Posted by Gabe on November 28, 2009 under Twitter, Twitter for Beginners | 
The most annoying and frustrating spam that has been running rampant through Twitter lately is the dreaded Britney tweets that end up in your mentions folder. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, consider yourself lucky as the avatar is extremely pornographic in nature. There are hundreds of bots that cycle through Twitter handles, spewing their brand of filth virtually on your front porch with no request for it nor a warning thereof. My method for combatting this to date has been to click on the sender, click the “Report for Spam”, exit Tweetdeck and reload so the avatar is gone from my screen. These spam bots have been so prevalent lately that I find myself doing this several times during the day.
I came up with the concept that it would be nice if you kept a list of words and/or phrases in your personal profile, that if found in the mentions, you would never see them. This I believe is a sound idea that I would like Twitter and other apps like Tweetdeck to adopt. Then I noticed something. In the current version of Tweetdeck there is a Filter option at the bottom of every column, including the ‘Mentions’ column. If you click this you can add words to the box. Usually this means that you want to see only tweets that include these words. However, if you change the option just to the left of the input box from a ‘+’ sign to a ‘-’ sign, you will only see tweets that DO NOT include these words. So I added the word ‘britney’, changed it to a ‘-’ sign and voila! Tweets with that word in it will not be seen in my Mentions folder in Tweetdeck!! Now they will still appear in my Twitter mentions but I rarely use that interface to read my tweets. It is certainly a poor man’s solution, but until they fix this problem I’m going with it. Please let me know if this post helps you, or what else we can do to combat these spammers.
Posted by Gabe on November 24, 2009 under Twitter, Twitter for Beginners |
“Getting weird DMs? Probably due to phishing. Don’t go to the links sent in the DMs or give out your login & PW!”
“We’re still seeing phishing attempts; don’t click on strange links! And tell folks who DM you phishing links to reset their password.”
“Someone saying they’ve got 100s of Google Wave invites to give out & you’ve just got to RT & follow them to get one? It’s a scam!”
“General tip: don’t retweet a spammer’s message. You might get suspended accidentally.”
These are tweets randomly chosen from the @spam account on Twitter. (I highly recommend everyone follow this account by the way.) If you have been reading my posts you will know that I am a huge Twitter advocate. I’ve never had a bad word to say, at least until this post. The spammers, scammers, porn bots, phishing scams and whatever else is lurking out there is a huge problem for Twitter in my estimation. If these were isolated incidents that would be one thing. But they certainly are not. It is getting so bad now that I recently got an @reply by someone who had a pornographic avatar. Now c’mon people – I have a nosy 11-year-old who is vists me in my home office all the time. I also get several of these “phishing” DMs a day. Maybe if you follow a hundred people or so you get fewer, but I bet you still get them. About six months ago I clicked on one of these links and it corrupted my Twitter account. I was locked out and someone else tweeted inanities from my profile. That was called the “Mikey” virus. The fix to get rid of it was complicated. To discover the fix and to implement it took a few hours right when I needed Twitter the most. AAARGHH!!
How that virus was propagated was by clicking on someone’s profile who was infected. When people discovered that my account was compromised, they all tweeted it. “Don’t click on @KidsAreHeroes – his account is infected!” Not the publicity that I was seeking at the time.
So now I am smarter. I don’t click on links I don’t trust. I have even gone so far as to turn the switch on in Tweetdeck that allows you to preview the long URL that the short URL represents before you click on it. Yes it’s an extra step but worth it. I “report as spam” the obvious accounts, and unfollow many others - I find myself doing that a few times a day at least. I am vigilant about approving which Twitter lists I appear on as a result of what happened two weeks ago. When people send me a reply that is spam, it irks me so much that I block them, then have to restart Tweetdeck so that their spammy request doesn’t show on my screen.
