Yes, He Can

First Presidential Live Tweet

President Obama sends this tweet in the first Twitter @townhall meeting at the White House.

Diplomacy on Twitter

Related video: President Obama: We may be able to finally throw away those red phones..."

Using Summize to Create Filtered Group Views

In a recent post at the GetSatisfaction Twitter forum, @sorenj asked if there was a way to create filtered views of the people that he is following.

Specifically, he said:

I'm interested in limiting what posts I see from time to time, topically. For example, if I'm having a conversation with fellow bloggers, I might want to filter my view (via tag) at that time to just the bloggers I follow. If I want to see what my family and friends have said in the past couple of hours, I'd rather just filter by family and view those posts. etc.

I think this is a great idea for a Twitter third-party application to implement. Perhaps if we're lucky, the folks at Twhirl or Twitterific will see fit to add this functionality to their respective apps.

Until that happy day comes, however, we can use the Summize Twitter Search to create filtered group views.

It's a bit of a pain at the start since we have to explicitly enter the names of the people we want to see together in the same group, but once we've got the search parameters the way we want them, we can bookmark the URLs and visit them any time.

Also, there's the added bonus that Summize notifies us in real time of new search results that have come in which match our search parameters.

So, for example, if I wanted to see recent updates from @paisano, @pistachio, and @skalik as a group, I can enter this search string in Summize:

paisano OR pistachio OR skalik
(Click the link to see search results)

As you'll no doubt see, our search parameter is too open-ended. It also return @replies that other people have sent to our three friends. Fortunately, we can use the minus operator to tell Summize to filter out tweets that are @replies to our friends by using this search string.

paisano OR pistachio OR skalik -@paisano -@pistachio -@skalik
(click the link to see the difference)

You can use the advanced search page to enter people's names under "any of these words" and enter the @username versions of their names under "none of these words"

The method is crude, but it works, and can be easily used over and over again once the URLs have been bookmarked. 8-)

------

Edited to add:

Thanks to the first comment below from diego, I just realized that there's a simpler and more accurate way to achieve the desired search results using Summize: use the FROM operator with the OR operator.

For example: from:paisano OR from:skalik OR from:sorenj

Also, this exact same search capability is supported by the Flaptor Twitter Search. In their case, the operators are AUTHOR and OR.

For example: author:paisano OR author:skalik OR author:sorenj.

How I Use Twitter

I decided it was high time that I sat down and described in detail how I use Twitter, i.e., how I keep track of Twitter without spending all day on it.

The techniques described below may not be helpful to everyone, but they serve me extremely well right now, and there's a good chance that other people will benefit from using these tricks too.

The tips below assume that the reader has a reasonable understanding of Twitter terms, such as direct messages, user names, and @replies.

1. Choose a distinct and short user name. Many of the tips below will work only if you have a fairly distinct user name. The best names are words or names that you would not normally use in regular conversation. You'll also want to keep your user name fairly short, out of courtesy to the people who will need to type it in to send you public replies or direct messages.
2. Create a Twittermail account to get @Replies by email. Although the Twittermail service was originally created so you could use email messages to post updates to your Twitter account, I use it almost exclusively to receive a complete copy of the @Replies that people have sent me. The email is in digest format, so all the replies that have come in over a span of time are batched together in one email.
3. Use Tweetscan to search for and email you tweets that contain your user name and keywords of interest. Tweetscan lets you enter up to five search terms, and emails you a complete list of all tweets that contain those terms on a daily or weekly basis. Make sure one of those terms is your user name. This helps you find tweets that talk about you, even if they're not @replies addressed to you. Obviously, the usefulness of such a service deteriorates if you have a user name that's used in regular conversation.
4. Use Terraminds Twitter Search to look for users that have similar interests as you. Terraminds offers two types of search -- you can search in updates and you can search in user profiles. Since most people include their interests and their location in their profile, you can find like-minded Twitter-ers as well as Twitter-ers who are nearby using Terraminds.
5. Use Twitter Track Alert for your username and for keywords of interest. Twitter offers its own Track service. After you've specified the keywords that you'd like to track, Twitter will send you (via SMS or IM) copies of all tweets that contain those keywords. Note that these include tweets from people that you're not following. As noted above, it's not that useful to track your user name if it's a commonly used word. Consider also creating Twitter track alerts for your company, your competitors, and topics of interest.
   
