Twitterforum.com

Our new and improved site is now live so we will be updating there from now on.

The New Unofficial Twitter Community and Forums is at
http://www.twittown.com

The new main rss feed is at http://feeds.feedburner.com/twittown

Thanks and sorry for the inconvenience whilst moving. We hope you enjoy the new site!!!

Twitterforum.com has evolved quickly over the last couple of months and it was time to upgrade the infrastructure to meet the needs of the community better. Development is almost complete on the first phase of the website and community platform for phase 1. New stuff includes:

- We are changing our name and address. The new name of the community will be TwitTown.
- The infrastructure is now in place for the community to grow and interact better
- Comments are now possible on the blog
- Forum and blog posts are going to be available throughout the site
- See who is online
- Single sign on between the forum and the rest of the site / community
- Other features are coming

The site will be transitioned over to the new infrastructure over the next 24 hrs so please excuse the construction if everything doesn't look right.

The new address for the site will be http://www.twittown.com please update your bookmarks. We will have the new permanent RSS feed address for you tomorrow. In the meantime, we be posting on both sites and we should be fully over to the new address by first thing Friday AM EST.

Today we are happy to announce that we have a new logo and new name for the Unofficial Twitter Community and Forums. We will now be called Twit Town. The logo is below and we will have more news soon on the new website.

This is hot off the presses and now Twittervision is allowing you to connect into their app via a new API. From their twittervision API website:

"Yes, it's time. We wanted to publish easy ways for people to work with the location-based information available through Twittervision and Twittermap. This is a start. There is more coming."

It looks like you can get the location and status of a user so far. We will see how the API and Twittervision develops and what they have up their sleeve next. It is just a guess but I assume that they (twittervision) must be getting hit with a ton of traffic these days..

We know, we are working on it. Soon we will be able to get more of a community feel and discussion in the whole website. Comments on blogs, more collaborative stuff, tag clouds, top postings, categories etc. They are all coming very soon.. We promise!

The guys over at loud thinking post about a conversation that they had with some of the Twitter developers and the issues around scaling and using Ruby on Rails... Interesting for sure (if you are interested in Ruby or software development).

Interesting to note that at one point along the way, (can't be determined when from the post), they were getting 11,000 requests per second on 16 CPU cores with no caching. I wonder what it is now??

Looks like some intermittent problems on the twitter website today. When trying to view my or other profiles we got a bunch of code / text instead of a web page. After a few minutes our profile came back but others were still all text. Not a big problem though, Twitteriffic is running like clockwork with 2 way communication...

Probably just some small growing pains over at Twitter..

Have you ever wondered what people are twittering on about on Twitter? Well now you can find out with Twitterment. Twitterment is a mashup using Twitter, JfreeChart (graphs) and Lucene (Search) open source libraries to be able to search and analyze what terms people are twittering about. It is really cool actually and seems to work great. It was a little slow when we tried it but maybe it was just under load at the time.


There is also a compare function where you can compare the stats for two terms.

Twitterment is hosted on UMBC (University of Maryland Baltimore County) and we assume it is a school project of some sort. The credits lead back to two PHD students and Professor Tim Finin. Tim Finin is a Professor in the Computer Science and Electrical Engineering Department at UMBC, the University of Maryland Baltimore County. Finin is a member of the UMBC ebiquity group where he is working on projects involving intelligent agents, the semantic web, pervasive computing , and mobile computing.

There is also a stats page that says that 368,103 posts have been indexed, there is an average of 16,500 tweets / hr and a summary of the number of tweets per day (90,000 on mondays!).






We are not sure when the data collection started or how long it will be retained but this will be a cool project to watch.

Below are some screenshots for a search for the term iphone. As you will see, Google maps is also integrated in the results so you can see where your searched terms are in the world..

The forums are back online with new and improved software. Sorry for any inconvenience caused by the upgrade downtime.

The Unofficial Twitter Community and Forums

The forums section of the site is down for an upgrade but the forge and blog remain live. Thank you for your patience.

For now a picture says a thousand words. Hint. Traffic is by far, NOT the only measure for the usefulness and application of twitter nor for predicting its future...

It has been a fast and furious past weeks with Twitter and we have seen developers and companies around the world frantically coding and sending apps out to market. Twitter apps are flying out of the woodwork it seems. We have over 50 listed already and think that it will keep growing once people start catching on to the value of being involved in the microblogging sensation.

We are going to be ready for the rush and plan to provide and facilitate a community to support and encourage your fellow twitters, developers, companies alike.

