dizzysoft softwareGet Twitter Mentions by Email
It is easy to get your Twitter mentions by email- use FeedTwit.
Here’s how:
- From your Twitter account, tell Twitter you want to get all your direct messages sent to you by email (from Settings > Notices > Direct Text Emails)
- Visit search.twitter.com, enter “to:your_username” into the search box and retrieve the url for the RSS feed on this search.
- Visit FeedTwit- which can send RSS feeds to Twitter by direct messages- and sign-up.
- Give FeedTwit the RSS feed you got from Twitter Search. FeedTwit will send your RSS feed to you as a direct message (which is how FeedTwit is better than Twitterfeed).
More than Twitter @ Replies- Everything you can do with FeedTwit
I am glad to provide FeedTwit as a service to you. But did you know FeedTwit is designed to do much more than send your Twitter replies?
Here’s some other things you can do with FeedTwit:
- Keep track of your LinkedIn network through your Twitter account
- Keep up with local traffic through your Twitter account
- Follow a blog through your Twitter account (better than TwitterFeed)
- Follow a twitter list through texts/direct messages
- Twitter track a keyword, phrase, or hash tag
- Privately follow people on Twitter using their RSS feed. For instance,
- follow political figures in an account you use for business
Get Twitter Mentions by SMS
Twitter mentions are coming into the vernacular of Twitter users. Mentions used to be called “replies“- which you see when you Tweet @somebody.
No matter what you call them, when you use Twitter by text messages you run into a big problem when it comes to your mentions- Twitter won’t send you an SMS when someone mentions you!
Sure you could tell Twitter to send you a text every time someone you are following posts an update- but do you really want that many messages?
A better solution is to use a Twitter app like FeedTwit- that can send your Twitter mentions to you by SMS.
8 Twitter Games (including, #twit and #ThatsWhatSheSaid)
Do you know what’s missing from my twitter experience? Twitter games! I did a search on twitter games and came across a Mashable post describing 6 different games you can play on twitter.
- The first of the twitter games is Twivia. Like it sounds, this twitter game requires you to answer trivia questions for points.
- The next of the twitter games is Twitbrain. This twitter game is about how fast you can solve a math problem.
- Tweetbomb is the most vicious of twitter games. Every day this twitter game suggests someone for you to tweet without any message. Eventually they become overwhelmed by empty messages from everyone- and they’ve been successfully twitter bombed.
Twitter SMS Commands
I use the SMS feature for Twitter a lot because I don’t have a data plan on my cell phone. Recently I discovered a list of Twitter text commands that you can send to Twitter by SMS that will allow you to use many of the features of the website.
The most useful Twitter SMS commands include:
- ON
- turns ALL SMS notifications on
- OFF
- turns ALL SMS notifications off.
- STOP or QUIT
Twitter Track: How to track topics or hash tags on Twitter
A while back, as mentioned in my list of Twitter SMS commands, you used to be able to ask Twitter to track certain keywords or hash tags for you, just like you might follow a Twitter friend. Twitter has since put a stop to the Twitter track functionality.
You can, however, use FeedTwit to Twitter track. Since FeedTwit can an RSS feed and convert it to a direct message (unlike TwitterFeed, which makes an RSS feed public) all you will need is an RSS feed for the Twitter track you are interested in. That’s simple because Twitter search makes an RSS feed easily available for you.
Follow your LinkedIn Network through Twitter
The other day LinkedIn and Twitter announced a partnership. Not only does this partnership allow your LinkedIn network updates to post in your Twitter account, but you can conversely post (all or some) Twitter updates to your LinkedIn account.
Although I think this is a great idea, LinkedIn is so much more than another social network to provide status updates. I want to know when people in my network make new contacts, join new groups, and even change jobs. This is something that is missing from the new LinkedIn-Twitter partnership- even if all my contacts were to connect their accounts.
Twitter Programing Example
I cut my Twitter programming teeth by writing FeedTwit- a program that can send Twitter RSS feeds as direct messages and text messages.
Of course, I’d be happy to do some Twitter programming for you as well.
Meanwhile, I’d love your input on this simple example. Try it out yourself and tell me what you think:
<?php
function curlRequest($url, $post) {
$curl = curl_init();
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
// this is not the recommended way to login- use OAUTH instead
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_USERPWD, "username:password");
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_HEADER, FALSE);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, true);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 20);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, 0);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, array('Expect:'));
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, TRUE);
// we are not using the $post variable yet, but stay tuned!
if ($post) {
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_POST, TRUE);
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $post);
}
return curl_exec($curl);
}
Get Twitter Lists on Your Phone by Text Message
Last week Twitter started rolling out lists. These are a great way to categorize Twitter users into manageable groups. I think, as people get used to lists, they will provide a new usefulness for Twitter.
For example, as an SEO, I have created a list of Twitter users who work for Google and different Google services on Twitter. A Twitter friend has created a list of restaurants in Charlotte that have Twitter accounts (and sometimes post deals or specials). What’s great about these lists is you can follow them without following specific individuals’ accounts. In other words, you can keep up with these users whenever you want without them filling up your Twitter timeline.
How to Twitter?
I’ve been watching you! As a professional SEO I have been looking into the questions you’ve asked Google that have brought you to this site.
Don’t worry- it’s a good thing. I have compiled a list of the most frequently asked, “How to” questions in one place- especially those relating to text messages. I hope to show you how to use Twitter.