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Looking at Pulpconnection Stats

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I haven’t been really looking at web stats for Pulpconnection for some time. Visits haven’t been the same since the move to WordPress. Couple the move with less and inconsistent blog posting, and the stats ain’t going to look pretty.

For the month of April 2009, here is the top content:

  1. Ace of Cakes LOST in Hawaii
  2. Team Jacob Getting Pumped
  3. Bella’s Lullaby on Sheet Music
  4. Taylor Lautner, the Next Calvin Klein Underwear Model?
  5. Club 939 tag
  6. Rory Wild Back with the Wakeup Crew
  7. My 15-Minute Review of Tweetie for the Mac
  8. More Heat from Abercrombie & Fitch
  9. The LOST Cake Revealed
  10. GoGirl Lets Women Pee Standing Up

Top traffic sources:

  1. Google
  2. Google images
  3. cakecentral.com
  4. sitemeter.com
  5. Yahoo
  6. MSN Live
  7. Facebook
  8. Ginx
  9. MSN
  10. Twitter

Wow, I don’t know if I like the message looking at the top content – a few Twilight things, a few LOST items, controversial ads from Abercrombie & Fitch, and Club 939?!

Looking at the traffic sources demonstrates the changes of social networking. Facebook, Twitter, and Ginx are now valid sources of traffic, albeit small compared to the search engines.

Gotta keep plugging away and see how things go.

Wanted: Tweetie Groups

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The new Mac desktop Twitter client, Tweetie for Mac, is great but has some missing features (it’s only v1.x you know). One feature that I would like to see is the inclusion of groups. As the number of Tweeters you follow grows so does your timeline, and keeping up with the various conversations gets harder and harder. That’s where groups come into the story.

With groups, you can assign users to defined groups to better segment and track conversations. Natively, Twitter doesn’t support groups so third party Twitter clients like TweetDeck have implemented their own groups solution (though Ginx.com has developed a groups solution within the confines of the Twitter API).

tweetie-color

Typically, groups in Twitter clients are handled with another column or window for each group. From an UI perspective, I wonder how Tweetie would address groups. The Tweetie interface is single column focused though you can open more windows with tear off searches. Right now, Tweetie color highlights conversations, and I wonder if this technique could apply to groups? Assign users to groups and assign a color to that group. Any conversation from grouped users would be highlighted in your normal timeline.

To augment this color coding, there should be a keyboard shortcut to toggle between only tweets from a group and all tweets in your timeline. Maybe there would be a tiny image graphic in user’s “speech bubble” when double clicked would show only tweets of that group.

Hmmm… what if users belonged to more than one group? Drats, back to the drawing board.

My 15-Minute Review of Tweetie for the Mac

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After using the just released Twitter desktop client, Tweetie for the Mac, for 15 minutes, here is my review.

Tweetie for the Mac has a default single column layout with different “tabs” that slide you to your Twitter Timeline, mentions, and DM messages much like Twhirl. It’s not a multicolumn beast like Tweetdeck though you can fill your screen with tear away search screens.

As a desktop app, Tweetie for the Mac feels fast. Faster than the Adobe AIR-based Twhirl or Tweetdeck, on par with Nambu, another desktop client.

Tweetie for the Mac supports multiple Twitter account (which Tweetdeck does not do) and again uses various sidebar “tabs” to switch between Twitter accounts. However, different accounts are distinguished primarily by their Twitter avatars. This more or less forces you to customize your avatar (which you’ve done already right?). Otherwise, you’ll only see the default o_O icon which won’t help you figure out which account you’re using. Although when you are composing a tweet, there is a drop down menu letting you pick by name and avatar which account you’re tweeting with.

tweetie-mult-accounts

Some of the additional services supported.

URL Shortening:

  • bit.ly
  • TinyURL
  • is.gd
  • tr.im
  • Diggbar

Image Service:

  • Twitpic
  • yFrog
  • Twitgoo
  • Posterous

So far, a “hidden” feature I stumbled upon is the inclusion of Twitlonger. If your tweet is longer than the standard 140 characters, Tweetie for the Mac asks if you want to use Twitlonger for your longer tweet. Here’s an example of a Twitlonger tweet. That’s a nice addition.

