tweetdeck Archives - Adam Yamada

TweetDeck makes Twitter Easy-to-Use & Hella Awesome

For anyone that has tried Twitter and doesn't really understand it, I usually recommend they try using TweetDeck before they give-up on the social media platform altogether. What is TweetDeck and why would you use it? Basically the best way to describe TweetDeck is it's a Twitter app that makes organizing and managing Tweets a lot easier and more fun to use. At least that is my opinion about it.

TweetDeck has a lot of features that Twitter natively doesn't have. For starters you can see and sort different columns for your timeline showing your latest Tweets from people you follow, interactions with others, direct messages, Twitter trends, and more. For those that haven't used TweetDeck you might be saying, “Can't you do that in Twitter?” Actually no, not really since with Twitter you can only view certain parts of your profile one-at-a-time whether it be on a mobile device on desktop. With TweetDeck you can see it all in one place simultaneously without having to click to go anywhere. It makes managing your social media profile a whole lot easier and saves a lot of time.

This idea was so simple but brilliant Twitter actually acquired TweetDeck several years ago. The creators of TweetDeck actually figured out a better way to handle and manage Twitter, than the Twitter themselves.

In addition with TweetDeck you can control several different Twitter accounts all in the same dashboard. If you are a Twitter power user with several accounts for different sites you run, this comes in handy. This allows you to not have to sign-in and then sign-out out for all your seperate Twitter accounts. Several small business owners use TweetDeck for keeping track with their personal and business accounts. I've also seen people with 10 or more accounts in 1 TweetDeck about but that gets a little bit crazy.

Using multiple accounts in TweetDeck comes in real handy in many situations though. Let's say you just got a funny fortune cookie you want to share with your followers. With TweetDeck you can send out the same Tweet to several different accounts at the same time.

If you'd rather the funny fortune cookie Tweet go out in a few hours, when you know more of your followers will be on Twitter, you can easily schedule Tweets to go out in the future. If needed you can schedule Tweets to post tomorrow, into next week or even next month. Scheduling Tweets is a good idea if you want to constantly connect with a Twitter fanbase but you know you can't be there 24/7. Twitter has no scheduling function you can use.

Another thing TweetDeck has over Twitter is the ability to easily filter Tweets. You can choose to only see Tweets with the hashtag “#awesome” and only see images with that particular hashtag. Sounds #awesome right? The filtering capabilities of TweetDeck are also useful for participating in a Twitter Chat, which is like an online forum chat on Twitter centered around a specific topic. If there are several Twitter Chats happening at the same time TweetDeck is useful for following both. Of course that can get a little confusing if are not prepared for it.

TweetDeck also makes creating Twitter lists a lot easier and more usable. Another nice feature they introduced a few days ago is custom timelines. I haven't used it too much but see the benefits.

I should emphasize the best part thing about TweetDeck, it's Free. While you might have already assumed that a lot of social media management tools are not and based off of Freemium models. (Meaning you can use it for free but extra features you need to pay for.) I've tried a lot of them and honestly don't like them. It's hard to integrate capabilities of several social networks that have their own idiosyncrasies into a single social dashboard. For using Twitter and managing multiple profiles, I don't know what else you would use besides TweetDeck.

If you are interested in trying out TweetDeck I recommend you visit the website and sign-up for an account.

You can use TweetDeck with a Twitter browser app or use the service at this URL. I wish TweetDeck Mobile Apps were still available but Twitter shutdown the apps earlier this year though. Another thing that kinda of annoys me is that you used to be able push out Tweets from TweetDeck to Facebook. I guess since Facebook is Twitter's main rival they realized that didn't make sense.

I hope you found my article useful if you haven't used or heard of TweetDeck before. If you have questions about using it please leave them below and I will try to answers them as best I can. I should let people know I am not social media guru or anything. If you are a TweetDeck user I'd be happy to hear tips, tricks, and what you find useful about it.

Catch me on Twitter @AdamYamada… if you can!

Twitter IPO a Success, Should you Invest?

The big social media and financial news this week was the Twitter IPO (Initial Public Offering) which seems to have been quite a success for the social networking service.

