SocialSev

Recently, my good friend and fellow social media evangelist, Gene Powell, asked me to write a guest post for Spoke. He wanted to compare the popular web-based, multi-user Twitter apps CoTweet and the upcoming HootSuite 2.0 (Beta) for business use. Since gainful employment and I are going through a bit of a rough patch, I had plenty of time on my hands and happily obliged. That post, Tweeting in Flocks: Multi-User Twitter Apps Compared, went up at 11:00 this morning. Take a look and leave a comment over there to let him know what you think.

The Concept

I recently had the opportunity to test drive another new app that gathers Twitter data. But this one is a little different. Foller.me, launched in beta on June 1st, is a service designed to provide detailed information about a specific Twitter user. According to the developer’s blog, Foller.me aims to take the guesswork out of deciding whether to follow back those who follow you. To do this, the IP simply asks you to enter any Twitter name into the text box. The service then utilizes data from that user’s last 200 tweets to generate a page displaying three tag clouds: Recent topics, #hashtags, and @mentions. The usual Twitter information is also displayed, including number of followers, number following, and total status updates. But in addition to the standard fare of bio and web address, Foller.me developer Konstantin Kovshenin also includes the user’s “tweeting since” date, a nice touch. Read the rest of this entry »

The Concept

PubliciTweet is an analytics tool designed to help businesses monitor the effectiveness of their Twitter campaigns. The service, developed by Yahoo! Software Engineer Jaisen Mathai, allows users to tweet their campaign immediately or schedule a specific date and time for the message to reach followers via the public timeline, direct messages, or both. The tracking tools provided include a graph of total clicks generated by the campaign and a mashed up Google map with markers indicating where the clicks are coming from and which follower referred them. PubliciTweet also provides a list of all of your followers. Their names are links to pages which display the same analytics tools mentioned above, specific to that follower. As the service is still in beta, the pricing structure has not been finalized. For now, the app is free to use and explore. So I did! Read the rest of this entry »