RickyCadden.com

How To: Get A Single Mentions Column In Tweetdeck

// February 8th, 2010 // 2 Comments » // Social Networks

I’ve been a Seesmic Desktop user for as long as I can remember, though I started my Twitter desktop experience switching between Tweetdeck and Twhirl a long time ago. I ended up sticking with Seesmic Desktop when I started maintaining multiple Twitter accounts – I currently manage 4 different accounts, including my personal one. However, there’s a few things I really hate about Seesmic Desktop.

For starters, Seesmic Desktop doesn’t look like a Windows app – it looks like an OS X app that’s installed on my Windows machine. It behaves funny, and things just generally aren’t where I expect them to be. It’s also quite boring, with just a single brushed-metal color scheme and no options to change that.

Tweetdeck, on the other hand, looks and feels like a Windows app, which makes me more comfortable. It also has color schemes so I can tinker a bit here and there, and generally offers far more customization than Seesmic Desktop does.

There is, however, one thing that you can do in Seesmic Desktop that you cannot do in Tweetdeck – have a single ‘mentions’ column for all your accounts. This may not matter to you, but for me, it’s key, and for a long while has been the sole reason I keep using Seesmic Desktop instead of Tweetdeck.

Another drawback to Seesmic Desktop, though, is that it does not run well on netbooks. On my Asus 1000HE (which has 2GB of RAM), I cannot have Seesmic Desktop and Last.FM running at the same time – the music will skip and buffer endlessly. Tweetdeck, fortunately, runs smoothly.

So, how do you get the aforementioned single mentions column in Tweetdeck? By searching, of course.

Tweetdeck allows you to create custom search columns for specific keywords, and it supports the ‘OR” modifier. So, simply create a search column with your various usernames, separated by ‘OR”. Mine is ‘@rcadden OR @symbianguru OR @maemoguru OR @thesymbianguru‘. Done and done.

(@thesymbianguru is a private account that I use to communicate with the other contributors to Symbian-Guru.com. Don’t bother requesting to follow me there, it’ll be ignored. Catch me at @rcadden (personal) or @symbianguru (Symbian-related)

What is your chosen desktop Twitter client? Why do you prefer that one?

Seesmic For Android Adds Multiple Account Support

// February 5th, 2010 // No Comments » // android

Not but a few minutes after I posted my thoughts on TweetCaster for Android, Loic LeMur, who I had the pleasure of meeting last year at SXSW, announced an updated version of Seesmic for Android, complete with multiple account support!

Of course I downloaded the update as soon as I could, to check out the new features. Adding multiple accounts is really easy, simply press the menu button and then click on ‘Accounts’. There will be a green dot on your default account – this is the one automatically chosen when you compose a new tweet. You can, as shown in the video below, also easily cross-post, if you manage multiple accounts, so you can publish the same update to several accounts. However, I personally don’t really use this feature much on mobile – on my desktop, I only do to update my Facebook and personal Twitter account.

One thing that’s rather frustrating, though, is that like TweetCaster, this account selection screen doesn’t offer any information as to which account has new tweets or mentions. Also, the only way to get to it is to manually press menu, then choose ‘Accounts’. I would like it better if pressing the back button from my timeline would dump me out onto this screen, so I could easily switch between accounts with fewer clicks. Perhaps a future update will enable that.

Compared with TweetCaster, Seesmic seems to do a much better job of managing the limited screen real estate, showing more tweets on each screen. Also, Seesmic seems to perform better when I have all my accounts setup, whereas TweetCaster does tend to slow down just a bit.

I’ll keep both installed for the time being, but at this point, I think Seesmic wins on my Android phone. What app are you using to do Twitter on your Android-powered device?

