Erstellt am: 1. 3. 2009 - 11:09 Uhr
Today's webtip: Twitter Tools
Twitter has been in the press quite a bit lately. I guess it's finally having that breakthrough moment. The one it could have used a year ago, before they had to kill the SMS part of the service.
But I digress.
It's here, it's back, and I know more people are starting to use it by the steady trickle of new followers I see.
So let's talk about what to do with it.
I'm not going to present one of those silly "10 Things NOT to do with Twitter", or "100 ways to be a better Twitterer" posts. Mainly because there are no rules, and partly because if there were, I would be more likely to encourage breaking them.
That doesn't mean there won't be consequences for how you choose to use twitter. It just means you will have to figure out what they are for yourself.
For me, Twitter is sort of like sitting at the back of the class and passing notes. I like to share snarky little one-liners and witicisms about whatever happens to be happening with people on the web. In this case, the world is my classroom, and I'm not risking detention. Just unemployment.
I also like using it to ask questions, get answers, and just generally see what interesting bits of information people might be bandying about. That means I don't follow companies, or people who are using twitter as a basic rss feed. I will follow some celebrities, IF there appears to be a real person behind it, and they are offering a view behind the facade.
Real People? Oh yes indeed.
Stephen Fry is a good example of a celebrity using twitter in an interesting and informative fashion. ORF's own Armin Wolf is one who might just end up being interesting as well. Right now he is a bit too stiff and corporate for my taste, but his followers seem to like him.
And yes, Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore are there. Ashton is actually sort of fun to read. I was surprised.
Information please?
Some people like their Twitter as a sort of quick n dirty feed reader. There are plenty of sites out there offering their most recent updates on twitter. FM4Stories is one example, MSFAustria another.
Vienna Unlike offers a nice little feed for those who want to know what's going on out there, sort of a portable event calendar that makes up for all of the other event calendars that refuse to be useful.
Tools of the Trade
When I first started using Twitter, it's SMS delivery was still working for Europeans. It was basically the better SMS service, providing the type of functionality a truly innovative telecom industry would have made basic fare years ago. It was the type of functionality that might have even justified the outrageous service costs that we pay for SMS. Unfortunately for us, SMS delivery no longer works in Europe. Fortunately for us, a small company has jumped in to fill the gap so you can at least get some of the basic functionality back.
twe2.com will get your personal replies and direct messages out to you. You can't choose to get any updates from particular people, but it's better than nothing and it's free. You will need to find another way to send updates from your phone though.
Which is where justtweetit.com comes in. They have a list of tools for twitter that should be able to get you up and running on the run, wether you are using an iphone, crackberry, WinCE device or just a normal java enabled phone.
And finally we come to www.twitalyzer.com a tool that is pretty handy for getting an idea of just what someone is doing on twitter. You can put in a user name and it will spit out a breakdown of what that user is doing with Twitter. It doesn't replace actually reading a persons updates, but for those of you who are interested in doing something more than participating in a global popularity contest it might just be of some use.
And of course there is my page. It's probably the quickest way for anyone to send me a link they think needs to be shared on the radio.