Bwana.org » twitter

Google+ Revitalizes Online Discussions

Bwana — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 19:01:21 +0000

Ever since FriendFeed was consumed by Facebook, online discussions have been dominated by Quora, Twitter and Facebook. Without getting into my opinions about those three services, let me say, I wasn’t motivated to have discussions using them. I really enjoyed the time I had with FriendFeed and the ease of contributing to a topic.

Enter Google+.

Google has been dabbling in social networking for quite some time and in my opinion, has been a bit out of focus. We’ve seen orkut, social bars, and of course Google Buzz, but we really haven’t seen a robust, solid solution. With Google+, I can say that Google is serious about making online discussions easily accessible. Google has made engagement with existing and new contacts about as easy as one could ask. I find myself more willing to talk about technology on Google+ than I ever did on Quora, Twitter and Facebook. That’s enough for me to consider Google+ as a success.

Is it perfect? I don’t think so. There are still a lot of issues to work out with the Circles implementation of managing information streams. The hangouts feature is somewhat unstable and prone to crash, while sparks is sort of just out there without a real underlining purpose. Google+ definitely has room to grow.

I’m happy to have a place on the web to have discussions much like the days of FriendFeed. Click here to view my Google+ profile.

Why You Should Try Raptr (Again)

Bwana — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 16:53:47 +0000

A while ago, I tried Raptr during the beta and I liked it since it combined gaming with the social web. Here’s my initial review from 2008:

It kind of fell off my radar since I was primarily using Xfire to track my gaming. I also had a problem with Adobe Air at the time since it was a memory hog. Since then, Adobe Air has improved a great deal (still pretty heavy) and Raptr has improved by leaps and bounds.

Some of the improvements I noticed right off are:

1. The site has grown tremendously and supports a lot more. Steam (achievements/history), Xfire (history), Playstation Network trophies and deeper integration into popular Flash games like Farmville.
2. The in-game overlay rivals Xfire. The new browser is actually quite snazzy. All it needs now is custom overlays and webcam support and Xfire is dead.
3. Many more customization options are available to make your profile your own. These come in the form of themes, twitter like status updates, and a small mini-blurb thing to introduce yourself to the community.
4. More granular tracking and snazzy flash applets to show who’s playing what… right now.
5. Overall better site design and easy to navigate.
6. The new iPhone app is actually quite decent and gives you Raptr on the go.

So if you tried Raptr back in 2008 like I did and it didn’t quite fit your needs, I suggest giving it another try now that they’ve been hard at work for the past 2 years. If you wish to add me, I’m Bwana on there at http://raptr.com/bwana

No related posts.

Twitter User Streams: Real-Time Is Back?

Bwana — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 19:24:20 +0000

At Twitter’s developer conference, Chirp, they announced a new (or old) feature that has caught my interest: User streams. This new API will allow developers to stream twitter activity to end-users in real-time. This was demonstrated at the conference using the web version of Twitter and TweetDeck. As activity occured in the web browser, TweetDeck updated automatically without polling or refreshing.

Seems cool right?

I thought so too since Twitter neutered real-time tracking a while ago and I thought it was back. Then they did a quick segment on the “firehose” and kind of glossed over it. This segment mentioned partners like Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo, but said nothing about how it could possibly tie to this User Stream API.

I got to wondering: Is the User Stream API using the firehose or some sub-set of it? Hmmmm.

At any rate, the technology does look good from the demo, but as with anything Twitter, I will wait and see the final implementation before making a judgement call. You can continue to watch Chirp live on http://justin.tv/twitterchirp.

Update: Added a video of the demonstration at Chirp for you all to enjoy!

Twitter Trending Topics: Are They Useful?

