Reading From the Firehouse:

Plucking important information from the Twitter stream

By Brad King

  

The initial reaction many people have about Twitter, the mobile social network that allows people to send out their thoughts in 140 character blurbs, is that it's much ado about nothing. On the surface, the network is just a massive jumble of random thoughts, links, photos and disjointed conversations flying through cyberspace 

 

But there's more to it than that. Twitter has become the third largest social network, according to Compete.com, with 54 million site visits this past January. Somebody must be deriving value from it. 

 

In fact, the most connected derive a great deal of information from the Twitter stream, that never-ending scroll of Tweets from around the planet, because they use simple filtering tools to make sure they can find -- and aggregate -- the most important conversations for them.

  

The good news is that anyone can use these tools. And the more you use them, the more value you'll derive from the network. 

 

There are two basic ways to filter Twitter content. The simplest way is a desktop application, which allows you to track conversations in a browser-like environment on your computer.  A slightly more complicated -- but infinitely more desirable -- way is using RSS feeds to aggregate conversations.

  

The TweetDeck

Once you've signed up for Twitter, the simplest way to wade into the Twitterverse is by using one of the scores of desktop applications. You can find a list of "Twitter-approved, user-tested" applications by clicking the "Apps" link in Twitter.com's footer. 

 

Here you'll find 12 desktop and mobile phone applications (and a link for myriad others). The best place to start, though, is the TweetDeck. Once you download this piece of software (and Adobe Air, the software that runs TweetDeck), you're ready.

  

TweetDeck is a Twitter filter and it comes with a few built-in columns. The "All Friends" column is the ever-changing Tweet stream from the 431 people I am following. The "Replies" column holds the public Tweets directed at me. The "Direct Messages" column houses private messages between Twitter friends (which for obvious reasons I've edited out).

 

 

  

The coolest part of TweetDeck, though, is it allows you to create your own personalized "search columns". To do this, you click on the "magnifying glass" along the top of the application which brings up a light box search field that says "What are you searching for?". Simply enter a name or keyword and TweetDeck creates a column.

 

In this case, I added #min186, a hashtag my social media students at Northern Kentucky University use to talk with each other within the Twitter stream.

 

 

 

 

The TweetDeck is a great solution for people who won't need many filters. However, in short order you might have columns that stretch on forever. If you find yourself with too many columns, using an RSS Reader and Feeds might be the best solution.

 

 

The RSS Solution

The deeper you wade into the Twitterverse, the more you'll teeter on the brink of getting lost in all the noise. It happens to the best of us.

 

 

There is an easy way to filter out the noise and see only what you want: search and aggregate. To do that, you'll first need to find a good Twitter search application. There are several but I'm partial to Twitter Search (http://search.twitter.com). It has a simple interface and allows you to create RSS feeds with the results.

 

 

In the search box, type a keyword or a Twitter username. I typed my Twitter username: Brad_King.

  

 

 

This creates a list of all Tweets with my name, including those that I sent. On the top right of the page, there is an RSS button marked "Feed for this query". That link creates a feed which will look like a bunch of jumbled code. Ignore the code on the page; instead, copy the URL.

  

Then plug that URL into your RSS Reader. I use the Google Reader, which has a simple "Add a subscription" button along the top left side of the screen.

 

  

 

RSS feeds also allow you the ability to group different feeds into folders, giving you even more flexibility. For instance, I've added the #min186 feed to my Google Reader, which now allows me to easily scroll through every Tweet related to the social media class I teach.

 

 

 

 

The Final Solution

The kicker is that once you create and tap into your Twitter network, you'll begin to experience it in a way that's near impossible if you're simply wading into the stream. To paraphrase a Tweet one of my students sent: you can't explain social media, you just have to experience it.

  

Here's a tangible example of what she meant. While working on this article, I sent out a series of Tweets to my network asking them which filtering technologies they used. Within 10 minutes, I received a reply from @briantroy (which is how Twitter usernames are written) pointing me to JustSignal (http://justsignal.com/), a software application that allows you to create a customized Twitter feed on your website. Minutes later, I was followed by Buzzable (http://buzzable.com/), another aggregation tool used to track keywords and people. Both these tools have functions similar to what I described in the RSS section.

  

In other words, my discussion about filtering technology leapt from the page to my mobile network and back to the page in less than time it took you to read this article.

  

Meanwhile, my network continues to teach me.

  

Northern Kentucky University Professor Brad King is currently writing on book on social media, which will be published by Carnegie Mellon's ETC Press in 2010.