6. Use LoudTwitter to create archives of your updates. If you're the type of person whose uncomfortable with the idea that the only copy of all your tweets is on a server that you don't control, then you'll like LoudTwitter. It's a service that takes all the tweets that you've posted in the past day, and creates a blog entry that serves as a daily digest of your tweets. As of this writing, LoudTwitter is compatible with Typepad, Vox, Movable Type, Blogger, LiveJournal, and Wordpress.
7. If you're online often, add your IM account to your Twitter profile. Since track alerts are only sent to SMS or IM, you'll get the most value out of track if you're online on IM for extended periods. I typically leave my IM account logged in overnight to receive tweets, and I skim those when I wake up in the morning.
   
8. International users can work-around SMS limits by creating a separate Twitter account for mobile notifications. International (non-US) users can only receive up to 250 sms messages per week. This limitation is especially detrimental to non-US users because Twitter does not let us specify which notifications and alerts should go to IM and which should go to SMS. I've worked around this limitation by using only IM in my main Twitter account. I then created a second account (which is linked to my mobile phone) that only follows people that I want to get mobile updates from. I also created a track alert on my username in this second account. This set-up means I can't use standard sms to post Twitter updates into my first account, but that's not a problem for me since the cost of international sms is prohibitive to start with. I therefore rely more on IM, Twitter Mobile, and mobile applications to post my updates.
9. Find a mobile application that lets you post updates via WAP, GPRS, or 3G. Since I use a Treo Smartphone and my mobile service provider bills GPRS charges by the kilobyte, I use a Palm-OS mobile application called TreoTwit to post my updates.
   

When used together, these different technologies keep me plugged into my Twitter community with manageable interruptions and minimal investment in time and effort. I'm sure there are more ways to squeeze value out of Twitter. If you have your own suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

Le Web 3 Videos Now Online

Have started watching the Le Web 3 videos online.

They're extremely well-edited, are of fantastic video and audio quality, and the speakers are only given very limited time to deliver their talk.

Here's one that I just finished watching: Evan Williams of Obvious and Twitter talks about creating new products by taking away features from an existing product.

Twitter on CSI

Video excerpt from CSI Season 8, Episode 7: Goodbye and Good Luck.
YouTube video courtesy of jonathanfh.



Wonder if that scene will lead to an increase in sign-ups. 8-)

Searching for Answers on Terraminds

Have been having fun the past couple of days using the Terraminds Twitter Search to look for people who have not been receiving Twitter messages via SMS.

I first noticed the problem three nights ago. I'd gotten so used to receiving a couple of tweets every few minutes, so it was a bit unnerving to suddenly have my phone fall silent. Marvlove's tweet expresses the feeling best, I think:

Twitter! Why hath thou screweth me??... (not getting tweets feels weird.. like the first day of a nuclear winter.. and im the only survivor..) 01:45 PM November 01, 2007 from txt

I felt much better knowing that some else was experiencing the same problem, but I still had no way of tell if the problem was limited to just the Philippines.

Terraminds quickly became invaluable because it almost instantaneously let me see that that folks in other countries were experiencing the same problem.

• India. Tamil: am not getng sms updates 4 twtr posts over two days. something wrong with twtr or my mobile?
• London. mbites: Are Twitter SMS updates down? They are for me...
• Malaysia. arsyan: it seems that i havent been receiving any updates on my twitter thru sms. sth is going on. not just me a few others as well.
• Syria. cold0zero: i have same problem no SMS
• France. LeFoUvErT: Seems that SMS notifications aren't sent anymore there too.
  
• Australia. trib: @jagath - yes, I meant "no twitter SMS". Sucks.
• Qatar. mbaa: @yraffah I have the same maxer's problem , no sms received.
• Saudi Arabia. TheMaXeR: @mbaa yeah .. i have .. no sms received today
• South Africa. IrcMaidon: I'm not getting sms tweets...
• Israel. rotemboten: Yeah, I didn't recieve any sms as well.. do I need to do the follow thingy again from the phone?
• Beijing. zyicestar: I can't receive sms from twitter and why ?

