1. Tweetdeck for the iPhone
   A mobile application has become very important for a lot of workshifter. Personally, I hate working at a desk day in and day out. Half of Tweetdeck’s users probably feel the same way. The services and tools we choose to use have to be able to keep up with users, literally!

   
   

2. PORTABLE Groups
   Not only did they lock users in via an iPhone app and a desktop client, they delivered on their promise with the addition of group synchronization for both clients.
   
3. Alerts
   For some odd reason, I love TweetDecks alerts and they’re infamous within the geek community. It’s a mixture of the visual appeal of them and the nextel chirp-sound that accompanies new alerts that users love. Plus, window users get a faux-mac feature.
   
4. Total Package…Well, Almost (see image below)
   
   
   
5. Consistent Updates & User Experience
   The team behind TweetDeck is constantly pushing up new updates for their desktop client. Now, if only we could get them to address the iPhone, or maybe we need to go after Apple for that. Either way, the experience from Tweetdeck on the iPhone and desktop is insightful, efficient, and visually mindblowing.

What do you think: Is Tweetdeck locking you in?

I’m guilty of cheating on Google Reader with Feedly. I can’t help it. Feedly is practically everything I could want in a feed reader (waiting on Google Chrome support and/or a Feedly Adobe Air app). From the team behind it to the application itself, Feedly is an amazing web-based RSS Reader! What separates it from other RSS readers on the desktop and the web is the peace of mind that Feedly provides when it comes to consuming content from the blogs I subscribe to.

Wait, did she just say peace of mind? Get real, right? I am! First, let me state that I love sharing stuff in Google Reader. Since I can’t blog a response to every article that I enjoyed or leave a comment on all of them, I can press Shift + S and share it. My Google Reader Shared Items is my way of saying thanks.

Lately, Google Reader has become more like a torture device. I’m not alone in this thinking either. It’s a never ending cycle of (1000+) unread items, after only 30 minutes of clicking “mark all as read”. Here’s the real problem: it’s not all about the numbers. While seeing 1000+ unread is a sure way for me to hit “mark all as read”, Google Reader is just plain boring for me to look at period. I don’t blame those who don’t care about RSS if they have to sit in Google Reader all day. Google’s simplicity just doesn’t cut it for me when it comes to constantly sifting through the diverse content that I subscribe to.
 

This view was great when first getting started, but became very boring to see everyday once my subscriptions started to pile up.

As my feed reading habits have evolved, Google Reader has taken away from my feed reading experience more than it serves to enhanced it. When it comes to features, Google Reader is lagging behind the competition tremendously. There’s no way for me to selectively share some of the content I’m reading to Twitter unless I use a greasemonkey script. Even with that script comes another problem: it doesn’t use Bit.ly as a link shortener and I want stats. See where I’m going with this?

Unlike traditional desktop and web-based clients, Feedly is packed with features for the most casual RSS readers to power users such as myself. I can twitter anything I’m reading or watching, share it to my Google Reader shared items, participate in any Friendfeed discussions that might be taking place, and get stats on the links I share. There are tons more features than the aforementioned that has made Feedly a one-stop feed-reader for me.

Now this is more like it! (Feedly Digest View)

Feedly has made me more enthusiastic about going through my feeds, or at least I don’t dread 1000+ unread items. In fact, I never seen anywhere near that number in Feedly. With Google Reader I felt forced to focus on the amount of content I was about to consume. Feedly takes a different approach by fitting the content I’m consuming, instead of forcing that content to fit the application. I’ve learned to use the various layout options that Feedly offers to digest my feeds more quickly and efficiently, while adding to my feed reading experience.  In doing so, I don’t focus on unread counts or even the amount of subscriptions I have. Feedly keeps my focus on what I’m consuming.

It doesn’t hurt to have an awesome team behind you too. The team behind Feedly has represented a team that understands what a user should be able to do in a feed reader. Understand that it’s not just about the features people. It’s about the overall experience that these features create independently and when combined. Quite frankly, Feedly is just a lot better than what I’m seeing in Google Reader everyday. How has your feed reading experience been lately?

Note: If you’re wondering why I still use Google Reader from time to time, it’s because I’m able to process large unread items quicker with Google Reader since I’m used to its interface. Also, Feedly requires Firefox and I no longer use FF as my default browser.

   
Are you crazy about StumbleUpon? Do you love sharing links on Twitter?  Then you need to discover a little secret – you can post your stumble reviews on Twitter right from StumbleUpon!