Bwana — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 17:46:55 +0000

The usefulness of Twitter trending topics has declined for me personally. All too often, I see people trying to “game” or “manipulate” the system to gain popularity. To me, the whole thing is null and void if it is contrived. Now that Twitter has brought these terms to the forefront, it seems the quest to make “the list” has a renewed purpose. I asked my Twitter followers if they utilized Twitter trends and here’s what they said:

Bwana: How many of you utilize Twitter trending topics? [I don't]

about 21 hours ago

Tue Aug 04 19:30:00 +0000 2009

wanyal: Not me.

about 21 hours ago

Tue Aug 04 19:30:44 +0000 2009

mattbebich: I don't even look at them

about 21 hours ago

Tue Aug 04 19:31:03 +0000 2009

tchachra: They are useless since they provide no valuable information…its usually people just trying to get followers.

about 21 hours ago

Tue Aug 04 19:32:22 +0000 2009

EricJD: I don't use them either. Usually when I do glance at them, I'm thinking to myself, “why in the world is that a trending topic?”

about 21 hours ago

Tue Aug 04 19:32:47 +0000 2009

Seshan: I don't. president #iranelection Bill Clinton Wal-Mart AT&T Google Voice White House Jay-Z

about 21 hours ago

Tue Aug 04 19:34:46 +0000 2009

shardayyy: I utilize the trending topics this way http://twitter.com/shardayyy/status/3129450085

about 21 hours ago

Tue Aug 04 19:34:48 +0000 2009

iPhoneMacUser: I do not

about 21 hours ago

Tue Aug 04 19:36:58 +0000 2009

muchobueno: i do.

about 21 hours ago

Tue Aug 04 19:41:17 +0000 2009

applemacprofan: i dont.

about 21 hours ago

Tue Aug 04 19:42:40 +0000 2009

cluteman: Trending topics aren't fun anymore with spam and “Why is ____ trending?” tweets.

about 21 hours ago

Tue Aug 04 19:53:54 +0000 2009

D_Ames: “How many of you utilize Twitter trending topics? [I don't]” Me neither! For the same reason I don't follow Ashton Kutcher.

about 21 hours ago

Tue Aug 04 19:55:52 +0000 2009

dcfemella: I don't, but I have been thinking more and more that maybe I should.

about 21 hours ago

Tue Aug 04 20:04:31 +0000 2009

jcdeuce: i have not used the trending topic search

about 20 hours ago

Tue Aug 04 20:50:19 +0000 2009

lhuxley: I never do, maybe sometimes if its a movie or something but normally its just crap.

about 20 hours ago

Tue Aug 04 21:00:08 +0000 2009

rfrontuto: I take a look at the trending topics every so often, but I don't use them on a regular basis.

about 18 hours ago

Tue Aug 04 23:22:16 +0000 2009

This begs the question: “How can we easily get value out of Twitter’s data?” It’s hard to say now that Twitter has officially become a spam platform. I’m looking for new and innovative ways to quickly find nuggets of info from Twitter. Each time, I’m led back to FriendFeed.

Yes, you knew it was coming.

It’s no secret that tweets supply a great deal of FriendFeed’s potent database. I’ve found that FriendFeed’s real-time search, plus the community, provide a great way to quickly get value out of Twitter’s data:

The above search considers all tweets in FriendFeed and only shows those which have the word “disagree” in the comments. It’s a juicy search I set the like and comment thresholds to 2, but that’s easily adjustable.

Now, you might be thinking “You have to be on FriendFeed in order for your tweets to be considered“. This is true, but I’d rather have a subset of Twitter’s database on FriendFeed, than Twitter’s full database with a lackluster search and spammy trending terms. The data is richer.

The downside of this? There is no date or language filtering. In some cases, you have to wade through languages you don’t know and sometimes older posts which you’ve already read. As you can see from the results, some of the results are older than desired. The point of Twitter trends (at least to me) is to get a snapshot of what’s happening now. So while I have a make-shift solution to get the valuable data from Twitter, it’s not a replacement for an effective trends search.

