I didn’t really get Twitter until the iPhone 2.0 software update bought along the free and excellent Twitterific client.
I still sorta don’t get it; although it is growing on me. I use the Facebook status update field all the time, but there’s something considerably separate about how Twitter works.
On Twitter
I think that it’s about how public facing it is, but also how the people who use it come (and will come) from the ‘work’ side of my life. Maybe also the fact that it’s not Facebook, where people have quite a bit of anxiety over who to ‘Add’ or not to ‘Add’. Free-love style social networks invariably lead to any one user having more ‘connections’. Think myspace.
At this point, it becomes a really useful networking tool. I love staying in touch with people in the Industry; especially in the Bristol area where the community is actually rather strong. They’re always up to interesting stuff, and it’s really just great to see what they’re up to.
But what I’m reckoning is that it’s going to work rather well beyond the Bristol circle; and has the potential to enable users to create stronger relationships with contacts they otherwise wouldn’t be able to forge very strong relationships with (as, for example, they might not really have a reason to get in touch).
I’ve ordered some new business cards from Moo (after meeting one of their lovely team members at Open Tech) and I’ve managed to include my Flickr username and, because of it’s free-love and techie-oriented nature, my Twitter username. I think that’ll work well.
Twitteriffic for iPhone
Twitter has a bloody disgusting interface. It’s not that it doesn’t work, it’s just ugly. I have a hard time using it, to be honest, and I think that’s a shame.
Titter has been smart enough to have a good API from the go, however, and so third-party clients such as Twitteriffic step in to take the burden of good-looks and usability for the Twitter platform.
Twitteriffic for Mac is good, although it’s a little annoying… I don’t care enough about Twitter to have it pop up on my screen every five minutes yet.
Twitteriffic for iPhone is excellent, though. Fully embracing the flexibility and tools of the new iPhone SDK, it offers a gorgeous and intuitive interface which is always at your disposal.
It updates quickly, as there is only ever a small amount of text to update, and even provides two brilliant features which can prove to be really fun.
Firstly, Twitteriffic embraces the iPhones location services. These include very precise GPS co-ordinates, but also the less-accurate Skyhook-/Google-powered WiFi/GPRS based location service. Essentially this translates to a button you can press which will find your location and then send your co-ordinates, and only your co-ordinates, to your Twitter profile, within seconds. Painless, fast and potentially very interesting.
I’m not sure how Twitter stores that kind of information, but if it does keep a record of co-ordinates over time, you could potentially do some really cool stuff.
Secondly, Twitteriffic makes very good use of the Camera and a web service called TwitPic. From within Twitteriffic you can quickly take a picture, and (without a title or description, which is probably a good thing) it’ll be uploaded to the free TwitPic speedily, a link placed within the editor for your next update message.
It makes for really great, quick and dirty photosharing… this is certainly no replacement for Flickr, to which you can merely email the photo from your iPhone, but it is certainly a fun tool to use.
Ahem
I sort of think I’ve rambled on about this for too long now.
The jist: Twitter might be quite useful; on the iPhone it’s great.
I’ve written this during a train journey from Reading to Bristol, but I’ve nearly arrived, so that’s all for now!