Tag: Twitter

News

Google Chromium OS: Does it have a purpose?

Post author By Aditya Kane
Post date November 22, 2009
7 Comments on Google Chromium OS: Does it have a purpose?

Google has finally released Chromium OS as a open source project. The news about Google’s Chrome OS has been received by people with anticipation which is expected but views on the OS are different in many ways. Some experts think Chrome OS will drive Google to go the Microsoft way. Others think it will not last and the idea of an Chrome OS is not suitable when Linux is still around.

About Google Chromium OS

Chromium OS will work on the principle that many people who use a computer may not want a OS which takes 45 seconds to load up. Chrome OS will load up in approx 3-4 seconds.
One thing that stands out with Chrome OS, is it’s laser like focus on the internet. Google being an internet giant has not lost it’s focus with its OS. It keeps the focus as the internet and has built the Operation System around what a internet user will need.
Chrome OS will not store a lot of data on the computer. This will give it a great advantage when it comes to security. All files and data will be stored online. Even if the computer is hit with a virus when Chrome OS updates the virus will be removed automatically.
This will also mean that when if Chrome OS crashes, there will be no data loss as all data will be stored online. So if my Chrome OS crashes all I will need is to re-install it and I should be good to go with all my data intact as it would anyways be stored online.

Chrome OS vs Windows 7

Many blogs might be taking the name of Chrome OS as competition to Windows 7, but I doubt that is the case. Google has kept its focus on internet functionality unlike Microsoft which is multi focused. I doubt Google is even looking to rival Microsoft’s Windows with Chrome OS. The impact Chrome OS will have on the Operating System market is still to be seen. Being still a year away from when it might get out of beta where Chrome OS will position itself is difficult to predict.

But if Google gets Chrome OS right, there is a good chance that people who are just using the internet and their browser with their computers might just dump Windows and move over to Chrome. I do not see Mac users dumping their Macs for Chrome OS as most people who buy a Mac would need their computers for a lot more than just using the internet.

Below is a video which explain the concept behind Google’s Chromium OS

Tags Chrome, Chrome OS, Google, Internet, Operating System, Twitter

Tips

Get Email alerts while monitoring keywords in Twitter Lists

Post author By Aditya Kane
Post date November 18, 2009

If you are an avid Twitter user, you are probably following a few Lists on Twitter. It is not possible to read each and every tweet in a list. I came across Listiti which allows me to set keywords while monitoring a particular Twitter List. If there is a tweet within the list containing the keyword, Listiti sends me an email alert.

Set alerts with Listiti

The best thing about Listiti is that there was no need for me to register to their website. I could simply enter the details and the alert was created.
I did not need to enter the URL of the List but just enter it’s name. For example I used a list of all accounts on Twitter we have at rtBlogs.
Then I entered the keywords to be monitored. If you leave this field blank you will receive alerts for all the tweets from this list. 😉
Finally enter your email address and click on ‘Create the Alert‘

That’s all you need to do and you are set to monitor Twitter Lists for certain keywords which will ensure that you do not miss out reading the important tweets.

Follow us on Twitter: @devils_workshop | @bombaypirate

Tags Google, Interesting Links, Internet, Twitter

Analysis

What’s good and bad about the Retweet feature in Twitter?

Post author By Aditya Kane
Post date November 18, 2009
6 Comments on What’s good and bad about the Retweet feature in Twitter?

Twitter has released the Retweet feature on its website albeit the feature is still in BETA. I have written previously about it, but my Twitter account is now part of the beta experiment, hence I was able to experiment a bit with Twitter’s ReTweet feature. I liked a few things but I think there is room for improvements. If you see the below image after logging into your Twitter account, your account is also part of the experiment. 🙂

The Good

There is no need to copy-paste or use the various desktop applications to send a Retweet. Click on the Retweet button on the tweet you are reading and it is sent to all your followers as Retweet.
There was a way for me to keep track of all the Retweet activity by checking on details like Retweets by others, Retweets by you and Your tweets, retweeted. 😉
I liked the feature where I could undo the Retweet. This is great option if you have inadvertently done a Retweet to a spurious link by someone.

The Bad

The Retweet option does not show up when you look up tweets in a list. This means if I am looking up tweets in my list I need to visit the profile page to send a Retweet.
I guess this is because it it not integrated with Twitter Lists. I hope this is a temporary thing, as I would find it quite cumbersome to visit the profile of someone I am following every time just for sending a Retweet.

