One of the joys of Twitter is discovering new and interesting people to follow.  Yes, amongst the pron bots and breakfast Tweeters there are users with original points of view and things worth saying.

With that in mind, a good recommendation engine can do wonders for improving the quality of your Twitter stream.  After all, random searches are arbitrary at best and Follow Friday has become more of a lovefest than useful event.  I’ve recently  come across a couple of recommendation engines that use some form of analysis of your current friends to suggest new ones.

Twubble works by analyzing your friends’ Following lists to find users who are followed multiple times.  Its a unique way to build a recommendation list.  The only drawback I could find was that I got some duplicates where I followed people that my friends’ friends also followed.  You’ll typically find this duplication with famous folks.

Who Should I Follow? has a rather more arcane method for determining recommendations.  That is to say there is no explanation of the algorithm nor can it be easily determined from the outputs.  Just the same, it gives a good sample to choose from plus a unique feature I haven’t seen in other engines, a way to weight the results.  WSIF has two sliders that allow you to weight your results based on “fame” (again an arcanely implemented metric) and geographic location.  I have to say I really like these features since it allowed me to change up my results in interesting ways.

Although recommendation engines for Twitter seems to be a growth industry, these two have some unique features worth checking out.  Go give them a try to find some real people after you get all those pron bots cleaned out.

Twitter has become a vital tool for public relations professionals, but many still don’t know how to get the best out of it. In Marta’s Weekly Twips you will find essential tips and information that will help you integrate Twitter into your PR programme.

Who should I follow?

You’ve been on Twitter for a while now but the number of your followers is not growing as much as you would like it to? You’ve exhausted your personal and professional contacts and now you would like to connect to people interested in the same topics as you are? Luckily, there are a number of ways that can help you locate the right Tweeple to follow.

One of the best places to find relevant Twitter users are directories. One of the most complete directory is Twellow. It allows you to search people by area of expertise, profession or other attribute listed in personal profiles on Twitter. WeFollow is a user-generated directory of Twitter users organized by #hashtags. Everyone can add themselves by sending a Twitter reply to @wefollow with three #hashtags that best describes them, for example: @wefollow #PR #communications #socialmedia.

Another way to find relevant Tweeple is to use recommendations services like Mr. Tweet, Who Should i Follow? or Twubble.  Mr. Tweet analyzes your connections and the content of your tweets and gives a list of recommended Twitter users. Who Should I Follow? does not disclose information on how it works but after entering your user name it gives you quite accurate Twitter follow recommendations.  Twubble recommends you new twitter users based on the friends of your friends. It’s a very simple idea but can help you expand your Twitter bubble significantly.

 Well, and you should obviously follow me @princess_misia

A few more useful applications for Twitter :-

Tweepsearch – great search application for finding Tweeps near you or that may interest you or your business, search for your location or interests or even your company product and gives a good list of people to follow.

Twitpic – great mini photo application for uploading photos to Twitter direct from your phone or from your desktop, create your own Twitter image portfolio and includes links and number of views.

Twubble – Twubble can help expand your Twitter bubble—it searches your friend graph and picks out people who you may like to follow.

Twitterholic – gives your rank by followers, region and tweets.

Estoy enganchado a twitter… lo reconozco. Ya ha pasado a ser la aplicación que más uso en mi iPhone, incluso por delante del correo o de la navegación por internet.

Pero es que hay que reconocer que he encontrado un grupo de usuarios estupendos a los que sigo y que además de divertirme con las cosas que cuentan, siempre tienen algo que enseñarte o recomendarte.

Y entre las cosas que he aprendido de ellos es que hay multitud de herramientas asociadas de alguna forma a twitter que si bien algunas veces no son más que un ejercicio de tecnología, otras (la mayoría) son realmente útiles.

Así que me he decidido a recopilar unas cuantas, más que nada por que seguro que a mi mismo se me van olvidando y así tengo una página donde aparecen algunas de las más interesantes.

Vamos con ellas:

Twitter Search – http://search.twitter.com/

La búsqueda de twitter. Por un lado, te muestra los términos más utilizados por los twitteros en esos momentos (los trending topics). De alguna forma es un reflejo de “lo que se está hablando” en el Mundo, de los temas que más interesan en ese momento.

Pero además, puedes hacer búsquedas de los términos que quieras. Por ejemplo, puedes poner el nombre de tu equipo favorito de fútbol, el nombre de tu empresa o de la película que quieres ir a ver. Podrás leer todos los comentarios que hacen al respecto los usuarios de la comunidad de twitter.

Aunque no funciona muy bien, puedes elegir que te muestre sólo los mensajes escritos en tu idioma o en todos.

De rebote, te puede servir para encontrar usuarios que escriben cosas de tu interés y sguirlos a partir de ese momento.

