacity value allowing the application to be less of a distraction. Only when the mouse cursor hovers over the window will the opacity reach 100%. The last option enables you to configure the font and size of the tweets. I’ve discovered that the Arial font is just fine but I prefer the size to be 12 versus 11.

Notify: This aspect of the configuration is all about messages received and messages sent. The first option, no notifications for old messages on start deals with whether or not you’ll see windows of old messages when you start the application. Disable this setting and restart Twhirl to get an idea of what I mean. The next option pertains to playing sounds and gives you a slider in which to control the sound volume. Sounds within Twhirl are heard after you receive the latest round of Tweets, Direct Messages, etc. Think of it as an audio queue. Personally, I have sounds turned off because Twitter by itself is distracting enough to the point that I don’t need to be continuously reminded to stickt my head in the stream.

The next option set is really cool and I recommend leaving it enabled. Notification windows are an excellent way to see the latest round of tweets or to view direct messages without having to see them within the application. For instance, I can have Twhirl minimized to the task bar but thanks to the notification windows, I can be kept updated without looking at the actual time line. I suggest fine tuning this option as it serves as yet another distraction. In my own use case, I configured Twhirl to only show me notification windows for direct messages or replies as those are the most important messages that I don’t want to miss. The last option provides a means of configuring how long the notification windows should be displayed. If you have quick eyes, you won’t need to edit this but in all other use cases, 4-6 seconds seems to be a good amount time.

Network: The network portion of configuring Twhirl is probably the most important aspect since it describes how the application behaves with the Twitter API. As it stands, the API limit for requests per hour is 100. Twhirl only allows a maximum of 80/req per hour, even if the box for following the reduced API limits is unchecked. The three sliders at the bottom determine the amount of time a request is made for a particular kind of tweet. If you are a heavy Direct Messenger, move that slider farther to the right. If you are more into replies, move that particular slider over to the right. With the way I use Twitter, I configure Tweets and Replies to update every two minutes while direct messages update every three minutes. While not real-time, this is close enough for me.

One thing to keep in mind is that the API limit is per account, not per client.

Almost Done:

Now that you have the application configured, it’s time to make it look better. With Twhirl opened, click on the logo in the top left hand corner. This will open up the account manager. Click on the colors tab. This will allow you to choose between 14 different color schemes. Personally, I enjoy the Into The Dark theme. While the official Twhirl website does not provide an area to download user generated color schemes, making your own is as easy as editing the XML files of the default scheme. I’ll explain how to do this in a future post.

Once you’re styling and profiling, you can either choose to change the language of the software from English to German, Italian or Spanish. Or, you can click on the Update tab that tells you which version of the client you’re using, a way to check for updates and a link to view the changelog. After you work your way through those tabs, you’re all set to start tweeting away at the luxury of your desktop.

Conclusion:

There are many choices for you to choose from when it comes to accessing Twitter from the outside. Twhirl just happens to be my favorite. This application serves as an excellent example as to what is possible using the Adobe Air Framework as a base for desktop applications. Considering Twhirl was acquired by Seesmic, INC. back in April of 2008, I see nothing but great things for this simple yet extremely effective application.

This Review of Twhirl was written by Jeff Chandler (@jeffr0) who is currently a writer for Performancing, BloggerTalks and is the host of two podcasts, WordPress Weekly and Perfcast.

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



Twhirl [Review]

Once you’ve voted – tell us which client you use in comments below.

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



Do You Log In to Twitter.com To Tweet? [POLL]

• Twitter desktop clients (I’m a fan of Twhirl and TweetDeck)
• Twitter Applications for iPhone (I’m a user of Twittelator Pro)
• Twitter user ranking services (like Twitterholic)
• Visualization tools (like TweetWheel)
• Tools to import RSS feeds to your Twitter account (I use Twitterfeed)
• Tools for setting tweets to go off later (Tweetlater)
• Metrics tool (TweetStats – Twinfluence)
• Tools for sharing pictures on Twitter (Twitpic)
• Services to tweet to groups (GroupTweet)
• Twitter Directories (Twellow)
• Tools for finding new people to follow (Twubble)
• Tools for helping you to track Twitter Conversations (Tweet2Tweet)
• Trend Tracking tools for what’s hot on Twitter (Twitscoop)
• Tools to help Twitter integrate with other applications (TwitterCal – which lets you add items to your Google calandar by Twitter)
• Services for groups to tag and organize tweets (HashTags)
• Twitter updaters (Ping.fm – which allows you to update status on multiple sites like Twitter)
• Twitter backup services (TweetTake)
• Services to let you track which links people are clicking on in your Tweets (TweetBurner)

These are just some of the tools services I’ve used in the last few weeks and they only scratch the surface at the hundreds of Twitter tools that are released.

What Twitter Tools and Services do you use? Leave the ones you love in comments below.

I’m looking forward to finding out which ones get mentioned most and finding some new ones that I’d not previously discovered.

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



What Twitter Tools and Services Do You Use?