Tag Archives: twitter

Best New Features in Apple IOS 5

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Overview:

There is absolutely no doubt that Apple never fails to make the headlines; this year is no different. Hot on the heels of their predecessors, the Apple iPad 3 and the iPhone 5 are arguably the most awaited devices. While there has not been any proper announcement for the Apple iPhone 5, the word in the media is that Apple’s iPad 3 is expected to release as early as Autumn, 2011.  In the meanwhile, we decided to bring to you the five most significant and best features (out of many) about the Apple’s recently announced operating system whose developer preview had been released immediately after its announcement. It is important to note, though, that the official release of the iOS 5 is only expected until ‘some’ time in fall. Anyway, here is the list of five most significant pointers that we would really want to draw your attention to…

iOS 5 features

1. iOS 5 Notification Center

Despite the virtually no visual changes in its core interface, the iOS 5 enjoys some deserving support from the notification center. The iOS 5 Notifications allow users to access updates absolutely anywhere on the go. Notifications will include things like new incoming text messages, missed calls, calendar update as well as application updates ofcourse (we are assuming you do not know a thing about the word ‘notifications’-kind I know). Without posing even a hint of interruption to the user, the notifications appear in the top half segment of the screen, ever so conveniently and can be viewed with both, the lockscreen and the homescreen on. More noticeable is the pull-down Notification Center-a feature that not only quite closely resembles the Android mechanic; infact, it performs like one too. Not to mention, the widget support in the notification center certainly beefs it up.

Notification Center

2. Newsstand

You may safely say goodbye to the hassle of keeping all your collection of reading material stacked up in your room because your iDevice will do the favour from now on. Yes that is right-organizing your magazine and newspaper application subscriptions, the iOS 5 allows access to your favorite publications with ease and grace all around. With separate room especially made for newspaper and magazine subscriptions on the Apple store, Newsstand automatically becomes a go-to service for amenities such as these (Almost makes me wonder how early inventions like these would put hawkers out of service!). Yes, spot on-almost exactly the same way you have newspaper delivered on your doorstep.

Newsstand

3. iOS 5 Camera

Cameras are a striking feature on mobile devices these days, there is absolutely no denying that. To be honest, that genuinely strengthens the case for the iOS 5 camera that comes with the all new operating system. A great new addition in its own self, the iOS 5 camera allows users to take pictures using the volume buttons, and also a camera button on the lock screen has been provided this time so as to access the camera feature directly without having to dig deep into the UI. Ofcourse, the iOS 5 camera is incomplete without the photo editing features but no worries there as features like crop, rotate, enhance and remove have also been made part. More so, pinch to zoom while taking a picture simply complements the entire scheme of things.

iOS 5 Camera

4. iOS 5 Twitter Support

“It’s such a small world, no?”, “Wow, I got a new follower, see!”, “Guess what, this dude just joined my hash tag and ruined it with his bullc*ap just so that he could get a better clout score, hmph!”..If you haven’t heard or spewed any of this before, it won’t be long before you do. Why? Well, simply because Apple has natively introduced the once rumoured Twitter into its latest operating system, and with a one-click option this time around. It’s a late goodbye to slow and delayed tweets (very much in the Poets of the Fall fashion) now that the new iOS5 has made tweeting easier and quicker on the iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. Once signed in via the Settings menu, users may tweet directly from Safari, Photos, Camera, YouTube, or any application for that mater-meaning thereby no more constant signing in to every new application that is downloaded to the device. Oh, and do not forget to use the ‘add a location to my tweet’ feature if you really care.

iOS 5 Twitter

5. PC Free

Who does not like freedom in this whole wide world (assuming we got the right answer)? The iOS 5 devices are no different, not even by a stretch. Good news is, gone are the days when Apple devices were not a one-time investment as users no longer require a personal computer to operate an Apple handheld (iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch). The devices now enjoy the freedom to be set up independently (of both, PC and wires) as updates can now be downloaded directly on the device itself. In addition, creation of back up and restore feature is only a matter of a few minutes using the iCloud.

PC free iOS 5

 

Here’s how Apple introduced the IOS 5 features:

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Twitter Your Business to Success

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Twitter is one of the fastest growing microblogging sites on the internet. It is a great place for people to share ideas in real time, to engage with others or to pick up fights with random people. Twitter is also a great tool for businesses to grow and improve their quality of services. A lot of companies use twitter to promote their services and have been quite successful at it. However not everyone gets Twitter and do not maximize its all full potential. The following are tips on how a business can reshape itself on Twitter.

