I am a big fan of the Tweetie iPhone app as a way to manage Twitter on my iPhone. So when I heard that Tweetie 2.0 was being released – and that it is awesome – I quickly downloaded it. This is despite my brother’s horror that I would pay for any iPhone app. To me, a good app is well worth the $2.99.

I’ve been using it for about a week, and I really do love the upgrades. My favorite new features are:

- The way that Tweetie 2.0 “remembers” where you were the last time that you were using it. I can pick up my Tweet stream where I left off, which is how I like to use Twitter, so that is perfect for me. They call this “persistence.”

- The added ability to retweet a post without having to go into the post itself. (In the previous version, you had to “open” the Tweet, and then the only option was to “Repost” – which didn’t use the common “RT @mchang16:” format.)

- The cool interface changes of a blue light indicating when I have new  messages, new direct messages or new @ replies, and the way that you load additional messages by pulling down to refresh.

- Although I haven’t figured out a way to really use this feature yet vigrx vs vigrx plus, I love that I can see all the most recent Tweets that have happened “nearby” – it’s very interesting to see how many (in Beverly, where I live) or how few (in Topsfield, where I work) people are using Twitter. I could see how this feature might come in handy if I was somewhere new and wanted to write to ask someone for a local tip, although I haven’t used it that way just yet. Also, I found out that there is a death metal record label right down the street from my house in Beverly – totally interesting.

 – The ability to manage multiple Twitter accounts is the reason that I fell in love with Tweetie to begin with, and the 2.0 version has only simplified the way that you can toggle between multiple accounts, apply changes to multiple accounts, and to send messages from one account when you’re reading messages in another.

I have always loved Tweetie and found it the best app for managing Twitter on my iPhone, and Tweetie 2.0 is a significant and awesome upgrade that I highly recommend.

THE ONLY THING IS – I have a question that I can’t seem to find an answer to anywhere – if anyone knows, please leave a comment! What are these numbers (pictured below) that show up on someone’s profile page?

If you’re looking for a tool that allows you to bulk unfollow the people on Twitter who you are following but who aren’t following you back, Mutuality from Huitter.com will help. 

The tool allows you a few options – Unfollow all who do not follow you back, Unfollow all, and Follow all who follow you. You can also add in up to 50 users who won’t be affected by the action, so if you have a particular celebrity that you like to track or thought-leader who doesn’t subaction showcomments propecia optional blog follow you but you want to keep tracking, you can exclude them from the action.

This service is free for accounts with up to 1800 followers or friends. For larger accounts, this can be used up to three times for free.

This isn’t a recommendation to use this tool – I don’t think that either bulk following or bulk unfollowing is a great Twitter strategy. But I have heard from many people who are looking for a tool to accomplish this exact functionality, and have seen Huitter’s tool work effectively.

(Note: Sorry for the blogging hiatus…I really wanted to publish this post before writing anything else, but have struggled with finishing it. Thanks for understanding and hopefully I’ll be back to my regular posting schedule now!)

I’m from Binghamton, N.Y.

In the past, when I told people that fact, I had to explain where Binghamton is located. (Upstate. Do you know where Syracuse is? No? Ithaca? No? How about Albany? You know, the state capital? About two hours from there.) But now, everyone has heard of Binghamton. I wish that it was because our basketball team made it to the NCAA championship. But sadly, it’s for a far grimmer reason.

I have had a number of posts half-written about what happened in Binghamton since I heard the news. None of them seems quite right to publish in the wake of the multitude of experiences and sadness and loss. But I will say that Binghamton is so much more than a sick shooter and tragedy and death. Just as the city isn’t all bad, it isn’t all good with “tidy houses lining the neat streets,” as I heard someone on CNN report (I guess they must have been reading Wikipedia). But Binghamton is my hometown, as Rod Serling wrote. I love it, and I love the people who live there. And I’m incredibly saddened by the recent events.

But that’s not really what this post is about. This post is about how the news spread, and just how much media has changed.

Just a few years back, news was spread by the mainstream media. Some event would happen, and other than the few people who might have been at the scene, the majority of people found out the news through TV, radio, or even the Internet. But typically, the people reporting on the news were the major news media outlets that were using various media to report the news.

