Posts Tagged ‘Twitter’
On Privately Following Dunbar’s Number on Twitter
November 4th, 2010, 4 comments
Derek Powazek's post, Twitter for Adults, is a nice summary of how to use Twitter well. Reading it, I realized what my single best Twitter survival technique is: a private VIP list. It looks like I'm following 551 people in total on Twitter, but in practice, that is just not possible. So, I put people whose tweets I don't want to miss on the VIP list, which appears as my first column in TweetDeck. Right now there are only 51 people on that list, well below Dunbar's number, and I intend to keep it that way. On busy days (and let's face it, most are), I read only that list of tweets, my mentions and direct messages. When I have more time, I scan over to my All Friends list. Sometimes I promote people from All Friends to VIP if their stuff is really interesting; other times I demote folks from my VIP list if they're driving me crazy. The fact that the list is private means no one's feelings are hurt if they're not on it, and this setup means I can follow people liberally without worrying about them cluttering up my primary timeline. I use a similar technique with my RSS reader subscriptions, and it's one of the best ways I've found to focus my attention on the good stuff, while auditioning more potential good stuff in my All Friends/Subscriptions list, too.
New Twitter.com Screenshot Tour
September 16th, 2010, 2 comments
After using it in tandem with TweetDeck for a couple of days now, I'm still impressed with Twitter.com's revamp: no longer just a list of 140-character lines, the new Twitter.com is a rich iPad-like web application. Over at FastCompany earlier this week, I ran through a screenshot tour of the redesign and why it gives your favorite Twitter app a run for its money.
On Tweets in the Library of Congress
April 16th, 2010, 1 comment
Published my first opinion piece on CNN.com today, in which I argue it's a great thing that the Library of Congress is archiving billions of public tweets. Despite some parentheses trouble and unclickable URLs in the story (I've alerted my editor), I'm proud of how the piece came out, even though CNN.com commenters seem to think tweets are a waste of storage space. Thanks to @matty_g, @Jason_Pollock, @Swiftsfan, and @itwalkabout for the example tweets in the story. Who says tweets are trivial? [CNN.com]
April 12th, 2010, 1 comment
This week the White House will put out a call to techies and scientists across the internet, asking a simple question: What should the United States' next greatest technological and scientific achievement be? Get your answers ready, geeks.
When you reply to the White House's prompt--on Twitter, Facebook, or via email--your voice will be heard and your ideas will be counted. I know, because I helped build the software that will capture your responses and deliver them directly to the people in charge.
Ready to get involved? Here's what to do.
- Think big! Imagine an ambitious science or technology challenge (something huge like the moon landing!) which you think can inspire great new ideas and inventions. Here are some examples President Obama listed.
- Follow @whitehouse on Twitter or become a fan of The White House on Facebook, and watch for a tweet or post about the grand challenges in science and technology between Monday April 12 and Wednesday April 14.
- Reply to the tweet or post with your idea, or a link to ideas you find interesting. On Twitter, use the hashtag #whgc. Alternately, you can email your response to challenge@ostp.gov.
- Encourage your friends and followers to respond, too!
Everyone working on the Grand Challenges initiative can't wait to hear what you have to say, so thanks in advance for your insights and participation. We'll be sharing the responses we got both online and at Twitter's first official conference, Chirp, this week in San Francisco.
Give @whitehouse Your Feedback! [Expert Labs]
Join the Conversation on the Future of Science [AAAS]
March 11th, 2010
Hi all! I've been working furiously on ThinkTank over at Expert Labs for about six weeks now. Once in awhile I'll post an update on where we're at with the project. This is such an update, and it's cross-posted from the Expert Labs blog.
ThinkTank development has been going strong, but we need your help. If you're a ThinkTank tester and/or a web developer, join the mailing list, fork the code, install ThinkTank on your server, and help us build the software and documentation. If you don't know what you can do or where to start, here are the three main priorities for ThinkTank right now:
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My Projects Twitter List
February 23rd, 2010
Recently someone asked me how many Twitter accounts I have. The answer is four. Four! Yes, I tweet. A lot. For different projects and purposes. If you care, here's a Twitter list of all my accounts.
Free Cloud Backup at Backupify (Till January 31st)
December 22nd, 2009, 5 comments
Cloud data backup service, Backupify, has dropped its paywall until January 31st in an effort to acquire more customers. The service backs up Gmail, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Google Docs, WordPress, Delicious, and FriendFeed data, to name a few, though apparently the file format you get when you restore your data may not be the most useful to non-programmers (i.e., XML documents). I haven't tried Backupify myself, but this offer is tempting. ZDNet's Between the Lines blog has the full story: Backupify drops paywall; backs up your data from Twitter, Facebook, and Gmail.
Year-End To-do: Audit Your Email Account Security
December 19th, 2009
Two stories of online account break-ins this week: First, Twitter.com got redirected to an Iranian hacker page because attackers were able to get into the email account registered with their site DNS service. Second, savvy blogger Amit Agarwal's Gmail and Google Apps accounts were taken over because the attacker got access to Amit's secondary email address and sent a password change request there to get into the accounts. Do yourself a favor: Before 2010 is upon us, do a quick audit of all your most important accounts. Make sure your passwords are strong and remember: Never use inactive webmail as your secondary email account.