My question then becomes, is all this worth it? Why should we put up with all this aggravation when it seems that Twitter has no ability to improve our experience? For me, yes, it definitely is. I am still making true connections to people I never would have if it weren’t for Twitter. But I can no longer blindly say that if you want to promote your business, or whatever, you should use it. I can now see where putting up with this kind of silliness does not warrant having a Twitter account for some. I have a friend who recently moved to the Washington area. She is an amazing photographer who took pictures pro bono for us on Kids Are Heroes Day. She is not on Twitter. I have recommended it to her highly and I plan to give her a quick hands-on class about it if she wants it. But I must include this post when I discuss it with her. Things like this never used to enter the conversation, but now they must. Maybe it is because as you follow more people you get exposed to it more.
So, are there any steps we can take to minimize the impact of these miscreants? My last post discussed the pros and cons of protecting your tweets. I was also since asked to comment on the True Twit Validation tool. This is a free service that will attempt to tell you by email if the person following you is human or a bot. When you follow someone who is “protected” by this service, you get an automatic DM (direct message) that asks you to verify yourself by typing in some words via the Captcha service. Once you do this they get an email stating that you passed their “human” test. This service does not stop people from following you, it just acts as a tool to tell you if it thinks who is following you is human or not. It is still up to you to deal with the follower as you normally would. I have no strong opinions about this, other than the fact that it seems more trouble than it’s worth. It’s pretty easy to spot a spammer when you check who is following you. I don’t need an email to sift through and match up with. And I have heard from folks who think it’s insulting to get one of these DMs, and others who flat out say they will not bother with people who use the service.
I just treat all this nonsense as part of what I have to deal with to get the benefit from using Twitter. At this point I am not jumping ship, but at the same time paying more attention to our Facebook fan page. We’ve had a recent spike in new fans thanks to a few people who suggested the page to their friends. (Thanks so much to those of you who did that!) Things seem much calmer on that platform, at least for now.
So what do you think? Would love to hear from people who follow less than 500 to hear if this is still an issue for them. Also love to hear solutions on how Twitter can fix the problems. I myself have always wondered why they don’t make the sign-up process a little more sophisticated so as to weed some of the spammers out from the get go.
Posted by Gabe on November 22, 2009 under Twitter, Twitter for Beginners |
I saw a tweet posted by someone yesterday that prompted this post. It read something along the lines of “C’mon people – protecting your tweets is so pretentious!” The thing that made me laugh is that this guy was being followed by over 6000 people and he followed back only 15! Yes, fifteen people. So who is the pretentious one?
Anyway, my personal view is that it is not at all pretentious to protect your tweets. In fact, in some cases I highly recommend it. @MM4Animals is my daughter’s Twitter account. Not only do we protect her tweets, but we also discuss who she follows and who can follow her back. It is usually limited to celebrities she knows and other people that I know. I recommend to all the other hero parents of young ones that they protect their tweets. In my mind it gives off a bad impression if these tweets are not protected as there are so many spammers, porn bots and other crazies on Twitter.
Now if you are an adult and want to protect your tweets here are some things to consider. I would not recommend this action if you are trying to get lots of connections. When I look at someone’s protected profile I cannot read their tweets, I can’t see what they tweet about, how often they tweet or when their last tweet was. I usually follow people who are active on Twitter so I have a better chance to engage with them. More often than not I do not send a request to follow – even when they follow me, because I have been given no reason to follow that person. The up side about protecting your profile is that you greatly reduce the amount of spammers you have to deal with. You are also raising the percentage of quality connections among your followers. I do think you will miss out on some other ones though.
Another point of interest — I checked to see what happens with protected updates in conjunction with the new Twitter lists. It works as it should, at least in my mind. If you have protected updates and someone who is legitimately following you puts you on a list, the only people who will see your tweets from that list will be other people that follow you. And you cannot be put on lists by people who are not following you. That can be both good and bad. You have more control but will get less exposure.
So how do you protect your updates, anyway? Go to your Settings page and scroll down to the bottom. Check the “Protect my Tweets” box. From now on you will see a list of wannabe followers that you can check out and either Accept or Deny before they can read your tweets.