Misery must really love company, because it's good to know folks the world over are experiencing the same thing. haha!

Philippine Journalist Reporting via Twitter

Manuel L. Quezon III, the journalist grandson of a former Philippine president, used his Twitter account to provide live updates about the impeachment complaint at the House of Representatives a few days ago.

Talk about wow.



With hat tip to Arnold Gamboa for (what else?) twittering about this.

Twitterfeed posts Flickr photos to Twitter

While writing up my experience testing the FlickrToTwitter service, I noticed that Ouriel Ohayon, a French-Israel venture capitalist and blogger whom I follow on Twitter, had sent a photo-tweet using Twitterfeed.

And that got me thinking. Flickr, after all, automatically creates RSS feeds for each tag that you specify in your Flickr photostream. I realized then that it should be a simple matter to grab whatever RSS feed you want to share and send it to Twitter!

So I looked at the Flickr page for my photos that are tagged with "4twit," grabbed the Flickr RSS feed which is located at the bottom of that page, and fed it to my Twitterfeed account.

I set Twitterfeed to post titles only, and asked it to include a link to the original photo. Then I waited for the requisite 30 minutes to pass until Twitterfeed checks the newly added feed.

The result: SUCCESS!!

And by golly, that was so much easier than I expected, since this approach has far less moving parts, plus the Twitterfeed platform was designed to do exactly this. I feel like kicking myself for not thinking of it on my own.

Thanks for the idea, Ouriel!

Managing Twitter Preferences

I've now been using Twitter for over a year and I follow 314 people (to date), with sms notifications ON for the vast majority of them.

I like waking up in the mornings and finding a couple of hundred new messages in my phone's inbox. Reading those messages while lying in bed is, IMHO, the perfect way to transition from that bleary-eyed, just-awakened, half-catatonic state to being lucid and ready to get out of bed.

These past couple of weeks, however, I've been so busy and tired from working late that I've had to resort to turning off sms notifications entirely. I do this with extreme reluctance, because when things get busy, I'm all the more cut off from news of any kind -- I don't watch TV, pick up the paper, or even surf news sites.

The Idea: Saving Notification Preferences for People You Follow

After a couple of weeks of this, I've found myself wishing I could predefine a handful of "Profiles" for my Twitter account. I use the term "Profile" here in the same way that Nokia uses it on their phones -- as a user-defined collection of preferences or parameter settings. Unfortunately, Twitter already uses the term "Profile" to mean something else, so I will use the (more awkward) term "Preferences" instead.

For example, my "Normal" Preference would be:

• SMS notifications: ON
• IM notifications: OFF
• My personal notification settings for each person I'm following
  

In contrast, my "Busy" Preference would be:

• SMS notifications: ON
  
• IM notifications: OFF
• With notifications for all followees set to OFF except for those who happen to be:
  (a) Family
  (b) Close personal friends, or
  (c) Newsbots.
  

My "Online" Preference (meaning I'm actually sitting at a PC with a 'net connection) would be:

• SMS notifications: Direct Messages Only
  
• IM notifications: ON
• Notifications for followers would be the same as my "Normal"Preference

Ideally, I'd be able to create and name several of these "Preference" settings so I can customize notifications to my heart's content.

So how would I use this? Well, for example, when I get to work, I'd only need to send something like "SetPreference Online" and all my Online settings (as defined above) are applied.

Just before stepping out of the office for lunch, I can then send "SetPreference Normal" or "SetPreference Busy" to switch from IM delivery to SMS delivery, and more importantly, have the customized notification settings applied for each person I'm following.

Of course, it's understood that I would have to define the notification settings for each "Preference," but I'm more than happy to invest the time if Twitter were to remember the specific combination of notification settings, and allowed me to easily switch back and forth between Preferences.

Right now, when I want to switch from one "Preference" to another, I'm forced to go through all these steps every time:
(a) set my IM preference,
(b) set my SMS preference, and
(c) set the notify setting for each person I'm following.

