Reality is Perception

PROBLEM:
I was looking at my Facebook news stream the other day, and I realized that I never see the status updates from several of my closest friends, including my husband!  I know they post and some very frequently.  I’m always switching over to the Most Recent list (linked at the top right of the news feed, in case you didn’t know it was there).

I then realized that I just crossed the 600 friends mark and all their updates, plus all the fans/groups/etc. that I’m part of fall into my news feed as well.  This is really becoming unmanageable!  Like the way I use Tweetdeck to separate out updates by topic/user/group, etc., I want to do that with my Facebook stream as well.

SOLUTION:
I was also playing with my security settings with my friend groups the other day and realized a solution to my over-crowded feed stream!

When you click on the Friends link on the left, it opens the list of my friend groups.

Then when I click on a Friend group, it shows me the stream from only the users in that group!!

Now, it’s kind of a pain to get there (since you have to click twice), but I usually at least have to click once to get to the Most Recent news feed anyway, so one more click won’t hurt for now.  Hopefully, this means that they will or already have made this filtered news feed available externally, so tools like TweetDeck could eventually use them.

You CAN setup columns in TweetDeck by content and by users, but there’s no way to use a Facebook group you already have setup.  You have to setup groups specifically in TweetDeck (hopefully just for now).

Click Add Column, then click the Facebook icon to get the FB options.  You can then select Everyone or Create a New Group, which will guide you to picking the individual FB users you want to keep track of.

Hopefully not a permanent solution, but at least for now I have a way to see the statuses of the people I want to stalk, I mean, keep up with.

Do you know of a better way to do this?  Please leave a comment and do tell!

Two of the main stats I’ve heard since the explosion of Twitter within the last year or so (and other status-like apps like Google Buzz) are the high number of new users, but also the high number of users that abandon their Twitter account shortly after.

From my last post where I talked about the evolution of all these social networking sites, I’m saying the reason why most people don’t stay with Twitter is because of the lack of design in the Twitter website, and users not knowing the best alternatives.

There are multitudes of sites and apps that you can register for and download that you can find by just doing a Google search on “Update Twitter Apps” like this one from TechCrunch: http://techcrunch.com/2009/02/19/the-top-20-twitter-applications/

I’m going to keep this from being a tome of reviews though, and just stick with what I see are the main two options: the Twitter website and Tweetdeck.

The Twitter Website

First off, don’t have a Twitter username that’s longer than 10 characters. Your username (like @bhbeak) is going to be included if someone re-posts what you’ve said into their status, and if you have a 30-character-long username, it won’t leave them any room to comment, etc.  aka. KEEP YOUR USERNAME AS SHORT AS POSSIBLE while still allowing people to recognize who you are. If you need ideas, let me know, and I can tell you what your celebrity name would be.

When you first login to Twitter, it takes you through a Wizard to choose suggested topics like Art & Design, Books, Business, etc. and gives you recommendations of people to “follow” (whose tweets you want to see in your “stream”).  The next step is you can find friends that have Twitter accounts already so you can follow them.

It can search your Gmail, Yahoo or AOL account for your friends that use Twitter and present them so you can choose who you’d like to follow.

Finally, you can search for Twitter usernames (like mine is @bhbeak) and follow them.

Ok, so now you have your Twitter account setup, and you’re even following some people (or at least me ).  Now you have TWO problems..

PROBLEM #1 – Everyone’s statuses that I’m following are all on one screen, and there are only a few that I want to MAKE SURE that I can always see when they update.

The Twitter website provides a solution to this by allowing you to create lists and add people to them.  That way only the people’s status who you add to that list (like a FAVES list) show up there, making it much easier to manage.

You can setup a list by clicking on the New List link on the right side of your Twitter Home page under the Search Box and Lists title.  Give your new list a name, a description (optional), and set the Public/Private flag whether you want anyone to see your list or not.

Once you have it setup, you can go to any Twitter user, or your Followers/Following list and click on the Lists button on the right of their name and click which List(s) to add them to.

Once you have a list setup, you can click on the list under the LISTS section on the right side of the Twitter page to see all the tweets from users in that list.

Setting up lists is great, and a very useful feature that we’ll discuss later, so I’d definitely recommend at least setting up a FAVES list, if not more by topic/group/etc.

However, the problem I have with it is it’s still only one list on the screen at a time?  What if I have 10+ lists and don’t want to have to click through each one?  That’s almost worse than having them all in one stream…

RESOLUTION TO #1 – Enter TWEETDECK

Tweetdeck makes it easy to see each of your friends’ statuses by splitting the screen into columns for you to see them separately, instead of separate pages or (even worse!) one single stream.  How on earth would I be able to really read and follow the statuses I’m interested in when some of the people I’m friends with fill up my stream constantly?  That’s why Tweetdeck is so good.