A mi, sinceramente, me parece una herramienta alucinante y que tiene muchas posibilidades. Hay veces que me paso muchos minutos buscando temas que me interesan y viendo qué dicen sobre ello.

twubble – http://www.crazybob.org/twubble/

twubble me encanta. Sólo tienes que ir a la web y pulsar en ‘Find some friends’. Te pedirá tu usuario y password de twitter y te dirá a quiénes siguen tus amigos. Lo más normal es que encuentres gente que comparten tus mismos intereses. Desde la misma web, puedes pulsar el botón de follow para empezar a seguir sus twitts.

TweetStats – http://tweetstats.com/

Otra herramienta muy interesante, que te permite sacar un montón de gráficas relativas a tu usuario de twitter: cuántos twitts envías al mes, el agregado por días de la semana, a quién envías más @replies, etc.

Twittervision – http://twittervision.com/maps/show_3d

Vale, éste no sirve para nada, pero es muy espectacular! Te muestra el timeline público de twitter y desde dónde está escribiendo cada persona. Lo más alucinante es que lo muestra en una imagen 3D de la tierra que va girando en función de dónde se publican los mensajes.

Hay una versión con el mapa en 2D si pulsas en ‘Classic View’

Twist – http://twist.flaptor.com/

Este servicio es similar a Google trends ya que nos permite buscar un término cualquiera y ver la evolución de las menciones que ha habido en twitter en los últimos 7 ó 30 días. Incluso puedes comparar varios si los separas por comas. Muy útil para ver si mencionan más a tu equipo o a su eterno rival

Y hay muchísimos más… como Qwitter que usa twitter para dejar de fumar! o trackthis que permite seguir el estado de los paquetes que te envían por UPS, Fedex o DHL (muy apropiado para usar después de las keynotes de Apple)

Seguro que vosotros conocéis muchas más, así que os invito a que me dejéis en los comentarios las más útiles y así poder compartirlas con el resto de lectores.

Mientras os recomiendo un sitio donde podéis encontrar decenas de aplicaciones para twitter: http://twitterapps.co.uk/ (en inglés)

Yay, a whole new week of tools!

Here’s what you can look forward to this week:

• Monday 27 April. Find Tweeters like you with these directories and search tools
• Tuesday 28 April. Find out what the latest Twitter trends and stories are
• Wednesday 29 April. Track Twitter users and discover who the top Twitterers are
• Thursday 29 April. Track keywords  on Twitter with these sites
• Friday 30 April. Find out what happens when you mix maps with Twitter

Monday 27 April

Directories, search tools, contacts…there are no shortage of these on the net. But for Twitter? Here are four of the best, but please let me know if I have missed any…

Twellow
This is a great Twitter directory that’s sorted by occupation – it also shows the most popular trending categories

Twitterblogger rating: 9/10 (it’s pretty comprehensive)

Just Tweet It

A twitter directory sorted by interest – Choose a category and find other Twitter users or list your name to let people find you!

Twitterblogger rating: 8/10 (good for businessy types)

Twubble
This tool finds people who have the same interests as you.

Twitterblogger rating: 7/10 (sometimes recommends some people you already follow)

Twittie Me
TwittieMe is a place to advertise your Twitter page for free and get more followers. Once approved, your page will go live on the site.

Twitterblogger rating: 5/10 (I submitted mine but haven’t heard back – if it works and if the site has loads of visitors, I imagine it could be quite cool)

Twitter is incredibly useful for networking, learning from experts and discovering trends. But in order to get the most out of it and not be overwhelmed, it’s important that you follow those that are useful for your field or business, not every single soul on Twitter. In this post I’ll look at some tools that make the process of finding the right people to follow easier.

Following Back

One of the most common ways to discover new people on Twitter is by watching for the email notifications it sends when someone follows you (If you’re not getting the email notifications, check your account settings). You can check them out and see if they’re worth following back. To get more information about the people following you and to streamline this process, you can use Topify or Twimailer, the alternative email notification services we covered recently.

Friend or Follow can be useful as it lists all the people you follow who don’t follow you back, as well as people who follow you but whom you don’t follow back. Of course, experienced Twitterers have their own rules of who to follow that goes beyond simply following back everyone who follows them (I explain my personal rules in “7 Traits of Bad Twitter Follows“).

Twellow

You can use search.twitter.com to search for keywords to find people in your field, but the results can be overwhelming as it provides you every result for that keyword in tweets, not just when it shows up in profile information. Instead, search for people using Twellow. Twellow scans bios, names and locations while ignoring their tweets. This reduces a lot of noise and lets you find those who share your interests, but it cuts both ways: Help people who might be looking for you by carefully crafting your bio to include keywords related to your field.