The thing is -- when I'm busy, I don't have time to change the notify setting for each person I follow. So I have no choice but to set SMS notifications to "Direct Messages Only"-- which cuts me off from tweets that I would have wanted to receive no matter what.

I doubt that this kind of request would make sense to folks who are following only a handful of people, so it's unlikely that I'll actually see this go into production on the Twitter site.

Maybe if I'm lucky, a third-party developer out there can put together a simple Twitter client that can store my "Preferences," and apply the changes to the settings as a 'batch' of API calls each time I set a new "Preference." That would be awesome.

Building up to the Punchline

Because Twitter updates come in as a sequential stream of messages, there are times when a series of tweets can make you laugh out loud, especially when they're spread over a 13-hour period.

Every Dot *Does* Connect

Last week, I found two new blogs to follow: Problogger and Writing Thoughts.

I wouldn't have found these blogs were it not for Twitter.

Here are the actual series of connections that led me to these blogs:

1. I follow Connie Reece on Twitter. She is founder of Every Dot Connects, a social media consortium that provides new media services. On June 2, she sent a tweet asking "How do you drive traffic to your blog?" and shared her own answer through a blogpost.
2. I read her blog post and learned it was inspired by a question from Darren Rowse, the Problogger. He had asked his readers: When was your biggest day of traffic and how did it happen?
3. I followed that link and started skimming through the comments on the Problogger post. I don't know what it was that made me stop and read comment #81, but it was a comment left by freelance writer Laura Spencer. I clicked on her name and ended up on her blog, Writing Thoughts.
   

So thanks to connecting these dots, I've got two new RSS subscriptions in my Google Reader.

Now if only I can remember who or what led me to Connie's Twitter account in the first place... :-P

Voice of the Customer, via Twitter

Marketing (and maybe even PR) folks who don't get Twitter should check out a recent blogpost by Christopher S. Penn, where he compiles feedback from the Twitterati about Podshow's new campaign.

If your product, service, company, or event happens to be targeted at the type of people who Twitter, then you've got to be crazy to not explore using it as a channel for collecting timely customer feedback.

Twitter encourages public direct messages

One of the earlier conventions to emerge among Twitter-ers is the use of @username to reply publicly to a particular user.

The folks at Twitter (smart people that they are) noticed this practice very early on, and have made it an official part of the lingo, even going so far as to devote a help page to describe the use of @username.

At least three features have been rolled out to the Twitter web interface (two unveiled only this week) to take advantage of this @username convention, making it obvious that Twitter as a site encourages the use of public direct messages.

These three features are (in order of appearance):

• the "In Reply To" hyperlink
  
• hyperlinked @usernames in tweet texts
• the Replies tab on the Twitter home page
  

"In Reply To" Hyperlinks

The "In reply to" hyperlink is well documented in the @username Twitter help page.

Twitter assumes that your @username message is a response to the most recent tweet from a friend, so it provides a handy little hyperlink to your friend's latest tweet at the end of your own message.

In the example below, you can see the hyperlink at the end of the tweet that reads "in reply to JasonCalacanis."



Twitter has noticed that Dave addressed his message to Jason, and provided a link to Jason's most recent tweet for our convenience.

The feature works well for the most part, although I must say I've had some perplexing moments following the "In reply to" link.

Since Twitter does not appear to analyze the text of our messages, there are instances when the "in reply to" link points to the wrong tweet. This mis-linking usually occurs when I reply to Twitter-ers who post frequently or when I've been offline for a while and I'm responding to a much older tweet. By the time my @username message is sent, my friend has already posted newer tweets, and the "in reply to" hyperlink points to the newer (and off-topic) tweet instead.

Hyperlinked @usernames in tweet texts

One of the newer features rolled out this week on the Twitter web interface is the use of hyperlinks in tweets that contain @usernames.

This is also illustrated in the tweet sent by Dave Winer (which I'm including again below for reader convenience). Note how "jasoncalacanis" is hyperlinked in the text of the tweet after the @ sign. Clicking on that link will take you to Jason's Twitter profile page, where you can see his replies.



