19 posts tagged “twitter”
This post was published on my new blog, SocializeMobilize.
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A while back, I posted 5 Great Reasons to Twitter. As Twitter continues to pick up steam (it's seen especially rapid growth since December), I thought it would be helpful to provide some hints/tips for those who are just getting started with Twitter.
Figuring out who to follow
When you're new to Twitter, it's tough to know who to follow. If you know a few people on Twitter already, following them is easy. Discovering new people (or companies) to follow is a bit more of a process. Here are a few tips to get started:
- Find out who your 'real life' friends are following (go into their profiles and click on "following). Browse the profiles, and follow anyone you think sounds interesting. You can always un-follow them later if you find their Tweets aren't as good as you'd hoped. As you discover interesting people, see who they follow. You'll have an interesting tweet stream before you know it.
- You can also search for topics that interest you, using Twitter's search facility. Follow the people who you think have interesting things to say on the topic, and engage them in conversation (more on having a conversation shortly).
- Once you start following a handful of people and having conversations, you can use 3rd party tools like "Mr.Tweet" which will help you discover followers and recommend people with similar interests follow you.
The most fun/interesting thing about Twitter is the conversations you have with other users. Interaction is what makes Twitter engaging/sticky. So, if you're new to Twitter, don't just post you're up to/ what you find interesting, start a conversation with someone about it. And, if someone strikes up a conversation with you, write back!
- Replying (@reply):
- To write back to someone (or target a message visible by everyone to a specific Twitter user), click the arrow under the star on any message you see on Twitter.com or enter the @ symbol in front of a twitter users's handle (i.e. @lisawhelan) before the message you write on twitter (i.e.: @lisawhelan I saw your blog post about Twitter.).
- Direct Messaging (D@reply):
- To send a direct message to someone that no one besides that user can see, but a D@ before the message you send (i.e.: D@lisawhelan I'll see you at the movie theatre at 8pm.)
Using Twitter on a PC or Mac
You can always go to Twitter.com, but there are more feature-rich sites you can use that plug into Twitter's back-end. Here are a few that are worth trying:
Using Twitter from a Mobile Phone
- Web-based solutions
- hootsuite
- Runs on any standard browser
- Currently in Beta (formerly known as BrightKit)
- Features:
- Manage multiple Twitter profiles
- Add multiple editors
- Pre-schedule tweets
- Check stats and analytics from the dashboard
- Search Twitter for keyword information
- @Reply and Direct Message
- Itweet.net
- Runs on any standard browser
- Features:
- Built-in auto-refresh, search and hashtags
- View user bio, location, URL inline with tweets
- Watch conversations with "in reply to" links
- NEW! bit.ly URL shortener and TwitPic uploader
- Tweettree
- Runs on any standard browser
- Features:
- Displays your Twitter stream a 'tree-like' format, so that you can see the posts people are replying to in context.
- Pulls-in external content from the following sites so that you can see it in your stream, without clicking through each link:
- Tweetvisor
- Runs on any standard browser
- Features:
- Manage multiple Twitter accounts
- Get real-time updates about favorite topics, news and tweets
- Groups
- Tagging friends
- Inline video replies
- Software for your Mac or PC
- Thwirl
- Runs on Windows (2000/XP/Vista) and Mac OSX
- Features:
- Thwirl notifies you when new messages arrive
- Shortens long URLs (with bit.ly, snurl, twurl or is.gd)
- Allows you to cross-post updates to your favorite social networks like: Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Jaiku, and Ping.fm
- post images to TwitPic
- Makes searching for topics easy throughTwitter Search and TweetScan. Allows you to save searches.
- automatically finds tweets that mention you (i.e. retweets and other mentions of your @handle)
- Lets you record a video on Seesmic and post it to Twitter instantly
- Gives you realtime Seesmic updates using XMPP
- Checks spelling (US English only)
- TweetDeck
- Adobe Air desktop application currently in Beta
- Runs on Max OSX and Microsoft Vista and Windows XP
- Features:
- Split your Tweets into topic or group specific columns (i.e. establish different columns for your @ replies, specific search terms, and more)
- TweetDeck stores all tweets, so you can see tweets that happened overnight
- TweetDeck sits on your desktop and can be easily resized to take up part or the whole screen
- Twitterific
- Supports Mac OSX, iPhone, and iPod Touch
- $14.95. Buy it on the iTunes store.
