Tweetdeck – iPhone Twitter App
Tweetdeck Screenshot
Unlike Danny Brown, I use my mobile Twitter apps alot – at least as much if not more than my desktop ones. For a while now, my mobile application of choice has been Tweetie which I wrote about here. I was therefore very interested when I discovered that a Tweetdeck application was going to be released and I downloaded from the Apple App Store as soon as I could.
I’ve been using Tweetdeck for iPhone for a few days now so I thought it would be a good time to collect my thoughts.
The great thing with Tweetdeck for iPhone is that some of the features of the desktop version have come over to the iPhone platform. For me one of the top ones is that the concept of using different columns for searches has been retained. This is fantastic and even better, the iPhone and the desktop versions can be synchronised so that the same column structure can be used on multiple PCs as well as the iPhone. I love this.
It is simple to scroll through the different columns by either swiping the screen or by using the left/righ arrows at the bottom.
Columns Implimentation
One feature with the columns I really like is that each can be set up with it’s own refresh time. One thing I plan on using Tweetdeck for is keeping up with #chats – this is something that has been next to impossible on the iPhone until now. I’m thinking that the search columns of Tweetdeck, combined with the new iPhone copy/paste feature is going to work out really well.
Like Tweetie, Tweetdeck can handle multiple Twitter accounts, a feature I use often for my work and personal accounts.
So there are a lot of great features, but what could be improved?
Well, the first is crashes. When I first installed Tweetdeck it crashed on me every few minutes. The app comes with a Growl feature that shows the number of updates for each of the columns. Switching this off has largely solved the crash problem, but it does happen every now and again. I’m not worried – a lot of first iterations of iPhone apps seem to have this problem which gets solved as the code is refined in future updates.
My other main problem is with the colours. Unlike Tweetie which offers several screen colour options, Tweetdeck has just the one you see here and I’m not a fan. I’m hoping that the next update will give me the option to invert the colour scheme – I like to use a white background during the day and the dark would be fine for nighttime reading.
There are also a couple of missing features I’d love to see included – Trending topics and a local feature.
But I must say, for a first release is a very complete and usable application. I must confess that I tend to go back to Tweetie quite often, but I’m using Tweetdeck a lot of the time and enjoying it a lot. Nice job!
Social Media Icons
No self respecting blog is properly dressed without a nice set of Social Media icons. Totally Incorrect is no exception and I’ve been looking for a set of icons that would fit in with the design of my site. Not being able to find anything I really liked, I decided to make a set for myself.
As you can see from the image above, my icons are designed to fit in with the thumbnail iamges I use on the homepage.
The set consists of icons for Twitter, Facebook, Technorati, FriendFeed, Scribnia, Delicious, Linkedin, Stumbleupon, WordPress and RSS.
If you’d like to use any of these on your own blog, you are most welcome to do so. You can download them in a zip file from my LiveDrive site.
Let me know if you like them.
Do you use Social Media icons on your site? Do you know of any good resources for this kind of thing?
Twitter Desktop Apps
If you use Twitter to any extent you will have noticed that the Twitter website is not really that good at managing your activities. This is especially true if you follow a lot of people or want to get involved in any of the #chats.
Fortunately, when there is a problem a solution is often forthcoming and this is no exception. There are several desktop application designed to help improve the Twitter experience and the two most popular are Tweetdeck and Seesmic Desktop. These two applications have a lot in common. They are both based on Adobe’s Air platform and both allow for a number of different columns to be set up.Let’s take a look at them…
I’m not going to go into a lot of detail – there will be all kinds of techie reviews all over the Internet already. I will however, give you my thoughts on how each of them works for me personally – I’ll be interested to hear if you see things the same as I do or differently.
Tweetdeck
Seesmic Desktop
Both apps cover all the basics:
- Multiple columns
- Searches that update automatically
- Facebook integration
- Setting up of groups
- managing conversations
- Shorten and post links
Tweetdeck actually has more features including online sync for backup and the ability to customise the colours. Seesmic doesn’t seem to allow customising of the colours, but I must admit that I like the default Seesmic colours better than any I’ve been able to create with Tweetdeck. I also have not been able to get the Tweetdeck Facebook account working – this is more likely due to my incompetence than the app, but these things should be easy.
Tweetdeck also just came out with a shiny new iPhone app. I must say, I’m thinking that this has so much potential. It has a few problems, but for a 1.0 release it is just brilliant and also syncs with the desktop version.
Conclusion – if you need all the features or are a Twitter power user, Tweetdeck is the one to go for.