Here’s a bonus video of Loic LeMur gushing over the new release:

Tweetcaster Is Now Available For Android

// February 4th, 2010 // 1 Comment » // android

When I first got my HTC Eris from Verizon, the first thing I looked for was a decent Twitter client that supported multiple accounts. I manage 4 different Twitter accounts, so being able to use all of those and monitor the various feeds is a major requirement. On my Symbian-powered handsets, Gravity covers this quite nicely. The first recommendation I got for Android was to check out Twidroid Pro.

Unfortunately, I purchased Twidroid Pro, specifically for the multiple account support. Shortly thereafter, my HTC Eris began locking up uncontrollably and I quickly realized that Twidroid was the root of the problem. With all four accounts loaded, the application crawls to a slow halt, making the whole phone unusable. The interface isn’t all that great, either, and I quickly uninstalled it.

Not too long after, I was contacted by the folks at Handmark to help them beta-test their new Twitter app, dubbed Tweetcaster. When I saw it was going to support multiple accounts, I quickly said yes and installed it to my Eris. For starters, once I got my 4 accounts plugged in, I was pleased to see that Tweetcaster doesn’t lock my phone up while updating itself. Brilliant.

I’ve put together a walkthrough video, which you can see below:

Overall, Tweetcaster is quite nice if you need to manage multiple accounts. If you’re a single-account kinda person, I prefer Seesmic for its superior performance and simplicity. Tweetcaster looks awesome, but the UI gets in the way of usability, often taking up far too many pixels on fancy graphics and leaving too much empty space between tweets.

With Tweetcaster running, I haven’t noticed a significant hit on battery life – it seems to do a great job of not using more power than it really needs to, which is good. For the official release, they included customizable notification settings, which is great. Unfortunately, they forgot to include the ability to choose the notification *sound*, so I’m stuck with my default ‘DROID’ sound for email, SMS, and Tweetcaster – not very helpful in determining what the notification is informing me of.

Another major complaint that I have with Tweetcaster, even with a full license, is the blasted loading page. It’s displayed for at least 5-6 seconds every time I launch the application, and that gets really old, really fast. I don’t mind having load or nag screens for the free version of an app – in fact, I expect it. However, for the fully licensed version, this should be eliminated, and quickly.

You can download Tweetcaster to your Android-powered smartphone here.

Back To Blogging Basics: Disqus

// September 27th, 2009 // 13 Comments » // blogging

Since tossing the forum at Symbian-Guru.com, we’ve gone back to using the default comment system that comes with WordPress. We’ve seen a healthy increase in the number of comments left, which is fantastic. There’s nothing wrong with this system – indeed, it works well for most people. Unfortunately, there were line break issues with our new theme, and it wasn’t really all that easy for readers to leave comments. The other problem is that I currently run three sites, all of which get comments. Moderating those comments is a big hassle, and not something I can easily do via email without clicking a link to get back to my site (which doesn’t work well from my phone, unfortunately).

I’ve had numerous friends recommend Disqus, and I resisted, mainly due to an unfounded belief that they completely replaced my blog’s comment system, which meant that if Disqus went down (or stopped working) then my site would be comment-less. After some investigation, it appears as though Disqus has now cleverly integrated itself with your WordPress database, both importing your existing comments to kick-start things, and also constantly synchronizing new comments back to your database. This means, essentially, that if I were to stop using Disqus, I wouldn’t really lose anything. Brilliant.

Setup is quite possibly even easier than setting up WordPress in the first place. You simply setup your Disqus account (or login, if you’ve already created one for commenting on other sites) and then walk through the 4-step process to add your site to your account. For WordPress self-hosted sites, there’s a dead-simple plugin that you can install, and that’s really it.

Another major bonus, in my opinion, is the easy integration with other services, specifically for my readers. You can now login and comment on any of my three sites by using either OAuth, Twitter, Facebook, or Disqus. You can also comment anonymously, if so inclined. Not only is this more convenient for my readers, but it also gives them easy options to post their comments (or the post) on Facebook or Twitter easily. Brilliant.