But all that is changing. Now, there are a variety of publishing and communication tools that allow everyone – not just the mainstream media – to distribute news. My experience finding out about what had happened in the Binghamton shooting event was completely different than during any other news even in the past. Not only was the information transferred through a variety of media, but the people who were passing on the news were the people on the scene, the people who really knew what was happening; the people who I care about.

Here’s a timeline of what I found out, when and how:

April 3
12:45pm – Instant Message from a co-worker who saw the news on Twitter.

1:20pm – Phone call from my husband Chris, who was driving ativan online pharmacy to a meeting and heard the news on the radio.

1:24pm – Text from a friend: “Turn on CNN now if you can. Shootings in bingo.”

1:28pm – Text from another friend: “Binghamton is in the new Big Time. Shootings”

1:38pm – Twitter Direct Message: “Did you see what’s going on in Binghamton?”

2:44pm – Facebook post from friend: “I just heard that my brother [a Binghamton police officer] is safe from the incident in Binghamton. Thank god.”

4:24pm – Facebook post from my cousin, who’s a firefighter in Binghamton: “Just got back from working the worst shooting in Binghamton history. Never thought that being a firefighter I would be wearing a bullet proof jacket. It was not good at all. prayers for the injured.”

9:23pm – Text from a friend: “Sadly I heard from that [a friend’s] mom was teaching English there 2day and may have been killed. It’s not official yet, but likely.”

For me, during this event, the news that I cared the most about I got from my friends and family through a variety of means – text messages, IM, Facebook. I watched some of the news coverage on CNN and MSNBC, but when Geraldo started spouting off about how Binghamton “is a very tight knit community” I had to turn him off. I didn’t want to see pictures of the American Civic Association via Microsoft Virtual Earth. I didn’t want to watch the news teams scramble to find someone that they could talk to who knew the town and the people there. I wanted to connect with friends and family, via the phone, Twitter, texting, Facebook. I wanted the news from people I loved and trusted, just like I always have. But the big shift is that now there are ways to do this; to gather and disseminate information and to keep connected to all the people I want to talk to who are hundreds of miles away.

Now, instead of listening to what the mainstream media has to say about Binghamton, I can find out what my friends and family think. And I can be encouraged and inspired by things like this awesome note posted to Facebook by one of my cousins:

“Over the past few days, I have listened to people all over the country try and define Binghamton. I will take a stab at it. Binghamton consists of a majority of people that are “down to earth”, love their family, cherish good times with friends, are not afraid to work hard and care about their neighbors. That is why no matter where you go, it is always good to see Binghamtonians! You know who you are!”

For months I’ve been wondering how Twitter, the difficult to describe, tough to “get” without using it, microblogging service will reach the mainstream. I initially thought that Facebook’s status updates would provide the model that would push Twitter to the masses. But now I know what will cause Twitter to move out of geekdom and into the mainstream – celebrities who Twitter.

In the past month – especially in the past 2 weeks – there has been a large influx of celebrities using Twitter. Real celebrities. The type of people who everyone knows. Celebrities that are on the cover of People. Celebrities who people want to follow every moment of every day. 

Enter Twitter.

Twitter is going to be so appealing because, until it gets so mainstream it gets noisy, Twitter is going to give people access to celebrities. Who can resist a service where you can send an @ reply to a celebrity, know that he’s going to read it, and maybe even write you back? Listen people – YOU MIGHT GET A MESSAGE FROM YOUR FAVORITE CELEBRITY!!!! When the thousands of celebrity-happy people out there find out about this kind of access, they are going to flock to Twitter.

And then there’s the drama of being able to “watch” celebrities send each other Twitter messages, providing an inside look into the lives of celebrities everywhere. Just in the course of research this article I found out a whole bunch of information about celebrities from their Twitter streams, including that Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore are at the Super Bowl this weekend and that Demi Moore is the godmother to Soleil Moon Frye’s daughter, Poet. The gossip mags are going to have a field day with this. At least until publicists and lawyers figure out about Twitter and shut down the celebrities.

Here’s a rundown of just some of the celebrities that are active on Twitter, when they started using the service (based on their first message), the number of people they’re following vs. the number of people following them, and a sample post. (I also make note of when I don’t really think that it’s the celebrity posting, this is just a guess, though, as I don’t really know.)

Tina Fey (@TinaFey) – April 25, 2008 – 35 Following / 28,701 Followers
“I like my men like my peanut butter – chunky.”

