This section called Twitter App reviews what is suggested in the name: The many Twitter Applications floating in and around in the internet. We discuss its functionality, its advantages and limitations if any.

The Twitter App we review this time around is Foller.Me. It is a twitter info integrator online application  written by a Russian developer: Konstantin Kovshenin. He blogs at Kovshenin.com

So what is this app about? It is as simple as this. The homepage is simple and straight forward as shown in the pic above. You enter a twitter username, and it gathers and integrates all the information related to the account on a single page. Of course, the user needs to publicly publish his/her twitter feed for the application to be able to gather the information. So what kind of information is being gathered and why would it be helpful ? Find it out after the jump

Now as shown in the pic above, once you submit a twitter username, all the information is enlisted as a tag cloud, i.e. with the most frequent keyword with the largest font and so on and so forth. The picture above shows that apart from hashtags and mentions, it also picks up topics which are frequently discussed in the user’s tweets. This can be a very useful and efficient way to identify users as being a non-spam and genuine user. Also, tweeting behaviour of some of the pro-bloggers could give ideas of the hot topics and keywords being discussed in the blogosphere. And not only that, the mentions tab also shows the frequency of discussion with a particular twitter user – which could be very handy for twitter users who look at it from a profit making perspective. Also showing towards the end of the same page is this:

The Google Map shown above shows the geographic location of the follower base of the user. This also could come handy for business users to know of a twitter user who has a widespread twitter follower base. All in all, it is a very simple online application which integrates the Twitter API in a very simple way. The best thing about is the integration of keywords, hashtag which helps identifying a bot user from a human. A desktop App called – Foller.Me Lite is also available, but personally for a limited functionality, I wouldn’t consider installing it. But again, we don’t know what else the desktop app provides as it hasn’t been released yet. But the online version serves just fine. For the latest updates on the app, follow Foller.Me on twitter, or jump to their blog: http://blog.foller.me/ Do let us know what you felt about the app in the comments section. Cheerio!

Twitter is on a rampage to improve user experience not only in terms of simpler user interface and ease of using, but also by emphasising on the User Identification methods. A large portion of Twitter users are followers of their favourite celebrity tweeters [like Jonathon Ross, Ashton Kutcher, Stephen Fry, Demi Moore - the list is endless]. Now with fame and power comes the curse of image vulnerability. For e.g. the existing Twitter account for some celebrities like famous Bollywood actor Aamir Khan and James Corden are not real. Those are fake ones, and Twitter is pushing it hard to do a check on these, so as to prevent such acts of creation of fake accounts.

In the latest blog post on Twitter, they have discussed how a certain manager, Tony La Russa has filed a lawsuit for impersonation of his name to create an account. Twitter, however has not agreed to pay any settlement for the lawsuit. To prevent occurence of any such future activities, Twitter will be rolling out identity checks termed as Verified Accounts. This check will show a tick mark next to the Profile name of a user, and will be performed on select users [comprising of public figures, officials, organisations etc.]

An important tip to check the identity of a Twitter user is to visit the URL linked in the user profile. Fake users often tend to use the Official URL of that particular user [searchable on Google]. If this particular URL links back to the twitter ID, it is certain, that the user is real and not a fake one.

Issues with this form of verification though, is that there are loads of users out there, who have shortened URLs on their profile, and these URLs lead to some dodgey website [often having an appended username at the tail] talking about affiliate marketing or money making on the internet in the next 2 hours.

In the latest post at the Twitter Blog [titled: Hello New Zealand], twitter has announced of the new-two way SMS service on Vodafone in New Zealand. So to all the Kiwis out there, here’s some Tweet Tweet Love!!!

Here is what they have to say about this.

The shortcode for Twitter in NZ is 8987 or TWTR. As always, Twittering over SMS is a standard rate message or deducted from your bundle and receiving notifications is free. If you’re not a Vodafone customer, don’t worry—we’re working on it.

Also, Twitter seems to be having their eyes now on to Australia. Happy Tweeting in the South!!

In my previous post on Twitter’s dealing with the @Reply changes and the subsequent uproar from users, I had discussed about Twitter getting a new improved version of the old @Reply settings. But yes, it is confirmed that the previous settings of seeing @Reply of users that you did not follow was not coming back. 