- Features:
- Supports multiple Twitter accounts
- Auto refreshing at user defined intervals
- Replies and direct messages are displayed inline
- Number of unread tweets shown in the Dock
- Delete tweets from Twitter quickly and easily
- Auto show / hide when new tweets arrive
- Control over window layering and priority
- Single click access to user profile pages
- Switch between friend and public tweets easily
- Keyboard shortcuts for list navigation and more
- Control Twitterrific with AppleScript
- Audio notification for new tweets
- Hotkey to show / hide tweets
- Plugging Twitter into your Favorite Social Networks
- Many of the above solutions include automatic updating of your favorite social networks with your tweets. You can also do it directly through Twitter by going here.
- There are three basic ways to interact with Twitter from a mobile phone. The best option for you depends on what type of phone you have and how often you use Twitter.
- 3rd party software application: The most feature-rich option for power Twitter users with an iPhone or other supported smartphone and a data plan.
- WAP (mobile web): Quick and easy option, if you don't Twitter often and/or there isn't a good 3rd party application available for your phone.
- Text (SMS): A great option if you've got a very basic "old school" mobile phone, don't have a data plan (but do have a SMS plan or don't mind SMS charges), and/or if you want to reply to a message quickly, without launching your mobile browser.
- To get started using Twitter with a mobile, you'll need to add your mobile number to your Twitter account by logging into your Twitter account and going to http://twitter.com/devices. The following page will help you with the complete mobile set-up process.
- 3rd Party Mobile Apps
- There are more 3rd party Twitter apps than you can shake a stick at. Pick one based on your mobile operating system.
- Some of the best mobile Twitter apps I've seen are available for iPhone via the iTunes App Store including:
- Twittelator Pro. This version has a TON of features.
- Twitterific
- Supports Mac OSX, iPhone, and iPod Touch
- $14.95. Buy it on the iTunes store.
- If you've got a Blackberry, Windows Mobile or Symbian smartphone, Android or other smartphone, check out your favorite smartphone store to see what's available or do a Google search. There are a ton of options.
- ShoZu (one of my clients), also supports posting to Twitter. ShoZu supports multipe OSes and is pre-loaded on many Motorola phones. It is a social media gateway that allows you to push content to/from over 50 social networks from your mobile phone.
- Mobile Web
- Twitter has a WAP site (m.twitter.com), but it has very limited functionality. You can't easily do @replies, favorite tweets
- I prefer using Dabr, which offers a more feature-rich WAP experience for Twitter. It suports @replies, favoriting, and more.
- Other WAP options for Twitter include:
- Text Messaging/ SMS
- Once you've added your phone to Twitter, just send the verification code in a text message to the Twitter phone number assigned to you in your settings page. Once your phone is verified, send Twitter a text message and we'll post it to your profile page and send it to your followers. (Find out more cool things you can do with your phone here!)
- Note: Twitter doesn't charge you to use SMS, but your operator/carrier will charge you for each SMS you send (and, in some countries, for the SMSs you receive). So, you may want to consider an SMS plan before enabling SMS for Twitter.
- Twitter has 2 SMS short codes and three long codes (for international users):
- In the US, use 40404.
- In Canada, use 21212.
- In Sweden, use: +46 737 494222
- In Germany, use +49 17 6888 50505
- Anywhere else, use +44 7624 801423
- A list of the commands you can use when you interact with Twitter via SMS can be found on Twitter's SMS help page. The basics are:
- @username + message
- D username + message
- WHOIS username
- GET username
- NUDGE username
- FAV username
- STATS
- INVITE phone number
Tonight I caught up with a mobile industry colleague who asked me why he should bother with Twitter when he already has a blog and Facebook account. Here's my reply:
Twitter is so easy, fast and rewarding that I've stopped blogging as much in favor of Twittering more. Twitter is is a micro-blogging platform (i.e. 140 characters or less of text). It now feeds all of my Facebook updates. Here are the reasons why I think you'll like it:
- It's fast and easy to get started and update - 10 seconds a crack (max) Twitter is the latest land grab, so I've taken the liberty of signing you up for an account (so that no one claims your name). Email to you forthcoming. Your password is ******. At least you'll have the real estate if you decide to try it.
- Twitter is growing very fast (~2.5M users worldwide), and there's an active community. Here are the stats & demographics from Quantcast: http://www.quantcast.com/twitter.com.
- You get breaking news faster than anywhere else on the web. It's a
great way to keep up with and spread the latest news in tech and mobile.
- You can monitor and mitigate what people think of a particular brand People are talking about brands all the time on Twitter. In the mobile industry, for example, here are the conversations going on about Nokia: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=nokia.
- There's
a great mobile and tech conversations on Twitter... Twitter provides you with a quick and easy way
to start a conversation with people and brands you find interesting and stay in touch with folks you already know offline. Here are a handful of the folks that I'm following in the mobile and tech arena with names you might recognize.
