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Test Drive – HootSuite, Ping.FM, TwitterFeed, & Bit.LY

June 22, 2009 Craig M. Jamieson Leave a comment Go to comments
electrichair.blogspot

electrichair.blogspot

First off, if you are looking for an in depth review of these apps, it ain’t here (smile). However, I will provide you with some links where you can go to learn more. My interest in exploring these tools was to find out what use they might have in making my Tweeting experience more simplified. While I had seen most of these apps mentioned, I really had no idea as to what functions they performed.

This search was actually born from looking at incoming Tweets that I see on TweetDeck. Each Tweet tells me how the actual Tweet was originated. I see a lot coming via TweetDeck and Seesmic. I also see a bunch labeled “via web”. While this might be an accurate label for a number of apps, I can tell you that those initiated by TweetLater are labeled as such. And, there are a bunch of different programs that Tweeple are using to send out Tweets. Half of those may be mobile apps which I personally have no need for. So, I picked what I perceived to be the top three that I have not currently been using and have chosen to investigate those for my possible use. Finally, whenever I see URLs that have been shortened, they all seem to have a different coding method. I knew that several different apps were out there to do this but never saw any need to look further. Afterall, something always seemed to shorten my URLs when I asked it to and so why should I care? Here we go…………..

HootSuite: HootSuite, it turns out, will do a lot of things including acting like a full blown Twitter client much like TweetDeck or Seesmic. This includes the ability to handled multiple Twitter accounts and display multiple columns. You can also segment interests by tabs. Like Tweetlater, it has a scheduling feature to write Tweets now and send them out later. Hmmm. It has it’s own URL shortening system called ow.ly and can provide you with stats on how many times that particular ow.ly shortened link was clicked on. Hmmmm, again (smile). What I really wanted to get my hands on is a featured called Hootlet. With Hootlet, I drag a little button to my browser bar and if I am ever on a web page that looks like it would make an interesting Tweet, I click on the Hootlet button and, voila, it takes me directly into a Tweet composer, automatically shortens the URL, and allows me to send the Tweet now or schedule it to go out later. All without ever having to leave the page. This is a huge time saver. Me likey (smile). I might even have to go back and look at HootSuite closer as it does seem to combine many of the functions that I currently use multiple apps to accomplish (TweetDeck, TweetLater, Bit.Ly).

Ping.fm: I will talk a minute about Ping.fm only because they do have a direct partnership and integration with HootSuite. I have not yet field tested this application. However, looks verrrry interesting (smile). Ping.fm is a service that allows user to update their Twitter, FaceBook, LinkedIn, and other social media services all at once. Hmmm. Furthermore, this can be done via the web, mobile, IM, email, or Skype. Yikes! Sounds very “power user” to me and I run on “AA” batteries (smile). The bottom line is, HootSuite users can Tweet via Ping.fm and all their various accounts will be updated, not just Twitter. Maybe I can look at this closer when I move up to “C” batts (smile).

Here are a couple of good articles from Mashable: HootSuite 2.0: Get More Twitter Tabs, Columns, and Stats and Ping.fm + HootSuite: Distribute Your Tweets Everywhere

TwitterFeed: This app is going to look at this blog and, if there is a new post that has been written, automatically send out a Tweet along with a shortened link. In fact, I can tell it to look at multiple blogs, including those I have not written, and have it do the same thing. Set up was pretty easy but I was having trouble specifying the URL that was originating the feed. The RSS. Turns out that, at least on this blog, if you click on the “Subscribe to Entries (RSS)” button, it pulls up the URL in my browser which I can then copy and paste. Actually, it is just my regular URL ending with “/feed/”. I can tell TwitterFeed how often to check for new posts as well as specify what URL shortening app I wish to use. Pretty simple and no need to interact with it after that. I think (smile). I did just notice that it did Tweet my last post prior to this. Not sure what time zone it was using and I can not see where you can set that. But, it worked! (smile).

Here’s a nice article from TechCrunch: TwitterFeed Gets An Overhaul, Adds Analytics

Bit.ly: Bit.ly is a URL shortener and, in fact, I guess it is has become the default favorite of Twitter for technical reasons that I don’t understand (smile). Read the article below to learn more. Bit.ly does give you the ability to send a Tweet from it’s web page and does offer a number of buttons that you can put on your browser toolbar to either shorten links or preview where bit.ly shortened links will take you just by hovering over that link. What I wanted, an am getting, is analytics telling me how often folks are clicking on shortened URLs using Bit.ly. Bit.ly also generates an “API Key” that I can then use to tell Twitter clients that I want them to use Bit.ly to shorten my URLs. I have done so with TweetDeck, TweetLater, and TwitterFeed. The idea, of course, is that now this data will be collected from those tools that I am using to generate 90% or more of my Tweets. Sweet.

And, a good article from ReadWriteWeb: Twitter Crowns Bit.ly As The King of Short Links; Here’s What it Means

I should mention that there is a new kid on the block that is getting a lot of buzz called Tweet Spinner. It boasts “smart tweeting”. As I could use some “smarts”, maybe I will look at that next (smile). Here’s an article from TwitsMag.com.

Thanks for visiting!

Craig

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