Twellow, the Yellow Pages of Twitter

Twellow also automatically puts people into categories based on their bios. Again, to help people find you it’s helpful to check your own profile on the site and make sure you’re in the right categories — if not, you can edit them. If you have a few people you like, look up their categories in Twellow to try to find more people like them.

TweeterTags

Another option is TweeterTags. You can use it to add tags to your Twitter ID, based on your interests and topics. Once you’ve added your tags, you can click them to see who else uses them. Select a person to view their profile complete with all their TweeterTags, bio, number following, number of followers and their latest tweets. TweeterTags only works if the people you might be interested in have tags added to their profile, though.

Discover people through tags with TweeterTag

Mr. Tweet & Twubble

Mr. Tweet is an automated system that recommends interesting people for you to follow, based on your own Twitter usage. It provides data about each person’s follow/followed ratio, posting rate, degree of conversation and link posting rate. All you have to do is follow @mrtweet and it will send you an occasional DM with recommendations.

Twubble is similar to Mr. Tweet, and makes suggestions by looking at your current Twitter friends. The results helpfully show the people you follow who are also following the suggested users.

How do you find and select new people to follow?

When you’ve got your job, love life and finances sorted, you’re doing pretty well. But if you haven’t, why not use Twitter? What if you could find your dream career, soul mate and first million 140 characters at a time? Well, you can.

Before you write me off as a complete lunatic, see for yourself with my three-part series.

•    PART ONE: How to find a job on Twitter – today
•    PART TWO: How to find love on Twitter – tomorrow
•    PART THREE: How to make money on Twitter – Wednesday

How to find a job on Twitter

With so many companies and recruiters, Twitter is a great place to find a job. But where to start? It’s all about optimising your profile, your followers, who you follow and your networking skills.
Pimp your profile

No-one will follow you if you have a boring profile and bio. So spend some time creating a good one.

• Picture. No cartoon avatars please. Instead, use a good headshot of yourself to give the right impression, straight away
• URL. Include a link to your blog, Linkedin profile or site. If you don’t have one – get one. WordPress.com is fab, free and you can create a portfolio in minutes
• Bio. Make the most of this. You have 160 characters to sum up your background and what you’re looking for. Use industry keywords and say you’re looking for a job (just don’t start following your boss)
• Background. Go to TwitterGallery and choose a theme. It’s an extra way to help you stand out and it’s free

Great job-hunting tools on Twitter

There are loads of Twitter tools and applications to help you hunt down your perfect career. Here are eight of the very best.

• Tweetdeck. Create groups to follow with Tweetdeck – great when you’re looking at different careers
• Twellow. An excellent online directory – use keywords related to your industry to track down those in the know
• TwitDir. Track down people in your industry – you will be surprised how many are tweeting
• Just Tweet It. Another directory – it’s worth using them all
• Twubble. Follow who your followers are following. Visit profiles and view their  favourites
• Microjobs. This links job seekers and recruiters through tweets. Recruiters begin their tweets with @Microjobs. Follow @Microjobs to get tweets directly from your industry
• TweetMyJobs. Follow the hashtag #Tweetmyjobs and visit the website. This is a simple and free tool for job seekers. Subscribe to job channels and get new openings sent to your phone. You can also specify which cities you want notifications from.
• Twitter Search. Type in keywords important in your job search. For example, “job in London,” “freelancing positions,” or “beauty career.”

Follow the right people

Follow all the people you find interesting and who might be able to help you at some stage in your job search.

• Tell people you’re looking for a job. Don’t do it every tweet, but make sure people know you’re looking
• Write down keywords from your industry. Then go to Twittersearch or Monitter and see who tweeting these words.
• Follow people who might offer jobs. Use Twitter Search to follow past recruiters until you can sense if/when it will happen again.
• Avoid some Twitter accounts. Some twitterers just broadcast job listings, e.g. TwitHire. Use them, but be careful not to waste time if they’re not related to your industry.
• Do your research. Before you contact a recruiter via Twitter, check out their bio, follower/following ratio, and visit their website

Get more followers

Provide value by sharing tips, news or resource links about your industry. Answer every question – quickly. Enjoy yourself, while you help your followers as much as you can. That, in a nutshell, is how you get followers.

• Start twittering. Before you start following, start twittering. Twitter several messages to give people a taste of what they’ll get by following you. Do this for 30 minutes EVERY day and watch your followers grow.
• Twitter about your job search. Your Twitter friends should know you’re job hunting, so an occasional reminder is important.
• Establish yourself as an expert. It means you’ll have more than just your resume to back up your knowledge and experience when potential employers research you.

See, it’s easy. Thousands of people have already found their dream jobs on Twitter and you could be next. Your next job really could be just a tweet away.