- Tim O'Reilly: Founder of O'Reilly Media: http://twitter.com/timoreilly
- TechCrunch: http://twitter.com/TechCrunch
- Robert Scoble: http://twitter.com/Scobleizer
- MOTODEV (Motorola's developer community): http://twitter.com/motodev
- Kara Swisher (Boomtown blog): http://twitter.com/karaswisher
- Pete Cashmore (Mashable blog): http://twitter.com/mashable
- Jeremiah Owyang (Senior Analyst of Social Computing at Forester Research): http://twitter.com/jowyang
- Facebook: http://twitter.com/facebook
- Dave Morin (Facebook Platform): http://twitter.com/davemorin
- Mario Sundar (Evangelist for LInkedIn): http://twitter.com/mariosundar
- Loic LeMeur (Founder of Seesmic): http://twitter.com/loic
- MG Seigler (Venture Beat): http://twitter.com/parislemon
- TED (updates about the TED conference): http://twitter.com/tedtalks
- Guy Kawasaki: http://twitter.com/guykawasaki
- Jerry Rocha: Social media and mobile guy at Neilsen: http://twitter.com/jerryrocha
- And so many more! If you sign up and want other recommendations, start following "mrtweet" and go to http://www.mrtweet.net/, which will feed you recommendations based on your interests/who you follow.
Give it a try, and follow me on Twitter.
Want to Twitter this post? Here's the TinyURL: http://tinyurl.com/9b7kvq
Here are a handful of my predictions for mobile and social media in 2009, moving into 2010… For the record, I’ve left off everything I know will happen in 2009 and limited this list to things I *think* will happen:
- Smartphones and feature phones will continue to converge in iPhone-esque fashion.
- Mobile Internet will drive usage of smartphones, and with it, more robust experiments with mobile advertising and payments will begin.
- Mobile advertising and payments will gain some momentum in 2009 but won’t really take off until 2010 and beyond.
- A few thoughts on Android:
- Android will struggle to gain momentum until there is infrastructure to distribute paid apps and an iTunes-esque web or client-based interface for PC & Mac.
- Ultimately, Android will do well, but it’s going to take longer than many anticipate.
- Mobile and web convergence will continue heating up…
- Mobile back up and “kill pill” services will gain increased momentum, as those who convert to ‘smarter’ phones start storing more important data on their mobile (i.e. contacts, calendar, email, etc.). Mobile Me, Dashwire and other services will continue to improve, and new players will enter the market, making it easier for users to access data on their phone from the web and reducing the pain associated with a lost or stolen phone.
- Mobile will become more social. ShoZu, Xumii, Pixelpipe, PixSense, and others social media gateways are already making a play in this market. But, in 2009, web-based players (ala FriendFeed) will experiment with mobile. And, we’ll see acquisitions and consolidation in this space.
- Towards the end of the year or early 2010, I think we’ll start seeing converged development platforms that allow developers to create both web and mobile apps/widgets in fewer steps. In late 2009-2010, mobile OS providers and OEMs will start looking beyond SMS, MMS, and email and incorporate social messaging tools like Twitter and maybe FriendFeed into basic functionality of phones. And, mobile address books should become more social, allowing you to input your friends’ social networking details into your address book and interact with them via your chosen medium in 1-2 clicks.
- Both web and mobile development platforms will continue to duke it out for developer attention. Developers will choose the platforms that provide the easiest-to-use, most robust tools and monetization and distribution options.
- I’m hoping Microsoft pulls a rabbit out of a hat… Perhaps, they will finally make computers chewy like cake, but more likely Windows 7 and the next generation of Windows Mobile (which I bet will be called "Windows Mobile 7") will play better together than previous mobile and PC OSes.
- I don't want to predict a rampant mobile virus, but I think it could happen easily, as mobile-web convergence accelerates: A mobile virus has a high probability of emerging in 2009 (though, I won't go as far to say that one will emerge), targetting PIM data (contacts, calendar, etc.). This type of virus would negatively impact both mobile owners and anyone with an email or mobile number listed on an infected mobile phone. A virus like this would be particularly nasty because it could simultaneously spread through Internet enabled mobile apps, SMS/MMS, and email. So, even if it stopped spreading through mobile apps, it could continue to spread through email and SMS/MMS. The most likely phones that would be impacted are smartphones on open development platforms like Android that give 3rd party developers access to PIM data but don’t closely regulate free app content or distribution. The likelihood of this happening will decrease if open mobile OS providers (like Google) implement better checks and balances for apps, though doing so may slow innovation in the 3rd party app space. The other group of users that could be impacted by a mobile virus are those who back-up their PIM data to an un-proven “server in the sky” provider that gets hacked.