 

Redefine your purpose and what you want to achieve

Every business needs to define why it wants to be on Twitter. No one is on twitter without any reason. Does the business want to reach out to its customers? Does it want to share special discounts and deals with its twitter audience?  The only reason why Twitter works well is because it allows for real time interaction with people. Simply sharing a link on twitter is not enough as it will only draw people to your website. It would help to talk about other stuff such as the weather, sports, share a quote or enter a conversation with people just to show that you are human. However this does not mean that you talk about your personal life, share secrets; discuss your political views or anything offensive. The point is to simply just connect with your followers.Get the Right Team of Tweeters

 

Get the Right Team of Tweeters

In order to have a good presence on twitter it is important to have a dedicated team of employees running it for you. A good idea would be to get someone who is really knowledgeable and knows everything within his domain as well as basic general knowledge. It is important for them to be able to address customer queries or comments and to be able to handle them with tact.

The worst part about twitter is that if a user does not reply to any tweets he/she will end up losing his followers.  It is important to engage with customers so that one does not alienate them or lose them. a number of businesses have ended up losing followers and goodwill because they did not engage with followers.  It is really important for the tweeting employees to know that their audience truly depends on them. A company can’t afford to have a PR disaster on its hands as it would seriously dent its image. If a business can come up with simple guidelines then it can save employees from making precious mistakes.

Be Yourself

Businesses always tweet using their own twitter handle though there can be people who can tweet on behalf of the business (if they are well known names). People usually want to know who is at the other end so that they don’t feel like they are talking to a computer. Usually some businesses list the names of employees managing the account while some skip that part altogether.  It doesn’t hurt to let people know the name of the employee tweeting. One doesn’t have to write the full name as it’s quite appropriate to use initials.

If you follow the right people you will be on the right track

In order to make a great impression on twitter it is important to be followed by interesting people who will lend more value to you. It does not make sense following everyone as it would only end up cluttering the timeline. It is perfectly ok to block trolls, people with offensive Display pictures and removing all spammers from your timeline.  Connecting with the right influential people will also help gain more followers during the long term.  Overall this strategy brings in great dividends as it will organically help you gain more followers and connect with them easily.

Mind Your Language

It is really important to remember that everything on Twitter is in real time and that it doesn’t take long for bad news to spread super fast. This is one reason why it is important to watch your language and to make sure that no one gets offended. The key is to be you without saying anything offensive and sticking to a business appropriate tone.  This is the best way of avoiding conflict and alienating followers.

These are just some of the ways a  Business can run its twitter account. In what ways are you using Twitter for your business? How has it helped you? We would love to hear about it in the comments below.

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Twitter Archives …and you thought nobody cared about your tweets!

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Everybody Loves Raymond Twitter! Ain’t that a fact. Twitter has so many unique applications that there is no doubt, Twitter is mainstream and here to stay. One unique set of application that has really piqued my interest are the Tweets that have been archived. Twitter archive as it is called, with 50 million or so Tweets per day, it is interesting to note, businesses will find it a niche to archive all these tweets.

Why would you want to archive tweets? I honestly cannot answer. Rummaging through social trends, Lawyers in search of libel, celebrities leaving their digital watermark – maybe.  The more likely reasons are, you may have many followers or your timeline scrolls quickly and you may have missed something, or wanted to recall a tweet that had some information on it – from six months back, this is why archives are great. Everyone now and then needs to go a bit back and check.

Here are some very unique twitter archives that can help you navigate, search and sift through the billions of tweets.

Twitter Search

The very basic twitter search is umm well in twitter. It’s nothing. It’s just a search box in twitter that will allow you to search what’s happening in twitter – simple and easy to use.

Twitter Search

SnapBird

Twitter imposes a maximum of ten calendar days limit of how far back in time you can search. If you want to go back further, give SnapBird a shot. Very easy to use, it does not required to login with your twitter credentials (although you can with those as well). It will rummage through the tweets and post the results back.

SnapBird Home PageSnapBird Home Page
 SnapBird SearchSearching for "webscopia" in SnapBird
Result Page for "Webscopia" in SnapBirdResult Page for "Webscopia in SnapBird searching for the word "tech"

Twistory

Twistory is another twitter archive. It does however require that you first authenticate yourself with your twitter login before it can allow you to start rummaging through the archives.