How To Tweet from StumbleUpon

First:  Join the StumbleUpon Beta Group.  (You can find the Join Group at the top left of the page.)

Then: Next time you give a thumbs up to a page that’s been stumbled before, add a review by clicking on the “Reviews of this page” icon on your StumbleUpon toolbar.
 

Next:  Add a short review (110 character or less is optimal if you want retweets).  Look closely, right under the Update review button you’ll see a Syndication options link.  Open it and check the Post to Twitter box:

StumbleUpon will then ask you to allow its application to access your Twitter account.  Say yes.

Now:  Click “Add review”  Your review will be added to the Stumble AND posted to your Twitter account.  Cool, huh?

Here’s the tricky part.  I haven’t figured out how to do this from an original Stumble.  I can only do it when I’m adding my own review to a post someone else has already discovered.  If you figure out how, please let us all know in the comments.  Happy Twitter/Stumbling.

This is a guest post by Chris Rogers (@RogersDC), who has spent 15 years in IT, long enough to see science fiction become reality through the innovation of two web booms. Fascinated with the successful development of software and online applications into viable businesses, Chris spends large amounts of "free" time identifying successful examples.

Zensify brought a new application to the iPhone today:  an integrated, (mostly) stable, and relatively light client for social networks and media.  It effectively combines streams from some of the top social applications in several categories and adds an addictive twist of its own.

Zensify:  Not just for Twitter

It’s tempting to look at Zensify as just another Twitter client on the iPhone, but you’d be underestimating it. Twitter and the iPhone were made for each other: the iPhone’s screen is just the right size for a single tweet and the iPhone keyboard. This is probably why there are so many good Twitter apps built specifically for the iPhone. As a Twitter client, Zensify covers the expected functions including retweets and favorites. Unfortunately, Zensify’s Twitter support is only average and lacks links to picture sites, URL shorteners, and geo tags.
       

Moving Beyond Twitter

This app starts to shine when you go beyond Twitter.  After registration, Zensify prompts for Twitter plus seven more social networks, leaders in each of their categories.  Other social networks and services include: Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Digg, Delicious, Photobucket, and 12seconds.tv.  For social media addicts, these are just the services that need to tracked on the go, with 7 of 8 overlapping my own daily activities.
  

The process to register each social network with Zensify varies, depending on each site’s requirements. Facebook is the most involved, requiring approval for each type of interaction with Zensify.  Digg is probably the least complicated, requiring only that you enter a user name, with no confirmation or password required. Once done, the home page nicely integrates the stream of activity from each of these sites. New Facebook updates, Delicious bookmarks, YouTube videos, and Flickr photos all flow smoothly with Twitter posts, and are just as easy to access.

A Sticky Performance

While browsing all those entries, I did run into a few bugs; Zensify shut down or timed out when trying to access some specific posts.  It’s important to note that the application is labeled as a "Preview," which I assume means alpha or beta level release, so bugs are to be expected.  However, I’m willing to keep using it while the Zensify team works through the kinks, thanks to the very addictive feature that integrates all the networks!

Enhanced Multi-Level Tag Support

What is the feature that makes Zensify so addicting?  It’s the clouds.  And yes, there are other useful features like persistent searches on the "Track" page and consolidation of "Favorites" from all the networks. But the clouds really sucked me in. The clouds in Zensify are tag clouds based on keywords from entries across social networks. Not just any tag cloud; it is a multi level tag cloud.
  

Tapping the Tag Cloud button, then tapping an entry in the first cloud presents another cloud of keywords associated with the last tapped keyword, and then another, and then another. Here’s the real benefit: at each level of the cloud, there is an icon at the bottom of the screen that brings up all posts across all social networks that include the selected keywords.  So, if I want to see all the posts about Android, I might tap "Android" in the first cloud, then the "posts" icon, and read the 33 entries in my network related to Google’s cell phone OS. 
   

Hooked on Zensify!

For me, Zensify does an excellent job of showing the depth in online conversations across my social networks through very effective use of tag clouds.  In spite of a few glitches (and hoping for the addition of Friendfeed), I highly recommend Zensify Preview because of the clouds.
   

Zensify is not without competition. Yahoo also integrates several social networks in the new Yahoo! Meme, but adds in additional services that I don’t use. However, these services also seem to slow the app down considerably. Nambu, another competitor available for Mac, combines Twitter, La.conica, and Friendfeed into one application, but doesn’t integrate their streams (and crashes frequently).  These applications are all free in the App Store; which one works best for you?