Replies tab on the Twitter Home Page

The third and perhaps most powerful Twitter web feature that builds on the @username convention is the new Replies Tab that's found on each Twitter user's homepage. This new tab was introduced within the last 24 hours.



On the Replies Tab, you will find all public direct messages addressed to you, conveniently collected in one convenient location.

Folks who have had to rely on Twittersearch, Twitterment, or Twitterverse to find such messages will certainly rejoice once they see this feature. I'm sure Jason Calacanis in particular will be happy, if these two tweets are any indication.

Reducing the Imbalance in Twitter

Within minutes of noticing the Replies Tab, Twitter user Cathleen Rittereiser sent this tweet, which IMHO shows just how powerful this latest feature is:



Her tweet immediately brought to mind my earlier frustration with one-sided conversations in Twitter, as well as Dave Winer's subsequent observation that there is an imbalance in Twitter.

It is immediately apparent that the new Replies Tab significantly reduces this imbalance, since anyone can now pretty much reach a non-follower, provided the latter makes the effort to regularly check their Replies page.

It will be interesting to see what impact this new feature will have on the still-evolving Twitter community and culture.

---

Update: After posting this, I thought of checking the Twitter Blog for news, and unsurprisingly, Biz has updates on the @username feature.

Update 2: I hope the Replies page will soon have its own RSS feed. It would be perfect for people who are not inclined to visit the Twitter website on a regular basis.

Update 3: Replies page now has RSS.

Twittering from Facebook

When Twitter and Facebook announced their new collaboration on the Facebook Apps platform yesterday, my curiosity naturally got the better of me, and I went and signed up for a Facebook account the first chance I got.

[ I know, I know. I'm one of the few people left on the planet who got to it way too late! ]

It didn't take much effort to figure out how to install the Twitter application in my Facebook account since everything was just a matter of clicking on options and following prompts. Before long, I was posting my first Facebook-originating tweet.

While the installation process was easy and painless, I noticed there were times when I needed to force the browser to perform a page refresh for the Twitter App page to load completely. I can't tell at this point whether it's a problem with the site or with my internet connection. Either way, I consider it a minor thing at this point, since a page refresh gets around the problem.

As of this writing, a total of 2,349 other Facebook users have already installed the application (click on the image above right for a better look).

Coming Soon: Better Integration

It appears for the moment that tweets entered from outside of Facebook are not yet automatically reflected in the Facebook Twitter App.

Requests from the user community to add that capability have not gone unheard, so I expect we'll see tighter integration soon.


Since I'm more a Twitter user than a Facebook user (at least for now), I look forward to the day when my tweets are automatically propagated to my Facebook Twitter app (similar to the setup that I have with Jaiku).

It would be even better if my tweets also update my Facebook Status at the same time.

Timely

Twitter's recent move to a new SMS provider in the UK appears to have fulfilled one of the items on my Twitter Wishlist. Yayness!

Aside from getting the Australians back into the SMS loop, it appears that incoming SMS messages from Twitter now arrive on my phone with the correct timestamp.

Caveat: It's possible that the SMS timestamp has been correct for some time already and I'm only just now noticing it. Can't say for sure exactly. Either way, I'm thrilled to bits!

Try TwitBin

Just installed TwitBin on my home PC.

It's a Firefox extension that adds a narrow panel on the left side of your browser so you can view and post messages to Twitter.



I've only had limited use of the extension for now, so my feedback is probably way too superficial at this point. But here goes:

Last Updated: May 8, 2007 at 9.10pm

Stuff I Liked

• User name and Password. I especially like the fact that TwitBin doesn't store your user id or password on their own servers (or, at least I think they don't).
  
