Twitter Let Us Count The Ways To Stay In Touch
Sunday, February 15th, 2009The other day while visiting our Twitter, I was struck by how many different posting and contact systems are currently in place to help you Tweet more efficiently.
In our January 4th post, we mentioned a couple:
The first allows you to add comments directly to your Twitter from the address bar of your browser. It is an addon for your Firefox browser. Extremely simple to add, very easy to use.
The second is a slightly confusing, but ultimately satisfying, way to have a third party recognize your new posts and announce them – automatically – to your Twitter account.
But then I started going down through our lists of followers, and taking notes on how individual Twitter-ers are able to (seemingly) Tweet and get stuff done. Turns out there are a wide variety of tools at your disposal. Some make it easier to post, some are desktop interfaces (versus tabbing back and forth to your Twitter account).
Here’s what I’ve located so far – with short explanations of what each of these services and/or software programs do:
Tweetie
For those who hang onto their iPhones and iPods with a vise-like grip, this tool is an application you can add to make posting and/or answering Tweets easier. This download-able application costs $2.99. For screenshots just click that link.
TwitterGadget
You can add this method of Twittering to your Gmail account using Gmail Labs (here are the installation instructions. What this program does is best represented by a quote from their website, “TwitterGadget is a clean, robust, web 2.0 style client for Twitter.com, designed to submit status updates to Twitter via your iGoogle homepage or Gmail Account.” I invite you to visit and interpret the rest yourself.
TweetDeck
TweetDeck is in beta, but I see an awful lot of die-hard Tweeters using it. It’s designed to help organize the massive amounts of incoming information, as well as allowing you to interface with your followers. Again, a quote from their website is in order, “It aims to evolve the existing functionality of Twitter by taking an abundance of information i.e twitter feeds, and breaking it down into more manageable bite sized pieces.”
TwitterFox
This is also a Firefox addon so installing it (like all things Firefox) is a breeze. TwitterFox “adds a tiny icon on the status bar which notifies you when your friends update their tweets.” In addition, it also has a small text input field to update your tweets.
Tweetfeed (not to be confused with TwitterFeed)
And last (for now) but most likely not least, Tweetfeed, a Twitter activity page that shows live what’s happening on your Twitter. You can customize the setting, and create what they call “Tweet walls” for conferences and events. Actually they state, use it however you want. We’ve added a link to a few TweetFeed examples
I do want you to know that, to date, I’m personally only using the first two referenced at the top of this post. But again, the ones listed are used constantly by Tweeters.
I should also note that TweetDeck (in beta) looks very appealing, but my Kaspersky firewall had strong objections to it. Most likely nothing at all to worry about, but I’m paranoid and decided to wait.
No doubt you’ve heard in the news lately of a few (stupid) tweets made by those (in our government) who should know better. Giving a step by step itinerary of one’s trip through war-torn Middle Eastern countries is definitely a stupid move.
However, in terms of instant communication, once you get the hang of it, Twitter isn’t going down the tubes as predicted numerous months ago. If anything, with all these tools available, mastering and using Twitter may be just the perfect move for you to make this year!
Enjoy!
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