“ Reading Tweets is a source of connection to people I know and care about, and a source of inspiration from many others. And posting Tweets helps me nourish relationships I care about, and lets me process and express ideas I want to share. At its best, Twitter — and other networks like it — makes me more present in my life, not less.
– Alexandra Samuel on A More Meaningful Twitter Experience with Groups. I’ve always been at a lost of words when non-techie friends ask me why I use the service and this has to be the most genuine answer ever for it. I don’t mind using this line.

December 6, 2009 |   Tags: twitter quotes

» Separate Twitter Apps

October 10, 2009

Unknowingly I seemed to have established a framework for how I handle my participation on Twitter. The biggest thing to remember about the service is that it’s a tool for strengthening our communication and not bringing on more confusion to try to keep up with everything that happens.

At first glance it may seem contradictory that I have several Twitter Apps installed but they each serve a distinctive purpose that maintain sanity in my involvement with the service.

Twitter Apps I Use

  • Tweetie 2 - Just recently upgraded from Tweetie 1 and this is the dominant App responsible for any form of Twitter interaction you can think of. It’s just beautifuly designed, super fast and it’s the epitome of what a Twitter experience should be like.
  • BirdBrain - I turned off email notifications to track new followers and now rely on this App to brief me more on them as well as controlling spammers.
  • Birdhouse - Indespensible App that literally contains a litany of Tweets that may or may not see the light of day as well as pre-written content that I intend on publishing when the day comes.
  • Twitbit - Another well-designed Twitter client but I have to admit that I don’t publish much content from it but what justifies its presence is the push-notification feature that I enjoy. It works perfectly and any mentions that I get, I launch Tweetie to reply to them.

Wouldn’t it be great if we had just one App that accomplished all of these functions? With the exception of push-notification intergration in all Twitter clients, my answer to the question would be no.

Too many features just equals too many problems, which leads to cluckiness which later leads to forsaking a product that sounds appealing to use in theory but not in reality. I love having separate Apps that excel in one function only.

Features sell but if they get in the way of making them work for you, it defeats the purpose saying you have a product that does everything.

October 10, 2009 |   Tags: twitter apps iphone

Twitter Blocking →

The majority of my Twitter participation takes place via Tweetie for both the desktop and iPhone but very often I visit people’s official page to gain an idea of what their contribution to the service looks like.

In the past month, I’ve gain a significant amount of followers, all of which I’ve welcomed because we each enjoy the casual ego boost but have you ever personally taken the time to see why the interest in you to begin with? For some I’m completely honored that they do follow me but for others I share Mantia’s grading as to whether these are true Twitizens:

If they follow less than 200 people, I generally let it go. If they follow more than 200 people, I look at who else they’re following and what they tweet about. If they seem to be following people like me (artists, designers, Mac/iPhone geeks) and I see that they’re interested in those topics, I let them continue following me. If they don’t follow people like me and don’t tweet similar topics, I begin to wonder why they chose to follow me.

I’ve never used the blocking feature on Twitter before. I can see why for some that wouldn’t be an option judging in how that would lower their follower count but for me that’s not a ranking I care about. I have personal friends who joined the service and follow me but I generally don’t reciprocate the favor because that’s why I have Facebook for.

As huge as the “artists, designers and Mac/iPhone geek” community is, I enjoy feeling part of what seems like a small niche by regulating the people that follow me and vice versa and if blocking a few here and there is what it takes to keep that, then so be it.

July 18, 2009 |   Tags: twitter opinion links

Does Twitter Hate Advertising? →

We’ve all already established how well-designed and subtle online ads can be, but it’s not an avenue Twitter has in mind to better define what they’re still striving to interpret when they speak publicly about how the service might become a profitable business

The idea of taking money to run traditional banner ads on Twitter.com has always been low on our list of interesting ways to generate revenue. However, facilitating connections between businesses and individuals in meaningful and relevant ways is compelling. We’re going to leave the door open for exploration in this area.

There’s already been confirmation of Twitter launching paid accounts which would offer users more features in exchange for a fee, but Mr. Stone says Twitter hasn’t set a launch date for them. As much as I frequent the service, I can’t think of any novel feature that would justify paying for using it although I’m sure the upgrade would benefit business in some way. So the question still remains. What exactly is Twitter’s business model?

May 20, 2009 |   Tags: twitter links

“ My opinion regarding tweets can be summarized thusly: “I don’t give a fuck what you had for lunch unless you give me reason.
– Colorful opinion of Rands in Repose

This mostly applies to people who are novel to the service and who later realize that not all nuances of their lives are Twitterable. The Tweets that I’ve come to hold in high regard are the ones posted by people who are passionate about something. They are the ones who share their proficiency in a field, they help people, they engage in their own Tweets, they get you thinking and they continue to deliver 140 characters that you consistently look forward to.

April 30, 2009 |   Tags: twitter quotes

Jorge Quinteros     © 2007 – Today     About     Archives         Subscribe     Back to top ↩