Twitter

My Top 10 Twitter Addictions

In one of my first articles, Green Twitter - Environmental Resources, I mentioned that I was “addicted to” and “dependent” on Twitter. In the comments, Ari Herzog asked why I was addicted to twitter. That question made me think a little and I realized that addicted wasn’t the right word. Obviously, I can live without Twitter and admittedly I would be depressed if it no longer existed, but I would move on. (I am addicted to the Internet, however, and don’t know how I would get over the loss of it).

So, I’ve been putting a lot of thought into what it is about Twitter that I like so much. Self-promotion? No. Networking? No. Reporting what I’m eating? No. Hearing what cool people the so called A-Listers are hanging out with? Definitely NO.

What makes me keep returning to Twitter day after day are the creative, funny, unique, and supportive people that I have encountered. People that I would have never had the opportunity to meet in real life. People from all over the world and people from a couple of miles away. People who share common interests with and people who don’t, but that I still connect with. I want to log in and say hi. I want to know what they are up to. I want to laugh at the funny things they say and make them laugh. I want to read and comment on their blog posts.

I guess that I’m not addicted to Twitter after all but am addicted to the people that I’ve developed an online relationship with.

So, here I’m going to list 10 of my Twitter friends. People that you might want to follow. They aren’t self-proclaimed gurus or A-Listers but they are fun, interesting, and bright. I’m listing their Twitter usernames and a recent blog post.

• @maratriangle - A park warden in the Masia Mara reserve in Kenya. I have not had a conversation with him but am fascinated by the work he is doing. Recent Post: Can Elephant Poo Save the Mara? (I love elephants).
• @scamtypes is an online scam hunter. He’s very funny person who keeps me on my toes. Unfortunately, he’s a Liverpool fan. Recent Post: Breaking News : Georgia Bigfoot Body Confirmed As A Rubber Costume Hoax
• @ChrissMari also resides in Philly. She has a potty mouth, makes me laugh, takes funny photos and is a Manchester City fan. Recent Post: Walking Behind Some Sort of Gang on My Way to Lunch
• @GreenSmith - an all around positive guy working to find sustainable solutions as well as find the best comment tracker. Recent Post: Throwplace: A Sort of Freecycle on Steroids
• @trisha_ifw - is a sweetheart who also loves Doctor Who and the Powerpuff Girls. She does not enjoy bathing suit shopping. Recent Post: Review: High Heels to Hormones: A Woman’s Guide to Spine Care
• @perishable - writes awesome advanced Wordpress tips and code solutions. He has answered my questions and is always helpful. Recent Post: Redirect All Requests for a Nonexistent File to the Actual File
• @andymurd gave me confidence about using Disqus on Tumblr, is friendly, and has a great sense of humor. He is, perhaps, the only man in England who doesn’t follow football. Recent Post: Freaks Do Not Get Followed
• @greenmom is blogging about raising an environmentally responsible family. She has great giveaways, asks me wordpress questions and is a top commenter. Recent Post: Moms Take a Stand Against BPA - Today
• @vered writes funny and poignant articles on her site, MomGrind. Vered knows how to build a community; she responds to every comment and makes a point to visit the sites of those who comment. I don’t know where she finds the time. Recent Post: Top 10 Fashion Mistakes to Avoid at All Costs
• @olu_guy is into football and video games. I think he’s my new best friend. Though he’s a little miffed about my switch from Arsenal to Aston Villa. Recent Post: Just go ahead and check out his social network for gamers, Vigster.

photo credit: bobdegraaf

Twitter Tools Digest Post Worked for 4 Days, Then it Beckham Flopped

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how I learned to exclude Wordpress categories from appearing on the main page and archives of my web site. I did this because I wanted to archive my tweets using the Twitter Tools digest feature. It mostly worked but I ran into a couple of problems with my code in that the category was still showing up in my list of recent posts. I still have not figured out how to correct that problem, although admittedly I haven’t spent much time working on it. As I mentioned, I discovered the Ultimate Category Excluder Plugin, which did the same thing I was trying to do via code.

Unfortunately, even though I learned a lot, this was an a futile exercise. Four days after setting this up, the Twitter Tools digest stopped posting. It worked wonderfully for four days and then nothing. I thought that perhaps there was a plugin conflict but I haven’t found any. I searched Google for solutions to this problem but found others having the problem but no real solution to it.

I’m not spending any more time on this. Not unless someone comes along and offers a solution or something for me to test. Having a daily digest post of my tweets that is hidden in Wordpress is not important. It’s just frustrating because it did work and unexpectedly stopped. I’m often driven to find a solution just so I can understand what is happening. I suppose this has really been a life lesson exercise in not being obsessive and letting the little things ago.

It also occurred to me that even though the tweets are not posting to a daily digest, they still exist in a mySql database table created by Twitter Tools. Since I have just enough php knowledge to break my site, I could make a project out of pulling the tweets onto the site myself. Hmmm…

If anyone knows why the Twitter Tools digest post would suddenly just stop working after an exciting but brief run, please please let me know.

Twellow - Categorize Your Twitter Self

In yesterday’s post about updating the Green Twitter list, I mentioned Twellow in passing. Based on Scam’s comments I realized that many users did not know about Twellow. In order for Twellow to become truly useful, users must first know that it exists and then login and add/remove themselves from categories.

Twellow is a directory of Twitter users that grabs posts and scans profiles in order to categorize users and add them to the directory. Initially, it only categorized users based on what was written in their Twitter profile. This led to some humorous results. For example, my profile says Doctor Who because I am a fan of the series. This led Twitter to place me in the Health and Medicine category in the directory. I am not in the Health and Medical field and would feel bad for anyone who asked me for medical advice. Apparently, other Doctor Who fans are running into the same issue.

Twellow still categorizes based on bios but it is now possible to login and then add and remove yourself from categories. You can add up to 10 verified ones. If you add unverified categories, you can use as many as you want.

The login is the same as the one used for Twitter. Before logging in for the first time, the profile has to be claimed. Search for your username, claim the profile and then login. You can then search for users who have similar interests to add the same categories that they use or drill down via the category listing on the main page.

I hope that more people started using Twellow and adding themselves to the appropriate subject areas. Ideally, Twitter will integrate a user directory.