In my personal case, I’m not so sure. Both are fantastic apps that really enhance the whole Twitter experience and it is really hard to choose one over the other. At the moment I’m finding that, although I love the features and power of Tweetdeck, I find myself using Seesmic Desktop more. The interface is just that bit simpler and seems to fit into my usage a little bit better.
I have no doubt that Tweetdeck and Seesmic Desktop will both continue to evolve and improve. I wonder if my conclusion will be the same a couple of months from now?
You can learn more at the websites for the two applications
Do you use Tweetdeck or Seesmic? Which one is working better for you personally? What features would you like to see in new versions?
Social Media & the IT Guy
Social Media and the IT Guy
People who market to businesses, (I really don’t like the expression B2B but I guess that’s what it is) often seem to complain that social media marketing techniques are not as successful as they are when marketing to consumers.
I’m not sure this is totally true, especially if you include blogs as being part of social media, but it is a fact that there are not too many people in manufacturing spending a lot of time on Facebook or Twitter.
So why is this? Obviously part of the reason is that people these days are usually pretty busy – their company has probably reduced the workforce so people have little time to spare.
One other reason is the dreaded IT Guy.
The IT guy (yes, I know the IT guy might well be the IT lady or IT team, but I don’t feel like typing IT person everytime. I really hope you’ll bear with me on this one) isn’t happy unless everything is locked down so that it is impossible to get to anything useful on the Internet.
Actually to be fair quite often these are company rules and the IT guy just has the task of carrying them out. Let’s have a look at some of reasons might have their Internet access restricted:
Stop time wasting. This is a good one; I can’t believe how many companies I go to where multiple people (starting with the receptionist if there still is one) are playing solitaire on the company’s PC. I don’t see how being able to access some useful web content would be more of a time waster. In anycase, these days companies can’t afford to have people loafing around – however they are doing it.
Using bandwidth. Hmm, how many businesses are paying by the GB for bandwidth? Not too many I suspect.
Watching porn. This one I do agree needs to be blocked. I don’t believe anyone, unless working in the adult entertainment industry would have a problem with this. Same thing with sites such as on-line betting which are illegal here in the US. You want to do this? Fine – do it at home!
Bringing malware into the network. This is always a concern. I believe the IT folks need to make the assumption that everyone is very capable of going to a bad site, clicking a link on the wrong email etc and having the systems in place to deal with it.
Visiting sites of categories considered to be inappropriate. This is where it gets interesting. Here are some examples of blocked categories from my company:
Health – a lot of our clients are hospitals or healthcare organizations so we can’t go to their site 
for information.
Weapons manufacturers – hmm, big part of our business is which DoD contractors.
Blogs and forums – crazy, most of what I learn these days comes from blogs but I’m blocked from seeing many of them (including this one) at my office.
Social Media – forget it. Unless you want to get another job, Linkedin is available – get those resumes posted.
I get the impression that our company is pretty typical with choosing to block certain types of on-line content. All in all, a bit of a pain.
What’s the solution? I hear you cry!
Well some companies have innovative ways around the problem. One of our clients has an area set up (they call it the Town Square) with table and workstations where anyone can go online during their breaks or when they need to. The workstations have internet access but no access to the company network. Employees can check their email, do their banking or whatever they need to do without fear of them bringing in malware. I think this is a great idea.
My personal workaround is to use my iPhone as much as possible. I find I can do about 90% of what I need this way. If it became more of a problem, I’d get an AT&T access card for my laptop.
Another good workaround is to use the RSS feeds that Twitter provides. Say you want to keep up with #IranElection but you can’t access Twitter. No problem use Twitter Search to search for #IranElection and subscribe to the provided feed. You can then follow updates in Google Reader or other feed reader.
I often wonder whether locking employees out from social media and other sites is actually holding businesses back. I know it often takes me longer to get things done than it really should. I’d much prefer to treat this as a peopel management issue and not block everyone from potentially useful content.
What do you think? Are you fighting the IT guy or is your business more enlightened? Would giving people access to social media help the business with new ideas or would it just waste time?
Blog of the Week – Kids are Heroes
OK, so Kids are Heroes might not strictly speaking be a blog, but I want to recognize it anyway.
Kids are Heroes was set up my Gabe O’Neil and his daughter Mary Margaret and it strives to help young people do great things – become heroes!
As I understand it, the idea for Kids are Heroes came from Mary Margaret and she was able to get her dad on board – I think she was 9 at the time so this is pretty cool. It was also rather fortunate that Gabe just happens to be a web designer so he was able to put the whole thing together.