So what do you use? How do you get value out of Twitter’s data? Let me know. You can find me on Twitter as @Bwana.

BingTweets Mashes Up Twitter Trends And Search Results

Bwana — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 17:37:05 +0000

Microsoft and Federated Media have partnered to create an interesting mashup called BingTweets. This site is in beta and offers a hands free experience on the latest trending topics on the web. After seeing this, I have a bit more respect for the efforts Microsoft is putting behind Bing and can only wonder how and if Google will respond.

BingTweets pulls in trends from Twitter and filters into categories such as “Popular Now,” “People,” “Places” and “Products” enabling easier navigation of the ever changing trends on the Web. You can also fire off a search on any topic of your choosing to see the related search results from Bing and Twitter discussion.

I have the site open in a dedicated tab right now and am happy with the choice of trends, tweets and search results. It has a great animation option which moves between topics on its own and gives you a taste of everything.

I like this.

It’s not perfect, but it gives us a glimpse of how real-time can intertwine with traditional search. I commend Microsoft and Federated Media on a bold approach towards the real-time web.

FriendFeed Still Reigns As Conversation King

Bwana — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 14:12:09 +0000

Today, I found yet another reason why I prefer discussing tech topics on FriendFeed over another popular social site, Twitter.

FriendFeed’s search is a big reason why you should move your Twitter conversations there. The above example shows the value in retaining search data. Twitter search only goes back a few days (I don’t know how many exactly, but it’s not that much) while FriendFeed retains much more data.

If you find yourself in need of data retrieval, I hope your data resides on FriendFeed. So how do you take advantage of this? It’s actually quite simple. You simply post a new FriendFeed entry and “CC Twitter”.

This will broadcast your your new topic to all your Twitter followers, and invite them to join the conversation on FriendFeed with a link. Some people hate this because they have to click through and go to yet another web page. Part of me understands this frustration in this “right now, do it yesterday” atmosphere, but the payoff is tremendous. Not only do you get a rich, single threaded conversation out of the deal, but the contents will be searchable a year from now. You can’t say the same about Twitter.

Robert Scoble has championed this technique for quite some time and is getting a lot of ridicule from his massive Twitter follower list. I believe he has a valid point. Your data is lost on Twitter, it isn’t on FriendFeed. It’s that simple.

What do you think? Comment here or on FriendFeed and it’ll all show up

Why Are You Still Following Me?

Bwana — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 08:15:33 +0000

It boggles the mind.

I use social networks to share what I like. Sometimes people like what they see or hear and they decide to keep up with me. I post news links, blog posts, video posts, podcast posts, general thoughts, rambles, LOL cats, tech deals, and even the newest shiny social network tool. By doing all this, people follow me. They follow me on Twitter, they follow me on FriendFeed, they follow my blogs, and they follow my shows.

Periodically, I’ll increase my output on a topic I like such as sports, video games, and that newest shiny social network tool. This is what I get in return:

“Bwana, why are you posting so much?”
“Bwana, do you realize, you’ve posted 6 links in the last hour?”
“Bwana, are you going to go on and on about the nfl/nba/ncaa again?”
“Bwana, please stop tweeting so much”
“Bwana, would you stop talking about football so much”
“Bwana, please stop flooding my stream”
“Bwana, enough with the ________ links, we get it already!”

If I post something that annoys, bothers, or irks you, then why in the world are you still following me? Why do you put up with it? Think about it. If I were walking down the street with you following me and I decide to fart continuously for 3 hours, wouldn’t you get out of the way? Farts stink man! Move! If you don’t leave, you’re choosing to inhale the wondrous foul fumes of my farts. I say farts because apparently it’s something you don’t want to be around.

There’s the door ——–>

This is my thinking with the uproar about the Spymaster craze on Twitter. The almighty Leo Laporte decided to call me out on This Week In Tech, basically fingering me as “one of those Spymaster spammers”. I replied on the on the TWiT FriendFeed thread “Don’t worry Leo, I toned down my tweet settings quite a bit” But then, I got to thinking: I’m not tweeting that much and even if I was, why won’t he just unfollow me?

