Nominate us for a Shorty Award!
Greetings Readers and Listeners!
Those of you that follow Global Geek News on Twitter know that I do my best to pass along all kinds of great tech related links. Whether it is links about a big merger or just announcing that a new podcast is up, I do my best to tweet the tech content that you would find interesting. If you agree that we pass along all kinds of awesome tech info, we would really appreciate it if you nominated @globalgeeknews for a Shorty Award!
What is a Shorty Award? Shorty Awards are awards honoring the best producers of short, real time content on Twitter. If you have people you follow that produce great Twitter content, you should nominate them for a Shorty Award in a good number of categories ranging from tech (where you should be nominating @globalgeeknews) to food and even advertising!
I really want to win this year, so I am begging you guys to please nominate @globalgeeknews for a Shorty Award!
Don't forget to follow Global Geek News on Twitter if you don't already!
Twitter believes we are too stupid for @ replies
Greetings Readers!
Normally I am fast asleep at the time that I am writing this, but it is quite warm here and I can't sleep when it is hot. Not being able to sleep, I decided to browse the new posts on my Google Reader. After sifting through all of the stuff I don't care about, I came across some news from TechCrunch that Twitter is removing a large part of the service's @ reply functionality because it seems to believe people are too stupid to figure it out. Maybe I am just cranky because I can't sleep, but this sounds like a great opportunity to go on a good rant.
Is there anything about Twitter that confuses you to the point of frustration or even wanting to quit the service? Do you find @ replies confusing? I didn't think so. @ Replies have been around for nearly as long as Twitter yet apparently all of the sudden they are too confusing for people. What is most perplexing is that this functionality that is being removed, the ability to see everybody's @ replies even if you don't follow the people they are talking to, is that this functionality isn't even enabled by default. You have to go into the settings and enable this feature yourself. If people are too stupid to figure out the basics of twitter, what are they doing mucking around in the settings area in the first place? If people can't figure out what this functionality does and how it affects their experience withe the service, I think that is more twitter's fault for not explaining it well enough instead of just implying that their users are stupid.
The truly annoying thing about all of this is that they seem to be eliminating one feature after another without adding anything. Just recently, they announced that they were killing the auto-follow feature that a user has to request to be an option in the first place. Why are you killing a feature that is obviously valuable to some people while most users don't know it exists so that it can't change how they use the service? I am not completely against killing features as I understand that sometimes they aren't useful or cause more problems than good, but killing used features for no reason and not replacing them with new functionality is something that has always irritated me. It is the purpose of a service to move forward, not back. While many services are adding features, the fastest growing service on the internet seems to be taking them away with no legitimate reason for doing so.
Twitter seems to be becoming too reliant upon third party services to fill in the gap. I will admit that while there are some really stupid services out there, there are a ton of great twitter apps and services that bring a huge value to the twitter experience. While I think it is great to let the twitter community grow and do its own thing, it is not right to expect them to pick up the slack and make new services just because you kill off an existing feature. You can help the community grow in many ways, but lowering the value of your service by disabling features is not a good move for anybody. Twitter needs to wake up and realize that it has a ton of competition from services such as friendfeed and needs to spend more time improving and stabilizing the product instead of moving backward and disabling existing functionality.
Enough of my late night rant. If you haven't already, give a listen to episode #23 of the Global Geek News Podcast. A new show should be out Thursday or Friday. Until then...
Follow me on twitter & friendfeed!
-Jeremy "pcnerd37" Bray
Why ‘Live Twittering’ is a Horrible Idea
Greetings Readers!
I have another rant again today. Hopefully I will have some more upbeat things to write about after this but today's topic really irritated me this morning so after gathering my thoughts, I decided that I should address the idea of "live twittering" here.
'Live Twittering' is likely a new term to most people as thankfully it hasn't really caught on at this point. Live Twittering is much like live blogging except it takes place on Twitter. It can also take place on other micro-blogging services but since Twitter is the biggest, I will be talking about it today. Live blogging and live Twittering are similar in that they are a live reporting of something as it happens. Whether its a tv show or a press event, it is relaying information in near real time primarily for those who cant experience the event themselves or wish to share the experience with others.