Twitter started trading shares to the public on Thursday (November 7th, 2013) and opened at $45.13 per share. This was a 73% gain from the $26 per share that was offered to insiders and existing shareholders on Wednesday, the day before the IPO. Early reports projected TWTR, the stock ticker symbol Twitter is listed under, to list around $35.

Twitter shares reached a high of trading at $50.09 during the Thursday, the first day of trading. However, on Friday the shares slipped back down to under $45 and as of this writing the stock current sit at $41.65 per TWTR share.

Even if the shares pulled back Friday the Twitter IPO gave the social media company a huge boost in it's market capitalization. How much? About $25 billion along with the surging stock of course this fluctuates with the stock price. It currently sits at under $20 billion. This still means Twitter has a bigger valuation than a lot of S&P500 companies. The real question, is that a fair valuation for Twitter?

By all accounts Twitter is a poster child for a successful technology and social media company. Twitter has roughly 100 million active users each day and over 230+ million accounts. (Probably about 10%-15% of those accounts are bots though.) Users create 500 million Tweets each day sharing thoughts to the world in 140 characters or less.

Twitter's numbers are quite impressive but the microblogging service has yet to find a great way to make, you know… money. Currently the best way Twitter is pulling in cash is Promoted Tweets and Trends. Companies can pay to show Tweets to users they believe will find them of value and try to promote a hashtag trend they want to get noticed. The company has also toyed with different ways to make money but a lot of those are not worth mentioning. The Twitter IPO helped raise cash too.

Everyone it seems uses Twitter from journalists, celebrities, athletes, politicians, etc. Warren Buffet even has a Twitter account but he doesn't actively Tweet. Still Twitter is seen as an important tool in the web 2.0 world.

It should be noted that TWTR listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and not the NASDAQ which is where most tech and social media companies are listed. Does that means the executives and founders of Twitter view it differently?

Whatever Evan Williams and Jack Dorsey think they are probably pretty happy since they added a significant amount to their personal wealth. It should be noted these two and did not offer any of their shares for sale. None of the banks underwriting the IPO Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan Chase, decided to sell shares as well.

The general belief seems to be even if Twitter is not making money now, they will figure it out eventually. A lot of people are still joining and starting to use the service and a majority of users use the social network on smartphones. Twitter still could lose ground and users just like Facebook is experiencing now. Remember my article asking “Is Facebook for Old People Now?” Could the same thing happen to Twitter?

I was annoyed that they stopped support of TweetDeck Mobile apps and I haven't been happy with other decisions Twitter has made. Overall they've done a good job of making the Twitter API easy for developers to build on and make 3rd party Twitter clients and applications which has helped fuel growth.

Liking a social media service is different than investing in it though. Would you invest in Twitter with your personal money? Do you believe the Twitter IPO was successful? Do you think you would wait until the TWTR comes down? What do you see in Twitter's future?

10 Reasons Deleting a Facebook Account is Good for You

Recently I deleted my Facebook account, which sounds hard to do but it wasn't as hard as you might imagine. With my support and help you can Deleting a Facebook account can be easy. While a seemingly impossible task for some, it is not that hard. We can do it together and here are 10 reasons to help you make deleting a Facebook account more clear cut and easier.

1. It's a HUGE Waste of Time

This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that has every used Facebook. Essentially it is a blackhole of time with a gigantic mass of stupid internet memes, people's problems, complaints, hatred, and anything else you don't want to hear about.

While I think social media can be used for great things, Facebook has a serious crisis in the way it organizes all the data that is shared on it's platform everyday.

2. Privacy

It's been pretty clear from day one that Facebook doesn't give a shit about your privacy and your personal data and information. (It should be called FaceCrook.) Also it's a complete illusion that anything you share on Facebook can be kept completely private. You hear stories all the day about people sharing things they shouldn't on Facebook, and then subsequently getting fired or kicked out of school.

If you delete your Facebook account you won't have to worry about someone seeing a post they were not supposed to see, since you won't be on it anymore. If you are stupid enough to share every detail of your life on Facebook, then I guess it's for you.

If you want to share anonymously go join a forum with a crazy username or go over and sign-up for Reddit. That's where people vent about all sorts of stuff publicly, but anonymously.