You can completely customize the Disqus comments box with all sorts of various settings, and can easily access the CSS, if you wish to change the colors and all.

One important factor for me, however, is mobile access. Many of my readers use their phones to access the site, and making sure that would work with Disqus was a top priority. I’m pleased to report that, although slightly more resource-heavy when loading, Disqus works great on the mobile versions of my sites, which is awesome.

The best part? Setting up and implementing Disqus on three separate blogs took a grand total of 20 minutes, kid you not. That is, without question, the fastest, most headache-free thing that I’ve done to improve my site, ever. The other awesome part is that, since all of my sites are connected to my single Disqus account, I can moderate comments on all three sites from the same page – without having to reload or re-login or anything. It’s completely brilliant.You can see Disqus in action at the end of this post.

What’s the last thing you did to improve your blog experience for both you and your readers at the same time? Did it work?

Back On The Hunt

// September 10th, 2009 // No Comments » // Social Networks

After a few consulting projects here and there, I’m back on the hunt for exciting opportunities to use my skills. I’m really looking for companies who need my help in setting up an online presence using Social Media tools such as Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and others. I would also love to join with companies who are already utilizing some of these tools, to help them explore how they can improve the relationships that they are already building.

The most exciting thing about using Social Media tools, in my opinion, is that they actually free you up from being stuck in front of a computer all day. Any cell phone on the market today can access Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, or nearly any other social media tool that you’re using, so that you can interact on the go. It’s a fantastic example of technology enriching and enabling our real lives.

Twitter is, by far, one of the most popular tools that companies are using to interact with current and potential customers. Major companies such as Dell and AT&T are employing teams of people to simply monitor Twitter, and directly interact with consumers who are expressing issues with Dell computers or AT&T’s service. These Twitter Teams are able to quickly act to resolve situations, and it seems to be paying off.

I’ve also noticed other companies who simply reach out to say thanks. In the past few months, I’ve tweeted about great experiences with OpenTable.com, Discount Tires, and more, only to quickly receive a ‘thanks’ via Twitter. It’s not much, but it feels great to know that these companies are listening, and more importantly, talking back.

If your company is trying to make sense of all this social media mumbo-jumbo, or if you know someone who is, please do let me know (or point them here). I’d love to chat with them, to see how I can help them work smarter to better engage directly with their current and potential customers.

Great Experiences With Discount Tire

// July 17th, 2009 // No Comments » // cool

Since I started driving, I’ve bought nearly half a dozen sets of tires, and all of them have been from Discount Tire, for a number of reasons. For one, they’re decently priced. They might be a bit more expensive than ordering online or whatever, but they’re not too overpriced. Second, they make the whole process insanely easy and convenient. Even in today’s economy, the second point outweighs most any pricing discrepancy, in my opinion.

For starters, Discount Tire uses a nation-wide database. That means I can walk into any Discount Tire in the country and get my truck’s tires serviced – including the free lifetime rotate and balance, without any hassle. I don’t even need the receipt (though that helps). They can look up my phone number and see a whole profile on me, including which vehicles I have, when they’ve been serviced, etc.

I’ve used this nationwide feature a few times, and what I also like is that Discount Tire realizes you’re possibly going to be sitting for a while, and they have comfortable chairs, a little fridge with bottled water, coffee, and clean bathrooms. It’s such a small thing, and probably costs them next to nothing, but it makes a big difference when you’re already having issues with your mode of transportation.

Last, and this is a new one, is that they’re ‘out there’. By that, I mean this tire company is using the Internet to further enhance the experience. I tweeted a few weeks ago when I stopped through my Discount Tire, because they were able to get me in and out within 15-20 minutes – a record for *any* mechanic, regardless of the service I was getting. Within a short time, I had a response on Twitter from @DiscountTire, saying they were glad I enjoyed it.

A few days later, I also received an email, simply saying thanks for visiting a store, and a quick link to a survey. The email does not contain any ‘hot deals’ announcements, or any other sales-related content – it’s simply a ‘thank you’ email, and I like that.