Although similar, there is one major difference that I see to be a major problem. Live blogging is attended by people who specifically seek to be apart of the live blog whereas with live Twittering, followers don't really have a choice without completely unfollowing the person. Often times, live blogs contain material that people consider to be spoilers but that is something that is acknowledged and accepted by those who intentionally go and read or participate in the live blog. This presents a major issue for live Twittering. When live Twittering something such as a TV show (for example, the Battlestar Galactica finale), the live tweeter's followers will be inundated with information they either don't care about or don't want to know because they are unable to watch at that time and don't want to have the episode spoiled for them before they get a chance to watch. Live twittering essentially takes away that choice for the user and leaves them with the only real option of unfollowing you either permanently or temporarily until they know you have stopped.
Its clear that the major difference is user choice. The user can choose whether or not to be apart of their live blog, but the choice becomes much more difficult when you force the experience on them by live Twittering. I have even had people threaten to unfollow me if I took that choice away from them, which is why I only do a live blog. It all comes down to choice, something that should never be taken away from your potential audience.
New Twitter Etiquette (part 2) Rule: Thou shalt not live Twitter!
If you want to see how I handle this issue, you are invited to watch and participate in my Battlestar Galactica live blog tonight on Pcnerd37.com. I will be Twittering out the exact link when I go live (So follow me!). The show starts at 10pm EST but I typically get things going around 9:30pm EST.
Programming Note: I put up two Global Geek News Podcasts this week so check them out. Wesley is busy with SXSW so I will likely do a solo show over the weekend and put it up as soon as its ready.
Follow me on Twitter & Friendfeed!
-Jeremy "pcnerd37" Bray
Why trivia contests should not be on Twitter
Greetings Readers!
I wanted to address what I find to be a growing problem on Twitter, trivia contests.
For quite a while now, I have noticed various people on Twitter such as @microsoft_cares and @rahulsood among others give away some great prizes by running trivia contests on Twitter. I see several problems with this. Before I get going on my disagreements with it, I have won prizes via Twitter in the past, so if you believe that I am mad because I don't win, you would be very wrong.
The first issue I have with this is fairness. While everybody certainly has a chance at winning, thanks to a slow (assuming its even up which is another complaint) Twitter web interface, people often wont be able to see the question at the same time and thus create a disadvantage for some users. This problem is even more evident today when Twitter was slow and up and down much of the day after a power failure. Contests such as this should be held in a way that problems such as slow website or api limit or whatever can't effect somebody's chances to win the contest. Contests like this can be won or lost in less than a second, so it should be based on a less time restricting manner.
My next issue with doing trivia contests on Twitter is that it is really a thinly-veiled attempt to up your follower count. Trying to up your follower account with such a cheap tatic is sad. I believe a followers count should be deserved, not bought. If you don't have as many followers as you like or believe you deserve, you should do something so that more people will find you worth following. You should target a group of people that you think should follow you and go after them. For example, if you want to target people that love food, most of the content you post should be to things like recipies and restaurant reviews. If you people interested in cars to follow you, you should post a lot of stuff about cars. You should also follow these people. If they see you post about stuff they are interested in, they are likely to follow you back which is what you are after. Contests are a shotgun blast to get anybody you can when you should really be targeting a group of people who you can bring value to and who can bring value to you!
Now I'm not saying running contests on Twitter is a bad thing, but doing them the way I see most often is. Contests should be used to promote you and what you do to the maximum degree. Giving things away is a great way to earn brand awareness and a fan or two of a product, but the way many contests are currently done, they only have a fraction of the impact that they could have. If you want to get the most out of the contests, have people who want to win something do something for you. Have them submit something to your website or comment on your blog or something. If they are willing to google something to try to win whatever you are trying to give away, they will certainly be willing to do something actually useful to you for the prize. Sending people to your website or blog or whatever can do a much better job at educating people on what you do and what your product is than just having them answer some random trivia question and cross their fingers that they will get something. Hitting follow is not an action worthy of a prize either (I'm talking to you people that give away stuff when you hit so many thousands of followers).