Are you following me on Twitter? You should be if you’re not. I know that sounds arrogant, but I’m only being honest. First, hear me out:

1. I share informational, inspiring, and awesomesauce content I find all over the web and within my social networks.
2. I love ReTweeting good stuff.
3. My avatar and Twitter profile are awesome. See for yourself.
4. Images? Of course I share pictures!
5. I love talking about the iPhone.
6. Love social media, technology, or mobile-oriented conversations? I’m your geek.
7. I ask a lot of questions. How else do you expect to get an answer?
8. EverythingTwitter & The SocialGeeks Podcast updates and exclusives!!
9. Check my #followfriday stats: I rule!
10. You won’t find me more active on any other service.

There you have it! 10 reasons to follow @corvida. How about sharing your 10 reasons? You can do your own blog post and link back to this post one or leave your reasons in the comments! See you on Twitter!

Image Credit: Brian Solis

Today, I received my first StumbleUpon recommendation email. The email consisted of about 4 rows of recommended sites and 2 rows of the popular sites of the week on StumbleUpon. While visually appealing, overall I was disappointed in what I received.
   

Make It Easy For Me

Above is a screenshot of the email I received. Quite frankly, there’s entirely too much information missing for me to even want to look at another email like this. I can’t see the value of this email and I’m itching to unsubscribe. So how can StumbleUpon improve it? Here are 4 suggestions:
         

Improve Amount of Site Information – What’s the name of the site? What categories has it been tagged under? Other than a screenshot or image from the site and some text there’s not much to go off that would motivate me to click-through to any of the recommended sites. The Download Squad is the only recommended site I thought to visit because I’m already familiar with the work of the good folks over at DS. I have no idea what those other sites are about or if they’re even trustworthy. Sorry, the headline titles at the bottom of each thumbnail just isn’t enough information for me.
    

Display Content Reviews – Where are the reviews of the sites that StumbleUpon is recommending? While I’m more than happy to make up my own mind, I’d love to see what others have said about certain sites or how many people recommended/stumbled a site without leaving my inbox. This helps me to quickly figure out whether a recommendation is revelant based on community ratings and reviews.

Show Related Stumbles - What sites have I stumbled that led to the recommendations I’m receiving? I have no idea where StumbleUpon is getting their recommendations from and none of them are fitting the sites my interests. Now I’m left wondering where these recommendations are coming from. Are they from site’s I’ve stumbled? My network of friends? The bogey man?

Recommend Content From StumbleUpon Friends – Are my friends stumbling these recommended sites? If not, StumbleUpon would be wise to recommend some of the articles my friends are stumbling. StumbleUpon has always seemed a bit like a one-man’s game to me. Pulling my friend’s stumbles into the mix not only adds value to the content because it’s from a trusted group of people, but it also helps me to interact with my friends outside of that toolbar.

Missing Value

These features and enhancements to the emails could help increase my activity and interaction on StumbleUpon, while adding a little more value to the service.  For now, I’d rather stick with the StumbleUpon toolbar. The email will only keep me in my inbox longer than I want to be. It requires too much work on my part to quickly find the most value in the recommended sites , which should be the goal of the email.

Nevertheless, I do hope to see the emails improve because they could be a quick source of good information for bloggers and those that don’t have the time to stumble through the entire web.

Why I’m inlove with imeem

Let me first state that I’m a huge fan of imeem. Don’t get me wrong, I love Last.FM and Pandora. They’re awesome music services and their mobile apps are great. For me, imeem’s strength is in its collection of music of specific genres that other services seem to be largely ignoring. My biggest problem with Last.FM and Pandora is that they’re selection of music within urban genre’s such as rap, hip-hip, and R&B is slim.

I’m not referring to all that mainstream crap (though I enjoy those songs occasionally too). I’m talking about songs by artists such as T.I., Lil Wayne (his mixtape stuff), Gucci Mane, OJ Da Juiceman, Yola Da Great, Young Jeezy, and Gorilla Zoe. I’m forever looking for songs that you’re bound to only hear in clubs  or are usually featured on a mixtape. Imeem has been way more helpful in finding my musical tastes than any other service.

