Apr 27
Cool Tool Alert: TweetChat
Published by Amybeth (@researchgoddess) at 8:00 am under Cool Tool Alert,Twitter
This will be a very brief Cool Tool Alert, but a really awesome one. We’re all interested in finding better ways to pare down all the information we receive on a daily basis, and TweetChat allows you to stay focused on one hashtag at a time. In their own words:
“TweetChat helps put your blinders on to the Twitter-sphere while you monitor and chat about one topic.”
There are several super cool things about TweetChat:
- You can only focus on one hashtag at a time. So for anyone who is a notorious multi-tasker like me, this really helps you to stay focused on one thing.
- Auto-refresh. Twitter Search lets you track hashtags too, but you have to keep clicking refresh to keep up with new messages. TweetChat automatically refreshes for you, plus you can adjust the frequency of refreshing – from 5 seconds all the way up to 1 minute.
- You can feature or block certain users who are using your hashtag. So, if you want to highlight either a topic moderator or someone who is offering particularly helpful advice you can do so. As well, if someone is abusing the hashtag, you can block them from showing up on your room feed.
- When you tweet a message while monitoring a room, it automatically adds your hashtag at the end of your message. So no need to try to remember which one you’re monitoring. Plus, it also gives you the number of characters you have left after accounting for the hashtag. For example – I will be using the hashtag “#VegasRG” for my upcoming trip to Las Vegas in June for the Fordyce Forum, so I can monitor that hashtag, as seen here (notice the 131 in the upper right-hand corner):
By the way, TweetChat looks great on mobile devices as well.
What makes this better than, say, TweetDeck? Well, the refresh rate is much faster, plus you won’t be distracted by the chirping noise and all the other columns you may have already set up. I still use TweetDeck for daily monitoring, but TweetChat has proven to be a great resource for focused following.
I highly recommend using it for following weekly online discussions such as #journchat and #blogchat as well as for following a networking event or a conference, such as #w2e or #CincySMB. I personally will be using TweetChat to tweet from and monitor #VegasRG during my presentation at the Fordyce Forum coming up in June.
Nice post. One thing though..in tweetdeck under settings you can turn off the notifications sound.
Thanks for this alert – I am going to try it tonight. I can see it being very helpful following the live bloggers from different conferences. BTW, the #blogchat tweets I have been catching from you have been funny, and in mnay cases, right on.
tweetmi.com which I have been using to track “swine flu” sounds similar. agree that ability to focus on a topic and see stream in realtime is very useful. be well