Tweet!

Here’s something that’s not news: yesterday I switched from Twitbin to Tweetbar for all my twittering tweets.

I’ve been interested in Twitter since last year at about this time when Twitter was all the rage at SXSW. Not that I went, I just heard. And then Twittered. Or is it Tweeted?

Since then I’ve been using the service on-again/off-again (and never from mobile; my phone sucks) but I’ve found it more and more useful. I really have grown to enjoy this concept of micro-blogging or broadcast-IM. It’s short, clever and it really scratches an itch.

I’ve also spent some time obsessing over interoperability since I love Twitter but dislike Facebook status. I had an initial fix that became an eventual (current) fix, but I’m still struck by how much data I move around in an incredibly disaggregated manner.

And don’t even get me started on Jaiku (no invite) or Pownce (which I’ve used once). Neither has the groundswell of Twitter and they share most (if not all) functionality.

But those aren’t the only social web services (Web 2.0) communities around, just the most immediate and timely. What if I wanted to either?:

  1. Publish to all my platforms
  2. Consume all my social media

Well, I’d be in luck. Somewhat.

Yesterday I learned about the publishing side, Ping.fm, and the consumption side (which seems wrong since the point of the “Web 2.0”-era internet is bi-directional), FriendFeed.

Funny story: after tweeting about Ping.fm and using their contact form, I got 3 different beta codes:

  1. mashable
  2. pingme
  3. ping2008

I’m not going to sell you on a service in Beta, but if you’re so-inclined, there you go.

I’m also interested in Twitter from a “content” (ugh) standpoint. I’d like to get my brain around all the conversation that happens there and trying to catalog mentions of the shows/brands/networks who sign my check each week.

We use Technorati to gauge blogger feedback and now I have TweetScan to do the same thing for Twitter.

But I’m still struck by the fact that despite being tied together via RSS I don’t have one workflow to manage all this information/data/conversation.

I use (and have used) multiple tools for Twitter depending on which PC I’m on and (theoretically) my mobile devices. I mainly use Bloglines for blog reading but maybe I should use FriendFeed to aggregate all that “stuff”?

I honestly don’t have a good answer but I’m as curious as Duane is about the tools folks use to make their internet lives easier. I’m also feeling just about as burnt out.

So here’s my overarching point: I really *want* to like all this new stuff and take advantage of the disaggregation as a feature and not a bug. The web is nothing if not a grouping of small pieces loosely joined, but I’m just craving some stronger glue, I guess.

Anyhow, feel free to commiserate, tear down my argument with a newer, cooler tool or suggest ways in which I can change my own behavior or fold existing technology in a better, healthier, more manageable way.

UPDATE: Jaiku invites in the comments and something called battle tweets has caught my attention.

2 thoughts on “Tweet!

Leave a Reply