Tag Archives: Twitter

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Independent Twitter Alternatives for Politics and Economics

December 16, 2011 – 4:41 pm

Twitter is without question my favorite social networking tool. So much so that I ignore nearly every other social network in favor of my curated list of people I follow. I don’t follow everyone, not because I don’t like them or enjoy what they have to say — I just try to keep it set to a nice mix of personal friends and most importantly the news/information I care about.

Twitter defines “breaking news”. If it just happened now you should have read about it 4 minutes ago via Twitter. Twitter remains one of the most fantastic advancements in the history of human communication. With enough searching one can find a plethora of sources, especially independent, that serve a specific niche market of information.  Today I list some of my favorites for political and economic commentary. Enjoy.

Political/Economic Commentary Volume 1:

Eric D. Barry/@ericdbarry — Eric is a friend because of social networking. I met him when searching for libertarian, austrian, and anarcho-capitalist feeds. At the time (early on) there was a serious drought but what I found in Eric’s feed cannot be matched. There are others who post way too much! I don’t need every article from Lew Rockwell or Mises. I need a nice balance. Something someone curates. Eric does a fantastic job and has impeccable taste.

Mike/@MarketAnarchy – Mike’s Twitter bio states:  ”Home-school father. Transhumanist Agorist w/ a splash of AnCap & Objectivism. Interests: MTG, reading, & firearms.” Everything listed is covered in detail. Mike has a great sense of commentary. He cuts through the “bs” and is always precise with his words. I enjoy all of his Tweets and he never over does it.

Learn Liberty/@learnliberty — The home for independent education. Learn Liberty defines what education will become in the future. A free online education in economics and philosophy with law and history on the way! So fantastic you should have to pay but you don’t. They offer great commentary on a wide array of topics.

Judge Napolitano/@Judgenap — I hesitated including the Judge because he does host a show on Fox Business. However he is just too informed and too honest to leave out. The Judge provides insight and commentary daily, even hourly. An active feed with a fair share of “ads” for his show. If you can get beyond that though it is a great source of information. Love liberty? You’ll love this.

Robert E. Taylor/@robertetaylor — Robert Taylor is a brilliant mind. Not only is he a master of praxeology he also produces and directs a fantastic YouTube show called Praxgirl (a source to learn praxeology, the study of human action) He does this to help advance the science. He also provides great commentary on current events. He doesn’t post very often which is a bit of a let down but when he does post it is always something to think about. At the very least keep up with Praxgirl on her account!

Ricardo Perez/@ricardoaperez — How to even describe Ricardo… what started as a Tumblr “celebrity” who runs the immensely popular “State Hate” has turned into a fantastic source of economic and political wit! Ricardo is a passionate Anti-state libertarian studying to be a criminal defense attorney. Not only is he a source for great original thoughts, he mixes it up with attitude. Something others may lack. In short, he doesn’t apologize when he puts someone on blast. A must for your feed.

So there you go, for now. Volume 1 for the political/economic list — I will obviously make more. I think next is going to be a list for tech commentary, maybe music, maybe gaming. I could just make a Twitter list and link it but this encourages you to explore. Let me know in the comments if there is someone I should know about!

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Blog

Path to No Where

December 14, 2011 – 1:03 pm

Path exploded on the iOS market… around December 2010. It was originally a service to share private photos with 50 of your closest friends. Despite a great user interface it never really caught on. So Path added Facebook sharing which did generate some more noise but again it never caught on.

As of a few weeks ago Path redesigned itself as a life journal. It launched what I consider to be the most beautiful example of design and UX (user experience) to date. The app itself is simply put, gorgeous. So many little details make it fun to tinker with. However no matter how beautiful something may be the market for said functionality doesn’t seem to be there.

I started getting a punch of emails from path a few weeks ago, none of my friends were ever on it but suddenly like an explosion the friend requests started coming in! I thought to myself, wow, this is neat! Lets roll with it. I stayed up to date on my friend’s progress for about 48 hours — and then I forgot all about the beauty of the app and saw it as something I needed to “check”.

72 hours in it all was quiet on the Path app front. No more updates. Everyone had signed up and while there were still friends signing up (due to other friends signing up) no one was using it as Path. It was just another way to spam Twitter/Facebook. Despite the beauty of the app, I uninstalled.

So where is Path now? You have a beautiful app which is amazing but what then? The service of Path is on par with a journal services like Momento or Day One (beautiful journal apps). The problem as well is these items are used as an “on top of” platform. They exist on top of Twitter and Facebook and theoretically just duplicate and complicate already basic function. How?

If I want to post what I’m doing I can just do that with Facebook or Twitter. Launching another app to interact seems to be another step. No? It is sad because I want to use Path — I really do think it is gorgeous! I’m in awe of the app! But I just don’t need it. That is the great tragedy.