Once you have Tweetdeck installed, go into Settings – Accounts, you can put in your Twitter login info, and it will automatically pull in your Twitter stream, as well as allow you to post to it.

This brings me to Problem #2:

PROBLEM #2 – Now I have Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn AND NOW Google Buzz, too.. Do I have to update each of them individually?

RESOLUTION TO #2, Part 1 – Tweetdeck can update Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn all at once!

In Tweetdeck, the same place you put in your Twitter info, you can also put in your Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn login info, and it will automatically pull in your streams from those sites, as well as allow you to post to them all at once.  If you don’t want certain posts to go to Facebook, for instance, you can just uncheck Facebook above your post and it will only update what you have highlighted (in the example screenshot, just Twitter will be updated).

It will also do great things like shorten any URLs you put in your post so they take up less room.  There are also fun buttons like adding a photo, or adding your current location, etc.  Play around with those and let me know what you like best or what’s most useful.

RESOLUTION TO #2, Part 2 – Setup Google Buzz to link to your Twitter account!

While everyone’s still trying to figure out what the heck to do with Google Buzz, don’t miss out on building rapport with your Google contacts when it’s really easy to post there.

Login to your Gmail account, click on BUZZ in your left menu, and next to your picture and name at the top, it refers to your number of “Connected Sites”.  Click on that link and it opens up this window, where you can click on the services to connect your Google Buzz to.
- For this example, click on the Add button next to Twitter.
- Type in your Twitter username.
- Twitter will ask you for your password and approval, and once you click Approve/OK, it will be connect.
- That’s it!  Now every time you tweet something (from wherever), your tweet will be posted on Google Buzz!

While you’re at it, if you’re using Google Reader or any of the other services listed in Google Buzz, Add them as well!  I’ve found that Buzz is best when it is just connected to what I’m already doing and pulls in auto-posts from various places.  That makes it VERY low maintenance!

What do you think?  Have you used Tweetdeck before, or did you follow these instructions to start using it?  I’d love to hear your experiences with setting any of this up, and even what questions you have that I may be able to help with!  Leave a question/comment below!

My friend G and I have talked about this before, but never have really gotten it off the ground and had people share, so here we go…

Since iPhones are so customized and usually very personal, especially in my case since it’s my “other relationship”, let’s answer the question:

What’s on YOUR iPhone?

The top row contains my most frequently used apps:
- Mail and Calendar - for personal and work (Exchange) syncing.
- The Weather Channel - in the mornings.
- Buster - the killer app for the Chicago Transit Authority Bus GPS statuses.

The second row contains apps that I need in a hurry!:
- GoogleMaps - for obvious reasons, especially traffic updates while driving/riding somewhere! Very accurate!
- FourSquare - to throw a quick shout-out to wherever I am and great things about the place.
- Apartments.com – GPS while riding around to check out neighborhoods and find apt listings/prices, etc.
- Camera - for those award-winning one-of-a-kind moments..

The third row contains my “Staying Connected” apps:
- TweetDeck - even though it still has some flaws, it’s still the best Twitter app around IMHO.
- Facebook - obvious – the real-time, online Days of Our Lives… you can’t write stuff this good!
- MSNBC (msnbc.msn.com) - mobile site with quick headlines, loads fast, REALLY easy interface.
- MacRumors (mobile.macrumors.com)- mobile site, to satiate my relentless cravings for all things Apple.

The fourth row are my fave utility apps:
- Loopt (more fun with friends, but wish it was part of Facebook, not just able to update Facebook)
- Shazam and Pandora are a match made in Heaven!  Shazam will listen to and tag a song you’re hearing, then launch Pandora, enter the song or album or artist name, and voila! A whole radio station of the music you love!

My favorite story about these two is that I’ve always loved spanish guitar music, but could never find an album I liked.  I was sitting at brunch and heard a song that was a perfect example of it, launched Shazam and tagged the song (it listens for about 10-20 seconds and if it recognizes it, will tell you artist, album, song name, and as many social media links to their music).  I then launched Pandora and entered the song name, and it’s now one of my favorite online radio stations to listen to!   Harmonious perfection!

- And finally, G-Reader – mobile site that’s new for me, haven’t found a really good RSS reader on the iPhone yet that’s better.  Would love to find one..  This one is definitely lacking…

So now I pose the question to you… What’s on YOUR iPhone??