I’ve discovered a major problem that plagues Tweetdeck users who use the free Twitter client to access and post microblogging updates. TweetDeck is bugged by a fairly major issue which will require a solution pretty soon.
Background: I’m an active Twitter user and have been using what I would consider the best Twitter client, TweetDeck, for a couple of months.
Sure it’s had some weird idiosyncrasies like having to shut it down so I could run more bandwidth-intensive applications or MMPOGs on my system, but on the whole, it’s been a pleasant experience (read my earlier review)
I may or may not be the typical Tweetdeck user – here’re my usage habits:
- My computers are on 24-7. I run mainly Windows XP operating systems (a combination of Professional and Home editions). I reboot when virtual memory drops “dangerously low” or I get a BSOD (blue screen of death).
- I follow about 200+ Twitter users, some of whom tweet as many as 50 times a day or more.
- I live in a GMT+8 timezone (which is 13 hours ahead of EST now. My night is your day. I’m snoozing while you’re working)
As a result, it’s not uncommon to wake up to 500+ tweets during the 6 hours I’m sleeping.
Particularly today, my machine crawled to a grinding crawl, and pulling up the Windows Task Manager (hit alt-ctrl-delete to see this):
Coming in at #1, TweetDeck with a pretty monstrous 334 MB of memory usage (followed by Firefox where I had about 30 tabs open).
And a screenshot a few (more…)
Deep down most marketers are stats junkies at heart. Even though we realize that your Alexa ranking may not mean a whole lot, especially since a number of Facebook games and applications have muscled their way into the top 50,000, we still look at our Alexa rankings every now and then.
So with micro-blogging platform Twitter providing API (application programming interface) access to developers, it was only a matter of time before a slew of twitter “stats” and “analytics” services made their way onto the market.
Do they really mean anything?
Is it statistically significant?
There’s still a big question mark in that area.
What has happened though is that these services have turned out to be great linkbait, and they seem pretty viral too, with various twitter users announcing/bragging about their “Twitter Elite” status (even if you are the top Twitter dawg in your village of 500….)
The Twittersphere has been abuzz with various users announcing their “Twitter Elite” status.
Are you a member of the elite? Check out the twitter grader and find out.
The service seems simple and (more…)
I’d been talking to Software Project’s Mike Peters about the value of social media tools like Twitter and how much value they add to your internet business, and he came up with some interesting analogies.
In the “chatterspace” of micro-blogging platforms like twitter, it’s not uncommon to see posts like “Feeling hungry. Going to get a burger” or “Just picked a bunch of lint from my belly button. Yuck!”. The question is, does this help or hurt your brand?
Mike alluded platforms like Twitter to the reality show “Big Brother” where “voting is done by people at home, people at home typically vote out all those who don’t say much, don’t swear, don’t take enemies etc. Those type of people typically end up being the first to leave”
As the current situation stands, the rabble rousers sometimes do end up with the most number of twitter followers by virtue of (more…)
Is Microblogging all it’s cracked up to be?
You might’ve noticed that one of the widgets in the sidebar is missing.
Twitter has been an interesting experiment, especially some of the exchanges I’ve had with Sam Harrelson, who’s certainly an intelligent and expressive microblogger.
So what’s my opinion of microblogging?
It’s great if you’re at the sidelines of a seminar or tradeshow and a good way to get updates out. We might see some interesting updates from the Blog Haus at Affiliate Summit.
If you’re waiting in transit at the airport, or on a long subway ride, it’s a good time killer [Although I think you’d get more out of a good book…]
Where microblogging doesn’t work for me, is blogging in the midst of work.
If you disrupt your usual work to file a 140 character update, it can mess up your train of thought.
So though I’ll be checking in regularly to my twitter account, I likely won’t be checking it fantatically.
What’s your experience with microblogging?