Would love to hear other reasons why some of you protect your tweets! :)
Update 12/12/09: Since I have written this post I have discovered that many people have found it via Google. No, they weren’t searching for “thought provoking articles on Twitter”. The real nature of the search was a bit more sinister in fact: “how to read unprotected tweets”. Since this kept happening over and over I tried Googling the same phrase. Sure enough, my post was there amid the other results. And there were other posts that related more to the actual search. Several methods were published in fact. I was surprised to find that indeed there is at least one loophole to read protected tweets. I will not divulge how I did it here, but I came across a post, read it, found a person (who I was not following) whose tweets were protected and voila. The tweets were there out in the open when I followed the directions. Now if I did it this easily anyone else can too. So what does this mean? When you protect your tweets they are not fully protected. You will still have a level of privacy but don’t believe your tweets will be truly private until Twitter closes all the loopholes.
Posted by Gabe on November 21, 2009 under Ask Gabe, Twitter, Twitter for Beginners |
I was just asked a question by @RightonMom that, although I have talked about similar situations in the past, I don’t believe I have dealt specifically with this question. So here goes:
“Do you unfollow those who unfollow you?”
The answer to that at least for me is yes and no. No because I do not monitor who “unfollows” me. There are tools out there that supposedly email you when you are unfollowed but quite frankly I found them to be unreliable. I also discovered that I have so much I have to keep track of on a daily basis that the last thing I need is to add something else to that list.
But where the answer becomes “yes” is when I am “massaging” my follower ratio. Two things I have been consistent with in my Twitter journey are 1) Making no bones about the fact that I do seek out followers, or more specifically connections — the more people who know about Kids Are Heroes the better for us. (Having said that I will not and have never purchased followers nor have opted in to sites that claim to get you more.) 2) I manage my follower ratio by unfollowing those who do not follow me back or end up unfollowing me. This practice increases the chances of getting more connections, which is my ultimate goal. Think about it. If someone unfollows me they have made a statement that they are not interested in my subject matter. So how can I connect with that person? Now does that bother me? Absolutely not. There are plenty of subjects that I am not interested in so that may be the reason I do not follow a particular person. But that is no reflection on the originator of the tweet.
Twitter is such a wonderful tool — through its use I have garnered so many connections that have helped us along the way. I am always very active on Twitter in the pursuit of new connections. Mind you this is not intended to be one-sided. I try also to help as many people as I can. That’s why I write about Twitter – I have been told that these posts are helpful to some and I am glad to do it.
So how do I actually do this? When you follow as many people as I do it becomes more and more difficult to keep track. Luckily there are tools out there to help. My tool of choice has been Huitter (Mutuality). That tool is great as it will automatically unfollow all who are not following you. That’s when I discovered it costs money to use it after a while. Well I am cheap so I sought out another alternative. The best one I found was TwitIn by InRev (using their “Flush” utility). It requires much more work on your part as it is much more interactive, but it’s still free and you are not really bulk unfollowing which can get you in a spot of trouble with the Twitter police.
So that is what I do anyway. Not saying it’s the only way, just my way. I know there are a lot of conflicting opinions on this subject out there, so let’s hear ‘em. :)
Posted by Gabe on November 19, 2009 under Ask Gabe, Twitter, Twitter for Beginners |
I just received a very interesting question from @HomeSchoolMD:
@KidsAreHeroes What’s the difference between using Tweetdeck vs. Twitter lists?
Let me continue by saying that I don’t pretend to be a “guru” on either subject, especially when it comes to Twitter lists. I have created one and I honestly don’t use them that much. (I explain why in the addendum to my #followfriday post.) But I do pretty much exclusively use Tweetdeck so I feel I can at least answer the question. (I also welcome comments in case I miss any good points here.) The main difference in my mind is that Tweetdeck “groups” which compare to Twitter lists cannot be made public for anyone else to follow. They are simply for your own benefit. Where Tweetdeck excels is in the ability to have multiple columns visible simultaneously. So I can view several groups at once along with my mentions, direct messages and general tweets. It appears to be a bit easier to put people in Tweetdeck groups, as with Twitter you have to be in the user’s profile to add him or her to your list. So with Tweetdeck it’s strictly for personal benefit, but with Twitter getting people to follow the lists you have created can also be considered some sort of personal accomplishment.
