Archive for: tweets
Tweetdeck has just released their web application in the Chrome Web store. Now any user can access Tweetdeck from within their Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer and Opera browser.
According to a blog post from TweetDeck, the new Web App, which requires no downloads, is already working on Chrome, Firefox 3.6, Firefox 4 and Safari with compatible versions arriving soon for IE9 and Opera.
If you’d like to try your luck at receiving a beta invitation you can visit: http://www.tweetdeck.com/webbeta. You’ll need to know your browser name and version number, then again if you don’t know how to find those you shouldn’t be in a technology based beta program to begin with.
Are you a “tweeter?” You are not alone; millions of people are. People use Twitter for hundreds of different reasons, from talking to friends and family to following their favorite celebrity. People appreciate the sense of community and belonging they get following those with similar interests, while having others follow them.
Twitter seems fairly harmless, with its 140-character limit. However, even Twitter can have the inherent dangers of Internet insecurity if we are not wary. Twitter is similar to Facebook in that we can often share too much information with people we do not know. An identity thief needs a small portion of information to infiltrate your existence. Of course, there are methods to protect your private information, and here are a few that you should keep in mind as you “tweet”.
• Be careful with what you share. Twitter’s format allows people keep track of you and follow your feed. However, if someone isn’t following you, that doesn’t mean they can’t see your feed. Your feed is public by default and anyone can find and read your feed. Your posts can easily be re-tweeted as well, meaning that your off-hand comment could ultimately be viewed by hundreds of unscrupulous individuals. Furthermore, companies tend to perform background checks on current and future employees. Your public tweets can give background check companies just what they need to start their investigation. As a rule of thumb, if it’s something that you wouldn’t say to a stranger on the street, then don’t “tweet” it.
• Keep track of who is following you. They could be people you know or just spam tweeters, but either way, you should know who follows you. This goes back to remembering how far your tweet can reach. Everyone uses Twitter, including your boss most likely. Still think that tweet about skipping work to play basketball was a good idea? If you don’t know one of your followers, check their feed and see what interests them. Most people are harmless, but it only takes one that isn’t to cause you problems.
• Watch out for short URLs. Most people sharing links on Twitter need to shorten them because of the character limitations. That makes it harder to tell if a link is valid, or just a hack attempt. You never know what is behind that anonymous link until you click it, and by then it may be too late. The easiest way to judge a link is in whether or not it is from someone you are familiar with and trust. An added advantage is the “Tweetdeck” app that Twitter has, which gives you a preview before clicking a link. It’s not a completely foolproof system, but it helps.
• The only way to assure total privacy is to go totally private. Twitter offers the ability to privatize your feed. At this point, only approved followers would be able to view your postings. This can be somewhat limiting, especially if you are using Twitter for networking purposes, but you will have to weigh the options for yourself on this one. However, if you are truly trying to lock things down, then this is the only foolproof way to do that.
Chad Engle had a simple and useful idea for those in love with the new Twitter design: He created a background template which we can use it to design our own backgrounds with the guarantee that it will fit perfectly in the new Twitter.
This background template includes all the necessary info for you to design the background properly, like the “Twitter container” (where we usually find our timeline with all the tweets), and also the reference for all common resolutions possible. Download it directly from here.
Chad makes an important remark about the new Twitter design “Twitter aligns all backgrounds to the left. Also, you can put elements to the far right but be aware that some users will not see them depending on what monitor/resolution they are running”.
I think Twitter decided this “left design” instead of a central to focus the reading on the left pane.
Massive social networks like Twitter demands, for normal users and companies, not only using it but also maintain several accounts, publishing a lot of information and also brand monitoring. For that, SplitTweet is the tool.
SplitTweet is a simple and free web app which will provide you a single place to handle several Twitter accounts with all the necessary information of each: Replies, direct messages, favorites and the most important one brand mentions features, which experts in social media can use it to monitor the behavior and popularity of their brands.
SplitTweet also provides a simple dashboard where you can monitor all the important activity around your accounts. Another important feature of this web app is the possibility to automatically tweet the same in several accounts.
