Twimailer - Finding Out More About New Followers
May 9, 2009 by Jason Bean
Filed under Communication, Social Networking, Software & Online Apps
I’ve been using a new twitter service application called Twimailer now for a little while. It’s one of the most useful services related to twitter that I’ve come across in quite awhile. There are other nice applications for getting stats and analyzing your twitter use, but for regular information, Twimailer exceeded my expectations.
Normally when you get a new follower on twitter, you’re just given the person’s name with an announcement that they’re now following you. Twimailer gives you a history of the person’s last handful of tweets, their bio and following/follower count.
I’ve been using the service now for a few weeks and am continuing to enjoy it.
If there were one thing I’d like to see them do is to allow me to follow them by clicking on the "Follow" link from within the email. Right now clicking that link just opens the user’s profile in your browser and then you have to click the "Follow" button on the twitter site itself. Normally I just use the "follow username" syntax in twhirl to get the results I want.
Continue reading to view a video explanation of how Twimailer works in your Inbox.
IMO.IM - Bringing IM Clients Together Online
May 5, 2009 by Jason Bean
Filed under Communication, Social Networking, Software & Online Apps
There seems to be quite a bit of development going on in the Instant Messaging arenas on a variety of different fronts. You’ve got your individual clients that are always releasing updates. Third party clients that aggregate the individual platforms to a single interface and buddy list. Then you have the website applications that aggregate the individuals to a web page interface with no software to download.
imo.im is the latter and have provided a very simple interface to combine your IM clients onto the web. I tried it out and it does a good job of quickly connecting to your accounts and displaying your buddy lists.
imo.im brings together all the major platforms and has just released the ability to pull in Skype contacts as well, which is a big plus in my opinion.
April 20, 2009 - Palo Alto — imo.im is a free online service that aims to make online communication more intuitive and accessible. It couples voice, video, and text chat capabilities with the most popular instant messaging protocols. Currently in alpha stage development, the startup has released an update that introduces major new features and makes imo.im one of the only multi-protocol instant messaging services to offer Skype support.
In addition to Skype, MySpace Chat support has been added in the latest release. Voice and Video capabilities are now also functional on all supported networks–AIM, GTalk, ICQ, Jabber, MSN, MySpace, Skype, and Yahoo. No download or registration is required to use the service, and multiple accounts on different instant messaging networks can be linked together to one sign-in.
Language support has been expanded as well, through imo’s user-driven translation program launched in April 2008. With this system, imo now offers language support for Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Italian, Macedonian, French, Turkish, and more.
Finally, eight new features have been added giving users the ability to:
- Star favorite buddies for easy reference
- Upload and view buddy icons
- Search for offline as well as online buddies
- Change how a buddy’s display name appears in the contacts list
- Move buddies between groups
- Block and unblock buddies
- Set yourself as invisible upon login
- Voice and video chat with anyone
For a comprehensive list of imo.im features, please visit the imo.im website at http://imo.im/features.html
About:
imo.im (http://imo.im/about.html) is a web-based multi-network instant messaging service. It lets users IM chat with buddies on AIM, Google Talk, MSN, MySpace, Skype, and Yahoo simultaneously. The company was founded by Georges Harik (co-developer of Google’s AdSense technology), Ralph Harik, and Praveen Krishnamurthy in April 2007.
My personal preference is a separate application if I’m running on my own computer. I currently use Trillian Pro by Cerulean Studios, however sites like imo.im come in very handy when you need access to your IM Buddy Network, but aren’t on your own computer.
I’m still waiting for the application that will combine IM, Skype, Facebook, twitter and other social media sites into one interface. Now THAT would be nice.
Uncovering Your Tracks
April 13, 2009 by Jason Bean
Filed under Reference, Social Networking, Software & Online Apps
Sometimes uncovering all the cool stuff on the web means you sign-up for a lot of sites to give them a try, only to realize later that you’re really not interested in maintaining your profile on those sites. The challenge can be trying to get rid of those profiles on sites you’re not interested in using anymore.
Photo from stock.xchng
There’s a very helpful article on the PC Magazine website on How to Delete Accounts from Any Website. The article runs through the process of getting rid of your profile on one of 23 different websites: Classmates, Facebook, Friendster, LinkedIn, MySpace, MyLife, Amazon, Audible, Blockbuster, eBay, iTunes, Netflix, PayPal, Blogger, Twitter, Flickr, Photobucket, YouTube, AOL/AIM, Apple MobileMe, Google, Windows Live, and Yahoo.
