Blog24 » Twitter

Twitter Client using Fluid and Hahlo with Growl

Chris — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 13:39:06 +0000

This is a great tip for Apple Mac users who utlise the microblogging service, Twitter. It is a fairly simple way of creating a client for Twitter which is accessible from the Apple menu bar (as a menu item). The method uses Hahlo that is intended for use with Apple iPhone which makes this ‘hack’ notable for its creative use of software that is freely available.

One of the the Twitter clients I started looking into is Hahlo. It’s basically a web based application used by a lot of iPhone users. You can make it into a great desktop Twitter client using the combo of Fluid, and Growl.

[From Twitter Client using Fluid and Hahlo with Growl]

Here’s the screencast to show how set-up your own menu item for Twitter.

Visit Twitter Client using Fluid and Hahlo with Growl for links to the software used.

This tutorial could be used to create a menu item for any web application. Experiment and share your creations via the comments.

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Biz Stone Talks To NPR About Twitter

Chris — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 23:34:45 +0000

Biz Stone was interviewed on The Byrant Park Project morning show a few days ago. The interview covers many Twitter related topics including the idea behind Twitter and its future, the Fail Whale, and the recent/current problems Twitter is facing.

At some point Twitter will have to make money and become profitable and Biz touched on one idea how this may happen with the introduction of ‘commercial accounts’. While Biz would not discuss how many people have joined Twitter he did reveal that the number of member had increased six fold in the last 12 months.

Twitter, What Are You Doing? Co-Founder Tells All

Both informative and relaxed this interview from National Public Radio is definitely worth listening to if you are a Twitter user. Plus there’s the bonus near the end when you will discover why Biz got his name.

The accompanying page is also informative and a must for any Twitter fan. Listen to Biz Stone interview.

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Introducing The Fail Snail

Chris — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 22:07:57 +0000

The FAIL SNAIL, originally uploaded by ronin691.

Top marks go to Todd from Dallas for his take on The Fail Whale.

Todd explains his inspiration:

Inspired by the availability of Twitter’s Fail Whale as a T-shirt and Tantek’s “Note to Self” comment [read] I made teh Fail Snail, and he’s coughing up some “goddamn leaky HTML” hex.

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Twitter Boycott Not The First

Chris — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 11:23:21 +0000

Today, apart from being Independence Day, is the day that Twittercott is set to make Twitter founders Biz and Evan sit up and listen to the 1,700,000 or so community members who are disgruntled about the frequent Twitter outages.

However this is not the first time that Twitter has been ‘boycotted’.

Keen bloggers Andrew Dobrow and Bwana McCall promoted Twit-Out after reading the following post on FriendFeed [click to enlarge]:

Andrew and Bwana blogged about Twit-Out on May 14, 2008 to promote the actual boycott which took place on May 21, 2008.

Did it work?

In a word — NO. A quick peek at Google Trends shows that there was not a significant dip in the number of unique visitors on May 21 so Twitter did not loose visitors due to a boycott. There was a slight rise in traffic to FriendFeed.com though. Whether this was related to the Twit-Out idea is open to interpretation.

Bwana did write The Twit-Out Aftermath in which he claimed success as it encouraged discussion about Twitter and its problems. A fair point — but weren’t people already having that discussion? If they weren’t no-one would have considered a boycott.

Will it ever work?

Short answer — ~~YEAH but~~ NO!

A boycott on the scale that today’s (or May 21, 2008) will never work. However, if a million Twitter members were to boycott it for a week then perhaps the owners would take immediate action. Although such a huge boycott would probably kill Twitter for good.

Twitter will improve

Twitter’s Fail Whale will be seen less and less over the next few months as investment helps to solve the problems. The best way to help Twitter improve is to keep using it and promote its use.

Be patient my fellow twits.

Flickr and Twitter on BBC Sport

Chris — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 18:22:28 +0000

A brief overview on how the British Broadcasting Corporation uses Twitter and Flickr to add instant updates to the BBC’s sport website.

“These tools make sharing our – and your – images and stories simple, easy and fast.

Read on to discover more about the tools we use, and see examples of the ways we use them.”

Flickr and Twitter on BBC Sport

Another recent mention of Twitter on The Beeb was on the Radio 4 programme and podcast iPM. Twittering Around The World is worth a listen.

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Boycotting Twitter Could Lighten The Load

Chris — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:50:23 +0000

As I begin to write this the Fail Whale is indicating Twitter’s ongoing problem — ‘Twitter is over capacity’. It is the frequent outages that Twitter suffers that has prompted Paul Chaney, Internet Marketing Director at Bizzuka, to arrange a 24 hour boycott of Twitter on July 4th.

Paul Chaney explains his idea:

It’s time fans of Twitter express some tough love by joining in a 24-hour boycott – a “twittercott” – starting at 12:00 a.m., July 4th. Let’s declare our independence from Twitter by not using it the entire day. We send a message by NOT sending messages. Get it? If enough of us were to participate it would be a shot heard round the world wide web!

Paul wrote about the boycott on his blog, Conversational Media Marketing and has set up a group on Facebook, Boycott Twitter, which, at the time of writing, has 5 members.

One member, Graham Hancock of Mississippi, posted the following comment, which sums up my opinion about Twitter’s troubles rather well.

I don’t see how this will get anything done. Just get over it. Twitter is free and their service will get better over time. But hell, you’re more than welcome to boycott and make the service faster for the rest of us.