3. Facebook EdgeRank

For those that don't know Facebook EdgeRank is an algorithm that decides what to show you and what not to show in your newsfeed. Just out of curiosity, why does Facebook need to decide this for me? If am following a page or person, I am interested in what they have to share. If I don't like it, I don't follow them. I don't need Facebook making the decisions for me.

Also Facebook EdgeRank means brands have a huge hurdle to overcome when they are sharing content. Facebook seems to be tweaking Edgerank making it increasingly hard to get people off of their “walled garden” in hopes of generating more ad revenue. (Remember they went public so they gotta please shareholders.) I've seen firsthand Facebook pages with a large following but a laughable low Click-Through-Rate (CTR) to articles or content they share. You need a lot of followers to make the Return on Investment in Facebook make sense because of Facebook EdgeRank.

I even talked with many companies who have complained extensively about EdgeRank. It's usually the same story, “We've spent $1000's in Facebook advertising and now Facebook is limiting what we can do with fans we paid for via advertising.” Not sure how this makes sense, and they get away with it, but I guess Facebook really likes to screw people over. Hey, they've been doing it since day one.

Fuck Facebook, Fuck Edgerank!

4. There are OTHER Social Networks

Yes, there are other social networks you can used besides Facebook. Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, Youtube, etc. all which can be a BETTER use of your time. Additionally if you are a business some of these social media sites can better target certain customers and drive traffic to your website.

For instance, recently I discovered the power of Pinterest for photo sharing. What's nice about Pinterest compared to Facebook is that images can have click-through links to your articles. This means each time I share something I get maximum value out of that share. If other people Pin your images they sometimes do so to come back and reference it. You don't get that benefit on Facebook. Also Pinterset makes it super easy to organize and share images, while Facebook does not.

Tumblr is another great photo sharing platform for the same reason as Pinterest. Images can have links directly to your articles, but links are DoFollow on Tumblr. The platform Tumblr is built on makes sharing content fast and easy. It's also a lot easier to schedule posts since you can just select “Add to Queue.” You don't get the benefit of people coming back to the images though, but it's still a better platform for photo sharing than Facebook.

Twitter in my opinion is another better social network, especially for managing multiple accounts. I use TweetDeck to help manage different Twitter accounts and Tweets. (Honestly it wouldn't be enjoyable to use Twitter otherwise. ) A 3rd party developer or Facebook has yet to come out with an equivalent tool, that is as good as TweetDeck, for managing multiple Facebook pages. Additionally Twitter is easy to get in, and get out of quickly. I don't like it though that Twitter stopped supporting TweetDeck's mobile Apps.

I could go on but if you find that Facebook isn't working for you personally or for your brands, drop it. Deleting a Facebook account in this case shouldn't be that hard. Figure out another social network or social media platform that will work for you.

I am still going to keep up the Singing Dog Facebook page but will be posting on there sporadically. It's not worth my time.

5. Mark Zuckerberg

There is the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, who's always stricken me as an odd person. It's been widely speculated that he has Asperger's syndrome, which I am inclined to think is true. He is a very private person, ironically, and doesn't seem to like that people.

Also for some reason people think he is the shiznit but I don't really see it that way. Anytime I've heard him talk he says the same friggin thing, “I'm really just trying to connect the world.” or variations of this. If you ever listen to Jack Dorsey, the creative mind behind Twitter, talk you feel like there is a lot going on in there. With ASSperger's man… not so much.

The reality is that Mark Zuckerberg isn't all that smart. The truth is he stole the idea for Facebook. Just ask the Winklevoss twins and Divya Narendry, since they know from experience! 🙂 He'll fuck you over especially on privacy, which is #2 on my list. He even fucked over his friend who helped him start Facecrook, Eduardo Saverin.

The best way to refer to Mark Zuckerberg is,”Fuckerberg!” FYI this is probably the best Twitter search you can do! 🙂

6. Moderation

Facebook hasn't done a good enough job of moderating page content. I've complained about certain pages before and many times a few seconds later I got a reply saying that “It's ok” according to Facebook's terms. WTF? A real human obviously didn't look and analyze the page. Mark Fuckerberg can't pay someone to monitor that stuff?

7. Facebook's User Interface Blows

Facebook is seriously failing behind with keeping updated on an intuitive and easy-to-use user interface. Checkout Pinterest for instance, which is hella simple and doesn't take much to pick-up.