Digg Adds New DiggBar Functionality
April 7, 2009 by Jason Bean
Filed under Social Networking, Software & Online Apps
Digg.com has had its share of media exposure both good and bad. I’ve never been a huge Digg.com user, but will Digg pages that I find interesting and I think about it. I’ll regularly Digg stories from friends as well, but not blindly, only after I’ve read them and I think they’re worth Digging as well. That little process has been a bit clunky in my opinion, but Digg.com has made a change/addition that will make it a little easier.
Snagit of Digg.com New DiggBar
You can click on the image above to see the full-version and notice the new Digg bar that they released that makes it easier to Digg articles that you’re reading and spread them to other social networks as well.
My challenge is that when I see the article on Digg, I click on link to the article to read it outside of Digg before I decide to Digg it again. Now, with the Digg bar, it nicely appears at the top of the original page and let’s you see lots of details about it. I can Digg it, post it to my twitter or Facebook account, or email it to anyone else I may want to share it with. All very nice and useful. If you don’t like it appearing, you can just click the close “X” on the far right and be done.
Perfect implementation. Perhaps even better is it’s not a new toolbar or something else you need to install. It just appears when you click on an article that’s already been Dugg. Nice and clean. Almost self-explanatory. Perfect.
What Sex Is Your Brain
January 8, 2009 by Jason Bean
Filed under Reference, Social Networking, Weirdness
I had the pleasure of meeting a new person today and was checking out his Patio Genius blog and twitter feed. One of the links he shared was to this site to run a test and see what the sex is of your brain. We ran a poll awhile back and spotlighted a site that would let you know if you browsed the web like a boy or a girl. I love personality tests, so thought this was pretty interesting.
What Sex Is Your Brain?
Image: Snagit from website survey
wasoverheard - I hear funny people
September 15, 2008 by Jason Bean
Filed under Communication, Humor, Social Networking, Software & Online Apps, b5media & Admin
It’s not much to look at, but it’s hilarious to read through the site and hear the statements taken out of context that people have overheard.
The site was developed by Mark Jaquith one late night at the b5ranch during SXSW 2008. There was an ongoing joke where various people would say things that were funny through the week and we’d keep repeating them. The best is when the statement had some additional meeting when you removed the contextual statements surrounding what was said.
The wasoverheard site works in conjunction with twitter. All you have to do is follow @wasoverheard on your twitter account. Then, when you hear someone say something funny, you just tweet it to @wasoverheard anonymously.
So, your twitter udpate would look something like:
d wasoverheard @bnpositive I hear funny people
If you don’t include the person’s twitter name the statement will be attributed to “someone”.
If you find someone really interesting that always seems to put their foot in their mouth you can see all of their statements by entering their twitter name as a sub-domain path:
- http://sheaj12.wasoverheard.com
- http://technosailor.wasoverheard.com
- http://jeremywright.wasoverheard.com
- http://scobleizier.wasoverheard.com
These things are always more interesting when you’re with a bunch of friends that also twitter. You know, at things like conferences. Hopefully we’ll see a lot more action on the site during Blog World Expo next week.
Who’s On Twitter
August 1, 2008 by Jason Bean
Filed under Communication, Social Networking
If you’re new to twitter then I probably should direct you to another post about what the site is about and what you can achieve with using the site. It’s much more than just finding out what everyone is having for lunch or dinner.
If you’re not new to twitter then you’re probably interested in finding some other great people to follow.
Fluent Simplicity has put together the Twitter Brand Index, quite a nice listing of companies, organizations, executives and politicians that are on twitter.
If you need some more twitter fodder to follow, just check out the Twitter Brand Index.
Posterous – Yet Another Place to Update the Masses
July 23, 2008 by Jason Bean
Filed under Communication, Social Networking, Software & Online Apps
My friend Ben introduced me to the Posterous site this morning and I’m a little torn between my opinions.
On the one hand we’ve got yet another new social networking site that you post updates of what’s going on. Following in the footsteps of sites like twitter, Plurk, Facebook, tumblr and others.
Yet on the other hand, they make it very simple. You don’t have to have an account if you don’t want. All you have to do is email them a message with or without attachments like photos, files and music.
They do integrate with twitter and flickr now and you can automatically post to both through posting to Posterous if you would like. Or, depending on the email address you post to, you can send something to each one individually if you would prefer.
