Smarterware » Twitter

On Privately Following Dunbar’s Number on Twitter

Gina Trapani — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 15:42:55 +0000

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

Gina Trapani — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 16:07:26 +0000

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

Gina Trapani — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 00:17:36 +0000

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]

Tell the White House What Our Next Tech Challenge Should Be

Gina Trapani — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 18:19:07 +0000

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]

Three Ways You Can Help Build ThinkTank

Gina Trapani — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 18:48:40 +0000

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:

1. Facebook Integration. We've been working hard to make ThinkTank an extensible platform that any social network can plug into. We've just abstracted ThinkTank's Twitter functionality into a plug-in prototype, and it's time to try out plugging in another data source. Its popularity makes Facebook the next logical choice. To start, we need to add Facebook Connect functionality to the ThinkTank webapp, which will allow users to grant ThinkTank access to their Facebook account (much like you can via Twitter OAuth right now). If you've got experience implementing Facebook Connect in PHP, please help us build this plug-in.

2. Google Buzz Integration. Buzz may have just launched, but its instant adoption by millions of Gmail users (and its open APIs) makes it a perfect fit for ThinkTank. Like Facebook, we want to develop a Google Buzz plug-in that will feed posts and replies to those posts on Buzz into the ThinkTank database. Keep in mind that ThinkTank's plug-in framework is still under development, so we'll be refining it as we work on getting new services interfacing with ThinkTank.

3. Documentation. A big barrier to users and developers getting involved with ThinkTank is the lack of thorough documentation. While we've gotten several pages started in the ThinkTank wiki, we need more. If you've installed ThinkTank or plan to, document your experience in an installation guide. As you dive into the code and grok the app's design, add and edit the developer's guide. Documentation is one of the more tedious parts of developing code, but it saves future users and developers so much time, and it's the perfect way for non-coders to help out with the project. You don't have to ask permission: if you've got helpful information to share about using or developing ThinkTank, dive right into the wiki and press that Edit button.

While these are the project's major priorities right now, ThinkTank has over 30 open issues large and small. If you're interested in improving ThinkTank for your personal use as well as helping better-inform public policy, join us on the mailing list, follow and fork the project on GitHub, install ThinkTank and contribute what you can.

Thanks in advance for your time and interest.

My Projects Twitter List

Gina Trapani — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 07:05:19 +0000

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.

If Twitter Had Been Around in Dr. King’s Day

Gina Trapani — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 02:23:41 +0000

His tweets would have looked like this.

Free Cloud Backup at Backupify (Till January 31st)

Gina Trapani — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 16:54:38 +0000

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

Gina Trapani — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 20:49:18 +0000

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.

Twitter Lists Organizes People You Follow

Gina Trapani — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 19:15:12 +0000

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.

Click on "Create a new list" to name your list and set it to public (anyone can see) or private (only you can see it). Here I'm making a Twitter list of folks I follow from the popular web series, The Guild.

Then, add people you follow to your lists from your Following page, or from his/her individual Twitter page.

After I added a bunch of Guildies to my list, I can see just tweets from them.

The lists feature also includes a little ego-surfing information, too. I can see how many lists I've been included on, and I can also see what public lists any other user's on. Here's @wilw's right now--surely his list of lists will blow up once lists get released.

In essence, lists puts Twitter's controversial "suggested users" into the hands of the users. As I said on Twitter, lists is a much-needed upgrade to "Follow Friday" recommendations, and a handy organizing tool for anyone who follows more than a few people on Twitter. (Thanks to the Twitter folks for giving me a sneak peek at the Lists beta.)