I also like the behavior of new tweets. Instead of automatically pushing my Timeline location around, Tweetie for the Mac stays put. With Nambu, new tweets would push my Timeline down, making me lose track of where I was – confusing.

Some of the not so good? I can’t find a way of viewing only my tweets. I guess I can search for my own Twitter name, but it would seem easier if there were a “tab” for my tweets. Favorites too, I don’t see an intuitive way to see what tweets I’ve faved. [Update: Ryan Ozawa, aka @hawaii, points out that double clicking your avatar shows your tweets, mentions, faves, and info.]

One minor UI thing I don’t like is the colorless scroll bar. For whatever reason, I have a hard time seeing the handle to scroll up and down my Timeline. I don’t know if it’s the lack of contrast or what, but a few times already, I’ve kinda lost the scroll bar handle and had to look for it. It just didn’t pop out visually.

And oh yeah, I don’t care for the purplish hued icon for Tweetie for the Mac. It’s kinda blasé.

I’m sure there are all kinds of other things to explore and discover with Tweetie for the Mac, and like I said, I only played around with it for 15 minutes. But that’s what is appealing. This app seems simple since it masks the complexity and functionality that is actually there.

Cost is free for a version that includes advertisements. The ad-free version costs $19.95 with a special introductory price of $14.95 until May 4th.

Tweetie for the Mac Now Available

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The Twitter desktop client market just got another contender with the introduction of Tweetie for the Mac. Tweetie is already a killer iPhone app, and it’s making a jump to your desktop.

So far so good with version 1.0. It’s one of those simple but powerful applications. You just need to find that feature that’s actually there. One small complaint is the color of the scrollbar, or should I say the lack of color. It’s kinda hard to see the scroll bar since the colors match the rest of the window. Yes, it’s a small thing, but twice already, I had to “hunt” for where I was in the scroll bar

Could I yet again be jumping to a different Twitter client? First Tweetdeck, then Twhirl, some Nambu, and now Tweetie?

The ad-free version costs $14.95 until May 4, 2009.

Vacation Blogging Brought to You By…

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While on my recent Socal vacation, I didn’t have access to a computer for blogging. Instead I updated Pulpconnection using a combination of mobile devices and various Internet services. Here’s a rundown.

iPhone (and built-in camera). My iPhone 3G was the primary device for getting online. I used its okay internal camera for posted pictures.

AT&T 3G Network. I must say that the AT&T 3G network worked well in Socal. Very, very few dead spots or times when I dropped to EDGE speeds. Only at the LAX airport did I have some serious 3G network slowdowns. Other than that, I preferred the 3G network even over WiFi. The free WiFi access at hotels were slow and always required a web login to initiate your session and subsequent logins to keep your session going.

WordPress for iPhone. Since Pulpconnection is now powered by WordPress, I relied on the app, WordPress for iPhone, to make significant blog posts. Though significant is relative since tapping out a lengthy post on the iPhone’s virtual keyboard isn’t the easiest thing to do.

One thing I hope the WordPress team fixes is the image handling of this iPhone app. It seems all images are added to the end of blog posts and can’t be placed within paragraphs of a post. That and sometimes the app’s UI would mess up and not display the necessary navigation buttons at the top. So I’d be stranded, not able to save my post. Fortunately, when leaving the app and coming back in, the app is able to restore my draft.

Tweetie, Twitter (with Twitpic), and Twitter Tools for WordPress. For all shorter blog posts, I used a bunch of stuff. Tweetie is my primary Twitter client on the iPhone. Combined with Twitter Tools for WordPress, tweets can automatically be converted to blog posts. I used this nifty function quite a bit.

Brightkite. To update my Socal location, I used Brightkite. The iPhone’s GPS would find my coordinates which I would check in using the Brightkite service. Brightkite integrates with Twitter and tweets my current location. And with Twitter Tools running, even these location based tweets are converted to blog posts.

So there you have it, my arsenal for mobile blogging without a computer. I will say that it wasn’t the easiest thing to do, but it wasn’t so difficult to stop me. To make this a more ideal setup would be incorporating an ultra portable netbook with a keyboard and USB port to retrieve higher quality pictures from digital cameras. Ahem, Apple?