So there are a lot of Twitter Apps out there. Some are meant to let you use Twitter along with something else and other are meant to enhance Twitter itself. Ones that caught my eye:
TwitterAnalyzer: the description for the app says that it is sometimes called "Google Analytics for Twitter users". With over 50+ statistics measures I can see many organizations wanting to use this. In addition to some demographic info they're always looking for they can also see how often they're mentioned on Twitter and who's talking about them. A business like Pizza Hut could direct message someone a coupon because they've tweeted about having pizza delivered for the 50th time.
FitClick Diet Tweets: You send it a tweet of the food you ate and it will track the food and the calories in it. It can also track protein, fat, carbohydrates, etc. but it looks like only the calorie counter and food diary are free. It seems like an easier way of tracking that than carrying around a journal or waiting until you get home to enter it into a Word or Excel file. Frankly, I'm curious about how much food they can actually do calorie counts for. It takes 5 minutes though, so you can get instant gratification for curiousity's sake.
JustBought.it: Share photos and tweets about your purchases. While I'm not dying to go out and announce where I live and shop with everyone on the planet I can see this being used to help people find out which bookstore still has a certain textbook or other hard to find items. I can also see people on Ravlery using this to talk about yarn purchases. Many of us already photograph all the yarn we buy anyway.
Tweet what you Spend: Like FitClick the appeal is the ability to track the details of a certain event away from home without using pen and paper. In this case the event is spending cash. There is also an app to help you sort and categorize your cash spending. If I were to use this (see above description on why I might not be keen on that) I'd use it to make a separate tool I use to track spending more accurate.
Weatherizer: Changes the background of your Twitter home page based on your local weather. While it doesn't have many different possibilities for what it could be used for I think this is nifty. Windows ME had desktops that were essentially HTML pages. The default had a background that changed depending on the time of day you turned your computer on. If they expanded the app to change based on different events that would be really cool. Maybe even change based on events in Twitter. You could have your background change when you got your 100th follower or something.
Showing posts with label Twitter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Twitter. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
5th Week of Class: Step 1: Tweet, Step 2: ..., Step 3: Profit!
I was skeptical of Twitter when I first heard about it. 140 characters is too short to be useful, right?
But then I stared reading stories about different entities using Twitter on Consumerist (over time, not specifically for this assignment). It sounded silly at first, but some of them had good ideas about how to use Twitter. Now I don't even blink when I hear that another group or business is using Twitter. In fact, even a few of my employer's clients use Twitter. Los Angeles Federal Credit Union has a Twitter feed (and a Facebook page and a YouTube account). So does Mobiloil Federal Credit Union.
Stories that changed my mind about Twitter
Boston Police Department: We Will Let You Know When The Zombies Come
OK, the headline is funny but the BPD Twitter feed has information that's not just useful, but the kind of information you'd actually want sent to your phone. Police departments using Twitter means that they can do what I've been saying the Amber Alerts should be doing which is to send people text messages when a child goes missing.
TweetCongress Lets You Succinctly Shout At Your Congresspeople Online
This is actually a collection of Twitter feeds by people in Congress. I imagine it's mostly interns updating it but it's still a way to know what they're doing. (I'd love to know how this turns out. Better have a moderator.)
Comcast's Twitter Reps Save The Day...
OK, so it would be better if their normal customer service representatives had been able to handle it but in general having an alternate way of contacting customer service is a good thing. If you don't want to wait on hold to report that your Internet connection is kaput you can send a tweet instead.
As the above examples show, organizations can use Twitter to alert their followers to recent news and changes as well as resolve issues. It's also a good promotional tool: Many congresspeople send tweets about when and where they'll be speaking to their constituency next. Businesses can tweet coupon codes, contests, and sales information. Non-profits can tweet their progress in fund-raising goals.
But then I stared reading stories about different entities using Twitter on Consumerist (over time, not specifically for this assignment). It sounded silly at first, but some of them had good ideas about how to use Twitter. Now I don't even blink when I hear that another group or business is using Twitter. In fact, even a few of my employer's clients use Twitter. Los Angeles Federal Credit Union has a Twitter feed (and a Facebook page and a YouTube account). So does Mobiloil Federal Credit Union.
Stories that changed my mind about Twitter
Boston Police Department: We Will Let You Know When The Zombies Come
OK, the headline is funny but the BPD Twitter feed has information that's not just useful, but the kind of information you'd actually want sent to your phone. Police departments using Twitter means that they can do what I've been saying the Amber Alerts should be doing which is to send people text messages when a child goes missing.
TweetCongress Lets You Succinctly Shout At Your Congresspeople Online
This is actually a collection of Twitter feeds by people in Congress. I imagine it's mostly interns updating it but it's still a way to know what they're doing. (I'd love to know how this turns out. Better have a moderator.)