Soleil Moon Frye (@moonfrye) – January 29, 2009 – 4 Following / 3,258 Followers
“Trying to find the eco balance. Going through the girls old toys, giving them away to others… So nostalgic. Where does the time go?”

Demi Moore (@mrskutcher) – January 26, 2009 – 21 Following / 8,303 Followers
“stand by my husband has something up his sleeve!”

Fred Durst (@freddurst) – January 17, 2009 – 14 Following / 486 Followers
“Just hung out with Mickey Rourke. He was amazing. So genuine. So real. I’ve been a fan since I was a teenager. What a swell guy. Nite”

Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) – January 16, 2009 – 15 Following / 8,306 Followers
“Steeler fans every where suddenly hate dude where’s my car”

Snoop Dogg (@snoopdogg) – February 19, 2009 – 30 Following / 7,125 Followers
“Stop by Snoopdogg.com and checc out the new “Staxxx In My Jeans” music video”
<NOTE: I sincerely doubt that this is really Snoop Dogg…more like Snoop Dogg’s PR rep…but it seems like they want you to think that it’s Snoop Dogg>

Shaquille O’Neal (@THE_REAL_SHAQ) – November 18, 2009 – 382 Following / 44,338 Followers
“The obama speech, wow, was dat memorized, very impressive, im jealous”

Lance Armstrong (@lancearmstrong) – October 15, 2008 – 41 Following / 50,843 Followers
“Done with the Legends dinner. Dragged George on stage too. Good times. Bit of a cluster leaving. Sorry we couldn’t sign more stuff.”

MC Hammer (@MCHammer) – April 29, 2008 – 20,873 Following / 32,549 Followers
“The Superbowl should be a blast…. looking forward to it. The plot is good… six-pack vs one time!”

Britney Spears (@britneyspears) – October 10, 2008 – 1,184 Following / 47,120 Followers
“Britney went to Jerry’s Deli last night for after shopping at Target. She had a black and white milkshake with dinner. ~Lauren”
<NOTE: This Twitter stream is claims updates from Britney’s team and YES! Even Britney herself. Although that’s doubtful, at least they don’t pretend too often that it’s really Britney posting.>

Brea Grant (@breagrant) – June 13, 2008 – 115 Following / 9,141 Follwers
“corpse run – a movie i’m in – is premiering at cinequest! more info on my blog – http://www.breagrant.com/blog/ and follow @cinequest“

Greg Grunberg (@greggrunberg) – October 23, 2008 – 74 Following / 13,819 Followers
“My Top Secret Project revealed on Monday’s Bonnie Hunt Show! Met my biz partners @rickmacmerc & @August on Twitter. Yowza!!”

Hulk Hogan (@RealHulkHogan) – December 20, 2008 – 10 Following / 160 Followers
“@TheRealMachoMan Wow dude! You are just like JimH, you never know when to switch it off. Good move to insult those you want something from.”
<NOTE: I’m not very sure that this really *is* the real Hulk Hogan.>

John Cleese (@JohnCleese) – December 3, 2007 – 44 Following / 42,273 Followers
“Thank you everyone for the messages. Remember I am practically dead, barely functional. Your patience is appreciated. Will blog again soon”

Jimmy Fallon (@JimmyFallon) – December 4, 2008 – 53 Following / 25,807 Followers
“Football picks? Inauguration pics? I’m going with Steelers and Bon Jovi.”

Yoko Ono (@yokoono) – November 27, 2008 – 759 Following / 1,049 Followers
“is drawing a somersault to see the world in a bearable light”

Sonic Youth (@thesonicyouth) – January 17, 2009 – 7 Following / 3,148 Followers
“onto mixing song #3. so far we’ve mixed: 1. calming the snake 2. sacred trickster and a special cover song. working 2 studios at once today.”

Margaret Becker (@margaretbecker) – January 6, 2009 – 8 Following /26 Followers
“Me, in my devotions this a.m.: lord, help me to find … Blah, blah, and–my glasses.”

Andy Murray (@andy_murray) – 59 Following / 4,397 Followers
“Gdaaay from down under! busy day. Training, press call + photos on the beach playing paddel tennis wit dodgy pink bat. So hot here.”

Fran Drescher (@frandrescher) – November 14, 2008 – 796 Following / 1,367 Followers
“Spoke 2 Queen Noor re Cancer Schmancer. jjlo Is much taller than her husband.”