Facebook can't seem to figure out whether to appeal to old people or young people. Since old people don't like a user interface change, they have a real problem on their hands. Change it so young people will flock back, and their user base will be confused.

8. Its' Slow

Do Facebook engineers not know how to load balance a server? Do they know what a content delivery network (CDN) is? I guess not since uploading a photo takes longer than an old lady crossing the street. Hey guess what Facebook engineers, stop playing beer pong and go do your fucking job! You get paid plenty of money and you've seriously go ZERO excuse for any slowness at anytime during the day. ZERO!

Deleting a Facebook account will save you a lot of time! 🙂 Once I launch my new web hosting site, HostTribe, you Facebook engineers could probably learn something.

9. Facebook is not Cool

There is a good reason Facebook shelled out $1 billion for Instagram. Their user base is getting older since parents have started to use it. (Damn!) As this happens more and more… well it's going to be seen more and more as a Not Cool. Quite honestly a lot of young people already think it is Uncool.

Facebook's current crisis is that it's started to become the next MySpace. This won't happen this year, but it will happen faster than you think unless they start truly making some innovative changes. I doubt that will happen as long as Fuckerberg is running the company.

10. Focus on Your own Web Projects

Do you want to start a blog? Do you have a cool smartphone app or web service you want to get develop? Have some innovative tool that will change the world?

Stop kidding yourself spending time on Facebook is really helping you accomplish these goals, because it isn't. If you want to create something for the world to use, share, or appreciate you should be spending less time on Facebook and social media altogether and focusing as much time and effort as you can on your own web projects.

Conclusion, Facebook sucks

For a young person in this hyper-connected digital age some would tell you it is a social death sentence to delete your personal Facebook account. Will I be sad to miss baby pictures, vacation pictures, and important updates from my friends? Sure, but I feel there are plenty of other ways for me to keep in touch with my friends in this day and age.

I am never going back to the blue and white social media wasteland and hope others will join me. I understand if you stay on there though and don't hold it against anyone. I know not using social media is hard and for some to not use Facebook… well that's just plain impossible! 🙂

If you do plan on Deleting a Facebook account, please remember to backup and archive your information before doing so. This will enable you to keep all your pictures and other vital information.

Are you considering deleting a Facebook account and moving on in your life? Let me know why and if you feel my 10 reasons are justified. Did you already delete you Facebook account? Why did you do it?

Catch me on Twitter @AdamYamada… if you can.

Not Using Social Media is Hard

The other day I decided that I needed to try to put some of my social media use on hold for awhile. The reason is I have several web projects I need to work on and it is quite time consuming to have to monitor social networks across many different platforms. Not using social media at all though… well it's quite hard to do.

First I started with LinkedIn and wanted to see if I could deactivate my account for awhile. Technically you can't deactivate an account but you can set your account so that nobody can see it. This is basically the same thing as deactivating your account I guess since what good is a social media profile nobody can see? Anyway after I did that I moved onto Twitter.

Weighing the options of temporarily deactivating my Twitter account I realized it probably wasn't possible for me to actually stop using Twitter. I have auto posting setup for @AdamYamada and some other accounts which is kinda nice. Besides like LinkedIn it seems the only way to deactivate an account is to just set your profile to private. Of course the big difference here is that anyone that is following you can still see your Tweets and profile information. Sooo for now my Twitter accounts are intact but at least I uninstalled TweetDeck from Google Chrome. While TweetDeck is a great social media tool it can be hard to manage the Twitterverse.

Then I moved onto Facebook the biggest and baddest social networks around. Facebook at least has the option to keep your information intact but deactivate your account temporarily. It's nice keeping up with all your friends but let's be honest… Facebook is a blackhole. It sucks away all your productive time and you can never really get that time back.

I thought deactivating my Facebook account would be easy… ahhh I was wrong. I have several apps connected to my personal account and no other contributors. You can't deactivate the account and keep the Apps active without switching having an Administrator for the Apps that has a verified account. That means to deactivate the account I might need to get a prepaid phone to use with a dummy account or just ask someone to transfer use the apps.