Spymaster is a game.
It’s fun.
People like it.

It utilizes the social reach of Twitter to encourage game play amongst friends and strangers. I did a review on EatWillGrow for iPhone which allows you to Tweet your high score, and it’s an effective mechanism to challenge someone. It’s the same principle here. Gamers like to talk trash. Gamers like to share their experiences with friends and strangers. Gamers are not afraid to tell you about a game they love.

I’m a gamer. I game. I play games. I play games with other people. I want to share some spymaster experiences with people on Twitter. If that annoys you, please, by all means, UNFOLLOW ME! Get from behind me! Stop reading what I do! Please! You can choose to unfollow the Bwana Spymaster spammer and be free from the “spam”.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate Leo for calling me out in front of his listeners. I respect his opinion on the matter. I actually hope he unfollowed me on Twitter (and hid me on FriendFeed) as a result of my “spam”. If he didn’t, then I got to wonder why he puts up with it.

In case you’re wondering,I’ve posted a total of 11 spymaster tweets over the span of 2 days. Twitter search: “from:Bwana #spymaster”

I know, it’s brutal. I also post my video game activity using Raptr and GamerDNA. Spymaster shouldn’t be a huge change. Don’t blame me because Twitter’s filtering sucks. You got two choices: 1. Put up with it 2. Unfollow.

If you want the short version of this blog post: I don’t care what you think. It does annoy me when you complain [loudly] about what you don’t want to hear. It makes me want to unfollow you so I don’t have to put up with the complaining. Why won’t you just leave?

It’s your opinion for a reason, not mine. I’m not going to change what I do because you don’t like it. Get over it. Get over yourselves and take action. Unfollow, block, do whatever you feel is needed and you won’t hurt my feelings one bit. Yes, I said it.

Now, it’s time to assassinate some of these wanna-be spies.

*** Update: You can opt-out of Spymaster invites if your “friends” are blasting you with them. (Again, why are you following them again?)

No related posts.

The Challenge Of The Realistic Real-Time Web

Bwana — Thu, 07 May 2009 05:19:41 +0000

Robert Scoble shared his desktop screens to give us a glimpse of how he consumes much of the information out there. It’s kind of scary:

Do you think you could follow that? A lot of people see that and are intimidated. I believe this is going to be obstacle that the “real-time web” is going to have to surpass. I’m glad that tools like FriendFeed are enabling us to search this massive amount of information for the stuff we care about. Read my post on how to use FriendFeed filters (now called “Saved Searches”) for more information.

Let’s just hope the “real-time” web is not faster than “realistic” time. At some point, it becomes overwhelming and a waste of time if not implemented properly. It’s going to be interesting to watch this whole thing grow. What do you think? Is this real-time web feasible?

Guest Host On TPN Weekly Episode 3

Bwana — Mon, 04 May 2009 05:13:43 +0000

This week, I’m the guest host on the brand new podcast from the Techpodcast network called TPN Weekly. If you’re into podcasts, you really should subscribe to our show over there. We’ll be sampling new hosts every week so you can get a new flavor. I think it’s an awesome idea because you’ll get fresh content from a fresh host.

On this week’s show, I do a “social media special“. I talk for 25 minutes about Twitter, Facebook, Rejaw and FriendFeed. Here’s a video of my live taping from Saturday:

Also, here is the information for the Podcast if you wish to listen via audio (and subscribe):

I’ll update you all via Twitter when I’ll be hosting again. Enjoy!