• Shortened Links. I really appreciate the abbreviated links. They make for a much better use of space.
• Adjustable Width. I like keeping the TwitBin panel really narrow, so I'm glad I had the option to adjust the width.
• Character Countdown. TwitBin now has a character countdown so you know when you're almost at 140 characters. It also stops you from entering more characters when you've hit 140, so there's no danger of going over [added May 8]
• Open in new Tab. I'm so used to right-clicking on links and opening them as new tabs on my current browser window. I'd like to be able to do that in TwitBin too. The updated TwitBin opens links only in the active tab in Firefox v2.0. Not exactly a new tab, but this is a good step in the right direction. [added May 8]
  

Stuff I'd Like to See

• Position Preference. I'd actually prefer having TwitBin run down the right side of my browser window, instead of the left. I consider the left side "prime real estate" and would rather reserve that for whatever site I'm visiting.
• Image Suppression. I'd like an option that lets me completely suppress the display of avatars. Considering the limited (narrow) space, and the fact that avatar sizes are scaled down anyway in TwitBin, I'd rather use all that space for tweets.
• Direct Messages. I'd like to view direct messages, or at least get a notification that a new direct message has come in.
  

Overall, I definitely like. Kudos to the folks at infinimedia for coming up with this baby.

* * *

Addendum: If you're like me, you may have some trouble figuring out how to launch TwitBin for the first time, after you install the extension and restart Firefox.



You'll find that a new TwitBin icon has been added to your Firefox Navigation toolbar, inserted discreetly just before the URL field. Clicking on the icon toggles the TwitBin extension on and off.

Corporate Twitter Solutions?

After yesterday's tragic shooting at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech), it naturally occurred to me that a private Twitter-based system could have been used to send SMS alerts to students, faculty, and staff.

And that's when I figured that organizations may be able to acquire Twitter-based solutions if Obvious were to:

• Licensing. Allow private organizations to license the Twitter platform to deploy a private Twitter network. All costs associated with sending messages would of course, be borne by the organization;
  
• Appliance. Package the Twitter technology into a 'black box' solution that is sold as an off-the-shelf 'appliance' with ports that are simply 'plugged' into the appropriate networks (easier said than done, but certainly doable);
• OEM. Allow other solutions providers to OEM the Twitter technology into their product suite.
  

You know how Internet technology was adapted to internal corporate use and became known as intranets? Why not take Twitter's platform (which I think has already proven itself) and acquire your own corporate Twittering capability (assuming instant mass SMS notification is what you need)?

Side note: In the second (7.30pm) press conference related to the shooting, a Virginia Tech spokesman said that they had started looking into text-based alert solutions last August, but that a system has not yet been deployed. [more info]

Twitterverse: A Universe of Possibilities

I'm a really big fan of the now defunct TV series, Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. And anyone who's a fan will immediately recognize the term 'Buffyverse.'

So when the folks at Ideacodes.com announced the launch of their appropriately named Twitter mashup, Twitterverse.com, I immediately went to take a look.

A lot of people have already blogged about what Twitterverse is, so I don't intend to describe it in this entry.

Instead, I'd rather focus on ideas about where Twitterverse can go from here, now that it's been launched. Below are some things that I think have real potential, assuming that Obvious allows Ideacodes to monetize this goldmine of data.

1. Twitterverse Personal

Service Description. Allows a registered Twitterverse user to see the equivalent tagcloud for himself or for his friends. The Twitterverse user can also specify which friends to ignore (such as newsbots) for his personal tag cloud.

2. Twitterverse Alert Service

Service Description. Allows a registered Twitterverse user to specify a set of keywords that they'd like to track. A copy of all tweets that contain that keyword or set of keywords is sent to the user via email at the end of every day. It's like Google Alerts, but the search is limited to tweets. Use cases: brand managers tracking chatter about their products, a celebrity tracking gossip about himself, or a Twitter user looking for @username messages.

Revenue Opportunity. Free alerts for low volume or simple keyword alerts. Charge people who track a lot of keywords, or require complicated keyword combinations.

Improvements Required. More sophisticated search features, such as searching by multiple keywords or by excluding keywords.

3. Geographic User Search

Service Description. Allows a registered Twitterverse user to search for other Twitter users in a given zipcode, city, or country based on available geographic information.

Revenue Opportunity. Provide user lists for free if within one city or zipcode only. Charge for Twitter-wide user and usage statistics broken down by country, by city, by zipcode. Charge for actual list of users if it's for multiple zipcodes or cities.

