Posted by Twitter is hailed as micro-Blogging, but it’s much more like rapid fire Blogging. Even if you only follow a handful of friends, it can quickly get unwieldy, hard to manage and confusing to follow any semblance of a conversation. There are many (including me) who have said that following Twitter is a little bit like drinking from the fire hose.
The bigger question is: how do you get more out of the fire hose than the occasional dribble? The answer is that you can’t (unless you’re willing to give up your life to stare at the screen all day). Over the past few days, one of the better ways for me to interface with Twitter has been through an iPod Touch with the paid application, Tweetie (hat tip to Eden Spodek). Everything from the overall usability and navigation felt much more intuitive than the web-based version of Twitter (which was very surprising, as most mobile applications usually pale in comparison to the Web versions).
Then, Dave Winer over at Scripting News posted this Blog item: Tweetree. It turns out that Tweetree is a brand new web-based tool that looks exactly like your regular Twitter page, but does a whole lot more including certain threading to replies, and sucking in cool stuff like images, videos and web pages that are described in the Tweets. It makes the whole experience of Twitter that much more manageable. It’s not perfect (what is?), but it does make things just a little bit cleaner and better flowing.
If you’re going to be using the Twitter interface and have yet to be swayed over to TweetDeck (more on that here: TweetDeck – How Tweet It Is), you should definitely check out Tweetree. Besides, Tweetree seems brand new, and who doesn’t like being the cool kid on the block with the latest shiny object to play with?
What do you use to manage Twitter? Do you prefer web-based or mobile applications?
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Hi Mitch:
I’m all about Tweetdeck, I LOVE it. The fact that I can have global searches open at all time, plus the groups function is awesome. I love how it’s full screen too, unlike most other Twitter Air apps.
I was just playing with Tweetree, it’s pretty cool too.
I also subscribe to the RSS feeds generated by http://www.summize.com when I make custom searches. This way I can be alerted in real time when someone is talking about something of interest to me. This is very helpful at work, where I manage our social media efforts at Griffin Technology.
Drop by and say hi sometime @griffintech.
Happy New Year!
Cheers,
Dave
@davedelaney.
I use twitteriffic. It doesn’t do much for management, but at least I don’t have to keep twitter open in the browser all day. It also only works on mac.
For now, I use a combination of Twitterific (for notifications), and posting through Identi.ca with Adium.
On a sidenote, people I don’t follow on Twitter, I follow on FriendFeed (Twitter’s best friend) through Adium.
But tyhe more I hear about TweedtDeck, themore I think about giving that a try.
Though Seems to be a good app, but still lacks the fast page uploading. It took more then 5 mins to completely upload the page. Still it promises a great future with so many applications embedded to the tweets.
I’m still following twitter on it’s basic interface, I did try some firefox add on’s like twitbin, but discontinued it. Tabbed browsing does about the same thing. Sometimes I do a search to see if anyone is doing the same thing I’m doing, after all the the question is “what are you doing”? I though it would be interesting to get a match on activity.
A search function should be on the main page but the are so many add on apps for twitter you could add your own search tool. I prefer the basic interface. I like the firehose rapid posting by “everone”.
I wrote my own reader using pyTwerp (a Python library/script that talks to the Twitter API). It pulls my tweetstream every 10 minutes. I read the results when I have time.
I’ve you’re a Unixish techie person, check out my how-to at http://cfcl.com/vlb/Learn/twitter/twitter_reader.shtml
I haven’t quite found the niche in my web-browsing experience that Twitter can fill, but I’m active on FriendFeed.
When I do use Twitter though, I just go directly to the site to view updates or update mine via bookmarklet (twitlet).
Tweetree looks interesting, but needs to be client-based for me to sway from tweetdeck.
Tweetdeck is VERY well designed, and seems to have all the functionality I need. I’m running it on all my Macs.
On the iPhone, I went from twitterific to twinkle and now Tweetie – an excellent and quick app.
Best,
Jon
@mossman
What I like most about Tweetie is the ease at which I can move between multiple twitter accounts – I can check the streams, DMs and replies for four accounts within 30 seconds. It’s so easy to use. I have to give a hat tip to Wayne MacPhail who recommended it to me when I asked for recommendations for apps for my new iPod Touch. (Apps have been a great example of social shopping on Twitter too.)
I was one of those people who tried Tweetdeck when it was the new kid on the block but it wasn’t wooing me. I just tried Tweetree – I love the multimedia integration and seeing the context of discussions. Although it is a bit much now that I’m not only following people I choose to follow but everyone they are conversing with as well. Guess it’s time to give Tweetdeck another try. 😉
For a web-based app, I’d like to see a mash-up of Tweetdeck and Tweetree.
Hi Mitch,
I think you said it best – web-based twitter is like peeping through a keyhole, whereas Tweetdeck is like NORAD.
I use Tweetdeck and will now check-out Tweetree.
Mitch,
Sorry for the shameless plug here but you should stop Tweetworks. It was designed to help people have a better experience by adding topical groups and threaded conversations.
We have moved the focus from the follower/following relationship to the conversation. I think you’ll enjoy it.
We’ll be adding a few new features over the next month such as easie search, activity notification, RSS as well as making the API available.
Keep up the great work Mitch. I always look forward to your posts.
Best,
Mike
Stop “by” Tweetworks…ugh! I love my iphone but the typos kill me.
it all depends. i’ll use the best app for the situation. if i’m out and about, and i want to track friends on my BB its slandr, but to post i’ll use twitterberry. on the PC its usually twitterfox, but i’m trying out tweetdeck.
tweetree looks ok – nice to not have to click to see vids etc.
yes twitter web is not good.