Finally, if you still insist on doing a Twitter triva contest, at least make sure that the trivia question is related to you instead of just some random fact. Have your followers learn about your history or other products so that they can become aware of what you have to offer instead of asking something that can be easily found in a quick Google search. Give yourself the maximum possible exposure with a contest, don't just give stuff away for the heck of it.
Anyway, enough of me ranting. This is my advice for running contests on Twitter. Take it or leave it. If you have any questions or want me to expand on this, respond in the comments.
-Jeremy "pcnerd37" Bray
TweetReplies Makes Sure You Never Miss an @ Reply
Greetings Readers!
I thought I would write a quick post to share a great new Twitter service that I have discovered with my readers. As you may have guessed from the post title, the new service is called TweetReplies.
For those that have never heard of TweetReplies, it is a new service that helps make sure you never miss an @ reply. TweetReplies emails you whenever you have an @ reply so you never have to wait around for your friends to reply to your latest tweet. With many people able to get their email via their phone, you can rest assured that you will know if you get an @ reply even if you are away from your computer. But that's not all! TweetReplies will also make an RSS feed out of your replies!
If you are like me and obsessively try to aggregate everything you are interested in into your Google Reader, this is the service for you. By turning your @ replies into an RSS feed, you can save that precious click from your RSS reader to your Twitter client. This is also very handy for those that use Google Reader to share rss items with others. You can now share your tweet replies without having to worry about retweeting or trying to cut down a tweet enough to retweet it to all of your followers.
There is one great thing that I probably should have mentioned sooner. What is this wonderful thing you ask? TweetReplies does all of this WITHOUT your Twitter password! With the recent Twitter phishing and hijacking attacks, this is probably the most important feature. Never giving out your password unless absolutely necessary is always the best policy and TweetReplies seems to understand this. You can rest easy knowing that you haven't given your password to another third party service that could potentially try to hijack your account.
If you are looking to get your Twitter replies from email or RSS, this is the service for you.
-Jeremy "pcnerd37" Bray
Sharing Breaking News with Twitter
Greetings Readers!
Like many of you, I heard about the Chino Hills, CA earthquake via my Twitter friends. After watching all the reports from my twitter friends scroll across my window, I realized the value of Twitter in emergency situations.
Never before have we had such a medium to share breaking news as it happens with thousands of people at once. The ability to get news out instantly has always been in the hands of television and radio. With services like Twitter, you can now get information out quickly and you can get the viewpoints from countless people. This is a great way gather reports from thousands of first party reports about any incident, whether its an earthquake, tornado, hurricane or any other kind of disaster. With reports of cell phone outages in the L.A. area from the earthquake, it is now clear how much value Twitter has as a means of telling your family and friends that you are ok.
While Twitter seems to get a real workout during major events like the Super Bowl or MacWorld, I have never seen my feed move as fast as it did today with the earthquake. Considering it was down earlier in the day, im very impressed that Twitter didn't go down under the pressure. Assuming Twitter remains stable, I think it will continue to have an increased impact in breaking news situations. From letting people know what is going on, to saying you are ok, to organizing disaster efforts, Twitter will continue to carve out a place as a tool for spreading disaster information.
-Jeremy "pcnerd37" Bray
Has Twitter Replaced Instant Messaging?
Greetings Readers!
Over the weekend, I had the realization that I almost never use instant messengers anymore. A year or more ago, I would have had at least three instant messaging conversations going at all times on top of everything else I was doing and all of the chatrooms I would be hanging out in. Now, I almost never use instant messenger. I am lucky if I have a single instant messenger conversation in an entire day. When I sat back and thought about what was to blame for my reduced IM usage, I found that the biggest reason was probably Twitter. While I will admit that my social circle has shrunk a bit since I left college, I attribute the majority of my internet based conversations to Twitter.
Twitter is far more efficient at spreading information than instant messenger. Before you start yelling at me, I said it is more efficient, not more stable! While IM is realtime, if you have to pass along information to a group of people, it is far easier to do on Twitter where you only have to say something once rather than repeat the information to every person who needs to be kept informed. It is also much easier to rick roll a large group of people at the same time! Of course, if I need information to be relayed in real time, I will still use IM as I hate the phone.