Of course there was a response from Paul Chaney that included the following ludicrous analogy:

We’re like a bunch of drug addicts who continue to go to the same dealer for our fix. But the dealer is unreliable. Still, we show up hoping not to see the whale this time. That’s insanity.

Twitter Fan I Am — Addict I Am Not

Personally I am a huge fan of Twitter and send tweets daily. I do feel that the alternatives, like Plurk, FriendFeed and the brand new identi.ca lack some of the features offered by Twitter.

Using SMS to add Tweets via mobile phone is a major advantage over the other services. Also I am able to received updates from selected members directly to my phone. This is how I keep in touch with my brother who lives over 5,000 miles (8,000km) away. I use the SMS method to add items to my Google Calendar too — very useful.

Major Investment

While I doubt that a one day boycott will have the desired affect. Following investment from Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos and venture capital specialists Spark Capital should give Twitter a noticeable performance boost in the near future. Biz Stone, Twitter’s co-founder, indicated recently that the process of rebuilding Twitter, “piece by piece,” is underway and, “will take months”.

Hopefully the investment will turn Twitter into a reliable service by autumn. However, the new service mentioned earlier, identi.ca is copycat sites that offer similar microblogging services but Twitter will hopefully remain the forerunner. If these clone sites become as successful as Twitter they too are destined to overload failure.

The Fail Whale Sensation

Ironically Twitter’s ‘Fail Whale’ has it’s own fan club, failwhale.com and its own merchandise. A claim that none of the Twitter clone error pages certainly cannot make.

The popularity of the Fail Whale does seem to indicate that despite the problems that Twitter continues to suffer there is a dedicated and loyal base of users that will ensure Twitter’s success in the future.

Shall I Join The Boycott?

Boycott Twitter if you like but only time will heal Twitter’s flaws, and it is doubtful that rival sites will gain as much popularity or attract the investment to survive. Whether I boycott Twitter or not is yet to be decided, I’ll let you know via Twitter tomorrow.

The good news at the moment is that Twitter is now live following the most recent hiccup.

Update: July 3, 2008 @ 16:59pm

Paul Chaney Blogs His Rationale

Rationale behind the Twitter boycott by Paul Chaney.

Some are wondering what my motives are in calling for a boycott of Twitter on July 4, a day I’m suggesting that we “declare our independence from Twitter” for 24 hours.

I can understand that some, perhaps many, consider this an exercise in foolishness (or stupidity) and that nothing will be accomplished. It’s obvious that others view Twitter’s foibles as nothing more than an annoyance, something to be tolerated until the day finally comes when we see the Fail Whale no more.

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10 Updates You Will Never See On Twitter, Facebook or Plurk

Chris — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 13:46:51 +0000

Currently sleeping so please do not disturb.
Just robbed a bank — don’t think much of the getaway car.
Wondering why prostitutes are soooo expensive.
Attending my funeral — a good turn out.
Managed to smuggle 1kg of cocaine via Heathrow. Awesome!
Digging tunnel to aid escape — thirsty work.
My fake passport seems to have done the trick!
Never realized that specimen pots were so small.
Digging a shallow grave for the mis’ess.
Just committed suicide – bye x

Add your own in the comments.

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A Positive Article About The Benefits Of Twitter

Chris — Thu, 08 May 2008 11:34:38 +0000

A great article about Twitter and its usage. The article has instructions on how to use Twitter a comprehensive list of software, and a list of related links that makes this article worth bookmarking.

The links are organised into, Finding People, Searching and Organising, Sharing and Visualise along with a few miscellaneous websites including a personal favourite, the very useful twerpscan.com.

LINK: Guardian : How to make the most of Twitter

Real-time micro-blogging is gaining in popularity. But if you’re wondering what’s the point, here’s Charles Arthur’s guide to the benefits of Twitter – and how to get started.

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Use Quicksilver to Twitter

Chris — Sat, 03 May 2008 14:41:40 +0000

A quick tutorial on how to use Quicksilver to write tweets to your Twitter account. Recommended for Mac users who utilise Twitter.

Tweet = Twitter + Quicksilver by Coda Hale.

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Student Twitters Himself Out of Jail

Chris — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 12:40:30 +0000

ABC News reports that 29 year old American student, James Buck, used Twitter to raise awareness of his arrest in Egypt.

“As Buck and his translator tried to leave the protest in a taxi, Buck says they were chased and then detained by Egyptian police. As their cab driver drove the pair to the police station under direction by the police, Buck sent out a single-word message from his cell phone to his Twitter feed: Arrested.”

ABC News: Student Twitters Himself Out of Jail

It is extraordinary that a single word Tweet can be so incredibly worthwhile for its writer.

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Blog24 » Twitter

Twitter Client using Fluid and Hahlo with Growl

Biz Stone Talks To NPR About Twitter

Twitter, What Are You Doing? Co-Founder Tells All

Introducing The Fail Snail

Twitter Boycott Not The First

Did it work?

Will it ever work?

Twitter will improve

Related articles on the web

Flickr and Twitter on BBC Sport

Boycotting Twitter Could Lighten The Load

Twitter Fan I Am — Addict I Am Not

Major Investment

The Fail Whale Sensation

Shall I Join The Boycott?

Update: July 3, 2008 @ 16:59pm

Paul Chaney Blogs His Rationale

10 Updates You Will Never See On Twitter, Facebook or Plurk

A Positive Article About The Benefits Of Twitter

Use Quicksilver to Twitter

Student Twitters Himself Out of Jail