Twitter for iPad Review

If you're a Twitter user with iPad, maybe you've been waiting for this for a long time. Twitter just released the official Twitter for iPad app [iTunes Link] and it's remarkable.

The new app interface is a series of panes that can be expanded and retracted, opened easily without the need to click on any fiddly buttons. Simple navigation options down the left of the app allow you to flick between your timeline, mentions, DMs, lists or searches. and the brilliant "slide to refresh" feature you'll probably already know and love from Twitter for iPhone app (now it's universal, runs on both iPad and iPhone).

The size of the iPad screen means you can read articles, or view photos and videos while still keeping the rest of the app's functions in view, there're some neat touches that allow you to view information quickly. When you click on a link in a tweet, the internal browser slides in from the right to display the article, photo or video. Also, if a tweet uses a hashtag, then clicking on it will bring up that tweet and others underneath that use the same tag. Follower suggestions are another useful feature. If you select a user's profile it suggests similar users to follow further down the page, that is a good way to find interesting people to follow. Also, there are several ways you can follow tweeted conversations: using a two-fingered drag, you can take a peek at the chain of messages. If you just tap on a tweet and it's a response to another tweet, you'll see the chain of messages in a full pane.

Now let's start a new tweet. As shown in the screenshot below, you'd be surprised how much you'll appreciate large, readable text. The text entry field looks like a notepad, which is an apt metaphor for writing on the iPad. Also on the text entry field are buttons for attaching photos from your iPad photo library, tweeting your present location, or shrinking URLs.

The settings for the app are rather simple, which I also find to be refreshing. Other than adding or editing accounts, there are two other buttons: Services and Advanced. Services lets you set up your image service, video service and read later service (Instapaper or Read It Later). Advanced has buttons for setting image quality, show hashtags in trends, enabling TextExpander, and turning sound effects on and off. There's also a button for installing a Safari bookmarklet - tapping it directs you to Safari, where you're given directions on how to set up the bookmarklet.

This new Twitter app makes it much easier to read tweets, get at the content contained within, and to see user's details and the flow of conversations. However, there are a few minor glitches that need to be addressed. The internal browser is slow to open a linked article, although it’s smooth once opened. It can also be harder than it should be to close exposed panes when sliding them back to the right. Sometimes they get “stuck” midway, requiring an extra slide to get them off the screen. Anyway, it's really nice to see Twitter team and Loren Brichter have carried on Tweetie's legacy of UI innovation with Twitter for iPad. Great job guys!

A Simple Way to Create Nice Tweets Screenshots

If you want to embed tweets in web pages, which way is better? Using Blackbird Pie or screen capture tools? Blackbird Pie is such a cool feature from Twitter but still has some bugs (i.e. profile image in the tweet will break if the user changes profile pic.) So as Amit said, screenshots is still the best way to embed tweets in your websites.

But here's a quickly way to creat a nice and easy screenshot image of any tweets from your address bar. - TweetQuoter. To turn a tweet into an image, all you have to do is open that tweet in your browser, replace twitter.com part of a tweet's URL to chen.vc. For example,

http://twitter.com/lyanghsueh/status/16009654938

becomes

http://chen.vc/lyanghsueh/status/16009654938

Now you can see a .jpg image of the tweet that you can embed in your websites or blogs, like this:

It's pretty simple and nice. you may have noticed, this little service copied the background from Tweetie, and the auther said he might allow customizations for the image in the future.

[h/t @labnol]

QOTD: Twitter CEO @ev says GFW will fall

The Internet is a tidal wave that you will not be able to keep out. Like in China, who knows how long those firewalls will hold up – but not forever. We’re just realizing the promise of the Internet. It’s about democratization of information.

At SXSW in Austin, Texas. Twitter co-founder and CEO Evan Williams did a keynote Q&A with Umair Haque. He said that notorious censorship firewalls in countries such as China will give way to online innovations. He also has spoken about a new feature for Twitter. It's @anywhere platform and allows other websites to link to Twitter feeds.

If The Twitter Community Was 100 People…

Last month, I've mentioned that most Twitter users are passive. Now, Check this, some interesting stats about the much-trumpeted Twitter community. visualized.

• red people = dead accounts. dead.
• green people = lazy people, a lot of lazy people...
• blue people = with more than 100 followers.
• purple people = called "Active Users", they're loud, creating 75% of the tweets. (just loud, no followers?)
• grey people = mkandlez said: not dead, non-lazy, not many followers, softly spoken. (zombies?)

OK. Here's a question: Where are the Spammers...? :)

Never mind. I am one of the "blue & a little purple" people, just follow me. :)

Source: Influential Marketing Blog | originally uploaded by mkandlez

Are Twitter Users Inactive?

I don't know why. Twitter’s growth has suddenly stopped, the flatline with only a 1.47% increase in the month of May from Compete's number. Worse than this, a report from Harvard Business Review revealed that most Twitter users are passive, with 10% of all users accounting for 90% of the overall number of tweets. They’ve signed up and showed up, but a surprising number don’t do much more than that.

• 80% failed to provide a homepage URL
• 76% of users have not entered a bio in their profile
• 69% have not specified a location
• 55% are not following anyone
• 55% have never tweeted
• 53% have no followers

Data based on some 4.5 million Twitter accounts via Hubspot

QOTD: What Larry Page thinks about Twitter?

What is retweeting (RT)?

retweet (RT)是twitter上一种新出现的名词(去年还没怎么听到吧),其意思就好比转载,转发.把你在twitter或者其他地方上他人发布的信息转发到自己的页面,分享给你的followers,并标注上来源地.具体格式像这样:

      RT @来源用户名: 来源具体信息

      retweet @来源用户名: 来源具体信息

      retweeting @来源用户名: 来源具体信息

例如:如果你想在twitter上转载这篇文章,你可以输入:

RT @a7xorz: What is retweeting (RT)? http://post.ly/DgV

你会发现其实retweet本身就是一条简单的tweet信息.但利用这样统一的转发格式可以很好的保护信息源的利益和统一性,并和有着相同兴趣的好友产生共鸣和讨论,这很不错.

随着retweeting的形式逐渐被人们所接受,随之也产生了一些相关的第三方应用.比如提供追踪各类转载的Retweetist等.

欢迎follow, @lyanghsueh - thanks!