The Good (Imeem iPhone App Review)

Imeem for the iPhone takes the radio station strategy that Pandora and Last.FM are using for their iPhone apps. Imeem gives you plenty of radio stations to choose from. Upon opening the app you’re presented with many featured stations. My favorite featured stations are Spotlight, Discover, and Top 100.

• Spotlight features new and notable artists
• Discover plays recommended music for you
• Top 100 plays this week’s hottest songs on imeem

So far the Discover station has been great for finding new songs that actually match what I like to listen to. I continue to use Spotlight for finding songs from other genre’s and Top 100 to keep up with what’s new but rising to fame. If none of the Featured stations catch your attention, you can always listen to your Favorites via the Favorite Songs station or create a custom artist station.

You can buy songs through iTunes, email, favorite, or skip  a nice amount tunes (there’s a limit) from the app. However, no social networking integration with Twitter or a way to add songs to your playlists.  Songs also feature an information button to learn more about

Bad & Ugly

I’ve been waiting a long time for imeem to hit my iPhone. What I really want from the service via an iPhone app, hasn’t been given. However, I understand that this strength can be a financial weakness. So, I’m not surprised that can’t search their catalog for specific songs on the iPhone app. This is a big deal for me, and something that Last.FM and Pandora also lack. Can someone leave a comment explaining why this isn’t available in ANY mobile music app?

As the iPhone is a very visually appealing system, I find myself indifferent to imeem’s UI  and album art work images. Fans of album art will be disappointed in the quality of the images. It substracts from the visual appeal and experience of the overall application.

There’s no accessing playlists that you’ve previously created, though you do have access to any songs that you’ve uploaded to the service. So far I haven’t seen a limit on skipping songs and I’ve pressed skipped every 3 songs for the last 13 songs. No limit is placed on the amount of times you can listen to material that you’ve uploaded. So, can I just upload my entire library to work around this?

A Good Entrance

The amount of features that I love and the things I’d like to see improved on are pretty equal. It’s catalog keeps my interests more-so than the iPhone app itself right now. However, I don’t understand the difference between clicking all day on imeem’s website to play specific songs, versus tapping my iPhone screen to do the same? Is there a legal issue behind this?

Still, imeem’s recommendation engine also feels better suited for my tastes and it does a great job of playing some tunes that I’ve definitely favorited as a way of bookmarking to come back to. Do I recommend the app? If you’re a fan of the service and/or you’ve used it often enough, it should work great for you.

With the recent updates to Twitter including the integrated search, I think it’s time you start taking advantage of the saved searches feature. This new feature allows you to save searches that you’re constantly performing via Twitter Search, and access them with just one-click.

Why Are We Saving Them Again?

Well for one, they save time. Despite this, I’ve found the biggest benefit with saved searches to be networking. While it would be beneficial to see only tweets made within your network, saved searches give you the opportunity to branch out and make new connections. They help expand your network and build your reputation and brand. While I respond to many replies on Twitter, I also try to share links to content that others within my saved searches might find beneficial. It helps and builds your community.

What To Search For on Twitter?

However you first have to decide what to search for? That’s easy: the stuff that you’re always looking for in your Twitter stream! Anything you are constantly discussing or looking for information on, save it as a search on Twitter. I’m unaware of what the limits are, but so far I have 6 saved searches.

Also for those using TweetDeck, Seesmic, or other Twitter clients with group functionality, your groups have plenty of keywords waiting for you to find more information about. Use the keywords to find the conversations and information.

Filtering Distractions

I find that saved searches really help me worry less about groups that in the Twitter clients on my desktop. The Twitter website is the most portable Twitter client ever and saved searches help me take my groups with me wherever I go. They also help me focus when it comes to work. It’s too easy to get caught up in some of the conversations on Twitter. Saved searches help me to weed out those tweets that would only distract me when I’m focused one a particular topic.

Get Funky With Keywords

Think of all the things people might say in a conversation that would lead to the information you’re trying to find. Extract the keywords from those conversations and see how they fair in search results. Remember, Twitter messages aren’t always SEO related, sometimes you have to think outside the box with your terms to find the best stuff.

The new saved searches have been nothing but a time saver for me. I’m sure I’ve also saved myself a couple of headaches for days that I’m not using my laptop or testing out another device. How are you using saved searches? Care to share any of yours?