Levar Burton (@levarburton) – December 26, 2008 – 58 Following / 22,997 Followers
“Wow, one Twitter asking for help and dozens (hundreds?) of people spring into action. Imagine if Obama Twitterd about fixing the economy”

Seth MacFarlane (@Seth_MacFarlane) – January 5, 2009 – 57 Following / 1,562 Followers
“Watching 24 on fox , the best network ever as I eat some burger king. I wish I had a gun like Jack. Well Joe has a gun I can use his.”

William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) – June 25, 2008 – 4 Following / 6,822 Followers
“Ricardo Montalban was a wonderful man I saw him on Broadway I was entertained by his movies. I loved working with him on the film we made.”
<NOTE: Not convinced that this is William Shatner, but it could be.>

Borat (@Borat) – January 30, 2007 – 73 Following / 12,812 Followers
“Where I am from, Shoes are far too expensive to just be thrown about at amazingly bad world leaders!”

Dave Matthews (@DaveJMatthews) – September 20, 2008 – 3 Following / 22,182 Followers
“Noodle poodle puddle bottle muddle..”

Sara Bareilles (@SaraBareilles) – June 5, 2007 – 27 Following / 19,495 Followers
“no big deal, just heard love song on THE RADIO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! happy am I.”

Diablo Cody (@diablocody) – April 26, 2008 – 15 Following / 10,892 Followers
“I was totally the kid with Zima at the 9th grade dance.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger (@schwarzenegger) – January 23, 2008 – 10,038 Following / 10,814 Followers
“As a result of all this, California, the 8th largest economy in the world, faces insolvency within weeks #SOTS”
<NOTE: Doesn’t appear to be Arnold himself, but does appear to be “official.”>

Alan Carr (@AlanCarr) – September 10, 2008 – 0 Following / 10,542 Followers
“I’ve a gash on my foot where I spent the majority of yesterday wearing high heeled boots dressed as Uhuru from Star Trek-my life’s a mess”

Jamie Oliver (@jamie_oliver) – January 28, 2009 – 5 Following / 1,352 Followers
“of course it’s the real me on this, and the real me is very excited that so many people have pledged to support British bacon”

Lisa Loeb (@lisaloeb4real) – May 16, 2008 – 736 Following / 1,896 Followers
“Heading to DC. American Airlines just made me put my guitar under the plane!! Oy”

Paula Poundstone (@PaulaPoundstone) – January 14, 2009 – 2,393 Following / 2,242 Followers
“Everything I know about cooking I learned from I LOVE LUCY and RATATOUILLE. Tonight I melted he spatula onto my fingers again.”

The following celebrities seem to be “on” Twitter, but haven’t really mastered using the service (ie, they haven’t posted much yet). Also, I’m not really sure that these are the real celebrities.

JJ Abrams (@JJ_Abrams) – July 30, 2007 – 5 Following / 1,792 Followers
“I totally forgot about Twitter. I know i am not regular on here but really don’t have time for computers… errr or anything.”

Kathy Griffin (@kathygriffin) – July 11, 2007 – 0 Following /1,347 Followers
“I wonder if anything should ever be off limits.”

————————

I had some help finding some of these celebrities from the following sources:

• http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/01/28/celebrities-cant-get-enough-of-twitter
• http://valebrity.com/2009/01/30/complete-list-of-who-is-real-on-twitter/
• http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/29/top-twitters-celebrities-technology-webceleb09_0129_top_twitters.html

I’m finally back and getting into the groove of 2009 after heading to my hometown to spend time with family for Christmas, and then taking off time over New Year’s, as well. It’s good to be back. But before I start looking forward to all the very good things that are coming in 2009, I wanted to take a minute to reflect on 2008. Here are my favorite posts (for a variety of reasons) from the past year.

10 less-than-great personality traits of entrepreneurs (2/25/08)
“Here’s a look at 10 qualities that some entrepreneurs share that may help them be great at starting a company, but not so great at existing in normal society.”

The board meeting & the business plan (1/25/08)
“No matter how solid the plans are in your mind, you’ll find holes when you write things down. This is true in about 99.9% of the cases. I’m sure that there are exceptions; other people like Jack Kerouac who famously wrote On the Road on one long scroll, but in general, things get clearer when they are written down. ”

What Skymall can teach you about user testing (1/23/08)
“Basho the Sumo Wrestler table will go well with any decor, unless you’re sitting behind it.”