While IM still has its place, I think Twitter is far easier to manage than multiple conversations, especially when you use applications like TweetDeck. Being able to manage you communications is the key to getting things done. While IM may be better to use for topics that need lots of discussion, Twitter is probably the ideal way outside of a chatroom or message board to pass around small bits of information to a large number of people. Twitter will never replace IM, but it is a great supplement that will continue to become a larger communication medium for the foreseeable future, no matter how unstable the service is.
Has your IM usage been affected by services like Twitter and FriendFeed? If so, how? I would love to hear some feedback on this topic.
TweetDeck, the Best Twitter Client Yet!
Greetings Readers!
For those of you who dont follow me on Twitter (www.twitter.com/pcnerd37) last night I was introduced to a new Twitter client called TweetDeck (Thanks TheWebPixie!). Not being a huge fan of desktop Twitter applications, I was a bit skeptical. While I do use Twirl every once in a while, generally speaking I have always prefered the web interface combined with an auto-refresh plugin for firefox. Starting today, that has all changed.
TweetDeck
TweetDeck is a database driven Twitter client built on the Adobe Air platform. It is built to allow you to better manage your experience. You can now create topic or group specific columns to more easily follow all the great things happening on Twitter. You start out with a column for all your tweets, one for all your replies and another for all the direct messages you have recieved in the past 48 hours, but you can add many more columns! With the program being built on a local database, it also allows for better offline capabilities. The database is also searchable! You can search for words or phrases that have shown up in you twitter stream in the past 48 hours instantly! Not only does it search locally, but you can set it to search Summize as well! Before there is any confusion, the default is 48 hours which is the maximum, but you can certainly go to far less than that if you choose. When you create new groups or columns, it is populated with what is already in the database rather than having to wait for it to fill up with new tweets. While the database aspect of this alone is enough to make it the next killer Twitter application, there is much more that makes this program a must for any hardcore Twitter user.
The support for easy and quick replies and direct messages is there like every good Twitter client should have, but where it really stands out in basic functionality is a button for retweeting. Now, you can retweet with a single button! Gone are the days of using copy and paste to retweet one of the people you follow. TweetDeck also has a built in URL shortener which uses any of five different URL shortening services. It also has several resizing buttons to further customize your display. The ability to move columns around is nice as well. It also detects the number of allowed API updates and sets itself to refresh at the allowed rate, which is also nice.
That said, there are a couple of things that aren't so great about this application. To start the list, the self adjusting refresh rate that I just mentioned is just as much a flaw as it is a great feature. Since you are unable to adjust the refresh rate yourself, if you wanted to run the application or multiple twitter applications on different computers or at different locations, you will find it very difficult as TweetDeck is already using your max number of API requests. Next, by clicking the replies and direct messages buttons more than once, you will end up with multiple columns filled with the same thing, which is just plain useless. Also, rather than columns being created when you need them, they remain there at all times but in a blank state until used. It doesn't make sense being able to scroll to a bunch of blank columns. Those are some of my primary gripes with the software, but there are a number of features that other Twitter applications have that TweetDeck lacks.
Although I hear it is in the works, there are no pop-up notifications at this time. According to their voting feedback system, this is by far the most requested feature. You are also unable to minimize it to they system tray. This is a feature I greatly value as I value my taskbar space which usually has at least a half dozen things open on it at all times. At this time, there is no support for Twitpic, but I hear that is in the works as well. I would also like to see drag and drop functionality for adding to groups, an idea the creator seems to really like as well. Showing new messages as soon as they are sent is missing but has been added to the list of things to implement. There is also no way to favorite tweets at this time, but again it is in the works.
While this is without a doubt the most useful Twitter application I have come across so far, it does have some drawbacks and a number of missing features although that is to be expected in a version numberd 0.152b (beta). Once some of the more requested and common functionality such as notifications gets implimented, this will, without a doubt, be the best Twitter application out there. The grouping and database idea behind the project would do wonders for services such as FriendFeed. If you want to keep up with the latest TweetDeck developments, check out their blog.
-Jeremy "pcnerd37" Bray
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