I cannot help but get into a wider comparison to the overall interface of Twitter and Tweetdeck. One major advantage of Tweetdeck is that it automatically refreshes any and all columns after a time that you specify in the preferences section. It also allows you to customize notifications, both visually and auditorially. You can specify general tweets, mentions, groups and or direct messages in the notifications. Since I work in an environment where I have several computers, I prefer to leave it on at all times and have it beep only when I get mentions (I know not very “green” is it?). Tweetdeck is designed to be able to do just that, but a bug in the software is preventing this at this time — I expect them to fix it in the next release.
The multiple columns, once I experienced it, made it impossible for me to go back to the old way of doing things. This is true expecially if you follow LOTS of people like I do. Tweetdeck also gives you the ability to filter tweets in your columns (i.e. if you filter by “http” you will get only tweets with links inside them.)
Tweetdeck has a “Translate” feature which is pretty cool and I have used it from time to time. It will translate the tweet from whatever language it is written to your own native language. It also interfaces with MySpace and Facebook — these are features I personally do not use.
The one difference that is being talked about A LOT recently is that they both have retweet buttons that will retweet a post you might like. The difference is that in Twitter’s brand new implementation you cannot edit the retweet. Period. It simply retweets the exact tweet to your followers giving only the originator of the tweet the credit. The advantage here is you never have to worry about going over the 140 character limit, since the original tweet cannot be added to. So for example, here is a tweet I retweeted with both Twitter and Tweetdeck.
Original Tweet:
GabeONeill: Am testing to see what happens when you use Twitter to retweet a very long message that approaches one hundred and forty characters. Just tw
(the “tw” is at the end of the 140 characters)
Twitter retweet from @KidsAreHeroes:
GabeONeill: Am testing to see what happens when you use Twitter to retweet a very long message that approaches one hundred and forty characters. Just tw
As you can see the tweet is identical. When viewed in Twitter it has their retweet icon in front and says “Retweeted by KidsAreHeroes” at the bottom. Now the real interesting thing here is that it does not seem that the Twitter retweets show in the Tweetdeck stream at all. I was trying to see how these would appear but in several cases I could not find them. Would love to hear the scoop on that if anyone knows it.
Tweetdeck retweet from @KidsAreHeroes:
KidsAreHeroes: RT @GabeONeill: Am testing 2 c what happens when you use Twitter to RT a long msg that approaches one hundred and forty characters. Just tw
Now as you can see I had to edit it so that there was enough space to include the RT in front, and the GabeONeill also takes up part of the 140 characters in this case. This can be a pain if someone writes a cool but very long tweet. But this method allows us to give credit to multiple retweeters (which I like) and can be used to add commentary on the end. Here’s an example:
RT @Milogirly RT @CarynTamber: @KidsAreHeroes My favorite kind of dog! Bernese Mountain dogs are beautiful! (Agreed! :)
Another rather large difference is that you have to go to a separate list to see who has retweeted you. This is very cumbersome to me. Using the old-fashioned method, if someone retweets you that retweet ends up in your mentions folder. That way you know which of your tweets are more popular than others and you have the opportunity of giving thanks, even connecting with the retweeter.
From what I have seen and heard being able to edit is still the preferred method of retweeting. We are even conditioned to the point that if we want retweets we keep our tweets short enough to allow for them.
So what do you all think??
Posted by Gabe on October 11, 2009 under Twitter, Twitter for Beginners |
This post was inspired by a recent post written by my friend Danny Brown. Someone called him a Twitter snob, just because he doesn’t follow back everyone who follows him. He even went so far as to say that Danny shouldn’t be “advising” about the use of Twitter because he himself is not following the “correct protocol”.
This raised a number of issues with me. First and foremost, I believe noone has the right or credibility to tell another person how they should use Twitter. That may sound funny coming from a guy who loves to put out posts that describe the proper use of Twitter (at least how I see it). But I have always said, feel free to read my posts and do what you wish – it’s a free country. I have no more authority to tell people what to do regarding the use of Twitter than do its founders. After all they would be the first to admit that it is being used in ways they never dreamed of. What I like to do is to talk about what works best for me – how I get the most out of Twitter and share it with others so they can benefit as well, taking from the posts what they feel makes sense to them.