Outside tech pundits and gurus, the valley and blogging elite — I just don’t see it. It’s been a week or so now… no more friend requests because I deleted the app. I was reminded yesterday by a tweet from my brother. It said it all.

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Blog Technology

What’s Happening to Twitter?

December 13, 2011 – 1:10 am

Twitter released their latest mobile application and as expected it has met the fury of the user base. Twitter has strayed away from simple “microblogging” to become a full featured ad delivery tool. That’s right, Twitter has finally moved from the simple 140 character status share to a social network tailored to the demands of the marketing gods.

Twitter for iPhone is no longer an interaction tool to create, it has become a tool to consume. Consume what? Well tweets of course, but who’s tweets? Gone is the “mentions” tab. Gone is the presence of direct messages. Now in place you have “Connect” and “Discover”. What do you connect and discover? I’m not exactly sure. Granted I haven’t really used Twitter for iPhone since Tweetie was purchased by Twitter. I have been using Tweetbot (more on that later).

So what’s the deal? Twitter seems to be pushing their product in a new direction — Twitter has made a bold move to make Twitter a place to serve information from people and companies who can afford to push said information to users. The “Discover” tab lets users follow the latest trends and news stories but who cares? It is often filled with items I simply don’t care about. It is items from people I don’t want to know or interact with. Yet it is right there, in my face.

Twitter seems to be moving in a backward direction. While they want to increase participation it is clear that the company is moving in an ad friendly direction. The app went from being Tweetie beautiful to Twitter for iPhone ugly. The app has wasted space, it isn’t efficient, and for the love of all things… what happened to direct messages? What about multiple account support? All of this buried.

It have a sneaking suspicion that Twitter is running out of steam. Sure it’s gaining ads but at what cost? Twitter has always lacked organization and a firm base. The 140 character and @reply system has worked but there was never any structure. No form like Facebook — it is so easy to follow interaction on Facebook. Twitter is going toward a “discovery” focus which is code for ad focus while Facebook is aiming to create a world where people can share ideas, likes, dislikes, and photos.

So all of this rambling, now what? I love Twitter, it has always been my favorite but their seemingly hell bent on serving the advertisers over the users. Remember the #dickbar? Well the new app is more or less just the #DickApp. It sucks. It’s ugly and lacks true function. The redesign leads me to believe I understand why visionary Tweetie creator Loren B left the company recently. If I saw my product get executed I would leave too.

Facebook steams ahead. Never thought I would say that!

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Technology

Ever Want to Tell A Twitter User to Shuu.sh?

July 7, 2011 – 4:45 pm

Follow a lot of people on Twitter? Sick of the people who post uncontrollably? Shuu.sh offers a great little tool – it brings the proper attention to those who don’t get enough time on your feed.

The accounts that post constantly will be displayed in a small font size, and those who don’t see much Twitter time will be displayed in a larger font. It brings some users the attention they deserve!

From Shuu.sh:

Shuush is a prototype web based Twitter reader that ranks your followers on frequency of tweets. It aims to amplify the people that don’t usually get heard, and scale back those with frequent updates

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Technology

On Why Apple Should Buy Twitter

July 6, 2011 – 6:17 pm

Had a brief exchange with highly respected entrepreneur and advisor Semil Shah on the idea of Twitter being bought by Apple Inc. Here is my original message to him after he asked for some clarification. (Things like this get me stoked on being a nerd)

Semil,

I was trying to articulate that Apple would be a great choice to buy out Twitter. Some quick reasoning behind this is mainly Apple’s lack of “social skills” haha. Buying Twitter would give them a great platform to build off of. Apple is notorious for their minimalism and what is more “minimal” than Twitter and their 140 limit?

Apple owning Twitter opens up a whole new base for iAds – Apple could target so many with the potential purchase. Baking Twitter into iOS is a great start and an excellent example of what Apple could do. If they bought Twitter then the status update (not just the image/map/location share) becomes part of the user experience. People who are iPhone users who aren’t Twitter users now have a new means of communication to the world. The social network comes off the web and becomes the device. Imagine being able to add friends and follow people based on their activity on their iOS devices.

A purchase by Apple opens up to a direct injection in so many markets and products. So many companies and products use Twitter. If Apple owned Twitter so many of these same companies would now jump over to Apple products.

Just my two cents. I think it’s a long shot but I see the iOS platform as the social network of tomorrow. Not just the way to use it.

Mark my words, the social network of the future is the device itself. Not the service.

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Web

Twitter is Bringing Ads To Your Feed

June 24, 2011 – 9:18 am

It would seem as if the days of old Twitter are very much behind us! News has been leaking around the web that Twitter will finally go full speed ahead with monetization by adding their promoted tweets to your feed.

