Rants and Ruminations

It looks like Twitter has rethought the change it made on yesterday that affected the way @replies were shown to users.  They have now gone back to the old way of doing things…sort of.

So now any tweets that atre started with the @username, and here’s the catch, that are not specifically created by using a reply button, will be seen by all your friends and their followers.  Now this makes me wonder how much has really changed.  Presumably most replies are done with a reply to button.  And if you use the web interface then starting your post with @username will automatically get turned into a reply as if a button were used.  I don’t know how this affect TweetDeck and other third party clients but time will tell.

According to the Twitter Blog, Twitter has made a change in the way it operates in regards to public replies sent by friends.  In the past users would see replies to from or to friends that are not on your current friend list.  This is called fragmented conversations and is the core to social discovery.  I have met and talked with several people who are on my friends friend list.  It is this possibility that makes Twitter so useful as a social networking tool.  To close this loop in the way it operates will lessen the need for Twitter in social applications and relegate it to no better than email or text messaging.  Mostly non-existant in social applications but really only useful for direct communications or message broadcasting to an opt-in user base.

I hope Twitter re-evaluates its stance on fragmented conversations.  I have become a HUGE fan of the service and would likely have to abandon it as a social tool if the need is not there.

Every so often there is software that you stumble across or your friends tell you about that fills such a need that you don’t know how you made do without it. The Earth shifts on it axis, the Heavens open up to you, lollipops and unicorns fall from the sky!  That is exactly how I felt after Richard told me about Digsby.   In a nutshell, Digsby puts all your IM, Email, and Social Networking access and monitoring all in one spot.  No more logging into 967 different websites to update your status and check messages.

Instant Messaging
Nothing new in the functionality here.  There are several programs that will allow you to run all your IM accounts from one spot.  It has the capabilities of checking your AOL, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, and Facebook Chat accounts at once.  Strangely it does not check Myspace chat but, more than likely, that is because the Myspace API is not available for public consumption.

Email
Digsby will also check all the email accounts you set up and notify you of new messages.  If you use server storage email accounts like Gmail or Hotmail then you can send, delete, reply to or otherwise manage your account right from the Digsby console.

Social Networking
Here is where Digsby stands out from everyone else.  You can add your Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts to Digsby.   This gives you the ability to check all your messages and notifications as well as update all your statuses from one location.  You also get live notifications whenever your friends do anything to their accounts.

Overall
This has been a real time saver for me. Now, granted, after I installed Digsby I have set this blog, my Facebook, and my Twitter accounts to all play nicely together so I only update my Twitter and it updates everything else from there. But that is another post. :^)

The only complaint I have is that when you add several accounts to it the User Interface can become a bit clunky and convoluted. A small price to pay, I say.

It has seemed for the last several months that I have begun to leave MySpace behind.  I find myself spending much more time on Facebook, and now, using Twitter.  While I don’t know if I will ever totally abandon MySpace I am probably not going to be updating the page except with things that update there automatically (blog posts, tweets, etc.)

With the strong emergence of Facebook over the last 12-18 months it seems to me that the two sites really cater to two totally different age groups.  All my youth group kids are on MySpace while practically everyone else I know past high school age are on Facebook.  At first it was not too much effort keeping the two synched but now that I am posting on a much more regular basis it has become a little pain.  Now, there are some tools, like Digsby, that has made this easier but even with that I seem to be just treating MySpace like a red headed step child.

For now I will keep the account alive but if it goes away suddenly…don’t be surprised!

I will be the first to admit that I was a little skeptical about using Twitter when I first set up my account.  I have a hard enough time keeping up with my blog, Facebook. and MySpace (which is really beginning to suck, btw…more on that later).  In this post I’m just gonna touch on some of the things I like about Twitter.

Accessibility: I really didn’t see the uses for Twitter when I first set up my account but once I started really looking at the tools available for using it, the coolness factor shot through the roof!  I am currently using four different methods to post to send my tweets: digsby, text message from my cell, the twitter tools widgit for wordpress, and the Twitter website if I have to.  I haven’t used the Twitter module for my Drupal powered websites but that is next up on the docket.  I also get the updates through digsby and they show up on the left sidebar of my blog .

Share My Thoughts: One of the big reasons I don’t have more posts on my blog is that I usually don’t have that much to say and I quickly lose interest when I have to force myself to post.  Microblogging is the answer to my problem!  I hit my Twitter with a few thouyghts throughout the day and reply to the tweets that I need to.  It is also a great way to have targeted conversations.

Making New Friends: I am a huge fan of talking about different things with a wide variety of people.  Since I now work from home and have very little actual human contact things like this are a lifeline to sanity for me.  Plus the advantage of this is that I find it easier to connect with people with targeted intersts that I am looking for.  For example…I am in the process of trying to figure out how to leverage the power of social networking in expanding my church’s presence.  I have found several people on Twitter that are doing just that and have already learned a great deal from them.

Shameless Promotion: Of course it goes without saying that this is a pretty good tool for website promotion.  It requires some care and maintenance to get the word out about your site but once you build that following, and your content is relevant to the audience, it will go through the roof.

So those are some of my main reasons I am digging Twitter.  What are yours?  SHare your thoughts with me either in the comments or on my Twitter page . Or use @steveblount if you already have an account.