Now on to this “follow everyone back” concept. I have made it clear in my posts that I do not subscribe to this practice. It has nothing to do with snobbery. I could care less how many or few followers you have. If you are a “bot”, (which unfortunately there are way too many of) I will more than likely block you let alone follow you. If you want to tell me that my teeth are yellow and what I should be reading to make them white then I am sorry, I’ll keep my yellow teeth thank you. I’m a pacifist so please don’t make me part of your Mafia family. I don’t want your gifts so please don’t ask me to give you one. I don’t want to take a poll about what type of cat I’d be thank you very much. I joined Twitter to make real connections with real people. I cannot do that with you if you never converse with people. I am not interested in your web site if that’s all you are going to tweet about. How can I find out about you as a person if you are unwilling to fill out your profile? I can go on and on but the point is I do not follow back everyone. I am not saying that is the way everyone should be either. That is what works best for me. Period.
I wanted to make one more point about this. Danny’s accuser indirectly called him an “elitist” for not following back everyone. Said that he only follows “the elite” on Twitter. That is also a misnomer. There is no such thing as an elite user on Twitter. That’s one reason I love it so much – everyone is on the same level. Some people may have more followers than others, but that I couldn’t care less about. I read your tweets because I am interested in them, not because I care about who else is reading them.
So what do you do? Do you follow back everyone? Tell us about what you do and why you do it.
Posted by Gabe on August 20, 2009 under Social Media, Twitter, Twitter for Beginners |
Back in March I wrote a post with the same title. Usually what I do is go back and update these posts with my new experiences sprinked in. This time I felt it was necessary for a major overhaul, so I am writing from scratch.
Another motivator is that I have been a bit negative about Twitter lately. Blocking spammers, unfollowing Mafia Wars and “gift-seeking” tweeps and listing reasons why I unfollow people. That has actually been my most popular post to date, but one person finally questioned why there were so many negatives in relation to the positives. I think he had a point.
So without further ado, I am listing my top 10 reasons why I do so love this platform.
#1 Exposure
As many of you know my number one goal for becoming involved with social media is to tell as many people as I can about Kids Are Heroes. Since I began in December of 2008 quite a good deal of people now know about us and that number grows every day. It’s important to note that there are no shortcuts to making this happen. Paying for thousands of followers and tweeting about your business constantly will do you more of a disservice than help you. But in my estimation it is time incredibly well spent. I recently received a phone call from a father of one of our heroes before he submitted her nomination. His daughter actually had a former president (yes, of the United States) escort her in his limo from her high school to be on Oprah. (Go @KidsCaring4Kids!) Now that is the Super Bowl of exposure. But Kendall’s dad mentioned that after a while all the hoopla eventually died down – he noted that what we are doing with Twitter is to “constantly prime the pump.” I couldn’t agree with that statement more. Because of this I get new people discovering us every day. (Oprah, if you are reading this, we will gladly accept your exposure as well. ;) )
#2 The Connections
It really is not difficult to connect with people on Twitter. This is a very social atmosphere and most of the people on Twitter are looking to make new connections. Yes there are spammers but you learn how to deal with them and minimize their impact. Make no mistake about it – the connections on Twitter are like gold. Seek them out and treat them with respect because without them you are wasting your time.
#3 The Relationships
After the connections come the relationships. This is when you connect with someone to the level that you meet with them either face to face or by phone, or simply connect with them often enough that you consider them a trusted colleague. Again, these relationships must be culled and don’t happen over night. But their value is immeasurable.
#4 Accessibility
I just love the fact that everyone is on the same plane. You can talk to celebrities you admire and sometimes even get a response back. Another great value is being able to access companies without having to talk to a customer service rep that has only a few canned answers to choose from. This may change as Twitter gets bigger, but it is so much easier to reach decision makers this way.
