Tag: Add-ons

Categories
Academic Digital

Using Twitter in PowerPoint

Now there’s a great idea, and cheaper than clickers, but if using it in the classroom, it does assume that all students have Twitter (which is clearly not the case). I heard of this possibility through @Ulfilas, and look forward to hearing more:

Polleverywhere with Twitter

Categories
Digital

Brizzly

Brizzly

Brizzly appears to be a new toy on the market, as recommended by @StephenFry (still the UK’s top Twitter advocate?). I still haven’t done a great deal with it, but with the rise of spammers, it looks to be a useful/interesting tool, and again, is capable of managing multiple accounts. I wondered what was different, but it opens up all short-links (which you’ll still need to use to post to keep them short and maximise the use of your 140 characters), images and videos (which can be watched in the software). The intro video is a helpful start off, and you can group people by self-defined groups, and mute people for short periods of time (rather than de-following) if, for instance, they are at a conference that you’re not interested in. You need an invite code to get in – I got mine via @WriterCharly, who got hers from @StephenFry.

Categories
Digital

Portwiture

In reading other’s Twitter updates, I came across an interesting tool: “Portwiture“, which reads your recent tweets (I’m not sure how recent, but I tried this out yesterday and today, and the images had changed significantly, so I’m assuming it works on the most recent tweets only) and turns them into a pictorial montage. At first, appearing like a bit of fun, I was extremely pleased to see that sfdo‘s tweet stream very much reflects the core message of the company – adrenalin sports!

sfdo-small

I then took a montage at around 10.15am today of each of the tweet streams that I manage to see how far they reflected each of those messages:

drbexl-smalland I’m thinking that’s quite a good reflection of @drbexl also!

digitalfprint-smallWell, @digitalfprint‘s stream is definitely reflecting my interests in Twitter and social media in general!

ww2poster-smallI’m not entirely sure what that reflects, but there’s definitely some history in @ww2poster‘s tweetstream!

skillsnetwinch-small

Well, @skillsnetwinch hasn’t really been fully developed yet, so that’s a bit vague!

nwccgathering-small

Again, @nwccgathering is still very new!

Categories
Digital

Friend or Follow

Friend or Follow

I am looking at who I follow/am followed by on Twitter, and was looking for a tool which would give me an idea.

  • As a first run, I have found http://friendorfollow.com very helpful in identifying those who I am following but are not following me.
  • Some people will only follow those who are following them, which isn’t my style (as some of the biggest names, who post the most interesting tweets (e.g. @mashable) don’t follow many back).
  • It does, however, give me an idea of people who I may have followed in a moment of madness, who’ve then de-followed me (and picks up on some people who I can’t imagine ever following, so I’m not quite sure how that happens).
  • The software is quite slow to run, but you can add /username and it will start searching immediately. I thought it had hung, put the computer into hibernation overnight, and the data was all there.
  • When you click on an icon, it will take you into Twitter itself, where you can choose whether to defollow or not (I’m not an advocate of auto-defollowing), so there’s a bit of clicking back and forth, but worth it.
  • The tool can come in particularly handy if you’re reaching the limit of 2000 following, when you don’t have as many followers!
  • From now on, I can just add those I think I’m going to get value from, and use their tweets to decide whether to defollow (whether they’re following me or not) – trying to improve the ratio of signal to noise!

Interested in suggestions of programmes that others have used, and their pros/cons?