Twitter Spinoffs – My Tweeting Two Cents

This post comes after observing how my favorite weblog, TechCrunch, has been lately hijacked by ‘Twitter-related’

posts.

In fact, I performed a search to find how many times the word ‘Tweet’ was used on the TechCrunch landing page and

it came out to be 28! I guess I wouldn’t be surprised to see if they decide to cover Twitter separately altogether

in an offshoot called TweetCrunch . In any case, the viral commotion surrounding Twitter has prompted me to

finally shed my indifference towards it and give it a go.

So, yes, I’ve started…twittering. And since I’m not used to it yet, I’m forced to fabricate contrived messages

currently. I guess i’m so used to writing verbose blogs that typing just 140 characters sort of puts a cap on my

bubbling expression engine.

Twitter, to me, is simply the Facebook share widget along with a whole dictionary of Tweet terms and other bells

and whistles. In fact, another instance of the Twitter essence can be experienced at cricinfo’s live ball-by-ball

coverage where you get frequent status updates on what’s happening in the game. But even though the concept may

not be outright novel, the Twitter folks have certainly nailed it.  Its easy to understand why its causing a craze

across the planet- its quick, to-the-point and effective. You don’t need to invest the time to read/write blog

posts and at the same time you can be more expressive than you can ever be with status/mood msgs on IM apps. What

matters is it works. Although the fad still hasn’t fully blazed across Pakistan as yet, but as Younis Khan said

‘we’re slow starters’. Its only a matter of time before the Twitter infection spreads like wild fire in the Land

of the Pure as well.

Anyways, I don’t intend to ramble on and do a full review on Twitter because its already been done and overdone.

Inspired from the multitude of spin off applications that Twitter has been able to generate, I, too wish to catch

a small ride on the bandwagon by offering my own ideas. But coming up with a unique twitter variation and naming

it is HARD. After a prolific Googling session, it almost seems that every possible combination with the word

‘Twitter’, ‘Tweet’ and ‘Twit’ has been used up which makes me think that I might be putting down ideas already out

there. If you think so, please do leave a comment on where I could find the apps. And also feel free to add to the

Twitter wishlist:

List of what I’d like to see:

1. Tweeviewz

Classified websites like e-Bay could have an option on the detail page of a product to tune into a Twitter

stream related to the product and allow users to see what people are saying in relation to it. I’ve always felt

that comments and reviews that are submitted to web sites usually have some bias attached to it. However, you’re

bound to get more accurate views in a natural setting like Twitter.

2. TweetStory

This is a concept inspired from Ficly. It basically revolves around the idea of collaborative story making

where writers can tweet one line of a story at a time and a controller bot stiches the pieces together for

spectators to read and enjoy in real time.

3. TweetDumps/TweekNotes

Surveys are just one way of getting feedback about a particular product that your firm has released. To do more

effective post-mortems of campaigns and to get ideas for improving your product line, I believe analyzing a huge

collection of Tweets with your Product name can give you some cool ideas. Of course, with the sheer volume of

tweets, a lot of sifting and filtering will have to be performed.

4. Twickr

Since there a lot of pictures uploaded surrounding a particular topic, it would be nice to have an app

aggregate and tag pictures from public streams, for others to tap into and use as an alternative to Google Images.

5. TweetSCRUMs

As a developer, I know that project managers are always hungry for little status updates on what the devs are

upto, what kind of exceptions QAs are getting, when & what files are committed to the SVN etc. So if there was a

way to integrate your dev environment with Twitter and have all major actions Tweeted (especially if the PM is

remote) he might have a better chance of staying well-informed with how his/her crew are faring.

Let me know what you guys think and feel free to throw me a comment. Thanks !

This post comes after observing how my favorite weblog, TechCrunch, has been lately hijacked by ‘Twitter-related’ posts.

In fact, I performed a search to find how many times the word ‘Tweet’ was used on the TechCrunch landing page and it came out to be 28! I guess I wouldn’t be surprised to see if they decide to cover Twitter separately altogether in an offshoot called TweetCrunch . In any case, the viral commotion surrounding Twitter has prompted me to finally shed my indifference towards it and give it a go.

Twitter Mania has gripped the world

So, yes, I’ve started…twittering. And since I’m not used to it yet, I’m forced to fabricate contrived messages currently. I guess i’m so used to writing verbose blogs that typing just 140 characters sort of puts a cap on my bubbling expression engine.

Twitter, to me, is simply the Facebook share panel along with a whole dictionary of ‘Tweet’ish terms and other bells and whistles. In fact, another instance of the Twitter essence can be experienced at cricinfo’s live ball-by-ball coverage where you get frequent status updates on what’s happening in the game. But even though the concept may not be outright novel, the Twitter folks have certainly nailed it.  Its easy to understand why its causing a craze across the planet- its quick, to-the-point and effective. You don’t need to invest the time to read/write blog posts and at the same time you can be more expressive than you can ever be with status/mood msgs on IM apps. What matters is it works. Although the fad still hasn’t fully blazed across Pakistan as yet, but as Younis Khan said ’we’re slow starters’. Its only a matter of time before the Twitter infection spreads like wild fire in the Land of the Pure as well.

Anyways, I don’t intend to ramble on and do a full review on Twitter because its already been done and overdone. Inspired from the multitude of spin off applications that Twitter has been able to generate, I, too wish to catch a short ride on the bandwagon by offering my own ideas. But coming up with a unique twitter variation and naming it is HARD. After a prolific Googling session, it almost seems that every possible combination with the word ‘Twitter’, ‘Tweet’ and ‘Twit’ has been used up which makes me think that I might be putting down ideas here already out ‘there’. If you think so, please do leave a comment with info on where I could find the apps. And also feel free to add to the Twitter wishlist:

List of what I’d like to see:

1. Tweeviewz

Classified websites like e-Bay could have an option on the detail page of a product to tune into a Twitter stream related to the product and allow users to see what people are saying in relation to it. I’ve always felt that comments and reviews that are submitted to web sites usually have some bias attached to it. However, you’re bound to get more accurate views in a natural setting like Twitter.

2. TweetStory

This is a concept inspired from Ficly. It basically revolves around the idea of collaborative story making where writers can tweet one line of a story at a time and a controller bot stiches the pieces together for spectators to read and enjoy in real time.

3. TweetDumps/TweekNotes

Surveys are just one way of getting feedback about a particular product that your firm has released. To do more effective post-mortems of campaigns and to get ideas for improving your product line, I believe analyzing a huge collection of Tweets with your Product name can give you some cool ideas. Of course, with the sheer volume of tweets, a lot of sifting and filtering will have to be performed.

4. Twickr

Since there a lot of pictures uploaded surrounding a particular topic, it would be nice to have an app aggregate and tag pictures from public streams, for others to tap into and use as an alternative to Google Images.

5. SCRUMTweets

As a developer, I know that project managers are always hungry for little status updates on what the devs are upto, what kind of exceptions QAs are getting, when & what files are committed to the SVN etc. So if there was a way to integrate your dev environment with Twitter and have all major actions Tweeted (especially if the PM is remote) he might have a better chance of staying well-informed with how his/her crew are faring.

Let me know what you guys think and feel free to throw me a comment.