Give Posterous.com a try and see what you think.
As my friend said, at the very least it could be a sort of always on, stream of consciousness archive of cool thoughts, ideas and files you want to not forget and come back to somewhere sometime.
www.posterous.com
Let Our Congress Tweet
July 14, 2008 by Jason Bean
Filed under Government & Politics, Social Networking
You’re probably aware by now that I’m a big fan of twitter. I’m also a big fan of government and elected officials listening to the people and connecting with them where they’re at in society.
I’m not under some dreamland of thinking all of the American people are on twitter or highly involved in any other social network, but I don’t think there should be laws or regulations limiting the contact of elected officials from communicating with the public through these methods.
The Let Our Congress Tweet website is hoping to change the way things are:
Congress should join us where we the people are talking, sharing and networking – online. As Congress reconsiders the restrictions placed on their Internet use, you can tell Congress to embrace the communication technologies that we already use.
Sounds pretty straight forward and helpful to me. What do you think?
I think it opens up the possibility of government working more like the Republic/Democracy it was setup to be in the first place.
www.letourcongresstweet.org
COMPLETE! Custom Icons on Google Toolbar
May 16, 2008 by Jason Bean
Filed under How To, Social Networking, Software & Online Apps
In my previous post I was wondering how in the world to change the icons on my Google Toolbar. Then Greg gave me exactly what I was looking for in the comments!
Before he gave me the solution my Google Toolbar looked like this:
After the solution, it looks like this:
EXACTLY WHAT I WAS LOOKING FOR IN THE SOLUTION!
For anyone that’s interested and has these same icons in their toolbar, here’s the Base64 code you’ll need to paste into the configuration.
Custom twitter icon for Google Toolbar
<icon mode="base64" type="image/x-icon"> AAEAEBAAAAEACABoBQAAFgAAACgAAAAQAAAAIAAAAAEACAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEA AADw4ikA7d0HAO3cAAD16nwA8+doAP7+/QDz52cA/PrpAPTpdgD9/f0A///+AP39/gD8/PkA APv42QD9/fwA/P3/APv2yADs2gAA+/v4APv2xwD264QA8OI5APPnZgDu3QAA+PGgAPXqgADx 9+6aAO/gGAD164UA9ep+APDiOAD+/foA+fr6APfulADx5VAA7dsAAPz89QD37pMA9up8APz8 +dcA/PjUAPz3zQD79MIA+/r4AP7++AD8/PsA/frnAPr1vgD7+eEA9uyLAP7+/AD9+/AA9eyF 4QD7+/YA7+EjAPr31QD48KUA9ep3APz53gD16n8A/Pv5APjxpgD48akA+/vxAPr7+gDz6GgA AP388gDx5EYA9Ol1APXqdQDu3hkA8uZYAPPnXgD+/v8A/PvzAP7//gDv4AAA/v//APz79AD4 +fO0APbsjAD7+NwA/fvtAPbtkADv4BQA+/jfAPv42gD79soA8+dgAPPmYwD9/PoA/f37APz8 /PkA+fS8APDjOgD8/PcA+/fYAPbuigD69sYA+PGiAPv65gD37pYA/PrxAOzbAAD69s8A/Prq hgD16XYA9elxAPv69QD8+uIA+/jYAPv54wD69tQA7NwAAPjxpAD48Z4A7t4AAP7+/gD///8A AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA gICAgAUibVx2Dg52TwyAgICAgA8JIzoBAQ0NAiBHgICAgAVjTRIYfHx8fHwSMoCAgIAQcW58 AnklSzGAgIB9QwBGUVpoQWoZej6AgICAfXg6AB17EAkLCylQgICAgFJvZUgWaTAKfX01gICA OyRMG2Q2B3AHayGAgICAfWdeBEUEBgQGBl83L4CAgIBXcz0ICElKcgg9FyqAgICAWz8VHh8D AxpYgICAfTM0WVZVXREUFBF1YICAgH13bBwnPkQTEy5AD4CAgIB9B0JUPDgMgICAgICAgICA LSwmBYCAgICAgICAgIBhdFM5YoCAgICAgICAgPADAADgAwAAwAMAAMADAACABwAAgAcAAIAP BwAAgAMAAMADAADAAwAAgAMAAIAHAACA/wAAgP8AAMH/AAA= </icon>
Custom GoDaddy icon for Google Toolbar