We have our new logo completed (secret for now!) and the new web and forum infrastructure is coming along nicely.

In the mean time, come and check out the Forge and you will find the Twitter app you are looking for. We will be expanding the list as well as the info about each as we go along.

If Obama is slow to the mark in getting on Twitter or if he will not use it at all remains to be seen. The John Edwards campaign however is not afraid of new technology nor ignorant of the power of social networks. John is on Twitter answering the Twitter question of "What are you doing?"... Well it looks like his staff are on it anyway.

The last update was 5 days ago which says (from staff): Sen. Edwards is in Chapel Hill with his family.

Anyway, John is with the times and smart to update his electorate this way. He already has 2000+ friends and almost 2000 followers.

His profile can be seen here http://twitter.com/johnedwards

In other (ex) presidential + Twitter news, it looks like someone has nabbed Bill Clinton's name and are writing a fake Twitter blog in his guise. http://twitter.com/billclinton

It is interesting to watch which presidential candidates are realizing (and utilizing) the power of new media, the internet and social networking. We found a Twitter account called Obama. Is this real Obama about to start to use Twitter as part of his campaign communications? Or is it a fake account?

The guys at 30 Boxes have just released a second Twitter application. It is called Power Twitter (v 0.83) and it is a plugin for the Firefox browser that "greatly enhances" Twitter. We haven't tried it yet but here are the features from their website:

* Photo sharing with embedded flickr photos
* Video sharing with embedded youtube videos
* Shared tinyurls are unwound so you know where they link to
* All links are mapped to their web page titles
* Additional user information is mapped to twitter users thanks to data conduits via 30 Boxes (e.g. flickr accounts, blog posts, del.icio.us links, and tons of other social media!)

The first app that came out of the 30 Boxes shop was Twapper

"Apollo is the code name for a cross-operating system runtime being developed by Adobe that allows developers to leverage their existing web development skills (Flash, Flex, HTML, JavaScript, Ajax) to build and deploy rich Internet applications (RIAs) to the desktop."

Here is the first Twitter + Apollo application. We haven't tried it but will let you know soon how it works out.

Mike Sansone blogs about a great idea of using twitter plugs on a web page for a team to keep in contact. You could see what everyone is saying from any device they are on, anywhere they are. Team meeting, project collaboration and many more uses. Handy! Here is the general idea...




Feel like attending a meeting while fishing or golfing anyone? :)

Now you can find out with Twitterverse. Ideacodes Labs has come out with their first project which is a "visualization layer" (think tag / key word cloud for Twitter).

We had a look at the page and the keywords are larger for more popular and smaller for less popular, as in a normal tag cloud. Also the keywords are separated alphabetically by paragraph for your viewing convenience.

This is the first version and the developers have a list of new features that they are looking to implement.

This is going to be a good one to watch. Good luck guys!


You can also follow their Twitterverse blog here

For all you users of customized home pages that want to Twitter.. Now you can if you use YourMinis or Netvibes. It seems that these are the first two available and it remains to be seen if Google customized homepage, Yahoo and others will also join the Twitter ranks. Or maybe WHEN is a better question!

Yahoo is the runaway leader in custom home pages but the up-starts are innovating quickly. Maybe they can take away some market share??

In the meantime, here are the links to add Twitter to YourMinis and Netvibes.

YourMinis Twitter widget

Netvibes Twitter module

This looks like the best twitter map application we have seen so far. You can see the public timeline and where the twitters are coming from. It is made by Fresh Logic using geoRSS and Microsoft Virtual Earth

Twitter Atlas here..

Twitter Atlas screenshots below

Review of Twitterific 2.0 - Twitter Client for Mac OS X

We were looking for a better way to update via Twitter and thought we would try out the new release of Twitterific version 2.0. From when we first installed it we noticed the effort they put into the classy interface design and it felt right at home along with our other mac applications.

Install and setup was easy and all we had to do was enter our Twitter account information and it instantly hooked up and got our "tweets".






Preferences

The preferences screen is as expected and lets you change some settings in Twitterific. You can decide to view your friends list or the public page, the frequency of tweets refresh, set notifications (visual and sound), window preferences an set a hot key to toggle the window. Screenshot below.