Then came all the social bookmarking sites I have used. Damn, I've used a lot and a lot of them I never really understood or generated much traffic for me. This includes Reddit, Delicious, Tumblr, and more. Is it even worth time to delete those accounts?

So my goal of not using social media was a bit harder than I imagined it would be. It is all to easy to sign-up for these services but all too hard to truly leave. It is not in the best interest of the Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. if you stop using their services.

Even though all these social networks can be quite useful used in the right way a lot of people try to contact me through it instead of just sending me an email. I am just not really a fan of that as it takes a whole lot of time for me to direct message rather than just use my email. I guess that's old school but hey, I still get emails from Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest.

Bottom line not using social media at all nowadays is damn hard these days. I wish it was possible to click a few buttons to just take a break but that ain't possible my friends.

Have a similar story of trying to disconnect temporarily or permanently from social networking? Please share your story in the comments below. I'd be curios to hear stories and I know others would as well.

Twitter will stop support of TweetDeck Mobile Apps

A few days ago on TweetDeck's official blog on Posterous, Twitter surprised the Social Media universe or more specifically the “Twitterverse.” Twitter announced that they will be ending support for TweetDeck mobile apps for Android smartphones and the iPhone. Also Twitter will not be supporting the desktop version of the Twitter application anymore known as TweetDeck AIR (it runs on the Adobe AIR platform.)

Here is what Twitter said on the Posterous blog post that was posted on March 4th, 2013.

TweetDeck is the most powerful Twitter tool for tracking real-time conversations. Its flexibility and customizable layout let you keep up with what’s happening on Twitter, across multiple topics and accounts, in real time. To continue to offer a great product that addresses your unique needs, we’re going to focus our development efforts on our modern, web-based versions of TweetDeck. To that end, we are discontinuing support for our older apps: TweetDeck AIR, TweetDeck for Android and TweetDeck for iPhone. They will be removed from their respective app stores in early May and will stop functioning shortly thereafter. We’ll also discontinue support for our Facebook integration.

TweetDeck mobile apps makes it easy and convenient for people with multiple Twitter accounts to control them all from the same application I have been using TweetDeck on my Android smartphone to handle my personal Twitter account @AdamYamada and the one for Cody and Sierra, my two singing dogs, @DogsSing. Even a couple of other Twitter accounts are on there and I used it often to send Tweets to Facebook pages or just update Facebook pages.

I am bit annoyed that Twitter has decided to pull the plug on TweetDeck for Android and TweetDeck for iPhone. It has over 1 million downloads which is a pretty sizable user-base in my opinion. The reason Twitter probably decided to pull the plug on TweetDeck for smartphones is that the majority of people are using Twitter for iPhone and Twitter for Android apps instead. Unlike me they do not have a need have multiple accounts they need or want to control from the same app.

I am also annoyed Twitter will not support Facebook integration but I understand since that is technically their biggest competitor in the Social Media world. I guess Twitter has made a calculated move to try to push more people to stay on their platform.

Ending support for the desktop version does make sense though. Over the past couple of months I have migrated to using the TweetDeck Chrome app which is convenient, fast, and easy to use. I bet from a developer standpoint it is easier to run TweetDeck in the cloud. From the blog post it seems like Twitter's data probably reflects that.

In many ways, doubling down on the TweetDeck web experience and discontinuing our app support is a reflection of where our TweetDeck power-users are going.

What does not make sense is that Twitter decided to post the news on a Posterous blog. Why? Twitter acquired Posterous awhile ago and will be shutting down Posterous on April 30th, 2013. You can read Sachin Agarwal's, the Founder and CEO of Posterous, blog post about it. (If you have a Posterous blog you should go backup your data immediately if you want it. You can transfer it to WordPress or Tumblr blog.) Twitter it seems want all the focus to be on developing Twitter and the buyout was probably what is known as an “acquihire.” These acquihires by big tech companies are usually just to get the talent from the company they are buying out and not necessarily for the technology itself.

If anyone would like to suggest a good TweetDeck replacement, please leave a comment and suggest one. I most likely will be trying out different Twitter apps that can handle multiple accounts over the next month or two. I will keep people updated with what I do and don't like.

If you are a TweetDeck user and as unhappy as I am, let me know how you feel. I would be interested to hear from others.