Check out the Kids are Heroes site to see some of the cool things Mary Margaret and Gabe have been able to set in motion – really impressive.
Kids are Heroes was recently chosen to be featured on PitchTV, on Virgin Atlantic flights. Watch the video, introduced by Richard Branson.
And, as if this family isn’t amazing enough already, Gabe’s brother Greg is heavily involved with another children’s charity Sleeping Children Around the World (SCAW). Gabe himself also finds time to be an enthusiastic supporter of 12for12k which I really appreciate. I’m really hoping that we can somehow get Kids are Heroes to be a 12for12k charity one month.
Oh, since this is supposed to be about blogging, you can check out Gabe’s blog as well as follow him on Twitter where he is @kidsareheroes.
Quite a family and a worthy Totally Incorrect Blog of the Week!
UNICEF & 12for12k
Since The 12for12k Challenge folks (of whom I’m a huge supporter) chose UNICEF’s Believe in Zero campaign as the June charity, there has been a lot of activity, not all of it positive.
First one of the 12for12k blog partners decided he didn’t like UNICEF after originally posting in support.
There have also been attacks on the choice of this charity on Twitter and other social media sites and even the venerable old sage of 12for12k Danny Brown has come in for some stick.
So I find myself wondering what is going on here? What is it about UNICEF that causes so many different opinions, from those that support the organization and those that seem to think it has no merit at all.
I thought it might be worthwile to do a little investigating and see what this organization is all about.
History.
UNICEF was founded in 1946 to help deal with the problem of millions of starving children in the aftermath of the Second World War. Here’s a video, narrated by Sir Roger Moore on the organization’s history:
I don’t think anyone would disagree with UNICEF’s mission – there is no question that the it has saved many thousands of children’s lives since 1946 and played a part in improving the lives of many many more.
So why would the choice of an organization doing such good work, where it’s workers are dedicated enough to literally put their lives on the line (see the clippings I’ve included) in some of the toughest parts of the world cause so much controversy? Surely people working to protect children, often right in the middle of active conflicts, deserve support from those of us safe at home with our families?
I’m inclined to believe that the biggest issue UNICEF has is that it is part of the United Nations. The UN isn’t the most popular organization here in the United States, largely due to its history of poor management, but also because the UN is structured so that the US doesn’t get its way all the time. The fact that any of the five permanent Security Council members (US, UK, France, Russia and China) has a power of veto has often stopped the US from pushing through its agenda. Actually, I see this as a good thing since the US doesn’t have a very good foreign policy track record of late!
So UNICEF is having to operate in the field while carrying the burden of its unpopular owner – easy to see why there is a lack of enthusiasm. Of course, there are also advantages with being part of the UN, worldwide scope, access to government leaders and funding way above what any other childrens charity could hope to attain. I wonder if the huge budget of UNICEF is also an issue for 12for12k supporters? No matter what we were to raise, it is unlikely to show as a big line item on the UNICEF balance sheet.
While I do believe that UNICEF does great work and I’ve personally contributed to 12for12k this month (and certainly encourage you to do the same, because it is a great cause) I am somewhat disappointed that UNICEF has not played any role in the June campaign. The 12for12k Challenge relies on support – not just from supporters and contributors, but from the charities themselves. UNICEF could had actively supported 12for12k on their site and their various blogs, to the benefit of both. It would raise more for UNICEF in June and making more people aware of 12for12k would create a higher public awareness and better results for the charities lined up for the rest of the year. Instead UNICEF has been silent. Not my idea of a partner.
So today, I feel a little let down. Let down by people who could do more to support 12for12k instead of just complaining and by UNICEF which I thought could do so much to help, but has not come through. I’m certainly not feeling let down by the actual UNICEF workers and supporters who are doing great things or by social media users who have made contributions to the campaign.
So please contribute to support the great work being done by UNICEF and please consider becoming an active supporter of 12for12k. It is a great opportunity for us regular people to get together and actually make a difference. Rather than sit back and criticize, get involved and make it better. Go to 12for12k.org for more info.
I’d love to know if you agree with my thoughts. How can we work together to help 12for12k be more effective? What about that Roger Moore video commentary? Would you view UNICEF differently if it was part of the Gates Foundation rather than the UN?
Springer Mountain Mobile Marketing
Last night Em and I were home alone and we decided to cook one of our favorite pasta dishes. You can find the recipe here.