Can you think of other ‘how to’s? Leave a comment and I’ll try to keep this ‘how to’ section going.

Tomorrow: How to find LOVE on Twitter
Wednesday: How to make MONEY on twitter

I spotted this article. Maybe we didn’t get all this from Facebook in advance, but the difference about Twitter seems to be that it’s so well drilled to get people using it somehow commercially:

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/03/17/99-essential-twitter-tools-and-applications/

Smashing Magazine we smash you with the information that will make your life easier. really.

99 Essential Twitter Tools And Applications

By Paul Andrew, March 17th, 2009 in Developer’s Toolbox | 120 Comments |Forum

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by Paul Andrew

If you haven’t heard of Twitter by now, you must be living under a rock! It is everywhere, and everyone is using it. To say that the rise of Twitter has been explosive would be an understatement. As a result of this growth, the number of Twitter apps and tools available has become extensive. So, in this post we have filtered them down to a respectable 99.

Below, we present 99 Essential Twitter Tools and Applications, split into the following categories: Tools and Productivity Apps, Statistics and Analytics, Find New Twitter Friends Apps, Search Twitter Apps, Web-Based Mobile Apps, WordPress Twitter Plug-Ins, Adobe Air Twitter Apps and Firefox Twitter Extensions.

You may want to take a look at the following related posts:

• 50 Twitter Tools and Tutorials For Designers and Developers
• 15 Useful Twitter Plugins and Hacks For WordPress
• 8 Useful Tips To Become Successful With Twitter

Tools and Productivity Apps

Twittercal
Twittercal is a service that connects your Twitter account to your Google Calendar and lets you add events easily, directly from your Twitter account.

Twitpay
TwitPay is a simple way to send payments via Twitter.

Twibs
Find, follow and interact with businesses, apps and services on Twitter.

Twittermail.com
Users can post to their Twitter account by sending a message to their own unique email address.

Twitzu
Promote your business, special offers, promotions and events with Twitzu.

Twuffer
Twuffer allows the Twitter user to compose a list of future tweets and schedule their release.

TweetLater
This app allows you to post Tweets at a later time and date.

GroupTweet
Send private Twitter messages to specific groups of friends.

Twitter Alerts
Keep track of conversations that mention you, your products, your company and anything else, via hourly email updates.

TwitPic
TwitPic lets you share photos on Twitter. You can post pictures to TwitPic from your phone, the TwitPic home page or your Twitter account.

Your Twitter Karma
Twitter needs a decent page for your followers, with the functionality to sort them by type. This Web app does that.

Mr. Tweet
A personal networking assistant for Twitter, helping you identify relevant followers, recommending you to other users and regularly computing your Twitter usage statistics.

Remember The Milk
Remember The Milk keeps track of your tasks. Simply add Remember The Milk as your friend, and you can add and interact with your tasks through direct messages and get reminders, too.

StrawPoll
StrawPoll is the coolest way to follow the opinions of people on Twitter. With this app, you can create your own poll.

Twiddict
If Twitter goes down and you start to feel withdrawal symptoms, use this service to continue using it. Twiddict makes sure all your tweets end up going to the proper place.

Twitter Friends Network Browser
Browse through your Twitter friends, your friends’ friends, your friends’ friends’ friends…

Twitterfeed
Post your RSS feed to Twitter automatically.

Twitturly
Twitturly is a service for tracking what URLs people are talking about, as they talk about them, on Twitter.

Twittonary
The Twitter Dictionary, aka Twittonary, provides explanations of various Twitter-related words.

twtQpon
Enhance your social media marketing by offering discount coupons to the Twitter-sphere!

twenglish 
Twitter translator: Simply type in your tweet, and twenglish will twanslate your tweet for you.

twtcard
Send a greeting card, a surprise message or an invitation on Twitter.

Tweet What You Spend
Cash-tracking made simple with Twitter.

Twittertise
Twittertise allows you to advertise on Twitter and track the success of your branded communications with customers.

TwitWall
With TwitWall, you can embed your favorite videos and widgets and upload your photos, MP3 music, podcasts, you name it.

UnTweeps
Unfollow Tweeps who have not posted tweets recently.

TwitRand();
Select a random Twitter follower, friend or retweeter.

TwitBlocker
If you become overwhelmed by a Twitter user’s constant tweets, you can keep them quiet with a single click of a button.

Twitterless
Twitterless tells you who stops following you and graphs your follower history over time, displaying the info in a variety of useful views.

Twonvert
With Twonvert, you can easily convert your tweets into SMS shorthand language and say more with less characters.

Postica
Create a sticky note for your tweets.

twi8r
Translate from English to text message shorthand and vice versa.