4. Meme Visualization

Service Description. Ability to visualize a meme as it travels through your network of friends, or within the Twitter community at large. Entails taking the results of the keyword search, sorting it by time, and seeing how the meme travels between Twitter users.

Revenue Opportunity. Free meme visualization for low volume or simple keyword alerts. Charge for complicated keyword combinations, or for Meme tracking over prolonged periods of time.

Improvements Required. Data visualization graphs.

5. Twitter UserRank (a.k.a. Twitterholic+)

Service Description. Ranks all Twitter users according to a Twitter UserRank algorithm, to help advertisers and marketers identify the most influential Twitter users for a given area of interest. Twitter UserRank can be determined through some combination of:

• number of active followers
• number of active users who have be-friended them (but are not following them)
  
• number or percentage of tweets that others have tagged as favorite
• duration of Twitter use
  
• most recent Twitter use
• meme influence (see #4 above)
  

Revenue Opportunity. Show each registered Twitterverse user his own TwitterRank for free. Sell the "Most Influential Twitter Users by UserRank" list to any advertiser, marketer, journalist, company who's willing to buy.

Improvements Required. Ability to segment Twitter user base by interest, e.g., Babies, Cooking, Design, Investments, Movies, Restaurants, Technology, and so on, so that the "Most Influential" list can be segmented by area of interest.

What do all of these ideas have in common?

These service ideas are all variations of the same theme: the ability to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Enough naysayers have already dismissed Twitter as nothing more than trivial chatter. As the userbase grows, I imagine it will become increasingly difficult to find truly interesting people and messages.

Perhaps Twitterverse can provide the solution to this problem, and make some moolah in the process.

A final note: to keep up with Twitterverse developments, simply follow them on Twitter, or subscribe to their blog.

TreoTwit may be cheaper than Twapper

I'm really happy that Twapper is a more cost-effective mechanism for posting Twitter updates than direct SMS messages.

But the years my mother spent drilling in the mantra of 'a penny saved is a penny earned' has kept me searching for still cheaper ways to tweet.

So I was quite thrilled to learn about TreoTwit a couple of nights ago, all thanks to Dan Rubin.

TreoTwit is a Palm OS application from Mitreo.com ("my Treo" in Spanish) that lets you post updates to Twitter directly without navigating through a web form.

The application itself is small (94kb) and simple. When you launch it, you get a screen that lets you enter up to 140 characters.


Image from the TreoTwit site

Click the "Update" button when you're done entering your tweet. The application uses GPRS on my Palm device to connect to Twitter, authenticate my Twitter user id and password (which I only had to specify once), then posts my update.

A little confirmation note appears briefly at the bottom of the page once your update is successfully posted.

While I have no actual numbers, I'm optimistic that this approach costs less than posting via Twapper, because there's no need to load a web page before or after entering the tweet. All that's left is the authentication, the text of the tweet itself, and a confirmation message afterwards.

* * *

The application was in v0.84 when I first downloaded it. That version was incompatible with my Treo 600 because my screen is only capable of displaying 160 x 160 pixels.

I posted my feedback on the TreoTwit support thread (registration required through a Spanish language interface! Thank God for babelfish on Altavista) and the folks at Mitreo kindly updated the application in less than 24 hours.

v0.85 is now installed on my Treo 600 and it works like a charm.

Now all I can possibly ask for is some data transfer estimates from Mitreo so I can figure out how much each TreoTweet actually costs me. It's on days like this that I wish I felt a bit more adventurous and a lot less math challenged, because the basis for an educated guess is probably buried somewhere in the Twitter API documentation.

* * *

Update 1: I tried using TreoTwit a couple of hours ago but got a "DNS error" message when I tried to post an update.

I switched to Twapper and was able to post an update through my phone browser, so it looks like the problem is not with Twitter itself. I've left a note at the TreoTwit Support thread and for now I'm hopeful that it's just a temporary problem.

* * *

Update 2: It's around 7 hours later and I just tried to post an update using TreoTwit -- it is working again. Hopefully the problem doesn't occur too often. And if it does, there's always Twapper.