October 2nd, 2009, 5 comments
In addition to geolocation, Twitter's about to launch their new lists feature, which lets you organize the people you follow into lists and see what lists others have included you on.
For example, I can create a list called "Lifehacker editors" or "Co-workers" or "NYC pals" or "Sci-Fi experts", and view tweets just from those people in a list view. I've been making lists of people I follow using TweetDeck for some time now. However, having this baked into the Twitter web site and API makes it more convenient and easy to share. Here are some screenshots of how it works from the beta.
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September 25th, 2009, 7 comments
Robert Scoble argues that requiring users to post their true location in geolocation apps is an "antifeature" because it freaks people out. Users want control over where they say they are and want the option to be "fuzzy" about it--for instance, say they're in San Diego versus a specific neighborhood or street. For instance, Scoble checks into the Ritz hotel near his home on Foursquare when he's home. He writes:
One part of a location-based game is presenting people as you’d like others to see you. It’s a lot more interesting to check in at the Ritz every night than my actual home address, which, to tell you the truth, I’d be a little freaked out to report to everyone (and if I’m freaked out, imagine how freaked out the average user is).
I agree with Scoble wholeheartedly. I always say I live "in San Diego," which is true, but also comfortably vague. A quick, unscientific poll I ran on Twitter (which you can vote on here) shows that many are freaked out by geolocation features in general.
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September 23rd, 2009, 9 comments
Twitter's new geolocation support was supposed to launch for developers at today's Twitter Conference in LA (which I'm attending), but it wasn't quite ready yet. Still, Twitter's platform lead Ryan Sarver announced several details about how it will work, at least initially, in a developer session. In quickly-jotted bullet points:
- Twitter will soon be able to store location data--that is, latitude and longitude coordinates--on a per-tweet basis, and for your user profile.
- Including location information in your tweets will be opt-in only. You will have to visit your Twitter account's settings page on the web site to allow Twitter to store that data. It will not be enabled by default. Even if your Twitter client sends lat/log points along with your status update, if you didn't explicitly opt into including that information, Twitter will drop it at the point of entry and it will not be stored or published.
- Users won't see any new features on the Twitter web site when geo launches except for the settings page where you opt in. Twitter is giving API developers a head start to display and transmit geo data in tweets in their apps first.
- In practice, expect to see your Twitter client include a checkbox below the posting area labeled something like "include my location with this tweet." If you check the box when you send a tweet but you haven't given Twitter permission to store your location data, you'll have to visit your settings page on the web site to do so.
- Interesting: Twitter will scrub geo-data stored in tweets more than 14 days old to avoid subpoenas about a user's location. They will outright delete the location information from their database, not just anonymize it.
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September 21st, 2009, 15 comments
A friend complained to me that after only two years, she had to replace her laptop's battery because it wouldn't hold a charge. I found myself telling her that she shouldn't keep her notebook computer plugged in continuously, because it would kill the battery faster. Then I stopped myself: Was this just outdated geek lore rendered obsolete by modern batteries?
Yes and no. It depends, of course, on what kind of battery you have. Battery technology has come a long way over the years, and surely in 2009 you don't have to worry about how long your laptop's been plugged in. However, one major notebook manufacturer (which ships Lithium-ion batteries) thinks you should, and suggests adding a reminder to your calendar to deplete and recharge your battery once a month. To quote: "Apple does not recommend leaving your portable plugged in all the time."
My friend, however, has a two-year-old Dell. Cursory Googling for her model didn't turn up the equivalent of Apple's definitive statement, only lots of opinions which ranged from "it's a non-issue" to "yes, it kills batteries!" Dell.com's battery recommendations page doesn't say anything about not keeping your notebook plugged in. HP's battery tips page doesn't answer the question, either. I pored through my wife's ASUS Eee PC user guide and didn't find any warning about continuous charging. A non-mention might make you think it's a non-problem, but if this is an issue for Apple notebook batteries, it is for PC notebooks with lithium-based batteries too. When I asked, my Twitter followers returned mixed replies, but many notebook users (both Mac and PC) DID report anecdotal battery problems when the machine was plugged in constantly.
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August 20th, 2009, 28 comments
Update, July 2010: Twitalytic has been renamed ThinkUp.
Been hacking away at a personal programming project, tentatively named Twitalytic, a web application that archives your tweets and mentions and gives you useful data about your friends and followers on Twitter. (Here's some background on why the heck I'd ever want to archive the ephemeral chatter that is on the Twitter.)
Anyway, after a few months I've collected a teensy bit of data, so I wanted to make sharing replies to my lazyweb tweets easier. To that end, today I added a public face to the app. Here's the Twitalytic public timeline, which lists my most recent tweets and the number of replies each has. Click on the reply total to drill down into the responses to a particular tweet, like my tweet asking what people eat first thing in the morning. (Ha, I made over 200 people Twitter about breakfast!)
That listing is the most basic thing Twitalytic can do. When you set it up and log into the app, you can curate replies and see other views of your data, like your least likely followers, your least and most active friends, your most replied-to tweets and more. For each of your friends or followers, you can see mutual friends, conversations you've had, and even what Twitter client that person uses most. If you're approaching the 3,200 tweet mark, Twitalytic will also back up your tweets and let you export them into a simple text file. Here are some screenshots of the internal, logged-in only views.
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