Twitter Statistics and Analytics

Twitterholic.com
This website is constantly being updated to allow you to find the most popular Twitter users. Want to be on the list? Twitter constantly.

TweetStats
An app that tracks your number of tweets per hour and per month. It basically creates a graph based on your tweets.

Twitter Grader
Twitter Grader measures the power of your Twitter profile. How high do you rank?

twInfluence
Similar to Twitter Grader, twInfluence lets you calculate the indirect influence of you and your followers on Twitter.

TwitterCounter
A thorough analytical Web app.

tweetVolume
Enter keywords or a phrase and see how often it appears on Twitter.

Twist
See trends on Twitter; find out what’s hot and what people are saying about it.

TweetRush
TweetRush provides estimated statistics on Twitter usage over a period of time.

Tweetwasters
Just how much time do you spend on Twitter? Are you wasting time?

Find New Twitter Friends Apps

TwitterTroll.com
TwitterTroll.com is a real-time Twitter search engine to find new friends.

Just Tweet It
Just Tweet It makes it easier for tweeters to find other tweeters with similar interests.

Friend or Follow
Who are you following who is not following you back?

Qwitter: Catching Twitter quitters
Qwitter emails you when someone stops following you on Twitter.

Twubble
Twubble is a Twitter extension that helps you find more friends.

Twitter Follower-Friend Ratio
Your Twitter ratio is the ratio of your followers to friends (i.e. people you follow). It is measured with the TFF ratio (Twitter follower to friend ratio). The higher the ratio, the more Twitter heat you pack.

Nearby Tweets
Who is tweeting close to you? This app helps you connect with them.

Search Twitter Apps

WhosTalkin
WhosTalkin is a tool that allows users to search for conversations on the topics they care about most.

Twitter Search
Search Twitter is an excellent search engine that allows you to find out what’s happening in the world beyond your personal timeline.

Flaptor Twitter Search
Comprehensive Twitter search.

Twitscoop
Input a Twitter username or keywords in the Twitscoop search box to track a conversation, topic or conference.

Twellow
With Twellow, you can search for someone on Twitter or browse through various tweet categories.

twitSeeker
twitSeeker is an alternate search engine for finding Twitter users and browsing the results in one interface.

Twitter Web-Based Mobile Apps

Hahlo
Hahlo is an excellent and fully featured Twitter client for your iPhone and iPod Touch.

TwitterFone
Send messages to Twitter using your voice.

PocketTweets
PocketTweets is a Web-based Twitter client for the Apple iPhone.

TinyTwitter
TinyTwitter works on any Java-enabled device and any Windows Mobile Pocket PC or smartphone.

TwitterBerry
TwitterBerry is a mobile client for posting updates to Twitter from your BlackBerry.

twitxr
Share pictures and status updates from your mobile.

Slandr
Slandr delivers an enhanced mobile website for Twitter.

Twitter2Go
Twitter2Go provides a quick and simple way to update your Twitter status.

Tapulous
Discover, connect with and send messages to people nearby. Upload photos and update your Twitter account.

Twittelator
Twittelator is an all-around great new application for your iPhone.

TwitterFon
TwitterFon is a simple, clean, easy to use and super-fast Twitter client for your iPhone and iPod Touch.

iTweet 2
iTweet 2 has built-in auto-refresh, search and hash tags. You can view user bios and locations and also view conversations with the “in reply to” links.

GPS Twit
Run GPS Twit on your phone to make it easy for your friends to find you.

iTwtr
An open-source Twitter client for your iPhone.

WordPress Twitter Plug-Ins

Twitter for WordPress
Twitter for WordPress displays yours latest tweets in your WordPress blog.

Twitter Tools
This plug-in integrates your WordPress blog and Twitter account. Pull your tweets into your blog, and create new tweets from blog posts from within WordPress.

Twitpress
Twitpress is a WordPress plug-in that submits a user-definable tweet to your Twitter account, notifying Twitter followers or friends that you have posted a new blog entry.

SimpleTwitter
SimpleTwitter allows you to add Twitter messages to WordPress templates (and not just in the sidebar).

Tweet This
A plug-in that adds a Twitter link to every post and page on your WordPress website, so that visitors can share your blog entries through their Twitter accounts. It also shortens URLs automatically.

TweetBacks
This plug-in imports any tweets that discuss your blog or post. The tweets appear as comments.

TwitterCounter
Install TwitterCounter on your blog to display the number of followers you have on Twitter.

MyTwitter
MyTwitter allows you to display your Tweets on your WordPress website and update your status on the MyTwitter settings page.

TweetRoll
With the TweetRoll widget, you can display the number of your followers and friends.

Twitt-Twoo
Twitt-Twoo is a simple little plug-in that allows you to update your Twitter status right from your blog’s sidebar.