After finding the joy in Brightkite, a location-based social network, I began to realize how important location-based services and mobile social networks are becoming. I absolutely love them. I’m staying tuned into the advancements they make, especially after reading how the iPhone is boosting demands for location-based services (I agree, Om!). Did you know that there are over 1900 location-based iPhone apps?! There’s a lot of opportunity for this space to grow into something that could transform the way we communicate and interact in real life!

This space isn’t without it’s pitfalls though. One of the worst things about mobile social networks and location-based services is that they constantly fall prey to what I refer to as the “empty room” effect. You can receive all the information in the world about where someone was at 2 hours ago with such services. That was 2 hours ago!

• Are they still there?
• Where are they on the way to?
• What do I do now?

Such questions aren’t being given answers. There are a ton of issues that need to be address. Here are my top 8 suggestions on how to better improve the use and adoption of mobile social networks and location-based services.

Check Out Option

This is the best resolution to the “empty room” problem. Where’s my checkout option? This can help my friends and potential connections know that though I’ve recently (with 1-5 hours) visited a specific place, I’m no longer there.

Where To Next?

Expanding on the check out option, I’d love the option to send an update out on where I’m heading to next, without necessarily checking into the place. Once I get to my destination, I should be able to come back to the option to check-in. I ask for this because sometimes I like to let my network know where I might be heading to next. Right now, this requires me to check-in to the destination before I get there. I could post a note about where I’m heading next it would be missing important location details, while remaining attached to my current destination (which I don’t want).

Introduce Yourself

While I can see where people are and what they’re doing around me. I have no idea how to introduce myself to them. Should I just stop by and tell them how I found them? I don’t think so. Sounds kind of stalker-ish, doesn’t it? Should I send a message via the service? They may not get it before they leave to their next destination. See my dilemma?

I imagine a button that that allows me to personally introduce myself to someone at a particular location that I’m checked into,and/or a way to notify new people that check-in to a location whether I’m in the mood to meet and greet or if I’m “busy”.

What’s Around Me?

I can see where people are around me, but I’d like to know what’s also around me. How about competing stores similar to the one I checked into? What about finding more restaurants around me? Maybe the one I originally wanted to go had too long of a wait time. Any more restaurants around that serve pasta or pizza?

Sure I could use services like Yelp or UrbanSpoon to find these things, but I don’t want to hop from site to site. Aren’t we we’re discussing location-based services? All of this is location-based information!

Places To Go / People To See

I’m sure you’re familiar with the old saying “I have places to go and people to see.”  I think the first half of the saying is something location-based services should seriously considering diving into. I’m constantly finding out about new places to visit. However, I rarely remember where they are and whether or not I’m near them. I’d love the ability to bookmark those places and receive an alert whenever I check-in near any places that I bookmarked. That way I’ll remember to visit them even when I’ve long forgotten about them.

Meetups & Events

Tweetups, conferences, unconferences, meetups…location-based services are sorely lacking in features that cater to these events. What would you want to see from your mobile-social network in order to take advantage of the connections available right in front of you?

Grouping of Contacts Based on Location

Can someone please provide this option! I would’ve thought someone would’ve implemented it by now. Being able to see what’s going on with your friends based by location would be an awesome view. Imagine being able to follow what’s going on with your friends from your hometown, while also watching what’s going on with your friends where you currently live!

Avoid My Service Provider

Instead of filling up my inbox and forcing me to get a SMS plan, try providing the same services via YOUR network. Enough said.

Promotion/Marketing

I’d love to be able to see any events going on within a specific radius of where I’m at or events relating to certain interests that I’ve marked in my profile. For example, when I’m out with friends and we run out of ideas on things to do, we don’t go searching the web for more ideas.  We call friends and pay attention to what’s going on around us. Having this information already at my fingertips from one service or network would be great instead of having to switch to Upcoming by Yahoo. Sorry, I hate service hopping. The fact that I own an iPhone doesn’t help either.

This is what I hope to see for the future of mobile social networks. These are the actions, opportunities, and options that I adamantly encourage to be taken advantage of. There may be some privacy issues regarding some of these suggestions. If there is, feel free to let me know in the comments. However, privacy is not a huge concern for me when it comes to such services. We’re all responsible for what we choose to push and pull.

What are some features you see in the future for mobile social networks and location-based services? Know of any networks that have the features noted above? Comment, comment, COMMENT!