 Twistory Home Page

TweetScan

TweetScan allows you to query the Twitter archives, in addition the TweetScan Backup will allow you to take a backup of your last 1000 messages which can be downloaded in TiddlyWiki format

TweetScan Home PageTweetScan Home Page
TweetScan Backup PageTweetScan Backup Page

The Archivist

The Archivist is a Windows application that allows you archive your tweets and then at any point in time be able to mine through that data with fantastic visual results. The Windows client is for Windows 7, Vista, or XP – .Net 3.5 (included in install), and if you don’t want to download, you can try their web version called Archivist Web.

The Archivist Windows ClientThe Archivist Windows Client
The Archivist Web VersionThe Archivist Web Version

Other archive based twitter apps/products you might want to check out are:  Twapper Keeper, which has a very large repository of archives #hashtags. Celebrity Tweet Archive keeps an archive of tweets done by celebrities (as listed on their website). On a lighter note, if you enjoy history and tweets, here is a very unique website that puts competition on Tweets based on Historical figures, aptly called: Historical Tweets.

HistoricalTweetsHistorical Tweets Example

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Social Web Browsers: Flock & RockMelt Review

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Social Web Browsers

“Another new browser?” you say, yes! With the browser market predominantly divided between Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera and Safari, is there really space for a new web browser? The answer is a definitive Yes! Not just any browser, but the new age browsers being rolled out are being coined as “Social Web Browsers“.

As if the name was not a dead giveaway, these new social browsers are all about making you get the best of your social networking experience integrated directly onto the browser.

So, browsing, searching, sharing, interacting, communicating, etc. is native and in one application. Apps like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Digg, Gmail, Blog, RSS Feeds, etc. are all present within the browser itself.

The two main social web browsers worth looking into are: Flock and RockMelt.

Social media networks like Twitter and Facebook, stream a lot of data, and a typical web-tab environment is not the best of place for it. Because of the higher refresh required, it makes it a complete nuisance to have such streams loaded in a web-tab and constant refreshing. Hence, the social web browsers have been designed to have client-type apps built directly into the default browser.

It can be said with a lot of certainty that social web browsers are like the Swiss Army knife of the online world. They combine the best of the web, search, sharing, social media and audio/video into one app.

Flock

Flock was the early entrant in this market. Originally it was built using the Mozilla open source code on which Firefox runs, but today, Flock is powered by the Chromium engine (developed by Google). Chromium is the same engine that powers Google’s Chrome browser. Making Flock HTML 5 compliant, fast and secure (the same can be said of RockMelt)

Once downloaded and installed, Flock will make you connect to all your social networks. It does this by using a concept called a master account. The master account has all the child accounts that contain the log-in credentials of each of your social network sites. When you fire up Flock, it will automatically connect all your accounts and show them on one seamless window.

As with any browser, you can import all your bookmarks, favorites and other related information.

Here is an intro video for Flock

New Flock from Flockstar on Vimeo.

Here are some screenshots for Flock

Flock supports the following OS:  Windows, Mac and Linux.

Language Support: Windows: 31 languages, Mac: 17 languages, Linux: 17 languages.

RockMelt

RockMelt is the new kid on the block. Let me tell you upfront, I’m sold!

RockMelt is also based on the Chromium engine, which means it is fast. Really fast. Currently, the only way to get RockMelt is via Facebook. You will need to visit RockMelt’s website and connect using your Facebook credentials, to get an invite. The invite usually comes within 24-48 hours directly into your Facebook Messages.

Caution: Since RockMelt is activated via Facebook, you pretty much have to give RockMelt access to all your Facebook control. This is worrisome for many who just want to try the browser out. I did research the Internet before, to be 100% sure, that I am not going to allow some rogue organization / application to have access and control of my Facebook account. If Facebook privacy is a concern, then I would recommend that you do not download and activate it.

The left and right rails or “Edges” as they are being referred to, currently support only Twitter and Facebook, but I am sure as the browser gets more stable and mature, more social networks will be added on to it.

RockMelt is in Beta trials. So if you are having specific issues, be patient. It offers almost all the features that Flock does, but lays it out in a much more cleaner and user friendly manner.  Flock which uses one ‘side’ strip to constantly update, RockMelt uses the left and right rails of your browser to ever present you with information by simply moving your mouse over there.