Adobe Air Twitter Apps

Toro for Twitter 
Designed to be simple, Toro uses an experimental Twitter client library to remove the Twitter API limit.

twhirl
Most of the features available on the Twitter website are accessible through twhirl, with usability enhancements.

Tweetr
Tweetr is a Twitter client that allows you to send and receive Twitter messages, but with some added cool features: support for taking photos with your webcam and sending files (up to 10 MB).

TweetDeck
TweetDeck aims to improve the existing functionality of Twitter by taking the abundance of Twitter feeds and breaking it down into more manageable bite-sized pieces.

DestroyTwitter
DestroyTwitter is a series of canvases that constantly update to keep tweets current and up to date using notifications that appear as soon as a new tweet is posted.

TwitterLocal
TwitterLocal is an Adobe AIR-based app that allows you to filter tweets by location.

Spaz
Spaz is a well-designed and well-developed Twitter client.

Snitter
Short for “Snooks’ Twitter,” Snitter is a cross-platform desktop Twitter client.

Twitch
Some features of Twitch are TwitPic integration, URL shortening, the ability to combine friends and replies, reply-highlighting hash-tag support and more.

Firefox Twitter Extensions

TwitBin
TwitBin is a Firefox extension that allows you to keep up with all of your Twitter conversations directly from your browser’s sidebar. Send and receive messages, share links and more.

Power Twitter
Power Twitter adds a multitude of features to the Twitter website interface.

TwitterFox
This extension adds a tiny icon to the status bar that notifies you when your friends have updated their Twitter status. It also has a small text input field to allow you to update your own status.

Twitzer
This Firefox extension lets you post tweets longer than 140 characters on Twitter.

TwitterBar
TwitterBar allows you to post to Twitter from the Firefox address bar.

Twitter Search
This plug-in gives you quick access to the real-time Twitter search engine.

Hoopla!
An essential Twitter plug-in for the Firefox quick search feature.

TwitterEyes
TwitterEyes keeps track of your character count as you compose tweets and replaces characters if you need extra room.

Finally, Worth A Look

Is Twitter Down?
Is Twitter down just for me or for everyone? This great app gives you a simple answer: yes or no.

twistori
An interesting Twitter experiment: click on a keyword on the left, and see what tweets are currently being published that contain that word.

Twittervision
A real-time geographic visualization of tweets. Amazing.

twittearth
Similar to Twittervision (above) but with a sleeker interface.

This is a pretty amazing video found on current.tv  that I found on Twitter. Once you watch the video you’ll think that the prior sentence is very ironic.

6 million users and counting, twitter is growing every month. Growing so quickly, you’re going to take your lumps.

Check out this video called the Twubble with Twitter. 

In December, Jenny Cromie, editor of The Golden Pencil, talked about how Twitter can be used to grow a freelance business. Read more at TwitTip, which features lessons on the micropublishing tool and how to use it more effectively. I found this article to be helpful because I’ve used Twitter to follow stories and individuals and to share updates and pictures via applications such as TwitterLocal, twhirl and twubble. But I see that it can be used more strategically.

“If you own a business of any size and you’re still not Twittering, you’re missing out on what amounts to a worldwide virtual chamber of commerce networking event that’s at your fingertips 24/7,” wrote Cromie, an HR/business freelance writer/editor. “Only on Twitter, you don’t press flesh or swap business cards—you exchange links to your Web site, blog, e-books, and online résumé. And you build relationships 140 characters at a time.”

The eight ways she suggested Twitter can grow a freelance business were:

1. Find new clients

2. Make new contacts

3. Stay informed

4. Generate story ideas

5. Build your brand

6. Drive traffic to your Web site

7. Improve your writing

8. Learn about new tools

Editor Dan Matthews at LaunchLab.co.uk, a Web site for people starting businesses, offers suggestions on how to use the social networking tool as a marketing tool.

“Twitter is popular because it ‘humanises’ and gives access to people who you would never normally have the opportunity to meet. Despite being comparatively new, a wealth of interesting people are amassing huge followings on the website,” Matthews wrote  on his Web site.

I’ve used Twitter to connect with potential sources and to follow events in a particular area, i.e, in the wake of a collision or other breaking news through applications such as TwitterLocal, twhirl and twubble. I’ve found it to be useful when immediate information is sought.

The following is a longer version of the article that appeared in Journalism.co.uk last week, with some extra tools and quotes.

It’s almost impossible to sum up Twitter in one line. To some, it is a way of delivering content to mobiles as headline text alerts. To others, it’s a social networking tool for getting contacts and leads. Some use it as a research tool for developing stories; and still others as a project management tool to gather a number of contributors together – for example, drivers posting updates on traffic.