#5 People are Great
At risk of sounding smarmy I just love the fact that most of the time people are on their best behavior. And if they are not you simply block them, so everyone you follow will still be on their best behavior. OK yes you still get spammed but this is supposed to be a positive post, remember? And that’s what the unfollow button is for.
#6 The Cultures
Twitter is definitely a great place to learn about other cultures. The more I learn the more I see that most people are similar enough that they can connect with each other, no matter where they are from. But we must understand that at the same time people are different. In my case even with other countries such as Australia that also speak English, there can be a disconnect in the underlying meaning of what people are trying to say, and I believe that is culturally based. So please keep that in mind.
#7 The Entire World is in Your Room
This is just one of the coolest things that I always get excited about. Talk about a small world – how about a world that is the size of your office? Just last month I saw a tweet from someone who was interested in what we were doing. Within ten minutes of that tweet we were talking and seeing each other via Skype. He lives in Sweden and I in the US. Not too much longer after that I spoke to a man from Australia. It was the next day there! Ok those of you who have international jobs are laughing at me because you do this all the time and it is no big deal to you. But it still amazes me that I can tweet with almost anyone in the world at any time.
#8 The Entertainment
Anyone can use Twitter strictly for entertainment purposes, following comedians and celebrities and giving in to the games and shows that are circulating around the medium. If you follow that path that is certainly your prerogative. I do find the occasional tweet that makes me laugh and I gladly retweet it. The viral Youtube videos make their rounds without making you feel that you have to respond to someone who emailed it to you with something like “Ha Ha! Loved it!” You control which ones you click on and which ones you watch in their entirety. My favorite is still the Evian Roller Babies. Might not be your taste, but again, that’s what makes Twitter great.
#9 Things Happen on Twitter
People are very active on Twitter. I have discovered that besides blogging and tweeting people are very quick to take action if something moves them. The Iran Election is one great example where many people colored their avatars green in support. The Twitter powers that be were even convinced to reschedule their scheduled downtime because people did not want to see the support go away. I also have personal experience with this. In March we entered a contest (that we discovered through Twitter) held by Sir Richard Branson to get great exposure for our video. Thanks to our Twitter supporters we won and had the video featured first in his premiere episode of PitchTV shown on Virgin Atlantic planes during the month of June 2009. I still have a hard time believing that one.
#10 Everyone Helps Each Other
If you “behave well” on Twitter you will find people who go to bat for you. By behaving well I mean not being spammy and connecting with people. You will promote what others are doing as well as your own agenda and ask nothing in return. I have found that the people who are successful on Twitter are full of humility and they also are very generous with help and information. Think about that for a second. Isn’t that an incredibly desirable atmosphere to be part of? What if all people did was tweet such things as: “Hey you won’t believe how great I am! Come see my web site that you can buy stuff from!” If that was all you saw would you log on in the morning? I didn’t think so.
I would love to hear what you think makes Twitter great. Or if you haven’t bought in to the hype let’s hear about that too.
Posted by Gabe on August 6, 2009 under Ask Gabe, Twitter, Twitter for Beginners |
I really enjoy helping people get acclimated to Twitter. I think it is because I want to help them unlock the powers of social media for themselves. So what I have done is create a new “Ask Gabe” series of posts for newbies, where I answer selected questions directed at me about Twitter on this blog. I used to do this in tweet form, but some questions cannot be answered in 140 characters, and if I write the answers here other newbies can also benefit. Just click on the “Ask Gabe” category on the sidebar to see all the questions and answers.
To ask me a question, simply pose it to me by replying to me (@KidsAreHeroes) on Twitter.
Also don’t forget that many of your questions may already be answered in the “Twitter for Beginners” section of this blog. Happy tweeting!
Posted by Gabe on August 5, 2009 under Ask Gabe, Twitter, Twitter for Beginners |
This is the second in the Ask Gabe series. A very good question came back to me posed by @DaveWebbBC:
@KidsAreHeroes Hi Im new to twitter, how do you manage conversations in the midst of 100s of tweets from random people?
