Zilele trecute am colindat printre oamenii de pe Twitter, ajungand pana la conexiuni de gradul 4-5. Cum am un numar destul de mare de followers, mi-e destul de greu sa vad daca o anumita persoana ma urmareste. Cel putin, direct din Twitter. Cred ca problema asta apare imediat dupa ce depasesti pragul de 200-300 de persoane care te urmaresc, fiindca Twitter nu a gasit inca o metoda de organizare mai buna a followers-ilor. As putea sa ma duc pe site-uri ca friendorfollow.com si sa vad acolo cine ma urmareste si cine nu. Mi se pare o problema de uzabilitate a site-ului si cred ca solutia e simpla si la indemana.

Problema asta ar putea fi rezolvata foarte simplu prin verificarea starii unei persoane. Avem doua stari in care se poate afla un utilizator in relatie cu contul nostru de Twitter. Sa le definim ca “already following” si “not following”. Cand un user se afla in starea “already following”, butonul de follow s-ar putea schimba in “follow back”. In felul acesta, utilizatorii nu ar mai parasi Twitter pentru a verifica daca sunt urmariti de persoana X sau Y.

Twitter aplica o metoda similara in cazul in care urmaresti pe cineva. Cand dai click pe profilul acelei persoane vezi un buton mare, verde, ce afiseaza “following” daca urmaresti acea persoana, iar in momentul in care pozitionezi cursorul pe marele buton verde, textul se transforma in “Unfollow” si butonul devine un mare buton rosu. Asa ca vin cu intrebarea asta, poate persoanele mai experimentate in uzabilitate vor sti raspunsul: de ce Twitter nu a incercat sa simplifice experienta utilizatorilor cu site-ul, folosind aceeasi metoda ca si in cazul “following/unfollow” si pentru starile “already following” si “not following”?

The worst decision you can make when choosing from this ocean of social services is to use a service just because “everyone’s on it” and it’s cool. If you are choosing a service, analyse the advantages it can offer you and then decide if it’s worth it.

These should be the main questions you should ask yourself when signing up:

• Why should I create an account on “New Social Network X“?
• What are the advantages of this service?
• How can it help me?
• How will it affect my online privacy?

I might sound a little bit paranoid, but you should have a look (at least a shallow one) through the terms and conditions of every service you sign up on. The reasons are pretty clear if you care about your privacy. Sometimes a service is “free” because you’re letting its owners to scoop through your stuff.

I’ve created a Twitter account in 2007, but I haven’t used it intensively until 2008. At first, I considered it a big waste of time (unfortunately, it still is but I’ve learned how to filter out what I dislike) and posted only a few tweets monthly. For example, I have an account on Facebook. I rarely use it because I don’t see how a Facebook account can help me, as a person, with anything. I have a few friends there, mainly persons that I met in real life, and some strangers who I will probably never meet. I admit the fact that I created a Facebook account just because everyone was there.

I also have an account on Last.fm. I love music, so the main reason for creating this account was to discover new artists and bands. It’s also great for finding out what concerts are taking place in my area, and I even met some persons with similar music tastes.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, you should always ask yourself if a service could help you on the long run (from points of view like meeting people, new job opportunities, entertainment, etc.) and take action accordingly.

The plugin gives you a few possibilities to embed tweets. The most easy to use is to take the complete URL of a tweet and paste it into your blog post. I added the following two tweets by using the complete URL and the id of the tweets.

Here are two embedded tweets from my timeline:

A tweet in Romanian:

Nu înţeleg de unde a apărut ideea că oamenii nu visează în culori. Se leagă de faptul că uităm parţial visele, a.î credem că-s în alb&negru.

May 22, 2010 11:48 am via SnaptuReplyRetweetFavorite

@danielvoicu

Daniel Voicu

And one in English:

Use the force, Luke! Use that fucking thing, you moron! Oh crap, you're drunk.

May 21, 2010 7:46 pm via SnaptuReplyRetweetFavorite

@danielvoicu

Daniel Voicu

I used [blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/danielvoicu/status/14483309763"] for the first tweet and for the second I used [blackbirdpie id="14439778971"].

When you use these commands, you will notice that the plugin creates custom fields. You can edit them afterwards. I didn’t edit the first tweet just to show you the plugin has a small issue when it comes to special characters, in this case some Romanian letters.

You can find the plugin here, and if you want to read more about it, visit the developer’s site.

We’ve started to shed the clothes of anonymity, thinking that the Internet will give us at least a small amount of fame. Those 15 minutes of fame, at least. Or 15 MB of fame, if we move the whole thing online.

I am witnessing – as we all do – a complete renunciation of privacy in favor of a weird transparency that on the long run will affect our relationships, whether they are professional, love or family relations. We’re in a fast-forward medium that also allows us to skip moments. We only want the start and the end, forgetting about what’s in-between.

We share pictures on Facebook, let the whole world know we’re in a relationship with another Facebook user, tweet about things that a decade ago were considered intimate.

That’s why I am asking you: where are we heading? What’s the future of “sharing” and how does the current state affect us on the long run?

As one of the somewhat-early adopters of this service, I noticed that Twitter is – actually was – based on the concept of simplicity. In time, along with the features introduced by users (conventions like the @ sign for replies) noise was created and the need to separate the interesting, juicy stuff from the mundane, boring things appeared.

Buuut… that’s not the subject of this post. Still, I want to relate to simplicity. We all have a favorite Twitter client which we use on our PCs or Macs. For example, I have two of them: at the office I use Tweetie (for Mac) and at home I use an app I just discovered, called Ada.

Ada Twitter from Madan

Before Ada I used Twhirl on my home computer but it kinda got too bulky for my taste. Many buttons and too many features doesn’t mean an application will satisfy everyone.

Ada is a small, simple, AIR-based app that won’t bother you with notifications while you’re working. The most recent version is 1.20 and you can find it here. It has a few themes that you can use and a drop-down menu from which you can choose what to see: main timeline, mentions and direct messages.

Although it’s pretty minimal and it won’t bother you like other apps, it still lacks some basic features. For example, I think that it wasn’t necessary a button for marking favourite tweets but one for sending direct messages to a tweet’s owner. I also don’t see why a “favorite tweet button” exists as there is no way to see the tweets you favourited through Ada. Or maybe I haven’t discovered it yet…

Another much needed feature would be using different colours for replies and direct messages. This would help out users who follow a lot of persons to differentiate replies and DMs from normal tweets directly on the main timeline.

Anyway, this little app is lovely and I would recommend it to everyone who wants a multiplatform Twitter client based on the concept of simplicity.

I had an account on most of the popular social networks, including Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Because I felt overwhelmed by them, I started quitting my accounts one by one. At this moment, I am using Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin with their usage exactly in this specific order. The “super-duper” trio.

Theoretically, if we would stop using the Internet for a couple of years, leaving behind everything that’s online and web related, the enthusiasm might return and some really cool apps would be created after this “hibernation”. Although the technology gives us the possibility to create the most interesting things, we are “getting used to” the old things and not looking to create some advanced web apps.