Definitely a job well-done, and thanks to the convenience and friendliness, I’ll easily continue to purchase tires from Discount Tire, even if it’s not the cheapest place to get them.

Wanted: Twitter User Analytics

// May 30th, 2009 // 4 Comments » // Social Networks

Twitter’s an awesome tool, and depending on how you choose to use it, you use different tools to manage and maintain it. For my @Symbianguru and other ‘work’ accounts, I often simply re-follow nearly everyone and anyone, so as not to miss anything. However, for my personal @rcadden account, I’m much more picky on who I follow and who I don’t follow.

One thing that I find lacking is the ability to really investigate other users before deciding to follow/unfollow them. Of course I can see their profile, and that makes a big difference already, as I can see if they took the time to design their profile, or fill out various fields. I can also see how many followers they have, or how many people they follow.

However, one thing I can’t see, currently, is a breakdown of their actual USAGE of Twitter. This matters because when I follow them, their updates will show up in my feed, possibly junking it up. Thus, I would like to see a breakdown of their average daily updates, in a few different arenas.

First off, I’d like to see, on average, how many tweets they post per day. Within that, I’d like to know what percentage of their tweets contain a link, or what percentage are retweets of someone else’s tweets. Do they ever re-post the same tweet multiple times throughout the day? To my knowledge, there isn’t any service that currently offers this type of analytics.

Do you know of a service that offers this? If not, do you think this would be a valuable service? I’d like to be able to login once a week (or even get an email) and see who added me this week, as well as the previously mentioned statistics on that person, so that I can manage things better on a week-to-week basis.

5 Ways To Use Twitter To Increase Traffic

// May 13th, 2009 // No Comments » // marketing, Social Networks

Twitter is a powerful tool, but you can waste quite a bit of time there, as well. I’ve been using Twitter to drive traffic to Symbian-Guru.com for several months now, and thought I would share a few of the things that are working well. It’s important to note that simply having a large number of followers does not guarantee your brand will be successful on Twitter. You have to use the tool properly if you want to be able to get a solid return on the investment of time and resources.

Below are five tips that have helped increase traffic from Twitter to Symbian-Guru.com:

1. Build your profile. Just like your site’s homepage is where you make a first impression, your Twitter profile is often a deciding factor when someone is considering clicking on that ‘Follow’ button. Fill it out completely.

2. Feed your blog. There are a number of tools to automate this, but it’s helpful to have your site’s RSS feed coming into your Twitter feed. Readers can more easily get to your site that way, and good posts often get retweeted by your readers, which means more potential visitors.

3. ENGAGE. Set aside a bit of time every day to interact with people on Twitter. Do a few keyword searches, and find people who are asking questions that you can answer. Helping others is one of the best ways to build respect and authority in your field, and will increase the likelihood that they will visit your site to see what else you know.

4. Retweet others in your niche. This is similar to linking to them from your blog – it builds your rapport, and increases the likelihood that they’ll return the favor eventually.

5. Help your readers use Twitter. If you’re on Twitter, that likely means that you think your readers are, too. Regardless of your niche, do a few posts on how they can better use Twitter. If you blog about mobile, show how to use Twitter on their mobiles. If you blog about quilting circles, share how Twitter can help organize the next meet, or get answers to tricky quilting questions. If your readers aren’t using Twitter, then why are you?

While this is clearly not a complete guide, it should get you started. Using these tips and more, traffic from Twitter.com to Symbian-Guru.com has grown 27% over the past 30 days, and ranks in the top 10 sources of traffic for the site. Social media tools such as Twitter can be extremely valuable, if you know how to use them properly. They can also easily be abused, alienating your current or potential customers.

Ricky Cadden is available to help you use Social Media tools such as Twitter to grow your brand by authentically engaging with your current and potential customers as the experience your brand. You can read more about Ricky’s skills here, or contact him at Ricky(at)RickyCadden(dot)com.