As it happens, I forgot the chicken (yes I know the recipe uses shrimp, but we like chicken instead) and had to go back to the store to get it.
Now, you might know that three of my interests are marketing, labeling & barcoding and mobile technology – the things I do for a living. You will imagine I was very pleased to see all three 
things being used on one of the chicken products – the one from Springer Mountain Farms. Needless to say, this is the one I bought.
The packages of chicken breast have a big datamatrix barcode printed on them, with an invitation to scan to get a discount or a free ringtone – there seemed to be several different versions. The only problem was that I had to charge my iPhone (if you’re an iPhone owner you’ll know this happens rather often) so I couldn’t scan any codes in the store – no problem, I hurried home with my new purchase.
So I grabbed the phone (which hadn’t charged because I’d forgotten to plug the USB cable into the PC) and tried to read my barcode. Try as I might, with two different barcode apps, I couldn’t get the barcode to decode. Very disappointing .
By this time one of Em’s friends had arrived and they were getting hungry – my experiments had to stop because we needed to cook the chicken.
Anyway, this morning it was off to the Springer Mountain website where I was able to scan one of the Datamatrix codes on the screen and be taken to their mobile site.
I must say that even though I wasn’t able to read the barcode on the actual package (and to be fair the iPhone is a terrible barcode scanner so that might be the problem) I love this marketing concept. It has been around in markets where mobile technology is more advanced, such as Europe and Asia for a while, so it is great to see it being used here.
All I need to do now is get back to the store with my iPhone and see if I can read any of the barcodes. Failing that, I’ll try with a proper scanner from the office.
Gotta love the SmartCar too!
What do you think? Do you have any experience of using mobile devices in consumer marketing?
12for12k – UNICEF Believe in Zero
If you read Totally Incorrect regularly, you’ll know that I’m a huge supporter of the 12for12k Social Media for Good campaign. I’m really excited about the partnership that is just being announced for June.
12for12k has teamed up with the UN – playing with the big guys now – specifically UNICEF’s Believe in Zero Campaign. The Campaign is looking to dramatically reduce the number of children who die everyday from completely preventable causes – to bring the number to zero.
I’ll be posting more about this later, but to learn more, head over to the 12for12k site.
I fully understand that times are tough for many right now – our family being no exception. The point of 12for 12k is that many small contributions add up to make a difference. So please consider making a small donation (I have!) – you can do it right here:
Blog of the Week: Vlad Dolezal
According to Wikipedia, Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, more commonly known as Vlad the Impaler (Vlad Ţepeş), or simply in Romainian Dracula (November/December 1431 – December 1476), was a Wallachian (present-day southern Romania) Voivode.
Um, excuse me a second …… what’s that? Oh, wrong Vlad!
Sorry about that; let’s start again.
Vlad Dolezal is a blogger who lives in Leeds – life there is just as exciting as that led by the other Vlad. Now, it so happens that my Dad is from Leeds and I’ve spent a lot a time there. This leads (no pun intended) me to believe that our friend Mr. Dolezal isn’t really a Leeds native, but I’m a sporting guy so I’ll let it go.
Vlad Dolezal is a great blogger. His blog shows up in my Google Reader as “An Amazing Mind” although he has recently changed the name to “Fun Life Development.” Whatever it’s called, you’ll find Vlad’s blog at http://vladdolezal.com/blog. I prefer the original title because this guy’s mind is indeed amazing.
Read any of his stories and you’d swear it is written by an older guy, someone who’s been around and experience a lot. You’d think the stories were were written by someone who has been studying for many years at the highest levels of philosophy. When you realise that the blog is written by a bloke studying mathematics at college you’ll be – well, amazed.
I’ve been reading Vlad’s work for quite a while and often thought that he needs to be Blog of the
Week sometime. Two of his recent posts have ensured that he gets this unique accoclaid. The first one was where Vlad announced that since he is a huge open source fan, he felt it was only right to change the copywrite licence for his blog. So now Fun Life Development blog is licensed under the WTFPL Licence. Go and read his post about it right now.
The other post is the one about his “Free Hugs” session. Vlad actually went out onto the mean streets of Leeds with a big sign offering free hugs. Crazy or what – I mean no one in their right mind would do this; least of all in Leeds. His story of the day is just so funny and inspirational.
No question, Vlad Dolezal is an inspirational guy. That’s why he is the writer of this weeks Blog of the Week!!
Sorry about all the Vlad the Impaler references Vlad. I know I’m hardly being original – just couldn’t help it 