Ok Dave, there are two parts to this. By your tweet I see you have learned to preface your tweet with the @ sign followed by the intended Twitter ID. This is the proper way to do this. I received this in my Replies/Mentions folder (as do you when you get tweets directed at you). Many newbies don’t see this folder. When you open Twitter from your browser, on the right sidebar you see “Home”. Underneath that you see your Twitter ID and under that is the Direct Messages folder. Click on your Twitter ID and you will see only tweets that are either directed at you or mention you in the tweet. What may be confusing is that you also see them in your main Twitter stream. So the basic answer is to check your Replies/Mentions folder – this will be separate from your main stream that has all those other random tweets.
Now once you get a little more comfortable and daring, you can install a product such as Tweetdeck that provides columns for different folders. Your Replies/Mentions folder is viewable at the same time as your main Twitter stream. You can even see your direct messages concurrently as well. And the nice thing about Tweetdeck is that it automatically refreshes itself, wheras you keep having to manually refresh your browser to see new tweets.
Now, one problem occurs when you get a response from someone who you directed a question quite some time ago and you can’t remember what you asked. Or maybe you just commented on something they said. They come back to you days later assuming you had just asked the question. That happened to me yesterday. There are a number of ways to do this, but the only tool I could find that worked properly was TweeTree. This tool shows the threads in conversations. Go to Tweetree.com and log in to Twitter. Look at your Mentions folder. You should see the conversations that you have been having.
Now there should be two other resources that can help. Specifically Advanced Twitter Search and TweetGrid.com. You can add boolean operators to Tweetgrid – for example to see conversations between you and me enter: DaveWebbBC AND KidsAreHeroes – note the capitalized AND. Unfortunately this isn’t working now in either case. I think that both use the Twitter Search API and my guess is that something is wrong with it at the time of this writing. I was unable to find the tweets from @DaveWebbBC to @KidsAreHeroes. If this works for someone else or if someone knows something I don’t please enlighten. UPDATE: As I suspected, at least according to this post, the Twitter search engine is indeed broken. That’s probably why it is no longer available directly from their home page. What you were trying to do will be much simpler once it is fixed.
UPDATE 8/25/09: I was working with the aforementioned tool Tweetdeck just now and I tripped over something that is definitely related to this. Tweetdeck has different columns that you can set up. One is the Mentions/Replies column. As I stated it will automatically update according to how often you have it set and you can see other tweets as well. If you get a reply (as opposed to just a mention), there will be text at the bottom of the tweet that will say “..in reply to..”. If you click on that it will show you the conversation you had with that person. I just discovered it so I have yet to determine its real value, but it seems like it might be very helpful.
UPDATE 8/6/09: I saw this link today for Twitter Conversation and Communication Tools. Looks like there are several more tools to help. Haven’t tried them all, so when I do I will come back and update again. Here is the link.
Hope all this helps… :)
Posted by Gabe on under Twitter, Twitter for Beginners |
This is going to sound really nerdy but I have looked forward to Fridays because of #followfriday on Twitter. “Follow Friday” is the practice of recommending your favorite tweeps to other people to follow. (See more about it and how it got started via @mashable here.) This is a great concept – at least in theory. There is no better form of flattery on Twitter than for people to recommend you to others. But I must be honest. I do not look forward to Fridays like I used to. I see it more as a chore than a blessing now, at least as to how it applies to Twitter and here’s why:
1) The List. People cram as many names as they possibly can into one tweet. It is so bad that the #followfriday hash tag has been reduced to #ff to get more names on it. There is no reason given as to why we should be following these people. I guess what we are supposed to do is blindly click on all of them and follow them??
2) The RT. People who are given #followfriday shout-outs want other people to know they were given them, so they retweet these lists. You’re so vain – you probably think this song is about you.
3) The Requests. I actually received an email from someone that said, “I am going to give you a #followfriday shout-out tomorrow. Please give me one too!” When he did and I didn’t return it, he emailed me again telling me that he gave me a #followfriday shout-out. (By the way his follower count was 147.)