In other words, it is what you make it and the only way to figure it out is to start using it. The following is a guide to getting started on Twitter as a journalist, and some of the things that can be done with it.

Twitter for newsgathering

Contacts are central to a journalist’s work. Twitter makes it easier to find them. But whereas, for instance, Facebook requires someone to accept you as their ‘friend’ before you get updates; you can follow people on Twitter regardless. It’s where blogging meets social networking.

The more people you follow on Twitter, the more likely you are to come across a lead or a useful contact. News of the recent UK earthquake, for example, broke first on Twitter, while last year news of a fire in East London broke there too. And even as I type this, someone I know at St Pancras station has twittered that it is being evacuated. You might also use Twitterverse or PicoBuzz to spot important phrases (e.g. events).

Here’s a simple ticklist to fill your Twitter contacts book:

1. Obviously you should begin by searching Twitter for people you know, or know of, in your field. The Labour Party, Lib Dems and Conservatives all have their own Twitter accounts, for example, as do some politicians. But beware of hoaxers. This isn’t really Chuck Norris, for example. Is it?
2. Then, look at who they’re following (I find entering someone’s username on Gridjit is the best way of seeing someone’s contacts and what they’re saying, or you can use Quotably to follow their conversations).
3. Then try Twits Like Me to find people with similar interests (based on what you’ve twittered)
4. and Twubble (based on your friends) or Who Should I Follow? (which allows you to adjust according to whether you want people nearer your location or more or less popular)
5. and Tweetscan for key words (e.g. “health”, “NHS”).
6. Finally Twitterlocal will help you find twitterers in your local area.
7. You can also find a list of significant Twitter users in various fields at the Twitter Pack Project. However, as this is a wiki there is a risk that people have added themselves. It’s also US-focused.

The Birmingham Post, and particularly reporter Jo Geary, are leading Twitter-users among regional newspapers. She sees it as a great way of building a relationship with your contacts and target audience.

“It’s not just popping in, getting something, and popping out, but building something more. And because of that it’s also become a support network of people who help me, and vice versa. It moves into the crowdsourcing thing – if you want to do something you can put out questions and get answers.”

It’s all part of the wider move of journalism to becoming a conversation with readers. Abbie Lundberg, for instance, wrote one article by soliciting tweets on the topic from her followers. Nico Luchsinger even conducted his interview with me via Twitter (which gave me the unique experience of being interviewed while shopping in Tesco.)

Managing your Twitter feeds

Once you’ve set up all those contacts, it’s useful to create some filters to help manage the incoming information. Gridjit, again, has a clearer interface for viewing tweets. Desktop applications like Twhirl will give you an audio alert; Snitter allows you to filter your tweets – for key words or tweets containing links for instance. You can also set up pages to organise tweets from ‘crowds’ of twitterers (for example, friends, colleagues, contacts) using Crowdstatus.com.

You can – and should – set up Twitter to send updates to your mobile phone (click on ‘add device’ or look in settings). It’s free, and is particularly useful for following what’s happening while you’re on the move. But pick your sources carefully – Twitter will only send 250 updates per week, and it’s easy to hit that.

The first thing you should do once you’ve set up Twitter to send text alerts is to text Twitter the word “track” followed by your username. This means Twitter will text you whenever anyone mentions your username on Twitter – very useful for picking up messages aimed at you. You can use the same trick to track mentions of key words in your area, such as a key employer or your own organisation (More tips on mobile commands can be found here). If you prefer email alerts, MobiFeedLive.com and Tweet Scan (not to be confused with Tweetscan) provide them.

You can also follow links that are getting passed about a lot on Twitter though Twitterbuzz and Twitt(url)y. While Twist is a pretty impressive equivalent of Google Trends (from comments).

Twitter for news publishing, distribution and creation

If you want an idea of what Twitter can do for news publishing check out BreakingNewsOn. Headline alerts of breaking news that people can receive on their mobiles are the most obvious application, and used by dozens of organisations including the BBC, the Guardian and CNN (This post has a list of news organisations using Twitter). It’s a good way of alerting people to your content, as well as inviting participation, as Emap’s David Cushman recently tweeted: “Comments on my blog are going mad. Nothing has changed except I now use twitter regularly.”

Many newspapers have separate Twitter accounts for different sections, such as business, traffic and sports. Sky even have one for news about Madeleine McCann.

Twitterfeed will save you typing updates by pushing RSS feeds from your newspaper to a Twitter account, but this means you have to write the article first and risk missing the scoop. Instead it’s better to ‘tweet’ (post to Twitter) before you write the article – ensuring you get to the top of Google quickly, as Birmingham Post editor Marc Reeves did with the arrest of Karren Brady:

“I’m only followed by 30 people or so … But these people are all … in the business of sharing information and knowledge. Consequently, a number of them followed my link to the story on the Post website, and started to talk about it on their own blogs and again through Twitter, with the effect that the Post site received an incredible number of hits as word spread.”