- The mobile app store war will heat up… The success of the iTunes app store has blown other smartphone stores out of the water, and bolstered sales of the iPhone. Microsoft, RIM and others will attempt to join or leapfrog the competition.
- Social media and mobile measurement, monitoring, and monetization tools like Radian6, Bango, Mobclix and others (all of which solve pieces of this puzzle) will improve, converge, and become more robust widely used and accessible.
- Social media and mobile marketing will gain validity as measurement tools improve.
- More big brands will embrace mobile and social campaigns rather than running away from them.
- Marketers will be able to target content more appropriately to users based on behavior, location, and handset.
- Developers will be able to more effectively understand consumer behavior and increase app traction.
- There will be increased consolidation in the social media aggregation space. Smaller social networks will die or be acquired into larger networks. Aggregation sites like FriendFeed will become more popular. Turf wars will escalate with larger social networks taking increased action against smaller aggregation networks that violate terms of their API licenses and encroach on their turf (Facebook's lawsuit against Power.com and action against Google Friend connect were just the start).
- Facebook will continue to grow in popularity and eventually find a way to properly monetize its 150,000,000 + users.
- Twitter will make a big move in 2009. Someone smart will acquire Twitter (if the offer is good enough) or Twitter will acquire more of the best companies in its developer community and build out a more robust platform with increased consumer appeal. Twitter will (hopefully) begin to monetize in 2009.
- While “Virtual Gifts” will continue to grow in popularity, “Real Gifts” (like Givereal.com) will gain increased momentum in 2009 and really take off in 2010. Online retailers will make their real products (books, clothes, etc.) easily giftable via social networks. You’ll be able to send gifts to your friends/acquaintances without knowing their real address.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on these predictions. If you're not a vox member, please email your comments to me, and I'll re-post.
Want to Twitter this post? Here's the tiny URL: http://tinyurl.com/7wvyw9
Want to follow me on Twitter?: www.twitter.com/lisawhelan.
For those of you that disconnected during Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Year, etc… Welcome back. Here’s a summary of the most interesting social media and mobile news I read in the last few weeks:
Apple:
- 1/6/09: At Macworld….
- Apple announced tiered pricing for songs on iTunes that allows record labels to charge higher amounts for more popular songs… Their new pricing scheme, which will launch in April will offer songs at 69 cents, 99 cents, or $1.29. When I heard this, I couldn’t help but think of the old Taco Bell commercials of the early 1990s… “.59, .79, .99” I know record labels need to make a buck, but I’m more inclined to pay $1.29 for a taco than I am for a new song on iTunes.
- On a happier note, songs will finally be DRM free and 256 Kbps AAC by the end of Q1. Today, iTunes store has 8 million DRM-free songs. By the end of March, they’ll have 10 million.
- And, if you’ve got an iPhone 3G, you’ll be able to download songs directly to your iPhone over the 3G network, and the songs will sync between your computer and your phone….Ahhh… Finally!
- In FY 2008, Apple sold 9.7 million Macs, and Mac sales increased at two times the rate of the overall PC market.
- The new version of iPhoto within iLife will have facial recognition software, which allows you to pick photos of a specific friend from your album without a text tag. And, iPhoto will be Facebook and Flickr compatible!
- 1/5/09: Steve Jobs told the world that his recent rapid weight loss is due to a hormone imbalance and not a return of pancreatic cancer.
Facebook:
- 1/2/09: Facebook sued Brazilian start-up Power.com for trademark and copyright infringement, violation of the computer fraud and abuse act, and unlawful competition. Facebook’s complain states that Power.com “is offering a product that solicits, stores and uses Facebook login information to access information stored on Facebook computers without authorization and to display Facebook copyrighted material without permission.” You can read the NY Times article that describes the suit here.
- 12/31/08: Proving that the “blue screen of death” is alive and well, Microsoft’s 2006 30GB model Zune experienced a massive failure on the last day of 2008, and users were not amused. The bug appears to have been fixed, though users are still unhappy about it.
Twitter:
- 1/5/09: Twitter was hacked over the weekend, and 33 high profile accounts were hijacked. There was also a separate phishing scam through the direct message capability. You can learn more about it on Twitter’s blog.
UIQ:
- 1/5/09: Symbian partner, UIQ filed for bankruptcy.
Verizon:
- 1/5/09: BusinessWeek reports that “The $5.9 billion acquisition of cellular carrier Alltel Corp. by Verizon Wireless will close on Jan. 9”. This will mean that Verizon trumps AT&T as the largest US mobile operator with ~ 78 million subscribers.