The search and sharing is a breeze. It’s almost intuitive browsing and socializing at the same time. Very niche. Very much appreciated. However, RockMelt is not without problems. My Twitter feeds seems to get ‘stuck’ and my Facebook updates disappeared, until I restarted the browser. There are growing pains and the unprecedented response the browser got, a fact that is reflected in the blog entry of RockMelt here. So be patient, and the kinks in the system will be straightened.

Here is an intro video for RockMelt

Here are some screenshots for RockMelt

RockMelt supports Windows and Mac (I did not get a chance to see if Linux was supported or not), their site is void of such information right now.

If you check your Facebook more than 10 times a day and ditto with Twitter, RockMelt is definitely a browser for you. For social network addicts like myself, I would have preferred more networks, but am quite content with the current setup.

Keep an eye out for these browsers, with more than 2 billion people using the Internet, that gives it a market space of about 500+ million users in which a sizeable percentage is always looking to shift to social web browsers like Flock or RockMelt.

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Everyone Loves to Poll on Twitter

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Polling has never been easier. Everyone likes to organize polls for different reasons like find out which is the most popular song among their friends or get a vote on the latest political news. Recently, a bunch of twitter users held elections for the first Twitter parliament and they used…wait for it…yes! Twitter!

What could be easier for getting votes from your friends and followers than an application that works within twitter?  Here are some useful applications developed by third parties that can be used for getting feedback from your friends.

  • TwtPoll: Perhaps one of the most popular applications that is used by thousands of users everyday. You can check out some of the polls other people have created through the Find Polls link or create your own poll and invite friends to vote.

  • Poll Daddy: Another popular twitter application for creating polls. Although not much different from Twtpoll, it is still less popular.

  • Polls: Similar to the first two mentioned above. Presumably, it all just comes down to which name you like for a poll website that helps people decide which application to use.

  • Poll Your Followers: This simple application allows you to create a poll, tweet it to your followers and put the poll up on your profile so all your followers can see it.

So, create polls, surveys or use these in any way you like and have fun with that twitter account.

Fun Twitter Apps- Five for When You’re Bored

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Bored on twitter? Is your timeline making you yawn? Well, here are five fun twitter apps for all those times when you’re bored on twitter.

  • Super Twario: This is a twitter based game that allows you to tweet, reply, mention your twitter friends while making scores. You make points for every action like tweeting, mentioning, replying etc. Based on the concept of the Super Mario game, Twario is a little bunny who hops around as you tilt and tap your screen to jump onto tweets. Twario is available at the Apple Store for iPhone users.

  • Twitter Vision: The website lets you watch real-time location updates from twitter users from all over the world. So, the next time you find you have nothing to do, go to the site and see what people are doing and where.

  • Twalue: Are you curious about the value of your twitter account? Twalue runs on an algorithm that calculates your twitter value based on tweets, mentions, followers etc.

  • Twitter Tussle: Find out which word is being tweeted the most against another word. The application uses a cute animation of two little birds fighting it out to decide which word wins. The recent hot tussle on the site is Facebook Vs Twitter. You can use this application for fun as well as business.

  • Show Tribe: If you are a television show buff, Show Tribe lets you check up on what other people are saying about your favorite show. Just find your show and join the discussion.

Manage a Tweetup with Tweetvite

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Tweetups, in twitter lingo, are meetings with twitter friends and/or followers. They can be organized for different reasons like meeting friends in the same city or getting together to discuss an idea with like-minded twitterers. Tweetups can even be used to promote your business and get feedback from your followers. Twtvite or Tweetvite makes organising these meetings more manageable and interesting.

A project of 63 Squares, this twitter invite application is a complete event manager. It allows you to create and schedule your tweetup, import events planned in other management tools, and invite people to your meeting. You can also make groups of your twitter friends or followers according to categories specified by you and make them private or public.

A tweetup can be a great way to meet twitter friends and followers to deepen online relationships. Twtvite makes this whole process a lot simpler.

Twitter Tips & Tricks: Background

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Ever checked out someone’s profile and wondered who the heck did they manage to make a collage of all their followers display pictures into a background image? Seems like a whole lot of work on Photoshop doesn’t it?

Well, don’t be fooled. You guessed it, there is a Twitter app just to do this.

Enter: Twilk – As the app says “…put your Twitter followers on your background”

Setting it up is extremely easy. Simply sign-in with your Twitter account, and that’s just about it. It will fetch a list of all your followers, make a collage. The folks you interact with most are featured more prominently. The website has a very short, brief and self-explanatory FAQ on the main page itself.

Worth checking it out.