BackDrops iPhone App

I was pretty excited when Christina Warren of TUAW told me about BackDrops by InterfaceLift. BackDrops for the iPhone features a ton of stunning wallpapers that you can download directly to your iPhone. You can view the wallpapers available in BackDrop by most recent, top rated, and random. The BackDrops app also lets you view images by categories, which breaks the wallpapers down by color, scene, location, subject, equipment, and medium.

Best Features

What’s most impressive about BackDrops is that the majority of the wallpapers are high quality and aren’t optimized only for the iPhone. Heading to InterfaceLIFT wallpaper gallery provides you with more resolutions and information pertaining to the artists of these awesome creations. The app does provide an option to automatically save images to your iPhone, but it recommends using the iPhone’s built in screen capture feature for better image quality. You can take a screenshot by pressing the “home” and “power” buttons simultaneously. The iPhone will snap and save a screenshot of what’s currently on your screen.

Get BackDrops For Your iPhone

Personally, I think it’s worth paying $1.99 for quality wallpapers when you don’t have time to weed through them yourself. Head to iTunes to purchase BackDrops or….

…..win a code right here on SheGeeks to redeem BackDrops for free!

To win: list one customization application that has held your attention recently or for an extended period of time. It can be anything as long as you use it to customize one of your gadgets. Tell me why you love it and recommend it. Best app wins!

IZEA recently approached me about a Ethical Hacking course, which made me take a stroll down memory lane. One of SheGeeks’s readers has the chance to become a Certified Ethical Hacker. EC-Council is offering a full iClass package to you valued at $2,995! The package includes the books, lab manual, AND online class.

If you’re working in IT security, secure programming, or data recovery, this could be just what you were looking for! The courses teach and reinforce security fundamentals, ethical hacking, penetration testing, disaster recovery, and secure programming.

UPDATE: Congrats the winner of the Ethical Hacking course, Kaerast! For those that didn’t win, but participated in Ethical Hacker campaign 50% off coupon is available to partake in the Ethical Hacking course. Simply email eric.lopez@eccouncil.org and request your the coupon. Thanks for entering folks!

How To Win 

So how do you win? Simply leave a comment and let me know why you’re a good fit to be the next certified ethical hacker. You can also tweet the following:

“RT @corvida I just entered your contest to become a Certified Ethical Hacker! http://urlbrief.com/98d904 #CEH”

If you’re honestly interested in taking advantage of this opportunity, I encourage you to share your passion for it in the comments below or on Twitter.

Daniel Crenna

While I don’t disagree with Daniel on whether Twitter clients don’t matter, he’s helped me define why Twitter Clients will continue TO matter to ME. It’s because of where they could be headed:

“I think Twitter clients really do matter. Web apps are great. They’re portable and once you’re done with them you can simply sign-out and move on. However, that could lead to users constantly hopping from place to place just access one application. Would you rather do that or just live in ONE Twitter client?

I think Twitter clients will eventually evolve into social networking clients, making them far more important standalone apps or features.”

This is a comment I left on Daniel’s post.

Respect My Conglomerate

In the next level, things will surely become a race of who can conglomerate the most apps in the most visually appealing client. However, those that started as Twitter clients are no longer just Twitter clients. They’re dipping into other prominent and bubbling social networks such as Facebook and FriendFeed.

That’s because it’s not just about the features or the apps. Sometimes people just want an easier way to tap into their network. Other times, people just want one place to use their most common apps for their favorite social networks. Twitter clients solve this now and save a lot of tab space in my web browser while doing it.

Which only makes me wonder if these clients will eventually become branded as social networking clients or something along those lines…

What Do YOU Think?

What do you think is the next level for Twitter clients?

• How will they evolve?
• What will they integrate?
• What apps will eventually get lost in the midst of things?

Atebits, developer of the popular Tweetie iPhone app, has announced the debut date of Tweetie for Mac a.k.a Bigbird! I’m hoping that it will be coming to Windows really soon, but for now let’s drool.

It seems Atebits will be taking the same slick UI of Tweetie on the iPhone and pushing it straight to the desktops of Mac users. According to the demo video of Tweetie for Mac (here), it will be one of the first desktop apps to support conversation tracking, or threaded message support, with a cool way to view conversations for messages too.

This is a really good feature and rapidly becoming a must have for any Twitter application these days. Tweetie is the first I’ve seen to this and I haven’t seen it in their iPhone app either.

“Tweetie for Mac is more than a port – in fact, it’s a complete rewrite. The new core is faster, more stable, and more extensible than its predecessor. Not only will it form the foundation of the Mac version, but also the foundation of the next generation of Tweetie 2.0 for iPhone.”