Xobni:
1/5/09: Xobni (inbox spelled backwards), the company behind a very cool outlook plug-in that turns your email inbox into a social network, announced $7M in Series B funding from new investor Cisco Systems and Xobni’s existing investors.
Layoffs:
1/6/09: Clearspring, which plays in the widget distribution space laid off 20% of its workforce in early December, and their President/COO, Jay Rappaport is leaving.
Misc. Social Media & Mobile News:
- I just learned about Twtpoll, which lets you poll your Twitter followers. Looks like a great idea if you’re a brand that wants feedback from its community of users.
- 1/1/09: California passed a no-text messaging while driving rule, which became legal on Jan 1. I can’t help but wonder how it can be illegal to text while driving, and yet, it’s perfectly okay to fiddle with your radio, AC, or GPS. Not that I’m advocating texting while driving. It just seems like an inane law, given the many distracting things you could be doing while driving.
- 1/3/09 The 1.0 version of a Firefox add-on called Power Twitter launched, allowing “search, search scoped to a specific user, status history peeking on mouseover, Facebook status updates, inline YouTube, Flickr, and TwitPic, url expansion, url translation to page titles, and open web update (news feed) mapping.” It sounds interesting to me and gets good reviews, but I’ve heard a few complaints from people I follow on Twitter, so I’m waiting until the next release.
- 12/31: TechCrunch did a great piece on the Top Social Media Sites of 2008, which summarizes data from comScore. Top Social Media Sites (ranked by unique worldwide visitors November, 2008; comScore):
- Blogger (222 million)
- Facebook (200 million)
- MySpace (126 million)
- Wordpress (114 million)
- Windows Live Spaces (87 million)
- Yahoo Geocities (69 million)
- Flickr (64 million)
- hi5 (58 million)
- Orkut (46 million)
- Six Apart (46 million)
- Baidu Space (40 million)
- Friendster (31 million)
- 56.com (29 million)
- Webs.com (24 million)
- Bebo (24 million)
- Scribd (23 million)
- Lycos Tripod (23 million)
- Tagged (22 million)
- imeem (22 million)
- Netlog (21 million)
- 12/31/08: TechCrunch has an interesting article on the rise of Y-Combinator, start-up Scribd. Scribd allows users to post and share documents online. TechCrunch reports: “According to the comScore numbers, it has more unique visitors worldwide than imeem and almost as many as Bebo, with 23.5 million visitors in November, 2008. (In the U.S., it had about 4 million visitors).” And, Scribd grew “218 percent from November, 2007. Pretty incredible stats for a company that initially only raised $300,000! “
- 12/31/08 The UK loves watching the TV show “Big Brother,” and rumor has it, they may be forced to live a frightening real-life version of it in the future. The Guardian reports,
“The private sector will be asked to manage and run a communications database that will keep track of everyone's calls, emails, texts and internet use under a key option contained in a consultation paper to be published next month by Jacqui Smith, the home secretary.
A cabinet decision to put the management of the multibillion pound database of all UK communications traffic into private hands would be accompanied by tougher legal safeguards to guarantee against leaks and accidental data losses.”Even though the report hasn’t yet been published, critics of its rumored contents are speaking out against it including Sir Ken Macdonald, the former director of public prosecutions.
- 12/31/08: Obama’s Change.gov site is getting great use. According to TechCrunch, “more than 74,031 people have submitted more than 53,369 questions (and counting) for his administration and voted 3,122,015 times to prioritize the questions in a Digg-like fashion.” You can see the top list of questions here.
- 12/30/08: Hitwise reported 3 interesting holiday social media trends in the UK:
- “Facebook accounts for 1 in 22 UK Internet visits on Christmas Day”
- "Video site YouTube received more UK Internet traffic than Microsoft Windows Live Mail (Hotmail) for the first time during Christmas week 2008.”
- “social networks accounted for 1 in every 10 UK Internet visits during Christmas week.”
- 12/26/08: Amazon.com announced it’s best Christmas season ever with “6.3 million items ordered worldwide on the peak day, Dec. 15, which is a record-breaking 72.9 items per second.”
- 12/15/08: BusinessWeek reports that Palm will launch its new Nova OS at CES. After several layoffs, many ups and downs over the years, I find it amusing that they decided to name it Nova (“no va” means “no go” in Spanish.) Chevrolet learned how disastrous that name could be when it launched the Chevy Nova years ago. I’m not sure if this was lost on Palm’s marketing team, if it was an inside joke, or if they knew about it and decided to buck tradition and go with the name anyway. I love Palm, and I’m keeping fingers crossed they find a way to make this work. I think it’ll be tough in to re-gain developers’ trust after several false starts in recent years.