Follow us on Twitter: @devils_workshop | @bombaypirate

Tags Twitter, twitter tools

Reviews

Analysis of your Twitter usage

Post author By Rishabh
Post date November 17, 2009
1 Comment on Analysis of your Twitter usage

Twitter has become a worldwide sensation when it comes to social networking on the internet. With just a simple idea of “what are you doing now?” twitter has now become to social networking, what google is to the internet. Well, many of you have used the Google Analyst to track the number of visitors and all the stats for your blog or website. But what about the social traffic you create on twitter?

Is there any Analyst tool for that too? The answer is, YES, there are and today, I’m going to share some Twitter Analysis tools I came across on the internet.

Twitalyzer is the best twitter analyst tool I found on the internet. It gives a surprisingly detailed information about every bit you you or your website or your company and all the buzz that is created by them on twitter. Besides, it also gives predictions like the company or website’s influence is increasing with time etc. You get Influence, Signal, Velocity and many other things, pin pointed and graphed to the maximum precision.

If you love graphs, you would love TweetStats. It gives all the analyst stats of your twitter love in nice, detailed and easy to understand bar graphs.

Twitturly is a single tool to listen to all the twitter trends and analyst the stats, scattered over the internet. It tracks and displays the most popular urls shared on twitter over a period of 24 hours.

TweetEffect, as the name suggests, maps your effect over twitter. With a tag line of “when did you gain or loose twitter followers”, it sumarrizes the frequency of your followers.

I found TwitterFriends very interesting when it comes to analysis of your followers and friends over Twitter. Reason being, it gives a combination of both stats and graphs and lists every minute detail of your followers and friends over twitter.

Do post your valuable comments. 🙂

[Editor’s Note: This is a post written by our Guest Blogger Rishabh Agarwal. He is an engineer by profession and web designer by choice along with being a Linux enthusiast.

If you too like to write for Devils Workshop, please check this. Details about our revenue sharing programsare here.]

Tags Twitter

Tips

Add Twitter gadget to Google Wave

Post author By Aditya Kane
Post date November 17, 2009

I recently got my Google Wave invitation and the very first thing I did was play around with its features. I came across a great way to use Twitter from Google Wave with a web gadget I installed from Twitter Gadget. We have previously reviewed Twitter Gadget for integrating Gmail with Twitter.

Twitter Gadget on Google Wave

Once you log into your Google Wave account, just start a new Wave.
Within the new wave, you need to ‘Click’ on a green colored icon as show in above image to Add gadget by URL. The icon is circled in red.
Here you need to type in the URL and then click on Add. The URL to be typed in is given below.

http://www.twittergadget.com/gadget.xml

After this Twitter is integrated withing Google Wave.

Why is using Twitter with Wave useful?

Google Wave is a collaborative tool. It is great for people working in teams to share information and files with ease. This means if I am using Twitter Gadget with Google Wave, I can add my friends or team members to the Wave to access a Twitter Account from one single place. This is a great help in a company or a group which has one common Twitter account used by multiple users.

A word of caution while adding people to the wave on which Twitter is activated especially if you are using your own personal account, as that would mean someone else having access to your personal Twitter account.

Follow on Twitter: @devils_workshop | @bombaypirate

Tags Google, Google wave, Twitter, wave

Tips

Use Twitter from your Gmail account

Post author By Aditya Kane
Post date November 17, 2009
1 Comment on Use Twitter from your Gmail account

A few days ago I wrote about how to share from Google Reader to Twitter. Some more research on the same, I found out that there is a way for me to integrate Gmail and Twitter. That means using Twitter while on my Gmail page. You can do this by using Twitter Gadget.

How to integrate Gmail and Twitter?

First click on Labs icon within Gmail. That icon is green in color and to the top right hand corner of your screen while on Gmail. If you cannot see it, click on settings and visit the Labs section.
In the labs section you need to enable ‘Add any Gadget by URL‘ option and then click on Save Changes.

Now you need to add the Gadget. Click on Settings and it shows a new tab which is Gadgets. I clicked on Gadgets and you will get an option to enter the URL.
The URL is from the Twitter Gadget website.

http://www.twittergadget.com/gadget_gmail.xml

Click on Add. This will get the Twitter gadget integrated to your Gmail account.
The Twitter Gadget is available below the chat box. It also has a pop-out option for viewing the Gadget separately in a stand alone mode.