The Main Window

The Main Twitterific window is super easy to use and you can see your own tweets as well as your friend's. On each tweet dialouge there are three small icons that let you 1. goto that user's twitter page on twitter.com. 2. goto that user's personal webpage and 3. you can mark that tweet as a favorite. Below the tweets is an area for you to update directly to your account at Twitter. It counts down the number of characters you have left (messages are 140 characters max). A cool feature is that if you enter a long URL, it gets turned into a short url automatically. On the left of the text entry box there are a couple of buttons, home icon goes to the Twitter website, there is a wrench icon that opens the preferences and there is a refresh button. Another cool thing is that the Mac OS X spell check works inside of Twitterific (as you can see in the screenshot below). If you mis-spell a word just right click it and select the correct spelling as usual.




Stability

Overall Twitterific was very stable and has not crashed in the last 3 days that we have been using it. There has been periodic loss of connection but we are not sure if that is due to the Twitter service, Twitterific or our Internet connection.


Conclusion

We are happy with Twitterific and will keep using it as our Mac OS X client. The only other thing we wish it had is the ability to see your list of friends and favorites like on the twitter web page. Another bonus would be the ability to link XML and RSS feeds to your Twitter account directly from Twitterific. Other than that, congrats on a nice clean and simple to use app from the Icon Factory. We look forward to future releases. Twitterific!


Here is a list of Twitterific 2.0 features from their website:

* Clean, concise UI with small desktop footprint
* Auto refreshing at user defined intervals
* Highlights tweets that are unread
* Auto show / hide when new tweets arrive
* Control over window layering and priority
* Single click access to user profile pages
* Switch between friend and public tweets easily
* Keyboard shortcuts for list navigation and more
* Menubar app that doesn't take up Dock space
* Audio notification for new tweets
* Hotkey to show / hide tweets

Chief of the TWiT podcast network moves over to the Jaiku service due to confusion of TWiT and Twitter names. From his blog:

"The problem is the name. I wish to heck he’d named it Tweeter, or Tooter, or anything but Twitter. Twitter is so close to TWiT that I’m afraid it’s really confusing. And it hasn’t helped the confusion that I’ve been such a fan of Twitter. I’m sure half the people there think we have some sort of relationship. But we don’t. And the proliferation of programs like Twitbox and sites like Twit This are not helping things much. So let me repeat…

Twitter has nothing to do with TWiT.

And, I’m afraid, I can’t have anything to do with Twitter, either. It’s just fueling the confusion. Fortunately, there are several similar services including Groovr, Dodgeball, and Jaiku. After a cursory glance at all three Jaiku seems to have the best mix of features for me (I’m too old to be groovy, or hooking up) so I’m moving to Jaiku. My handle is ChiefTWiT. Hope to see some of you there."

We will wait and see if there are any further differences between them on trademark claims.

Here is an interesting article with Jaiku co-founder Jyri Engestrom.

http://www.606tech.com/fullarticle.php?artid=492

It looks like this one is in early stages of development (they all are really though aren't they!). Anyway, there are five Windows Twitter clients to choose from in the forge now. This one is called triQQr. Strange name. Their website says it is a Twitter submitter tool for windows. They also have a blog here.

Looks like they are from Germany but the site has English too :)

For those who run Linux, you can now Twitter.. Here is the Linux client called gtwitter

Wow, Twitter is growing fast. We now have over 30 apps listed in the Twitter Forge. Come check it out and surely there is a twitter app for you!

If you know of any new Twitter apps or services, let us know in the forums.

(yes we are working on getting comments enabled in the blog. It is in the works!)

We posted earlier about Tiny Twitter which is a small Java app for twittering. We now have a link for you to download the app "over the air" right onto your phone.

Browse to m.ttwt.at on your Java J2Me enabled phone.

Man the developers are quick to get Twitter clients out there. Now we can Twitter on our Blackberry's (or is it Blackberries?) with Twitterberry. Anyway, this is the app for you if you have one.

You will need Blackberry OS 4.1 and one of the following devices:

BlackBerry 7100t
BlackBerry 7100c
BlackBerry 7130
BlackBerry 7290
BlackBerry 7510
BlackBerry 7520
BlackBerry 8100 (Pearl)
BlackBerry 8700
BlackBerry 8707v

BlackBerry 8800

Happy Crackberry + Twittering!!

A shoot off of twittervision called twitter earth has been revealed by Genexis consulting. Looks like a pretty cool idea but will need some more features. Maybe it is just for fun.. who knows with so many mashups being launched right now. Have fun

Twitter Earth

Dave Winer, "the Godfather of RSS) has two very good posts up (see below for links) in the last few days about Twitter. The first, called an imbalance of Twitter and how in the beginning your friends had to be "approved" to be friends. Now "friends" can just join your twitter blog and watch what you are doing, scary for some but to others it is just all part of the bigger communications picture. Face to face, voice, blogs, feeds, email, sms and now Twitter. This is what our social systems are made of now and also much has yet to be defined says Winer. I agree, we are changing the way we interact with other people very rapidly and we don't know what is around the corner.