What’s going to happen to the music industry? (1/8/08)
“So this puts the music industry in this strange position. The indie artists, who are making some money on their small but loyal audiences and the Long Tail, but often not enough money to live off of, would be psyched to get a record contract because the record companies have the marketing and distribution capabilities that they don’t have access to. The big (and already famous) bands, are trying to get out of their contracts in favor of the freedom that the indie artists enjoy. And the record companies are panicking. This is creating a weird, wild situation where everything is about to totally implode if change doesn’t happen quickly.”

7 ways to raise money for your start-up (2/19/08)
“The good news for anyone who has limited resources when starting a company is that entrepreneurs seem to agree that this can be a good thing. The need to conserve resources often leads to creativity, hard-work, and a drive to succeed that can be missing when money is available and things are easier and more comfortable. So the first piece of advice when you’re thinking about raising money is to make sure that you really need it before going after cash.”

Four hurdles to jump after starting a business (2/13/08)
“When you start a business, you may be trying to hold onto faith that it will be a success, but you don’t really know that it will be. Along with that, you don’t always know where you’re next client will come from. Or employee. Or dollar. So you have to come to a point of accepting the not knowing, embracing the uncertainty. For me, it’s kind of a thrill to be working this all out as I go because I have come to believe that no matter what I face, I’ll figure it out. It might not be today or tomorrow, but eventually, I’ll either determine a way to get around the issue, find someone to help me with it, or overcome it in some way.”

4 reasons media companies are so far behind in social media (3/25/08)
“One issue that the tech publishing companies have is that they are stuck with legacy systems that were created before the term “social media” even existed. While blogs that are newcomers on the scene were built from the ground-up to support social media, the big publishers are struggling to make the smallest changes to their massive publishing systems that will allow them to play in the social media space. These companies have millions of pages of content – all stuck in ancient content management systems that they adopted in the 1990s. This digging out of legacy technology and making the transition to Web 2.0 technologies is not going to happen quickly, easily or at a low cost for these companies.”

5 ways to make sure that skimmers will read your email message (3/13/08)
“The life of a skimmer is treacherous. They go to meetings and get asked a question “about that email that was sent yesterday” and have absolutely no idea how to answer. They never know what time the party is going to start, or who was invited, or what day it is going to be held. Skimming causes problems. But for whatever reason, skimmers can’t stop. They might just think it’s ridiculous that people send long email messages. They might be “all about efficiency” or “impatient” or “don’t care.” The list of reasons is long.”

The rare women tech start-up founder (4/30/08)
“Although it may have been said many times in many ways, I think it’s a mistake to gloss over the issue of having kids…For every start-up founder, I think, balancing a career with the rest of life is something to think about. But as a woman, the issue rarely leaves my mind. It adds urgency, pressure and stress. And I’m sure for some women, this trifecta of bad emotion is enough to keep them from starting that start-up.”

10 reasons entrepreneurs should take more vacations (4/17/08)
“You are getting boring to be around. This is happening to me. I meet with friends for a drink or dinner, and they ask me what’s going on, and pretty much the only thing that I have to tell them about is my business. And to me, it’s really exciting and fun and interesting to talk about my work. But I can tell that their eyes are starting to glaze over at times.”

I like Twitter, but it has a big problem (4/11/08)
“Everyone was writing about Twitter. I knew that I had to figure out how to use it, but I was struggling. I personally knew only one person who used Twitter. My friends (mostly non-techies) and business colleagues (behind in Web 2.0) weren’t using it. So I started “following” people, just in an attempt to see how Twitter worked.”

Stop scheduling meetings on Tuesdays and get to work (5/8/08)
“I might be the last person to know this, but Tuesday is the most productive day of the week. I was alerted to this fact by this blog post, which pointed to some research by Robert Half International. But then when I went to dig in deeper, Tuesday-is-the-most-productive-day-ever was all over the Internet.”

.anydomainnameyouwant soon to be available for purchase (6/27/08)
“I have heard a lot of people making the case that the only domain name that really matters is .com. Although I agree that the .com domain name will stay the strongest for the foreseeable future, this thinking is really short-sighted. Although technology is advancing quickly, the Internet is still in its infancy. It’s hard to predict what will happen in two years, let alone in 20 years. I think that there is a very good chance that other gTLDs will become important. I’ve seen evidence of this in other countries, and honestly, it’s even possible that the gTLD system could eventually go away entirely.”