Tweetie for Mac will be released this Monday, April 20th. I’m looking forward to hearing what Mac users will think of it(and secretly wishing I had a Mac). It has a lot of cool nifty effects that really catch the eye, but also has the potential to be a hit or miss with some folks. I think you’ll either love it or hate it, especially with the way they’ve integrated threaded messaging into every conversation that happens on Twitter!

Other Features

We’re not sure what features might be missing compared to competitors, but having groups may be one of them. So be sure to stay tuned for more info on this or follow @atebits and @tweetie on Twitter.

Here are some screenshots of the great features from the demo video of Tweetie for Mac:

Drag & Drop Image Support

Direct Message Threading!

Twitter Search Integration

Questions:

• What do you think of Tweetie for Mac?
• Wish it were coming to Windows?
• Will you be giving it a test drive?
• Are you hoping it can replace your current client?

Read Sarah’s post here: Why I Didn’t Get To See FriendFeed’s Redesign.

Stop Swagger Jackin Twitter!

         
Sarah’s not the only one that’s a little disappointed in FriendFeed. I’m disappointed in the FriendFeed beta design. Wait, scratch that, I’m disappoint in FriendFeed swagger jackin Twitter’s user interface. Personally, I’m starting to feel that the “real-time update” angle was just a way to get the design to be somewhat pre-approved by FF users, while FF jacks Twitter’s style and works on making it its own.

Definitions

• Swagger jackin – v. stealing someone’s swag
• Swag – adj. a unique style or the way that something is presented
• Swagger jacker – n. see swagger jackin, swag

Can We Say Lame?

Friendfeed has a lot of great, competitive, and very creative minds working under one umbrella. I don’t see why on earth they would copy very important elements of Twitter’s design as a way to test a new one for their site. Don’t give me that bs about competing with Facebook because guess what? They’re swagger jackin Twitter too! With all those brains, that’s so unnecessary and puts FriendFeed as a company in a different light for me.

On another note, for those who will continue to jack Twitter’s style, please don’t pitch me about it. Fake artists copy. Real artists create. The same applies to the company’s that I’d love to review on SheGeeks.

Be original for goodness sakes! Don’t we already have enough Twitter clones?! How can you expect to compete when you all look the same? Mainstream users will simply stick with where they’re at.

Social Media Reactions By Disqus

In short, social media reactions (formerly Social Media Comments) pulls mentions and comments about your content made on other web services into your Disqus commenting system. For example, if someone posts a comment about your latest post on FriendFeed, Disqus finds it and pulls it into the system as a “social media reaction.”

Head to your Disqus account under Admin & Settings. Scroll down and you’ll find an option to enable Social Media Reactions. Current services include FriendFeed, Vimeo, Twitter, Picasca, Digg, Flickr, Blogg, Typepad, Wordpress, Movable Type, Youtube, and an option for other services.

Comment Fragmentation Who?

I’m not sure if this will pull in comments and mentions made on previous posts. I highly doubt it in any case. I’m not sure how well this works right now, but I plan to test it out on SheGeeks for the rest of the week. So feel free to comment on Friendfeed or Twitter about the content on SheGeeks.net.

Violet Mae Lim

Tightening Alumni Networks During The Recession

AlumnIdea is a crowdsourcing site for UCSD alumni. UCSD created the site as a way to have UCSD alumni submit their ideas towards building a tighter alumni network, which every University/College can stand to do right now. The site couldn’t have come at a better time. I’m sure many college grads and current students are utilizing as many alumni connections as possible to stay afloat in shaky job markets.

Similar to Digg, UCSD alumni can submit their ideas and vote others up and down. UCSD plans to implement the most voted ideas into their alumni association network. As far as I’m aware, UCSD seems to be the first university to utilize the power of their alumni network in this fashion. According to Violet,

“They understood the need for open/two-way communication and the power of community.  UCSD wanted to hear directly from their alumni.”

The Power of a College Community

Some of the ideas listed on AlumnIdea are absolutely great! The alumni are up-to-date on today’s technological happenings and pushing UCSD to stay updated as well. What student wouldn’t love a University iPhone app with the latest news and upcoming events? Sounds like a great investment to me!

I’d love to see something like this for current and prospective students of UCSD. It’s honestly a great way to motivate the community to take action and help make changes pertaining to their university/college.