In the latest blog post by Twitter [The Replies Kerfuffle] , they have confirmed that the old @reply settings would not be brought back due to technical reasons and they have enlisted the product design and technical problems with the functionality. And excerpt is given below.

Even though only 3% of all Twitter accounts ever changed this setting away from the default, it was causing a strain and impacting other parts of the system. Every time someone wrote a reply Twitter had to check and see what each of their followers’ reply setting was and then manifest that tweet accordingly in their timeline—this was the most expensive work the database was doing and it was causing other features to degrade which lead to SMS delays, inconsistencies in following, fluctuations in direct message counts, and more. Ideally, we would redesign and rebuild this feature but there was no time, hence the sudden deploy.

For the entire post, visit the link here.

Twitter has been facing a lot of uproar replies about the recent change in the replies setting. The #FixReplies introduced by Twitter a day back hasn’t gone down quite well with the users and many issues have been reported. Now what were the problems? 

Initially, Twitter’s way of handling replies by users was set to three options:

1. See replies to and from people you follow.

2. See replies from followers as well anyone (i.e. all @ replies)

3. See no @replies at all.

Twitter has now removed these options and the only one available right now is the @replies to and from followers will be visible, and everything else will not be. Here is the post where Twitter announced this change (titled: Small Setting Update). Users have been complaining about the removal of the options. 

Well, if anyone is at all bothered by reading all the @replies, they could surely go to the settings and change their own personal twitter space from being ‘cluttered’ by @replies. But not any more, as it’s now only the way Twitter would want it to be. 

In another post today on the Twitter Blog (We Learned a Lot) , Twitter announced that they have received a lot of negative feedback on the change. But things were to remain unchanged. However, there would be a new functionality introduced called the ‘new improved version of the old @reply’

Here’s what they had to say:

First, we’re making a change such that any updates beginning with @username (that are not explicitly created by clicking on the reply icon) will be seen by everyone following that account. This will bring back some serendipity and discovery and we can do this very soon.

Second, we’ve started designing a new feature which will give folks far more control over what they see from the accounts they follow. This will be a per-user setting and it will take a bit longer to put together but not too long and we’re already working on it. 

Lets all hope we do get something improved.

I really couldn’t care less. I use Techmeme to see the upcoming headlines in the world of Technology. Not to be fed to some dumb tabloid-ish ‘news’. This incident happened on the 21st of March, and it has taken me some time to write about it. It was quite disturbing that even online journalism has become prey to that damned thing called dumbing down. C’mon. What difference does it make if it was the first marriage proposal or the second or the 658th? Apparently there are discussions all across, and by that I mean respectable blogs we read – Wired and Mashable to name a few. Discussions over the authenticity of the marriage or it being just a publicity stunt, or even the authenticity of it being the very FIRST one.
First things first. SHUT UP. Let’s move ahead from the Twitter jungle and the low lives who feel it’s cool to propose the love of your ‘Virtual’ Life on a Social Networking Tool. Is that how Life has shaped up. Are we moving ahead in a direction where proposing via SMS would become a norm. For the non-starters, here’s what actually got delivered. For the 140 character limit, the message had to crisp, sweet and precisely accurate without omitting any necessary emotions.

The message read: “To @emilychang – After fifteen years of blissful happiness I would like to ask for your hand in marriage?”

The reply, within a minute: “@maxkiesler – yes, i do.” Of course you do.!!!!

My question is to Techmeme. Is this what is meant by Tech-headlines? Lemme try create something more explosive and probably my blog could get bloated up in terms of incoming links from Techmeme. Here’s one for starters: Techmeme bashed by Techkeyla. Please oh Please try and avoid these stupid news and let them remain buried in the world of underground blogosphere.

P.S. Do read the comments on the post on Wired.com. It’s a whole set of geeks talking of how they proposed by writing a UNIX main page so on and so forth. I predict that by the time the couple decides to split, Twitter will be acquired by either Microsoft or Google. But given, Google already own Jaiku, chances are that Microsoft might head for Twitter, or may be not.