4) The Numbers. Have you ever looked at someone’s profile on a Friday and saw nothing but #FF lists? I fail to see what is accomplished by this. This is becoming more and more prevalent and is starting to amount to no more than spam.
5) The Thank-You’s. Regardless of the intent (or lack of) in a #followfriday mention, I feel obligated to thank people for them, even if I am one of 100 people they have recommended. I really do want to thank the people who have tweeted a “genuine” #followfriday to me. This gets harder and harder to do as I get more mentions, especially when I have a rule that I don’t thank people who have retweeted their own mention where I happen to be included.
Now I know what you are thinking – that I am biting the hand that feeds me, that I am whining about getting mentioned – all that may be true. And make no mistake I am truly grateful to the people that recommend me through their hearts. But if #followfriday was accomplishing what its originator intended, I would have a huge onrush of followers every Friday due to the number of mentions I get. This simply is not the case. As a matter of fact, I get no more of a noticeable following on Fridays as I do other days. And what that tells me is that people do not pay attention to these lists. Why would they? It’s just a long list of people with no reason why they have been recommended. The scary thing is that this concept is being propagated in a hash tag called #charitytuesday and I even received a #followwednesday shout-out this morning. The other sad thing I noticed is that on Fridays my “Mentions” folder is full of #followfriday lists and no real replies. People are spending all of their time creating these lists instead of connecting with people.
Now does that mean #followfriday should be done away with? No. I would just hope that people would go back to recommending one or two people at a time and giving us the reason. @DannyBrown has joined the trend of listing his #followfriday mentions on his blog. (Notice I picked the one where he mentions me – self-serving I know..) He keeps the list short and recommends different people every week. This is an excellent way to flatter and thus engage people. I still think Mr. Tweet is a great resource. This can be done any day and it is a great way to give props to the people you really love to follow. The beauty is that you can only mention one at a time, so you must give thought as to why you are following them. @bkmacdaddy seems to share my opinion. He has written a post how to use Mr. Tweet instead of #followfriday.
On Fridays I still partake in #followfriday but I try and recommend one person at a time. If I recommend several I do include a reason. Here is an example of one I did last week.
I know I might get some flak on this one but please feel free to dish it out. Convince me that #followfriday is still a wonderful thing on Twitter. You might make me look forward to Fridays again.
UPDATE 8/7/09 12:28PM EST Well #followfriday is just a little over half done for me and I must say either I am noticing it more or we did have a bit of an impact. I have seen several #followfriday dedications today that were very warm and genuine, and only mentioned a small amount of people. I did click through and follow those that were recommended. I find this much more productive when someone convinces me why I should follow just with a few kind adjectives. Keep them coming, people!
UPDATE 9/4/09: At the risk of appearing extremely self-serving I want to bring attention to a particular #followfriday mention I got this morning. It was delivered by @JonAston. (See what he wrote here.) This is one of the best recommendations I have ever gotten. In my opinion this is the way to recommend people. It gave me such a good feeling I had to write about it. This is a reflection of why you should follow Jon.
UPDATE 11/13/09: I saw that last week my friend @JohnHaydon officially declared that #followfriday was dead because of Twitter’s new lists feature. I also saw that @AlexKaris has a Twitter list called FollowFriday. This seems to make sense, doesn’t it? I haven’t fully come around yet when it comes to the new Twitter lists. I still have a bad taste in my mouth because of what happened to me recently. But I do see their convenience. To date I have created just one list including all our heroes. I am not sure which list I should create next. When you follow lots of people it becomes more difficult to create them in the first place. And who do you offend when you leave people off your “Great-Tweeters” list? I thought about creating a Follow Friday list too, but in my eyes that’s no different than creating a long tweet for them (except for the added convenience of following them all, and not having to type in the lists each week). I still have yet to follow someone else’s list because I don’t really know who is in them. Maybe I would follow some of them but not all. So I guess I will continue with my #followfriday routine and just mention a few each week giving a good reason for each. After all, that is, as I understand it, the spirit in which it was created in the first place.
How are Twitter lists working for you?
