A few weeks ago, I jumped on the Twitter bandwagon. “Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send “updates” (text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) to the Twitter website, via short message service, instant messaging, email, or an applications such as Twitterrific. Twitter was founded in March 2006 by San Francisco start-up company Obvious Corp.” (–Wikipedia).
If you’re reading this on my web site (as opposed to reading my RSS feed or my Facebook notes), you’ll notice a section in the top right entitled “Jeremy is…”. The items that are underneath it come from my updates to Twitter.
Normally I wouldn’t spend much time updated some web site what the latest details of what I’m doing, but Twitter has made this exceptionally easy via their Twitter API. By using the API, third parties can write their own applications to interact with the Twitter service. Shortly after signing up, I wrote my own “client” that would update my Twitter status from the Linux shell. It was easy and useful, but meant I had to stay logged into a Linux box to quickly and easily do updates. Eventually, I found OutTwit and Twitterfox.
“OutTwit is a add-in for Microsoft Outlook with lets you send and receive tweeter messages (tweets) without leaving Outlook.” I work in I.T. and I have Outlook running 24/7, both at home and at work. OutTwit integrates with Outlook by putting a small “toolbar” on the main Outlook interface. Updating my Twitter status is simply a matter of entering my update in the textbox and hitting enter. It’s very quick and easy which means, of course, that I’m more likely to update my status at random times. You can also choose to receive your friends’ updates in your Inbox as e-mail messages, though I chose to turn that option off.
“TwitterFox is a Firefox extension that notifies you of your friends’ tweets of Twitter.” By installing the extension, you also get quick access to update your own status as well as being notified of your friends’ updates as well.
If you are a “twitterer”, like me, and you have either Outlook or Firefox running most of the time, definitely check ‘em out.
Tags: internet, website | 1 Comment »
November 23rd, 2007 at 11:45 pm
[...] to send me a once-per-day reminder e-mail of all my tasks due that day, and I get notifications via Twitter as well. If I can just stick with it, I think it’ll help [...]