Comcast's Twitter Reps Save The Day...
OK, so it would be better if their normal customer service representatives had been able to handle it but in general having an alternate way of contacting customer service is a good thing. If you don't want to wait on hold to report that your Internet connection is kaput you can send a tweet instead.
As the above examples show, organizations can use Twitter to alert their followers to recent news and changes as well as resolve issues. It's also a good promotional tool: Many congresspeople send tweets about when and where they'll be speaking to their constituency next. Businesses can tweet coupon codes, contests, and sales information. Non-profits can tweet their progress in fund-raising goals.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
5th Week of Class: Twittering About
I did not have a Twitter account before this assignment. (No podcasts, no RSS feeds...you might be wondering if I even spend any time on the Internet!) I'd heard of the character limit and some people and groups using it but I didn't know any of the details about using it.
Signing up was easy. They even check your username for availability when you stop typing in the text field for it.
What to Tweet
The video on the first Help page tells you, "In general...tweets answer the question 'What are you doing right now?'". The character limit is to keep messages brief. They also suggest tweeting links, questions, and reactions.
Types of Tweets
A normal tweet is public to everyone. You can change your privacy settings so that only people following you can view your tweets. A direct message will send a private message to one person.
You can write a reply to what someone has said by beginning your tweet with '@[username]' (ex. '@bob'). This is called an '@reply'. If you put the '@[username]' anywhere else in the tweet it is considered a 'mention'. An @reply, unlike a direct message, is public to everyone.
It is a convention on Twitter to place the letters 'RT', short for retweet, somewhere in a tweet that quotes an existing tweet. This is not an official function of Twitter or even a rule but probably a good idea so that people don't think that others are trying to take credit for something they said.
Limits on Tweeting
While you can delete a tweet you can not edit them. If there's something you want to change you'll have to remove the whole thing and retype it. HTML is not allowed for security reasons but they'll change an URL to a link for you.
What not to Tweet
There's the obvious things that are banned everywhere: Spam, phishing, malware, illegal activities and the promotion of illegal activities, violent threates, private/confidential information, impersonation, copyright violations, and trademark infringement.
You may not use the 'Verified Accounts' badge without Twitter's approval.
The only potential surprise in what you may not do is that Twitter's definition of 'private and confidential' is a bit broader than other companies' definition. A street address falls under the category of private/confidential on Twitter whereas on other sites they might just say, "Hey, it's in the public domain".
This is clearly to prevent harassment. They do not want people blasting someone's contact information along with the message "Get 'em!" Unfortunately, they do not state how this is enforced. They may not mind people tweeting an address for anything other than a private residence but they might not want street addresses on Twitter at all.
NEWS: Twitter eliminates certain kinds of users with a Terms of Service update
Signing up was easy. They even check your username for availability when you stop typing in the text field for it.
What to Tweet
The video on the first Help page tells you, "In general...tweets answer the question 'What are you doing right now?'". The character limit is to keep messages brief. They also suggest tweeting links, questions, and reactions.
Types of Tweets
A normal tweet is public to everyone. You can change your privacy settings so that only people following you can view your tweets. A direct message will send a private message to one person.
You can write a reply to what someone has said by beginning your tweet with '@[username]' (ex. '@bob'). This is called an '@reply'. If you put the '@[username]' anywhere else in the tweet it is considered a 'mention'. An @reply, unlike a direct message, is public to everyone.
It is a convention on Twitter to place the letters 'RT', short for retweet, somewhere in a tweet that quotes an existing tweet. This is not an official function of Twitter or even a rule but probably a good idea so that people don't think that others are trying to take credit for something they said.
Limits on Tweeting
While you can delete a tweet you can not edit them. If there's something you want to change you'll have to remove the whole thing and retype it. HTML is not allowed for security reasons but they'll change an URL to a link for you.
What not to Tweet
There's the obvious things that are banned everywhere: Spam, phishing, malware, illegal activities and the promotion of illegal activities, violent threates, private/confidential information, impersonation, copyright violations, and trademark infringement.
You may not use the 'Verified Accounts' badge without Twitter's approval.
The only potential surprise in what you may not do is that Twitter's definition of 'private and confidential' is a bit broader than other companies' definition. A street address falls under the category of private/confidential on Twitter whereas on other sites they might just say, "Hey, it's in the public domain".
This is clearly to prevent harassment. They do not want people blasting someone's contact information along with the message "Get 'em!" Unfortunately, they do not state how this is enforced. They may not mind people tweeting an address for anything other than a private residence but they might not want street addresses on Twitter at all.
NEWS: Twitter eliminates certain kinds of users with a Terms of Service update
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