I Liked Twitter More When It Was Underground

Bwana — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 20:08:53 +0000

Credit: IconTextTo

Tongue in cheek

Twitter has really blown up this past month and has been talked about on just about every mainstream news front. I had a conversation with my brother the other day and he even said “I’ve been seeing people talk about it, but I’ve been wondering what it is”. This prompted me to post a message on Twitter and I got the following mixed responses:

Bwana: You don't realize how weird Twitter is until you try to explain it to your family. Now I”m questioning why I even use it

about a day ago

Tue Mar 03 12:47:20 +0000 2009

nelsonmaud: cause im crazy lol

about a day ago

Tue Mar 03 12:48:08 +0000 2009

DonMcAllister: I've so been there! Still using it though

about a day ago

Tue Mar 03 12:48:54 +0000 2009

nocky100: Hmm do you have to defend why you go to the watercooler in the office and gossip with friends?

about a day ago

Tue Mar 03 12:49:11 +0000 2009

davejohnston: That makes little sense to me. Just use it. No remorse.

about a day ago

Tue Mar 03 12:49:50 +0000 2009

Chris_Huff: For some reason, Alice Cooper's Welcome To My Nightmare started playing in my head when you said that…lol

about a day ago

Tue Mar 03 12:51:44 +0000 2009

ebonydad: If it the same family members who call for computer help, or help setting the time on their VCR, I wouldn't try to explain.

about a day ago

Tue Mar 03 12:56:00 +0000 2009

joedawson: My family don't understand the appeal of Twitter either, with my brother drawing comparisons with MySpace!

about a day ago

Tue Mar 03 12:57:10 +0000 2009

datalore_tv: I have been trying to explain it to my brothers for months!

about a day ago

Tue Mar 03 12:59:47 +0000 2009

itsaholliday: i agree, trying to explain it to friends and family is one of the toughest things

about a day ago

Tue Mar 03 13:09:19 +0000 2009

zengiraffe: My feelings exactly. I tried explaining Twitter to a friend and he looked at me like I need to be locked up for my own protection.

about a day ago

Tue Mar 03 13:19:31 +0000 2009

KMPhotographer: You should do a video or blog post on how to explain Twitter to others. I'm sure there are plenty of people in the same boat.

about a day ago

Tue Mar 03 16:08:58 +0000 2009

I don’t know what it is, but when I explain Twitter to others, I get this weird feeling of “Why do *I* even like it?”. There’s so much about Twitter that can’t be explained (a la Matrix), but I feel Twitter is much more than what it seems on the surface. Sometimes it’s frustrating when people don’t get it, but I’m not too concerned about that. Either people like something or they don’t, you can’t change the way they think. (See: Myspace)

Still, it’s amazing to see the growth of Twitter, but the ride there was fun. In case you missed the tongue in cheek reference, I was kidding with the title, but I do believe Twitter is about to change now that it’s mainstream. Whether that change will be for the best or the worst, remains to be seen. You can follow me on Twitter, I’m @Bwana.

Three Features I Love In TweetDeck 0.21.5b

Bwana — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 16:48:29 +0000

TweetDeck launched a new minor revision today and given all the hype it had yesterday, I was little skeptical. After watching the detailed video on what the new features are, I was most impressed by the little changes than I was the major ones. Here is a video showing my 3 favorite new features:

Translate feature – I never thought I’d like this feature but the speed and convenience of it makes me want to use it more. One can easily (and I do stress easily) convert your tweets to another language OR translate an existing tweet to your language.
Shorten URL tweak – Often in TweetDeck, I’d forget to click the “Shorten” button after putting a URL in the “Shorten URL” box. TweetDeck added a little fix that will automatically shorten a URL in the box when you post the tweet. Little things
#Hashtag tweak – Finally, when you reply to someone who has a hashtag in their tweet, the same hashtag is automatically appended to your reply.

It all boils down to the little things. If only Adobe Air would solve their memory issues, TweetDeck would be a must have for everyone. I like the client so much that I restart it every other hour to compensate. At any rate, good job @TweetDeck on a finely tuned minor release!

Follow me on Twitter, I’m @Bwana.