It also have a Desktop App for Mac.
Twee.li is an application which allows you to use it as a normal Twitter app but also gives you the ability to instantly chat with your followers. Tweet.li is completely free but still has some cons.
Tweet.li, developed in Adobe AIR, comes as an idea to replace TinyChat and other similar web apps which you can use in your browser but easily share the chat rooms to your Twitter timeline and invite followers; including also the possibility to login using your Twitter account name.
But even though the idea sounds great there are a few cons so far: To use it with your followers, they must use Tweet.li as well, no other option available; also the application stability and performance are not actually the best, since it takes a few moments for the timeline to update.
Even though I enjoy saying “Twitter is not a chat room”, there are some exceptions and there are even more number of users who actually use it for chatting.
TweetLevel, developed by Edelman, is a simple but powerful web app which provides a way to measure the influence level of people according to their activity on Twitter.
I know, I know, you want to know how exactly does this web app calculates all this information and comes up with a result saying you are or not influential. Well in simple words: Numbers of followers, how much do you interact and chat with other people and how many re tweets do you receive.
That was the easy explanation; do you want the complex one? Ok here’s the TweetLevel formula:
There we can see there are other variables like: Number of updates; velocity; following users; name pointing; etc. But no worries, the complete explanation of this can be found here.
In the top five we can find:
1. Justin Bieber.
2. Perez Hilton.
3. SouljaBoy.
4. OGOchoCinco.
5. KimKardashian.
Ashton Kutcher is number 11; Puff Daddy, 14; Barack Obama, 19; among other interesting Twitter users.
And you? What’s your Tweet Level?
Dan Zarella is, as the blog says it, the social media scientist; and created a very interesting tool: “Most ReTweetable Words Finder” given a keyword, shows the most retweetable words.
The use is quite simple as well: enter a keyword and click analyze. The tool will return a list of words that were found to be related to that word and highly ReTweetable. It will also display the number of Tweets and ReTweets analyzed to generate the list. Here’s an example of “Microsoft” keyword:
We can find some words like “kinect”, “gaming”, “camera”, “ironruby” or even “fetish” (?).
The tool compares words found in ReTweets against non-ReTweet Tweets. Using the last 24hours, the tool analyzes up to 1500 Tweets and 1500 ReTweets per word.
If you are interested in retweeats, Dan created a report: “The Science of ReTweets”
Do you actually remember who your first follower was? And your first tweet? Well you don’t need to test your memory; MyFirstTweet and FirstFollower will do the job for you.
Any of these two simple web apps does not require connecting with your Twitter account to retrieve this information, just use your Twitter name and the result will be available in just a few seconds.
MyFirstTweet web app currently is showing a disclaimer about the use of it: “This is working intermittently at the moment. I think the site hasn’t quite cleared Twitter’s whitelist yet. If you put in your twitter username I’ll save it and run it when things are running again. Sorry about that.”
In my case I didn’t have any problem running it.
Oh and in case you are interested, there’s also a section with the “earliest tweets”.
TwitFlink is a simple but very useful web app created for those who keep losing track for their friends links, shared in Twitter.
This web app is completely free and does not need any registration nor connection with your Twitter account, just enter the Twitter username and you will find the latest links shared by this user.
But here’s even more, TwitFlink also facilitates you the work on finding the exact link you were looking for by adding the “Keyword Filter” possibility. With that, if you didn’t fav a previous tweet, you just need to remember the user name to find it.
Seems that people just can’t get enough about Twitter apps, and now TwitDates offers the dating service to all Twitter users.
There’s one thing for sure, wherever a lot of people gather around, a dating app appears. TwitDates is a free service where you just need to login with your Twitter account, add a few more data about you and that’s it, you can start find your date in Twitter.
Even more, before login in with your Twitter account you can make a quick search using the desired criteria from age and country. The site does not have many users just yet, but I guess there’s only a matter of time.
The service also provides you the way to exchange messages with other users, including photos, videos, links and etc.