If you really want to track how many people are clicking on any of your links you can also use Tweetburner (or Twitt(url)y to see what they’re saying if they pass it on). Or you can use Intwition to see who’s linking to a particular domain.

Twitter is particularly useful for journalists reporting live via text message themselves. Sky reporter Julia Reid recently used it to post her “minute-by-minute” experiences at Heathrow’s Terminal 5. Robert LaHue used it “to semi-liveblog a board meeting via texting” and it’s often used at conferences and events. You can also download applications that allow you to update Twitter from your mobile – this article compares 20 of them.

Going beyond 140 characters

And if you’re frustrated by the 140 character limit try some of these tools:

• Twitzer is a Firefox extension that allows you to write tweets over 140 characters. MessageDance does much the same via email, and also allows comments on tweets.
• twi8r translates text speak into ‘English’ and vice versa, allowing you to truncate your messages
• Twittermail.com and Tweetahead allow you to pre-schedule tweets to be posted (for when you are not at a computer); the latter also lets you send and receive tweets via email
• Tweetr is a Twitter reader that allows you to send files up to 10MB through Twitter.
• TwitPic allows you to send images from your phone and not only posts links straight to your Twitter account but allows people to post comments that are then posted on their own Twitter page (with a link to the photo). Mobypicture does something similar. TwitterSoap is a mashup of Mobypicture and Twitter.
• SnapTweet posts your latest Flickr picture to Twitter; Autopostr.com does much the same.
• Twiddeo allows you to do the same with video.
• Twixxer does both photo and video sharing
• And American and Canadian users can phone in their tweets using Jott.
• Or you can use the Firefox plugin Power Twitter, which does most of the above and much, much more.

But Twitter becomes really impressive when you tap into its social, conversational nature – or combine the RSS feeds from a number of twitterers. Shawn Smith used it to create the Michigan Twitter Network, which “follows more than 1,300 Michigan twitterers. We’ve gained about 200+ followers and use this account @mlive to send breaking news alerts and also poll users.” (I’ve created something similar for Birmingham twitterers). In Spain, ADN.es used it to follow voter reactions during a televised presidential candidate debate on TV.

My recent experiment with, of all things, a live book review on Twitter demonstrated that the boundary between publishing and conversation becomes blurred when you use the technology – confusing if you’re bothered about semantics, but encouraging if you’re interested in positive relationships between the journalist and reader.

At the end of the day, Twitter is just a platform. What I’ve outlined here is just the start, and there are plenty of experiments being done – the really interesting stuff starts when you try something completely new…

Feel free to follow me, by the way, at twitter.com/paulbradshaw

For more information see my Twitter-related links, or read my other blog posts about Twitter.

Twubble can help expand your Twitter bubble—it searches your friend graph and picks out people who you may like to follow. Very impressive

link

Twitter obsessed and starving for social success, the new Twitter follow referring site Twubble is awesome.

If it catches on than many users will be vewy Twubbled by the amount of follower requests they are receiving. Haha.. get it? Twubbled?

Anyways…

Another downfall to it… It will always suggest you befriend @scobleizer (if your not already). This is because it works based on common followers, just like Facebook’s; People You May Know, and not based on interests or similar terms. And it is listed from most important Twitter users to least important, as you can tell.

For some reason this Facebook feature, while I understand it, really bothers me because tons of people are requesting to be my friend. Thankfully I have enabled the new Facebook privacy settings

I am definitely going to take advantage of Twubble and expand my network! So if @Frozen2late requests to follow you… now you know why.

Twitter is no fun without friends. But searching for and and finding friends could be a heck of a job. Twubble has come to your rescue. Twubble can help expand your Twitter bubble—it searches your friend graph and picks out people who you may like to follow. You need to be logged in Twitter to use this, just click the “find some friends” button.

Twubble scans the list of people you follow to see who they follow. Then it gives a list of persons who you might be interested in following.

You can either follow users directly from the Twubble web page, or you can click on a name to check out their Twitter profile. You can also click the “G” button to look them up on Google.

Twubbling & screenshotting.

 Follow You Follow Me. Genesis? Twubble! 

Een uitvinding van crazybob Lee. Of expanding your Twitter bubble! Gelezen bij de Blogoloog! Bij wie anders? 1 Twubble-klikje in zomaar 2 lukrake shots, getiteld Pasted People. Follow You Follow Me.

Twubble can help expand your Twitter bubble—it searches your friend graph and picks out people who you may like to follow.

It checks all the people you follow and who they follow, ranking new names by the numbers of people following them. Then you can choose to follow them, if you want. Nice.