50 odd days later, the app is finally available in the App Store — for free of course. To summarize my take on it, it’s significantly better than the previous version, but falls short of my expectation.

Pros:

• Highly customizable columns, the very reason why I love TweetDeck
• Column swiping
• Conversation view when viewing individual tweet
• Beautiful interface, especially when viewing profile
• Tweets are highly readable
• Landscape browser
• Able to return to where you left off after minimizing the app (not possible in the old iOS TweetDeck). Won’t work though if you exit the app completely.
• Tweet from different/multiple accounts (tap on the avatar while in the compose window)

Cons:

• App crashes every time the built-in photo viewer is launched. Every singe time.
• No individual time stamp on tweets while in column view
• No RT/Reply/Favorite/etc buttons in column view. You’d have to view a tweet individually to have access to the said buttons (deal breaker)
• Unable to return to the first column in a single swipe from the last column. Very tedious to swipe all the way back, especially when you have gazillion columns around
• Poor integration with Instapaper

I was using TweetBot for the past week, and my very first response after launching the new TweetDeck is, “why is it silent?“. Yes, I’m spoiled by TweetBot’s sound effects.

For now, I’ll stick to TweetBot, at least until it’s possible to RT/Reply in column view.

The above observations are done in under an hour playing with the app, so take it with a pinch of salt. I will revisit iOSDeck again after a revised version is out.

[TweetDeck in App Store]

©2011 SheepTech

My Take on iPhone TweetDeck 2.0

TweetDeck, a popular Twitter client, is now supporting tweets that are longer than 140 characters natively through Deck.ly. A long tweet sent from TweetDeck can be viewed in full length on another TweetDeck client.

If the tweet is viewed on other platforms, on the web for example, the long tweet will be truncated and a Deck.ly link will be attached at the end of the tweet. The Deck.ly link will bring you to TweetDeck’s website and the tweet will be displayed in full length.

Now you must be wondering, what happens if everyone starts writing essays using TweetDeck? It will flood your Twitter stream, no? Apparently, long tweets will only be displayed up to a certain height or length, depending which platform you are on. Clicking the “Read more” link will expand the text inline in the client itself.

Here’s a demo Deck.ly link displaying my tweet in full length.

To start using Deck.ly, simply write more than 140 characters on TweetDeck (desktop, Android or Chrome) and tweet away.

©2011 SheepTech

TweetDeck Now Supports Long Tweets Natively

Like Twitter, you can follow someone on Trunk.ly and view their shared links by clicking on the “Friend’s links” tab. If you want to keep your shared links only to yourself, just check the “Protect my links” checkbox on the settings page and you’re good to go.

According to Trunk.ly’s blog post, we will soon be able to add a link directly, making it a viable refugee camp for Delicious users if basic bookmarking service is all they need.

In fact, it’s possible to import links from Delicious from day one.

You may want to register yourself an account while the service is still in its infancy, before someone grabbed your vanity URL when it gets popular later.

The last thing Trunk.ly would want to do is to be acquired by Yahoo!

©2011 SheepTech

Trunk.ly Track Links You Posted on Social Networks

No TweetDeck Group
TweetDeck group existed in the desktop version way before even Twitter lists is implemented. It is useful because you can add anyone in the group and follow their tweets without actually following them on Twitter.

Stalkers would be upset to learn that TweetDeck group is not supported in the Chrome version.

You can however add your existing Twitter lists as a new columns. There is no way to edit the list in the app itself. You would have to do that on Twitter.

You can also add a column to monitor tweets from someone you’re already following, reserving the entire column just for his tweets so that you won’t miss a single one.

No notifications
You will not be notified when there is a new tweet in your timeline. Everything happens silently. To keep yourself up to date, you would have to continuously switch back and forth to TweetDeck’s tab.

Services integration not available
Options to select your preferred services for link shortening and media uploading is not available. By default, Chrome TweetDeck will use Bit.ly’s j.mp domain to shorten long links, but you can’t add your Bit.ly API to track your links.

Not very friendly for online marketers.

Horizontal column scrolling a pain
TweetDeck wouldn’t have today’s success if not for its columns. In Chrome TweetDeck, if you have more columns than your screen can fit, you won’t be able to jump to a column easily unlike the desktop version.

The only way is to use the horizontal scroll bar, which is a drag to drag *pun intended*.

Sign out and lost all your column and account customization
After signing out, all your settings and customization will be lost on your next login. Columns settings would be back to the default—Home, Me, Inbox.

If you are handling multiple accounts (Twitter, Facebook etc), deleted accounts will also be back on your next login.

————————————
That being said, the Chrome TweetDeck also bring some cool features that is not available in the existing desktop version, like the integrated inbox that captures both Twitter DM and Facebook messages, and the “Me” column that captures @mentions and your Facebook notifications.

The TweetDeck team is definitely looking into some of the above mentioned issues. But until they decide to port over most of desktop TweetDeck’s functionality, I’m not jumping ship. In fact, Chrome is not even my primary browser.

*the points mentioned are all based on my personal observation. Do correct me if I miss anything.

©2011 SheepTech

Why Chrome TweetDeck Not Ready to Replace Desktop Version

Isfollow.com makes it easier to check relationships (who is following who) on Twitter. To check if someone is following you, there is no need to search for your Twitter handler in their “following” list. Just simply enter both your Twitter handle and your friend’s Twitter handle and Isfollow.com will display the result within seconds.

