Twitter is great, it really is. Even with the downtime, the dropping of SMS updates in the UK and other places, and all the other little irritations with the service, it still manages to inspire a considerable loyalty among those that use it.
As I have written elsewhere, it’s the fact that Twitter works as a service which makes it so cool. Rather than try to please everyone, all the time, through the use of its API Twitter has outsourced a lot of the user interaction stuff to other people, whether Twhirl, Tweetdeck, Twitterific, Hahlo or many others. Twitter is therefore the wholesaler of the service, rather than necessarily the retailer.
One of my favourite services built upon Twitter was the search engine Summize, which was so good that Twitter bought it. Now found at search.twitter.com, the service will tell you exactly what is being said about a particular keyword or phrase. I found it really useful recently at WordCampUK, using it to track what people were saying on Twitter in a much more effective way that with, say, Hashtags.
Anyway, after all that preamble, here’s my top Twitter tip, which uses Twitter search. Simply run a search on @yourusername, and then subscribe to the RSS feed. You’ll never miss a reply again!
I hope people find this useful – it would be good to hear other people’s Twitter tips!
Now that’s clever – added to my newsreader. Let’s see if it helps with the Twitter addiction…
I’ve been tracking a few topics on twitter that are often mentioned globally but are not really the normal fair of hardcore tweeters (at least not the ones that I follow!).
I don’t need to see the results in real time but just want to develop a feel for whether the topics would/could ever move up the priority list within the usual twitterverse. After discovering tweetbeeb.com I now have a folder in my inbox that contains daily summaries of the use of my keywords foc.
Done. Nice lateral thinking.
Thanks for the tip Dave. Being new to Twitter, these ideas on how to extend its use are really valuable.