Now I just need to be logged into my Gmail account with a browser and use Twitter from there. 🙂 Hope you find this information useful. Do let me know with your comments.

Follow on Twitter: @devils_workshop | @bombaypirate

Tags Gmail, Twitter

Reviews

Schedule tweets into the future with Taweet

Post author By Aditya Kane
Post date November 14, 2009

If you want to post tweets on Twitter and schedule them at a future date, you might want to check out Taweet. It is quite a handy website, which allowed me to schedule tweets in the future months from today, to be posted on my Twitter account.

Taweet

The website has a format in the form of a simple question. The question is ‘What are you doing in the future?’ You write in the message and select a date from the calendar also with a specified time.
You can select post now and post in real time instead of scheduling them.
To schedule a Future Tweet, I needed to do some tweaking to the settings as by default the buffer is set for 12 hours. The buffer is a time frame in which if you schedule a tweet, it gets cancelled or deleted from Twitter to avoid double posts for your followers. I could reduce the buffer to 3 hours which is the minimum.
Taweet also allowed me to manage multiple Twitter accounts.
It also has a Facebook like feature which allows others using Taweet to comment on your Future Tweet. (see image below).

This is a great website if you want to write tweets and time them in a micro managed way. Scheduling tweets is not really helpful for a time frame of a few minutes or an hour, but it is practical if you are scheduling tweets 12 hours or more in the future. This is quite helpful if you think your followers usually look up tweets in the mornings and you work at night. You can schedule them for the morning in that case. 😉

Follow on Twitter: @devils_workshop | @bombaypirate

Tags Twitter, twitter tools

News

Twitter wants to cut down irrelevancy on trends

Post author By Aditya Kane
Post date November 8, 2009

The latest ace up Twitter’s sleeve will be a project that will reduce irrelevancy on trends. Trends seem to be a great way to follow news items or current events on Twitter. But now a days the moment a trend is up on Twitter it gets inundated with many spam and unrelated tweets which are trying to desperately switch your attention somewhere else.

With the recent add-ons like Lists and Retweet, clearing up the junk in Trending topics just might make Twitter the preferred website to follow events online.

Twitter Trends and problems with relevancy

Trends are a way for users to promote information. I was looking for the cricket score and following #cricket and I found that almost 1 in every 4th tweet there was irrelevant.
The reason irrelevancy comes into the picture is not always because of spammers but it also happens inadvertently. Sometimes people end up discussing something unrelated when on that particular trend because of the open nature of Twitter.
Twitter has promised that it will devise a way to make trending topics more relevant and cut down the tweets from spammers.

What Twitter might do?

I had discussed Bing Twitter in a past article which is a feature with the search engine Bing that allowed search users to look up relevant Tweets about a particular topic. I think Twitter will take search engine results and other ways Tweets are looked up online to rank them within a trend for relevancy. I think all of this will take place behind the scenes as Twitter did announce in its blog that the results of Twitter trends becoming more relevant won’t be seen immediately but see over time gradually.

Follow me on Twitter: @bombaypirate

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Tags trends, Twitter

News

Twitter wants to Retweet

Retweet is fast becoming a favorite feature amongst Twitter users to spread the word and has been incorporated into many Twitter apps. To Retweet from the Twitter website you still have to copy-paste the message with ‘RT’ at the beginning. That is about to change with Twitter announcing that it will soon roll out Retweet function on its website.

This could be ominous as a lot of casual users of Twitter probably use a desktop application only so they could easily organize the accounts they follow and also Retweet their favorite tweets. With Lists and Retweet functions Twitter might actually hurt twitter based desktop applications out there. Finally it also might help a lot of new users on Twitter to be not too confused. A familiar first Tweet for someone new on Twitter is often ‘Figuring out how Twitter works’ 😉

What to expect from retweet?

It is clear from a previous thinking out aloud exercise by Twitter is that it will have some sort of visual feature to show up the Retweets.
One way is when you moved the mouse over the Retweet it will show up more details the another approach could be a separate list where you can access all Retweets. I cannot confirm this as my Twitter account is not amongst the privileged ones Twitter is testing this functionality on. 😉
Another interesting feature which does not exist upto now is removing Retweet. Almost certainly there will be an option to remove a Retweet that you have made. The reason mainly could be a way to allow people to curb the spread of rumors on Twitter which has been happening a lot recently.

Follow on Twitter @bombaypirate @Devils Workshop

Image Credit: The WWW Blog

Tags Twitter