In Two Personalities, we discuss some of the problems we’ve been having with multiple social networking profiles and how we’re handling them, the new Blackberry App Store, iPhone 3.0, and a few more good topics. Diigo bookmarks for points of reference are listed below:
             

TheSocialGeeks Podcast Bookmarks

• The Apps Battle Heats Up - BusinessWeek
• AT&T: New iPhone will be hot, son : Boy Genius Report
• Preview: iPhone OS 3.0 Beta 1 Software Walkthrough | The iPhone Blog
• Twitter Confirms Paid Pro Accounts On The Way
• Skimmer brings your social streams to the desktop | Webware - CNET
• Skimmer Screencast & Review - The Social Networker
• louisgray.com: How To Cleanly Separate Personal and Work Social Media Personalities

For example, I logged into my personal Facebook account to the following status update:

Giving Twitter another chance.i just might like this.follow me. http://twitter.com/Nathania24

 

Following The Wrong Crowd?

After checking her Twitter profile I noticed that she followed quite a few celebrities and blog network Twitter accounts. To me, this explained what the problem was in no uncertain terms. Not too many personal profiles were in the mix. Another look at her Twitter stream and I noticed she was new and tweeting to quite a few celebrities. Here’s where the problem comes in:

By following those that she choose to follow, she’s limited the amount of feedback that could receive on Twitter.

After speaking with her I found out that this was exactly why she didn’t get Twitter in the beginning. It was like talking to a wall. At least on Facebook people are more likely to respond but that’s only because of the type of connections.

Where’s The Connection With Celebrities On Twitter?

Which leads to my next point: most of these celebrities don’t make an intimate connection. Outside of Shaq, and Soulja Boy, not many of these celebrities are responding to their audiences frequently. Currently, Ellen DeGeneres only has one reply in her Twitter stream and guess who it’s too: hint – it’s another celebrity.

Chose Your Following Wisely

I’m not trying to tell you what to do. If you take away anything from this post, don’t think I’m saying that the way you’re using Twitter is wrong because it’s not. If you’re getting the information that you wanted to get then Twitter is working out great for you. However, on a more social level, these tips would be beneficial to improve your experience on Twitter.

Don’t you just love it when you run across those addictively repetitive iPhone gaming apps? You know the games I’m referring to! The games where you can play them over and over and over without needing a ton of features to be entertained by them. I know, they’re few and far in between, but I have another for you to add to your list: Smack Me.

Smack That!      

I tweeted about Smack Me last night because I’d been playing it on and off the entire day (yes it’s that addictive for me). The game basically follows the concept of Simon Says. You will randomly be asked to shake, pinch, or tap your iPhone. All you have to do is keep up with the actions. Sounds simple enough until the levels of difficulty kick in. There are 3 different levels of difficulty and different rounds for each level. You have to beat the first level in order to unlock the next.

Casual Gamers Apply

Fortunately, the game is random enough to keep players interested for a long or short amount of time making it an immediate “come-back to” game. For casual gamers, Smack Me is a perfect addition to your iPhone’s spingboard. You can find the full Smack Me app in the App Store for $1.99. If you’re one of those people that likes to try before you buy there’s a lite version available too. Give it a go and let me know your thoughts.

To sum things up, Conference.io is:

a package of drop.io’s realtime action specifically designed for when you or your team needs to open a rich media chat feed in literally 2 clicks.  You still have a ton of deep customization options, but this makes it all dead simple to get right into the key functionality for live collaboration

Design Flow

The design of Conference.io helps the applet live up to the 2 clicks standards. Creating a private chat was a simple as assigning a custom url for your chat and clicking “drop it.” Of course, there are additional settings, though mainly privacy settings.

Once you’ve created your chatroom you can share files of up to 100mb, notes, and links. The chatroom also features its own voicemail and conference call numbers, even an email address, allowing you to send as much information as you want the chatroom without needing to stay within its digital walls. Other features include a firefox addon, fax receiving capabilities, a widget, and the ability to add a file from a URL instead of your computer.

[Click image to enlarge]

A Great Tool For Groups And Events

With plenty of ways to manage and interact with the incoming information, Conference.io is definitely a tool that will stay in my collection of useful web apps for groups and events. The service plays well on mobile platforms and you can even add the chatroom to a third party client such as Adium or (possibly) GoogleTalk. Give it a try and let me know you’re thoughts. Feel free to invite me into your chat.