Sooner or later you may start to see tweets from people you don’t follow in your stream. They could be links to products or just notifications that companies will certainly shell out big bucks for. Twitter is unquestionably lagging in the revenue department when compared to someone like Facebook. Twitter has always had trouble finding a way to turn a profit with the popular service.

In-stream ads seems like the logical next step to monetize but will it bring backlash? How many of you will turn your back on your Twitter feed if you have to read through ads and Tweets that are more or less just spam? Personally it doesn’t bother me much, especially if the in-stream ads are targeted at interests of mine.

So say I follow a lot of people who talk about music, the ads displayed in my feed would be music related. Not so bad if you ask me. I’m sure more details will arrive soon. Very interesting to say the least. Maybe Twitter will finally break through that ad ceiling.

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Blog

On Why Twitter Has Destroyed Blogging

January 9, 2011 – 11:20 pm

It’s no secret, blogging isn’t what it used to be. At least in terms of personal/novelty blogs. Sure the big names like TechCrunch, Engadget, Gizmodo, etc haven’t seen any sort of impact but small time, or personal corners of the web are being run out 140 characters at a time.

I used to blog heavily, especially during the early 2000′s I would find a way to get several articles or stories up a day. I enjoyed having a voice that I could then share with people who would then share with more people. It was nice to be able to speak to such a large audience with little effort. Now though when I have a thought or something I want to say I have a large group of friends and followers actively monitoring their Twitter feed! All need be done is grab my iPhone, Macbook Pro, or iPad and crank out something short, witty, and insightful. I press “tweet” and my thoughts are now shared with a great group of people who can then re-share it or reply and engage in a conversation with me.

What makes Twitter such a force is the fact it limits your character count. Everyone knows this but do people realize how much of an impact this has on our thought process? I believe it was my friend Luc who said something like “I hate it, if you want to talk to me, talk to me. I’m not limiting myself to one hundred and forty characters”. He had a great point. We are really trained to get our ideas across to others in such a limited amount of space. I ask though, maybe this isn’t such a bad thing?

Why is this so bad? Rather than breaking out my WordPress and sitting around typing up a very wordy, long, and unnecessary post about something I could simply hop on Twitter and say…


Twitter killed the blog. No need to make a long drawn out post when it can be condensed into 140 characters. Where is communication headed?
January 10, 2011 12:17 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite
@JaisonDM
Jaison De Montalegre

Get the point?

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Web

On Twitter for Mac

January 9, 2011 – 7:23 am

The Mac App Store launched as I’m sure everyone knows. Several great apps instantly became available. Within the span of a few minutes the most popular free app was Tweetie 2 Twitter for Mac, and for good reason.

Twitter for Mac is visually fantastic. It has the right amount of Mac flare and the whole vibe is just right. Tweetie was no different, this just improves in so many areas. I have no complaints at all on the look, I think it is flawless. The inclusion of the live user stream is wonderful. No more refreshing and no more “click to load X more tweets”. Also, the ability to use multiple accounts! All fantastic, however I do have some issues.

Twitter for Mac has some feature problems. For starters the exclusive use of t.co URL shortening. I don’t particularly care very much but I have been known to use goo.gl and bit.ly for shortening. Both services have ways to count the number of clicks per URL and t.co does not. This is problematic for many people who are concerned with their web and product stats.

Next and most surprising is the lack of retweet monitoring. My friend Chauncey brought this to my attention and he is exactly right. When I tweet something, if it is retweeted I want to know when and who did it. I can keep track of this on Twitter.com and through other clients like TweetDeck – it is not possible with Twitter for Mac. In my opinion this is a large feature that was overlooked. Let’s hope to see it added soon?

I also don’t know how I feel about the composition and tweet function. You need to either punch in a keyboard shortcut or click a menu and click “New tweet”. This seems counterintuitive for a product and a platform that is based on the speed of “What’s happening?”. If you enable the secret beta features (which I managed to do) you can just start typing while focused on the app and it begins to start composing a new tweet. This should be a launch feature.

Finally, the way the app manages media. On Twitter.com you can view media “in-line” or at least in the side panel. While you can view some pictures from some services in the app (TwitPic, yFrog, etc) there is a very large gap between what is supported in the app and on the website. This should be a constant between all apps if you ask me. This alone turns me off to the app. I don’t want to launch new tabs with every click. This is tab overload and I hate that.

All in all the app is beautiful and the team behind it deserves a round of applause. I hope that some of these concerns are addressed as I am not the only one. In time this app, with the right attention can and will rival the best Twitter experience which is Twitter for iPad. Until then I think I will have to stick to the web experience mixed with my iPhone.

(For those who say use TweetDeck, no thanks. I used TweetDeck from beta all the way to the very last version. Adobe Air/Flash suck.)

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