10 tips for building a killer Facebook app (6/5/08)
“Do the “addiction test.” Can someone use your application once and then never again? Not good. Do they use it once and then feel compelled to immediately use it again? That’s good. Do they want to go back and use it the next day? And the next? That’s even better.”

Patience is a virtue that I just don’t have (but I’m working on it) (8/21/08)
“I have fought a life-long battle with patience. I know that this story is not unique – very few people like to wait. But I’m writing about this now because I have enduring a trial that is requiring patience that I never thought I could muster – the patience needed to start a company.”

Five things your business can learn from Disney (8/13/08)
“Fake it ’til you make it. When Disney introduces a new potential star to its audience, it makes sure that the nobody looks like a somebody from the first moment they are introduced. The singer is usually introduced in a short-clip music video or concert during a commercial break on the Disney Channel. That video shows a huge crowd of adoring, hip, teenage fans screaming and swooning for the “star.” This crowd is made up of paid and wannabe actors, and the music video is usually shot in a studio. But it looks like the singer is a star, and more importantly people believe the singer is a star, even before it is true.”

Five reasons to start delegating more today (9/10/08)
“Believing that you are the only one that can do a task isn’t helpful for you and isn’t helpful for your business. And it’s probably not true. This is the most common protest made by over-achievers and perfectionists who think that they can do the work the best or the fastest or without any help. And this notion is dangerous because trying to run a business completely alone will not work.”

10 ways to stay positive when times are tough (11/4/08)
“I am an optimist, but I’ve been feeling this slump like everyone else. As an entrepreneur, I feel a little bit like I have a split personality, reminding myself of all the reasons that starting a company during a recession is a good idea, internalizing all the reasons that owning a business in a recession is a very difficult prospect. It’s emotionally draining.”

Babel Fish, Google Translate and human go head-to-head (12/5/08)
“To me, it looks like the human with moderate Spanish skills won, hands down. But if you aren’t lucky enough to sit 3 feet away from someone who is willing to indulge your translation needs, I would go with Google Translate. At least in Spanish-to-English translation, with these examples, it had a slight advantage.”

I can’t emphasize this enough – if you are a professional, if you need to market anything, if you know anyone who is on Twitter, if you have a business or work for a company, if you use the Internet, GO AND SIGN UP FOR TWITTER TODAY. Here’s the link: https://twitter.com/signup

Just do it. Stop hesitating. Sign up now.

Twitter takes awhile to understand. So you need to get started today. If you use Facebook, it won’t take you too long to catch on – it’s just like the “Status updates” that you’re used to writing and reading from your friends every day. (By the way, if you’re not on Facebook, SIGN UP NOW!)

More and more companies are using Twitter. Dell just announced that it made $1 million dollars using Twitter. Politicians are using the site. So are celebrities and musicians and sports stars. They are talking about it on Fox Business and my brother and husband both have accounts. Santa can be tracked using Twitter. Twitter is moving from the early-adopter crowd to mass adoption and the earlier you start to use the service and understand it, the better off you’ll be.

When I started using Twitter in October 2007, I wasn’t sure that it would catch on. But adoption is skyrocketing (see the graph below from Compete.com). Even if you don’t like Twitter or use it all the time, it will help you in your work if you understand what the service is and how to use it. The only way to truly understand Twitter is to get an account.

Just compare Twitter’s growth (above) to Facebook’s (below). Facebook has more total unique visitors, but the growth its growth slope is slower. And considering that many people who use Twitter never visit Twitter.com (instead using clients such as TweetDeck to follow the conversation), it’s likely that the chart UNDER-emphasizes Twitter’s growth.

You must be part of the conversation, and to do that, you have to be on Twitter. So join today.

Follow me on Twitter here: http://twitter.com/mchang16

UPDATE: I just saw Robert Scoble’s “thought for the morning” and realize that he’s totally right. Twitter is big, but Facebook is getting massive.

I joined Twitter for the first time in October 2007. My journey using the tool hasn’t always been smooth, as I’ve documented here, here and here. But over time, Twitter has become increasingly useful to me in my business and personal life. Last week, I started using TweetDeck, thanks to a recommendation from @jmeserve, and it has changed my Twitter life.

