Big Bang Technology

Thu 12 Mar
2009

Pimp your Twitter

Posted at 9:33 PM by Max Cameron in Tutorials

We're poppin a digital collar. If normal twitter is a beat-up oldsmobile with food-stains on the driver's seat and a broken door-handle, our article will take you to a pristine cadillac with suede seats and a nice furry set of dice in the mirror.

When I saw the newest iteration of the fb homepage today, I set my status to something like, “new fb homepage = twitter and the old fb got real sloppy last night and got nasty-busy and then BOOM fb dropped a baby and it looks like twitter’s the babydaddy.”

And then a few of my friends started asking me about twitter. What is it? Isn’t twitter WACK? I said, “What? No YOU wack!”

Then I came up with a better explanation of what twitter is, which I’m sure they’ve thought of but just aren’t allowed to post:

“Twitter is a giant messy instant message orgy and everyone’s invited.”

So, in honour of that, Cameron and I got together to discuss how we best could advise all our homies on how they can squeeze the most bounce per twitter-ounce.

Lesson One: Learn the streets

Twitter is like fb status updates, except you must remember they are public, and anybody can choose to follow your updates. Of course you can block people if they’re lunatics (or 5/0 ).

If you put an @ right before a username (@maxcameron) for example, and include that in a tweet, that user will see your @tweet, and so will everyone else. This is what I’d call “A shout-out.”

DM stands for direct message. If you put a D before a username in your tweet (d maxcameron), it’s just like a private email to someone.

So now that you know the streets you’re ready for some more advanced pimping.

Referrals from Mr. Tweet: Git at your Homies

This description is straight from the Mr. Tweet website:

Mr. Tweet is your personal networking agent who helps you expand your network easily. To do that, he helps you regularly:

• Get relevant followers by recommending you to them
• Discover great people relevant to your current needs
• Improve your Twitter usage via useful statistics

So all you have to do is follow Mr. Tweet and he starts looking around at your homies and who they dig, and then he looks at which peeps dig your homies in return. Then he says, “why don’t your people and my people get together for a little jammer on the twittosphere?”

There’s other cool features too so check it out.

Desktop client: Because true players don’t sleep

Instead of constantly visiting the twitter website, you can download a “little program” (widget) on your desktop. They’re tight because they nice to look at and don’t get in the way (IE you can hide it from your boss).

We use Twitterific at our office, it has a really nice interface. If you're using windows, you've got a bigger problem than finding a good twitter client. But you can still give twhirl a spin.

Mobile client: RING BLING

The next crucial step in pimping your twitter is hitting it up on the mobile. That’s no joke. Streetcars, taxi cabs, boring-ass parties, whatever. If you’re at a wedding and you see a drunk bridesmaid fall into a fountain of punch, you need to get that photo out there lickity split you know what I’m sayin?

Check out Tweetie for the iPhone, it’s hands-down the best out there.

Twimailer: Holla at Your Boy Notifications

Usually, when someone starts following you on twitter, you get an email showing you a link to their twitter page. Twimailer seriously ups the pimp-factor by a factor of 3 (easily). When you sign up, Twimailer intercepts the notification emails from twitter, and runs a little background check on the person following you before it sends you the notification.

The twimailer email is hella-pimped-out. It shows you how many people the person is following, how many followers they have, it shows their last ten tweets, it shows their bio and website. So easy, so crisp, so twitterpimpalishous.

Twistori: Pimp While you Sleep

For those of you out there who are daydreamers, and who love to sit around in your room looking at random shit, then you might as well get the freshest, most crispity-crunchity screen-saver out there. This high-quality screensaver pulls every tweet that contains the words: Love, hate, think, believe, feel, wish, and displays it in a masterful way. Twistori is dope.

@spam: Squash the Haters

Nobody likes a player hater. It’s not uncommon to be followed by a twitter account that is following a thousand people, but only has one follower. That means that some foo is trying to mess with your game. If you notice that you’re getting followed by these wankers, just tweet their username along with @spam, and the twitter unit goes in to lay a beat-down.

I also do the same thing whenever a lame-ass car company tries to follow me. It’s not like they’re bad people or anything it’s just not cool.

Ego for iPhone: Cuz every player’s got one

Right now, Ego for the iPhone is the nicest analytics app out there. Keep tabs on how many people are subscribing to your blog, see your twitter stats, and your mint analytics, all real time, whenever, wherever. Trust me, it’s addictive.

There you have it folks, don’t forget to get at your boys @camwest and @maxcameron.