An imbalance with Twitter and The theory of Twitter both by Dave Winer

This one will be handy as there are so many Drupal sites out there. If you are running a Drupal blog, you can now Twitter from Drupal.

Project page and module is here..

http://drupal.org/project/twitter

We have created a section on the forum to see videos about twitter around the Internet.. post any good ones you find here.

http://twitterforum.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=27

Many of you may already know this but if you don't... WTF alerts from Technorati are on Twitter. Just look here http://twitter.com/technorati

Scrivs over at 9rules wrote an article about stupid but yet powerful Twitter can be depending on its use. Very interesting article entitled Twitter is Dumb but I'm Dumber.

There have been many comments around the net revolving around "Why do I care if someone is cooking dinner, washing underwear (or whatever)? Twitter is stupid" Scrivs touches on how twitter is another level communication that allows us to move beyond the weather and small talk. No it isn't perfect yet but it has spurred millions to think about new possibilities for communication, delivery of services, advertising and content delivery.

While it's use in its current form (current twitter service) is indeed limited, it is cool to see that many people are thinking about the new possibilities and how that may change (and help) the lives of people in the future.

It is really about sorting through all the information and communications that cross our desks, devices and minds.

It will be particularly interesting to see if ONLY the relevant info / content can be delivered to the right person on the right device at the right time.. for everyone. That is a pretty tall order and twitter may not make it happen... but maybe they can make it one step closer to reality.

The news about Twitterati went out on April 1st and caused a little bit of a stir. A fun story here

Yes, yes we know that the site is a bit rough around the edges at the moment. We are working putting in a new infrastructure so the site is more "social" and community focused. More details coming soon, we are on it!

"Love twitter and love tweeting from your mobile device? But don't want to get dinged for updates and double dinged for friend updates continually arriving via SMS?"

Tiny Twitter

This is a fun one. See all the links and URLs that people are putting in their Twitters. It is updated constantly. You tube replacement? Maybe not but fun none-the-less!

Twitterbuzz

If you are religious or just want to get something off your chest you can now confess on Twitter! Go to this website and make your confession and your anonymous sins will appear on twitter.com/confession

If you are into hacking twitter and then this article by Mark Woodman and Mark Lozano may be of interest..

"Twitterlicious is a Windows application that makes using Twitter easier. It takes heavy inspiration from Twitterrific for OS X, but now in a Windows client!”

Twitter 0.1.0 is built on Ruby on Rails and is a command line interface and wrapper for Twitter. Just released.

Check it out on the RubyForge or their webpage here.

Another Mac OS X Twitter app added to the Twitter Forge..

"Twitteromatic will post the following useless information (from your mac) as a Twitter "tweet" with the push of a button: weather (U.S. only, sorry), secret word of the day, current uptime, Firefox and Safari current URL, lotto numbers, currently playing iTunes track, and "On This Day In History."

Here is a service that you can use to Twitter from your email.

Email Twitter

The Twitter Forge is going to evolve over time but we are going to start with listing all of the Twitter 3rd party apps and websites that we know so everyone can find them in one easy to use location.

If you know of any that we have missing post them in the forum here and we will add them to the forge list.

We are going to start with a simple list and see what further needs are as we go along.

The guys at 30 Boxes (online calendaring) have released Twapper 2.0b which allows you to integrate you 30 boxes and Twitter accounts.

More info in this blog entry on their site.

More mainstream news mags getting on board with Twitter..now Newsweek is twittering!

Article here.

http://www.parislemon.com/2007/04/newsweek-jumping-on-twitter-wagon.html

The list of 3rd party apps and services for Twitter are growing in the forum. Check them out, almost 20 there now.

http://www.twitterforum.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=11

Anyone that knows of any more feel free to post them!!

There is an article up on how to integrate Twitter with your home automation system...

http://twitterforum.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=17

Two articles and a video here...

http://twitterforum.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=13#13

It looks like companies are getting on board with Twitter, registering their names and getting feeds out to the public.

we have heard to check out the following Twitter names: cnn, cnnbrk, bbcnews, bbc, nytimes .

if anyone knows any more companies that have interesting feeds let us know..

post them here...

http://twitterforum.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=6