©2011 SheepTech

Is He / She Following Me on Twitter?

Even Tweetmeme won’t do the trick, you can only track tweets that have your blog’s domain name in it with it.

BackTweets

BackTweets is able to track tweets with link to a specific domain name (all blogpost/pages within the domain name), whether they are masked by short URLs or not. Just simply enter your blog’s domain name and Backtweets will return you with a list of tweets that links to your blog.

As if it’s not providing enough value to fellow bloggers, which as far as I’m concerned, such tracking is unavailable anywhere else, Backtweets also make it possible for you to subscribe to email alerts when someone tweets your blog, for free. You can opt to receive email alerts once a week, once a day, or instantly everytime your blog link appears on Twitter.

Credits to Rarst for the awesome find.

©2011 SheepTech

How To Track Your Blog’s Presence on Twitter

This is what Rapportive do — kick out the sidebar advertisement from Gmail and replace it with information about the sender of the email you are reading. Here’s what it will display:

• Photo pulled from Gravatar
• Job, position or employment information pulled from LinkedIn
• Social media accounts that match the email address, courtesy of Rapleaf
• If a Twitter account is present, it will display the 3 latest tweets

It’s even possible to add personal notes under the contact profile.

If you are curious on how your profile is displayed to other Rapportive users, you can view it by going to “Sent Mail”, click on any of your sent mail, and lastly, simply hover on your name:

The Dark Side

Remember that embarrassing MySpace profile you created years ago? Or that Bebo and Friendster profile? No? They don’t belong to you?

Problem 1: You have created several accounts on different social networking sites in the pass, with all the embarrassing photos, information about you written years ago that no longer hold any truth today, and those bling blings you have pasted all over your profile.

And you have totally forgot about it! Guess what? If your email recipient have Rapportive installed, he will be able to discover all these history of yours!

Not cool, definitely not.

Problem 2: Inaccurate information. In my case, Rapportive is grabbing my outdated LinkedIn employment information. It is not reflecting the modification I have made some time back. Besides, it’s also linking to my very old Flickr account that I no longer use.

Heck, my email address is not even linked to that old account anymore. But somehow they are still able to dig it out and completely ignore my new account (which is linked to my email address).

Rapportive is well aware of this problem:

If you see data which is inaccurate, abusive or otherwise objectionable, we want you to be able to correct it. Soon you will be able to edit information directly from within Rapportive, but while we are working on this, please send us corrections by email and we will deal with them promptly.

I have sent them an email, and Martin (co-founder) rectified my information on a Sunday!

Problem 3: Google is not gonna like this. They invested so much time perfecting Gmail, giving out so much space, and you are removing their only source of income to over all these cost?

But this is more of a Google problem than ours. They are not any less evil after all

©2011 SheepTech

Get to Know Strangers Who Email You

Even if he is not tweeting much, but as time goes (and his tweets number builds up), the data provided would still be sufficient to give some insight on his sleeping time.

SleepingTime.org uses this logic to reveal the sleeping time of any Twitter user at your choice. Simply enter their username (or yours) and SleepingTime will display the results, like this:

For some reason it’s just not showing my Twitter avatar, but that does not matter because the estimated sleeping and waking time is exactly the time I usually sleep (okay, forget about the few minutes snooze).

Check it out, and if your estimated sleeping time is not at all accurate, you can let Amit know so that he can fine tune his algorithm.

©2011 SheepTech

Check The Time Twitter Users Sleep

With so many third party image sharing service for Twitter, it is hard to decide which one to go for. Since there isn’t any comparison articles yet for Twitgoo vs. Img.ly, two of my remaining choices among the four, I decided to take a real look at them and compare all four Twitpic, Twitgoo, yfrog and img.ly.

Login method

Who would want to hand out their Twitter credentials to a third party website when they can simply link their Twitter account with the image sharing website in just two clicks.

At the time of writing, all (Twitpic, Twitgoo, yfrog, img.ly) are using OAuth to link Twitter accounts to their image sharing service, except for Twitpic, which require you to enter your Twitter username and password.

Image upload

Uploading methods and limitations by the service providers themselves.

*Twitgoo accepts pcx/psd/tiff too, but will convert them to JPG.
*yfrog supports video upload too, but since we are only discussing about image upload, I leave it out of the table

Image viewer

Features on the image viewing page and other relevant information.

Banner advertisement on Twitpic:

Banner advertisement on yfrog:

Misc.

*This comparison is updated from time to time. If you found any outdated information, please let us know in the comments below.

©2011 SheepTech

Twitpic vs. Twitgoo vs. yfrog vs. img.ly

The solution? Firefox + Greasemonkey. Just install this Userscript and a convenient Retweet button will be sitting right under the reply button, like this:

When the “Retweet” button is clicked, the content will be retweet-ed in this format – “Retweeting @username: [content]. You can however customize the output to your liking by editing the script.

I have changed mine to RT instead Retweeting, that’s 8 characters less.

To edit the output, right-click on the Greasemonkey icon, select Manage User Scripts, select Twitter Enhancements: Retweet This then click on the Edit button.

Look for “‘Retweeting @%a: %c” in the script. @%a is the username of original Tweet, and %c is the tweet content. Customize it to your liking.

Save it when you are done then you are good to go.

©2011 SheepTech

How to Add Retweet Button Using Greasemonkey