TweetDeck provides a clean and easy-to-use interface that allows me to read the stream of posts from my followers, as well as to monitor my @replies and direct messages all in one pane. More importantly, TweetDeck also allows me to create sub-groups of followers that I want to monitor differently (or more closely). This was a problem that I originally tried to solve by creating a second Twitter account, but I like TweetDeck’s solution so much better. Perhaps the coolest feature of TweetDeck is the TwitScoop interface, which shows me “what’s buzzing right now” using a tag cloud that highlights the topics that are getting the most buzz on Twitter at any given moment. Today I found out about the Chicago Tribune filing for bankruptcy, the fighter jet crash in San Diego, and the new Blackbird browser all from using this feature.

The best thing about TweetDeck, however, is how quickly it has made me more effective at using Twitter. Just today, I spotted a post from @garyvee in real-time, responded quickly, and got a fantastic plug back that resulted in 100 new followers in about 10 minutes. (See the string of messages, along with a screenshot of the interface below.)

Moral of the story? TweetDeck is a powerful business tool, and I highly recommend it. If you’re not using Twitter yet, get started today here and follow me at @mchang16.

And here’s the screen of TweetDeck – it’s a bit hard to see because the screenshot shrunk when it was posted, but the first column is the full feed of all the people I follow, the second column is my “must reads,” the third column is the TwitScoop and off to the right is my @replies.

The first time that I heard about Google text search I was at my sister-in-law’s parent’s house in Rochester, NY, and we were discussing how you can send a question to Google via text and get a quick response. Just sent a text to 466453 (‘GOOGLE’ on most devices) with a question, and Google will text you back with the answer.

My brother was there for that conversation, and was equally impressed, so when I got the following Twitter message from Matt a couple of weeks back, I was very interested:

Cha Cha bills itself as a mobile search service. To get answers from Cha Cha, text your question to 242242 (spells ‘ChaCha’), and wait.

This sounded a lot like Google, but Matt claimed that it was better than Google, and I had some time on my hands (I was actually sitting at Good Harbor Beach in Gloucester, MA, at the time), so I thought I would do a totally unscientific head-to-head comparison sending random questions to both Google and Cha Cha and seeing what I got back. Here’s what I found:

QUESTION: Who sings It’s a heartache?

REPLIES:
Google: Sorry. Did not return any results.
Cha Cha: Janis Joplin’s version of “It’s a Heartache.”

QUESTION: What’s the water temperature in Gloucester, MA?

REPLIES:
Google: Sorry. Did not return any results.
Cha Cha: These are the only 2 I found for water temperatures in MA. Boston, MA 66.9 degrees F/19.4 degrees C Woods Hole, MA 72.0 degrees F

QUESTION: Who sings I need a hero?

REPLIES:
Google: Sorry. Did not return any results.
Cha Cha: I Need A Hero is sung by Bonnie Tyler.

QUESTION: Weather, Gloucester, MA

REPLIES:
Google: Weather: Gloucester, MA 72F, Clear Wind: W 0 mph Hum: 90%  Sat: 56F-79F, Clear Sun: 65F-79F, Mostly Sunny  Mon: 56F-81F, Chance of storm
Cha Cha: Gloucester, MA 76F, Fair Sat: 57F-77F, Sunny Sun: 66F-80F, Slight Chance Rain Showers

QUESTION: Circumference of the earth

REPLIES:
Google: Sorry. Did not return any results.
Cha Cha: The circumference of the earth at the equator is 24,901.55 mi, but, if you measure through the poles it measures 24,859.82 mi.

QUESTION: Distance to Mars

REPLIES:
Google: Sorry. Did not return any results.
Cha Cha: The average distance to Mars is 48 million miles.

QUESTION: Movie theaters in 01915

REPLIES:
Google: Movies: MA 01915  1. Tropic Thunder 2. Star Wars: The Clone Wars  3. Death Race  4. Mamma mia!  5. Pineapple Express  6. The Longshots  7. The Dark Knight  8. The House Bunny  9. The Rocker Send 1 to 9 for showtimes or NEXT for more movies. <I sent 5> Movies: Pineapple Express 1hr 45min, Rated R Drama 3.5/5 CinemaSalem 2:35  5:00  7:30  9:45 1 East India Square Salem, 01970  978-744-1400  AMC Loews Liberty Tree Mall 20  1:50  4:30  7:40  8:40  10:20  11:25  100 Independence Drive Danvers, MA  01923  978-750-9019
Cha Cha: Cabot Street Cinema on Cabot Street and Larcom Theater on Wallis Street.