<icon mode="base64" type="image/x-icon"> AAEAICAAAAEACACoCAAAFgAAACgAAAAgAAAAQAAAAAEACAAAAAAAgAQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAD/AACA/wCAAP8AgID/gAAA/4AAgP+AgAD/wMDA/8DcwP/wyqb/KUJC/ykpKf8hMTH/ /zExMf8xOTH/ITk5/zk5Of8QQjn/GEI5/ylCQv85QkL/QkJC/0JKQv8YUkL/OUpK/0JKSv9K KVJK/0pSSv8YWkr/MVJS/0pSUv9SUlL/QlJa/0paWv9SWlr/Wlpa/xBjWv8Qa1r/IWNj/2Nj e2P/CIRj/2Nra/9ra2v/EHtr/xhjc/85a3P/a3Nz/3Nzc/9ze3P/CIxz/wiUc/9ze3v/e3t7 e/9re4T/e3uE/3uEhP+EhIT/EKWE/wCthP8Yc4z/MXuM/4yMjP+MjJT/lJSU/wi1lP8AvZT/ /wDGlP8QjJz/jJSc/5ScnP+cnJz/pZyc/wDOnP97jKX/nKWl/6Wlpf8IlK3/pa2t/62trf+t tbW1/7W1vf+1vb3/vb29/wilxv+9xsb/xsbG/87Ozv9rpdb/ztbW/9bW1v/W1t7/3t7e/xiM jOf/MZTn/zmc5/9CnOf/Upzn/3u15//W3uf/3ufn/+fn5/8YjO//IYzv/ymU7/8xlO//MZzv 7/9CnO//Spzv/0ql7/9Spe//Uq3v/1qt7/9jre//a63v/2u17/97te//e73v/4S97/+Mve// /5TG7/+lzu//1ufv/+fv7//v7+//c733/4zG9/+czvf/rc73/63W9/+11vf/vd73/8be9//O zuf3/9bn9//e7/f/5+/3/+/v9//v9/f/9/f3/87n///W5///1u///97v///n7///5/f//+/3 9///9/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ///////////////////////w+///pKCg/4CAgP8AAP//AP8A/wD/////AAD//wD/////AP// AAAAAAAAAAAAAABrKQcAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAFsbFjJhYVU7NlgA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA9zySQxoaKfdLIUEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAApVZ6e np5rG2sAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAhCFhnp6enp5hQyUOawAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA JZSenp6UQxo8UCEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAFA3np6elDwta54zUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAMlWenp5TKYSeXCFrAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAgwcWYZ6eayRhnp43SgAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAF8hIRqEnp6UYZ6enjI3XwAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA+EFTMp6enp6enp6e JVUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAb+DZSnp6enp6enp6enpRQKQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAhBYbC1+e Q1ODnp6UhEP4AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQSUWhJ5hGiYuHiBrYTIZCgotXAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA MQsySyErTU1NJzIkKkRGRjQVhAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABB+FVDFj1NTU01Cw04R01HPg+DAAAA AAAAAAAAWw9cnpRBEjhGOBNXByQTGBwjVwAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABfEVtr+BZLJB8kVpSeaxZT AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAa1AoQDAoQ56UhJSenp5LMgAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABSDT9/WSNrnp6e XxtfAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAkL39REDGUnp6enl8bVQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAhBsd YZ6elGFLG1MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAXTkNGi34QTclGvhhAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAB6ZzJfVfdJTltpjgAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAk3V4aXiRAIFjioxkggAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAJN5ZI+RboEAAGaAj2OGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAe2OOnopijACNZI+HYowA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABkaJ6TZWUAAHl1kWR3AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGRonmhijACY Y48AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAfWiRZHkAAJFkfnN7AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA dY8AAIBkaGKOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAJF3dQAAAIyNdI8AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA ////4Af//+AD///gAf//wAH//8AD///AA///wAP//wAH//4AA//+AAD//gAA//wAAP/+AAA/ H/8AAB/+AAA//gAAf/wAA//8AAP//gAH//wAD//+AB///gA///wIH//4DB//+Agf//gYP//4 +DB///8YP///HD// </icon>
Custom TinyURL icon for Google Toolbar
<icon mode="base64" type="image/x-icon"> ODlhEAAQAIAAAP///wAAmSH5BAAAAAAALAAAAAAQABAAQAIpjI9pcAy/Egsu0obrRdNVrYRY SUHlZXasi8byxpJc1krQ5plzUAAAOw== </icon>