BirdBet Keeps Track Of Your Friends’ Lame Bets

// May 13th, 2009 // No Comments » // cool, Social Networks, technology

If you’re a guy (and possibly if you’re a girl), then there’s no denying that you’ve said the words, ‘I’ll bet you $XX…’ to your friends. The XX can be any number, typically lower than 10, whereas the sentence can be completed with any number of options. It could be the result of a sports game, whether or not one party is able to do something specific (finish that beer in 2 minutes, hit a barrel with a rock, etc.). The important thing to know about this phenomenon is that 1. it’s a small, informal bet on a concrete situation and 2. it’s tough to enforce.

BirdBet has just stepped in to reinforce the first problem, and help solve the second. BirdBet combines Twitter with Tipjoy to facilitate these small, yet serious bets among friends more easily. The system is simple. You login with your Twitter account (you don’t have to give BirdBet your login details – they do it all proper), and then send a tweet to your friend, dictating how much you want to bet, followed by what it is that you’re betting on.

A tweet is sent out through your account, calling out your soon-to-be-less-rich friend, so that they’re aware. There’s also a link included, so that each party can track the bet, including when it was made, who extended it, how much, and other extremely important details. Seeing as how several of my friends have….heated discussions…over long-past bets quite frequently, I can easily see how BirdBet is a good idea for them. Unfortunately, none of them are on Twitter, but that’s beside the point.

Micropayment services like Tipjoy are sure to become more and more popular and commonplace, and I’m excited to see new ways to use them, such as BirdBet. It’s a classic case of technology enriching and enabling our real lives, and I absolutely love it. I think it will be wildly popular, don’t you? Wanna bet on it?

I’m Pruning Facebook

// March 25th, 2009 // 6 Comments » // Social Networks

I’m clearly a very ‘online’ person. I upload all my personal videos and photos publicly to a number of different places, have this blog, on which you can find out tons of information about me, and have worked to make myself ‘googlable’. As such, I currently have 672 friends on Facebook. I realize that’s not many at all, in comparison with other online personas, but it’s more ‘friends’ (rather, contacts) than I have on any other service, including Twitter. The problem with that is two-fold:

1. Facebook has become redundant – most of my ‘online’ friends use a service like Ping.FM to post their status updates to numerous places at once. Thus, my Twitter feed and Facebook status feed look awful similar, most of the time. This doesn’t help me at all, as I have to filter through the information twice.

2. Facebook has become cluttered – most of this is due to the awful new layout, but my Facebook is cluttered with people that I’ve met once, or in several cases, not ever met at all. Chances are, if I’ve never met someone in real life, then I met them online (duh), in which case I probably am already connected with them over Twitter or some other place.

Thus, I’m enacting a new rule for my Facebook account – you will only be listed as my ‘friend’ in Facebook if we’ve met in real life at least 2x. Why 2x? For one, because my buddy Stefan Constantinescu uses that metric, and I think it’s a good one. Also, it’s not quite possible to meet someone 2x in real life on accident, in most cases. The first meeting, definitely. Could be that you randomly met at a bar, or at an event, or whatever. It could be that a friend introduced you two, and the ‘polite’ thing to do (at the time) was to find each other on Facebook. However, those are chance encounters, and you aren’t quite what I’d call ‘friends’. Heck, you’re hardly even ‘acquaintances’. But 2x, well, usually the 2nd meeting was on purpose. Perhaps you had something interesting to talk about, or perhaps I just thought you were cool and sought to hang out again. Either way, it’s a more deliberate meeting.

If I remove you, please don’t take it personally. We can still be ‘contacts’ on any other online service, but I’m going to limit my Facebook by this 2x rule. It may start to suck, and I might end up adding everyone back, who knows.

What do you think? Is this a stupid idea, or do you see why it makes sense?