QUESTION: How many calories in a donut?

REPLIES:
Google: Sorry. Did not return any results.
Cha Cha: Calories range from 200-300 calories, is there one in specific you want the calories for?

QUESTION: Score Patriots

REPLIES:
Google: NFL *Philadelphia*: 27 New England: 17 Final, Aug 22  Recent game: Aug 17  New England: 10  *Tampa Bay*: 27  Next Game: Aug 28 7:00pm EDT New England at NY Giants
Cha Cha: Aug 22, 2008 Philadelphia VS Patriots lose 17-27. That is not good. They need to pick up their game before the season starts.

QUESTION: Who is the quarterback for the Patriots

REPLIES:
Google: Sorry. Did not return any results.
Cha Cha: Tom Brady is the QB for the Patriots.

In my experiment, the overall winner was definitely Cha Cha. This is how I would break it down:

Cha Cha

Pros: Cha Cha dominated the random facts categories. I was able to get more answers to more types of questions from Cha Cha than from Google.

Cons: Speed – Cha Cha sometimes takes quite awhile to reply – the longest reply actually took 57 minutes. Most answers came in about 5 minutes. Also, the reply to movie theaters in 01915 was not exactly right – the Larcom Theater is no longer a movie theater although it was at one time.

Neither pro nor con: One thing about Cha Cha is that it is real people looking up the answers to your questions. This felt kind of weird to me as I was sitting in my beach chair sending people on information missions, but you might like having people at your disposal to do your bidding. It was also a little odd to get occasional editorial comments with my answers (see the Patriots question, above), but I kind of liked that and thought it was fun. Again, some people might find this annoying.

Google:

Pros: Speed – answers came to me lightning quick. No waiting, or maybe a couple of seconds wait. Google also has the lead in pretty much any question that it answers – if Google has the answer, it’s thorough and complete, and I trust the information. Google also definitely takes the lead in local search.

Cons: Limited types of questions can be answered by Google. There is also a way to send questions to Google that ensures a better answer, this convention can take some getting used to.

Last night, I read the article on TechCrunch about how Obama has overtaken Kevin Rose as the most popular person on Twitter. I hadn’t been following Obama before, so I decided to check out the Obama Twitter feed and I noticed this message:

This is smart online marketing. Holding out a carrot like the VP candidate – an issue that has been debated and talked about so much – is just smart. So, after following Obama on Twitter (“he” reciprocated the follow within minutes), I went to the Web site link that was posted. Again, a stroke of marketing genius. Because even if I am not going to vote for Barack Obama, I really want to be in the group of people who are the first to know who his running mate is going to be. So I gave up my email address. And my phone number. And now Obama’s campaign can continue to market to me from now through November.

(Find me on Twitter @mchang16)

I just posted a new article on The Industry Standard – 10 ways that Twitter could make money quickly. Please go have a read!

I have written quite a bit about Twitter in the past, ranging from the basic (What is Twitter?) to the dubious (I like Twitter, but it has a big problem), to analysis (The multiple personalities of Twitter). This new article takes a look at the company’s business model (more specifically, it’s lack of a business model) and discusses the ways that the company could make money quickly. The bottom line is that Twitter has a quickly growing and dedicated audience, and because of this one fact, I think that the company will ultimately be successful, no matter what business model it chooses.

The other thing that is happening for Twitter – at least for me – is that the most that I use Twitter, the more I like it and want to use it, and the more that I am discovering new ways to make it work for me. Today, I realized that I am spending too much time going to specific individual’s Twitter pages (for example, mine is here), trying to keep up on what they are doing because I am following so many people I can’t be sure to catch all of the people who I really REALLY want to follow. So I opened a second Twitter account that I don’t post to, and I just use to follow the individuals from which I don’t want to miss a single post.

Before you scoff at me because you think that it’s crazy to have one Twitter account, let alone two, take a look at this article. Apparently, I’m not alone.

Follow me on Twitter at @mchang16.