Replies And Twitter Spam

Bwana — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 18:52:42 +0000

I address a common misunderstanding regarding Twitter spam in this rant

Stickrz.info – From Tweet To Reality

Bwana — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 21:05:11 +0000

Earlier today, I tweeted the following:

I wanted to find a site that gives me information about cool and preferably free stickers on the internet. If you search for “free stickers” on Google, be prepared to wade through a sea of spam. Rather than wait for someone to do it, I decided to spend $0.99 at Godaddy.com and build it myself.

Behold: Stickrz.info

Stickrz.info is now a reality. I’ve used some of my social media snazzle, and setup a FriendFeed room and a Twitter account. I’ve also embedded a live version of the FriendFeed room on the frontpage. This site is primarily user driven. I’m looking to solicit user submissions of great sticker offers and use positive word of mouth as a quality filter. While this may decrease the number of submissions, it will definitely increase the quality which I believe is more important.

I love stickers and I’ve quickly created a basic site to aggregate information about them. Utilizing WordPress, Twitter, and FriendFeed, I believe this will be a fun project.

More stickers please!!

Twitter Phishing Exploits Are Here: A New Variant

Bwana — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 21:40:15 +0000

Yesterday, I first saw Chris Pirillo’s tweet about a phishing exploit on Twitter. It had a message that stated:

PLEASE, DO NOT CLICK THESE LINKS!!

If you are sent this message by one of you Twitter friends, please let them know they have been compromised and to change their Twitter password immediately. This is no time to relax however, since there is a new variant which is circulating today:

Again, DO NOT CLICK!! As soon as I saw it, I let my followers know and you should do the same:

Let your friends know this is a phishing scam and is out to steal their credentials. Twitter is now an official phishing pond. There will be many more variants, copycats, and more destructive behaviors.

Hey Twitter: It’s time for an API authentication fix. Now. Users have become accustomed to giving their Twitter usernames and passwords to any and everything. It’s only going to get worse.

Tweetree’s Value Is Embedded Media

Bwana — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 15:56:13 +0000

I’ll admit, when I first saw Robert Scoble‘s Tweet on FriendFeed about Tweetree, I was immediately skeptical. Robert posted that it was a decent app, but not going to replace TweetDeck for him. I saw the name, and I thought: “Great, another Twitter application that’s going to try to hack conversation context“. You may recall, I wrote about Quotably back in March 2008, and their attempt to capture Twitter conversations in a nice format.

I went over to tweetree.com and saw threaded conversations which met my expectations, but I also saw something else:

Embedded media.

Dave Winer has been begging Twitter to do something like this for quite some time. Dave has went on record to state Tweetree is on the right track:

This is brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant. And exactly what I asked for, which of course makes me happy!!

These guys are brilliant. Great stuff. They’ll be rich next week so be nice to them

We’ve seen threaded Twitter before. Heck, even Twitter search has a “Show conversation” link which tries to give the complete conversation context. What we haven’t seen (or at least I haven’t seen) on Twitter is embedded media.

Tweetree supports the following:

Youtube
Flickr
TwitPic
FriendFeed (Yup!)
Seesmic
Qik
Lala
Blip.fm
xkcd

So if you link to any of the above, Tweetree shows you the associated media right on the website. If you would like to see examples, just search for the service in Tweetree’s search box.

Now I know we saw very similar functionality in Pownce (may it rest in peace), Rejaw, Plurk, and others, but this is Twitter. The big kahuna. The main squeeze. That’s the reason why it’s a big deal. I’ve been using Tweetree for less than a day, and what keeps me coming back is the embedded media.

I’ll be following this one closely. You can check out my timeline on Tweetree at http://tweetree.com/bwana.

*** UPDATE: I’ve asked FriendFeed what they think is more valuable at Tweetree. Join the conversation here.

*** UPDATE 2 I’ve performed a quick walkthrough of the interface in this video: