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The most common method of checking Twitter for myself is on the mobile (iPhone) using the new Twitter app. Scanning for posts/Tweets that I am interested in and in most cases, emailing to myself to read later. Very much the same way I manage my RSS subscriptions. My Google Reader is set up with folders specific to the topics of the feeds I am subscribed to. Eg. Design, Photography etc.. For most Twitter users I suspect this is common to them also.

So who do you follow?

In the early days, Twitter began its rise to fame and stardom as a tool in which to share updates to a select group of friends or followers. Nothing much here has changed. However there has been a shift recently in how you manage your Tweeting practices and what you may come to expect from those you follow and in turn, your followers.

If Twitter did not exist would you phone a friend to tell them you’re eating a grouse hamburger at your local cafe and ask them to call your other mutual friends to let them know also? I am guessing probably not. In essence, this is what you (or just some of us) are doing on twitter. You should probably ask yourself – Do your friends really care about those kind of updates? I am sure some of you reading this would probably say yes, they do. However, there is an entirely different group of us out there that use Twitter differently. How differently? Well, we use it to share anything of common interest. It is this common interest that is the key to managing your followers.

Doing a search on Twitter and visiting some Twitter users pages will give you a general idea of the kinds of things they Tweet about. Generally, if you don’t know this person or business, you may look over their Tweets and form an on the spot opinion of whether you feel they are worth following. However over time, and Tweets, this opinion may change and you will find yourself wandering if they are really worth following any more. If the answer is no you will pretty soon find yourself clicking on the “unfollow” button. Would you do this to your friends that you follow though? probably not…

What we have therefore begun to see is many Twitter users using Twitter similar to an RSS reader. You subscribe to feeds/Tweets of interest and have them delivered straight to your device. Simple! Is this just the beginning though? Will the next generation of mobile devices allow us to build and integrate applications that will do much more than just deliver such types of information to us while on the move. Will they end up making the laptop or desktop computer extinct all together? Who knows!

What’s your thoughts?

New to twitter? There’s help around the corner

So I got thinking, all I really need is a set of bookmarks, not necessarily a list of pages from my history. I wanted something I could easily add to and could be accessible from the three computers I use regularly.

There are plenty of articles and resources out there about Start Pages, CNet has blogged about them, Feedmyapp covers it rather well, Lifehacker recently put out the call and Mashable had their say. Lets not forget Symbaloo, they covered it quite well with their app and so to did Fav4.org.

I wanted something simple, I did not need anything Google search related as this is taken care of in the browser toolbar. My solution, to use Delicious! I visited the pages I wanted quick access to and bookmarked them under a new tag called “my-start-page”. Then went to my Delicious bookmarks, looked up the tag and saved the page as my homepage on each browser and computer. Simple! Now when ever I find or remember a page I want quick access to I just save to Delicious with my start page tag.

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The dashboard gives you the choice of a number of columns which you can customise and tabbed menus make it even easier to view your other social media streams individually. It also comes with a Hootlet toolbar for your browser, a Firefox toolbar addon and a sexy iPhone app. You can track stats, manage your Twitter lists as well as post to all your social media streams in just one click. Another handy feature is you can schedule Tweets (or status updates as I prefer). There is plenty more under the hood.

This apps ticks all the boxes and gets my vote as the number one Social Media manager!

Update: You can now choose Bar or Non-bar URL Shortener for HootSuite. Read more