Bird House Rules » TwitReviews

Episode #16: Review of TweetTime (with Nifty Tech Blog)

Twitter's Tee Morris — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 05:05:23 +0000

Did you ever have audio that you listened to, even after editing it, and think “I can’t post this…”

Yes, that happened to us.

The Bird House and in-studio guest Nifty Tech Blog (but this time, recording through the wonders of Skype) after listening to our original review of TweetTime decided that a re-record was most definitely in order. So, basking in my Steampunk Castle afterglow, we did a second take on our first (and follow-up) look on this original client for the iPad.

Featured Links:

The Nifty Tech Blog
Castle (WARNING: Very loud audio/video ad plays on loading site)
TweetDeck
Twittelator
Scrivener

Album Artwork by Paul Fischer of Dancing Cat Studios

This episode is part of the Bird House Rules-Nifty Tech Blog miniseries on iPad clients for Twitter. Feel free to syndicate this audio, and provide feedback or topics you’d like to hear discussed on Bird House Rules at 703.791.1701, tmorris (at) imaginethatstudios (dot) com, Twitter, or here at the Bird House Rules Blog!

Episode #15: Review of Twittelator (with Nifty Tech Blog)

Twitter's Tee Morris — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 05:15:58 +0000

With the jetlag and the plane crud behind me, the Bird House and in-studio guest Nifty Tech Blog are back with yet another, longer-than-10-minute review of Twitter clients for the iPad. Continuing with an “Old Friends Revisited” theme, Doc Coleman and I go deep with Twittelator, an old favorite of mine quickly becoming a favorite on this new platform.

Twittelator in Landscape mode, viewing Direct Messages

Accessing Profiles in Twittelator

Along with a review of Big Stone Design’s powerhouse, Doc and I also discuss pet peeves in application development, in particular the need to leave an application in order to change its settings. (Yes, I hate that.)

This episode is part of the Bird House Rules-Nifty Tech Blog miniseries on iPad clients for Twitter. For the next few months, we will be featuring reviews on iPad clients, some of which you might be seeing in the Second Editions of All a Twitter and Sams Teach Yourself Twitter in Ten Minutes!

Guest introduction by Tom Racine .

Featured Links:

The Nifty Tech Blog
TweetDeck
Twittelator
Air New Zealand on Twitter
TweetTime (coming soon in the next episode)
Echofon
Twitterific

Album Artwork by Paul Fischer of Dancing Cat Studios

Feel free to syndicate this audio, and provide feedback or topics you’d like to hear discussed on Bird House Rules at 703.791.1701, tmorris (at) imaginethatstudios (dot) com, Twitter, or here at the Bird House Rules Blog!

Episode #14: Review of TweetDeck (with Nifty Tech Blog)

Twitter's Tee Morris — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 05:10:38 +0000

Welcome to the third of special, longer-than-10-minute reviews from Bird House Rules and in-studio guest Nifty Tech Blog. This time, we get honest and frank over TweetDeck for the iPad. Continuing with an “Old Friends Revisited” theme, Doc Coleman and I air our lack of enthusiasm for the 800-pound gorilla’s latest incarnation.

Guest introduction by Veronica Giguere.

Featured Links:

Album Artwork by Paul Fischer of Dancing Cat Studios

Episode #13: Review of Echofon (with Nifty Tech Blog)

Twitter's Tee Morris — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 05:15:09 +0000

Following a deep dive into Tweet Flow, Bird House Rules, with special guest Nifty Tech Blog in studio, take a close look at Echofon for the iPad. This review is the beginning of “Old Friends Revisited” as Doc Coleman and I bring up some familiar names of smartphone clients now working to make their mark on Apple’s latest innovation.

click for a full-view of image

Guest introduction by Kreg Steppe.

Featured Links:

Album Artwork by Paul Fischer of Dancing Cat Studios

Episode #12: Review of Tweet Flow (with Nifty Tech Blog)

Twitter's Tee Morris — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 07:21:05 +0000

In the wee-small hours of the morning, Bird House Rules comes back with a series of podcasts all about the iPad. Alongside the Nifty Tech Blog, I review Tweet Flow, an iPad client that keeps it simple.

This episode is part of a Bird House Rules-Nifty Tech Blog miniseries. For the next few months, we will be featuring reviews on iPad clients, some of which you might be seeing in the Second Editions of All a Twitter and Sams Teach Yourself Twitter in Ten Minutes!

Guest introduction by Meg Jarrell

Featured Links:

Album Artwork by Paul Fischer of Dancing Cat Studios

Bird House Rules — Episode #10: MYODB

Twitter's Tee Morris — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 05:00:02 +0000

Hey, everyone! It’s another Bird House Rules, and before anyone gives me heat, I went over my ten-minute limit in this episode…by twenty-two seconds. Get over it!

When you hear why I went over, you may understand. You see, I had a problem on Twitter when I unfollowed someone in my feed. Within 24 hours, I received this tweet…

(@TrueConservative) We auto-unfollowed @TeeMonster who stopped following you. www.thew.in twitter tools sponsored by ((insert sponsor here))

…and discovered Thew.in Twitter Tools.

Now those of you wondered why I was so mad last Friday know why. Better grab a flack jacket and a helmet. I’m wound up and I go, go, go, go….

Guest introduction by J. Daniel Sawyer

Featured movie clips:

Forest Gump
Fatal Attraction
Tim Burton’s Batman
Full Metal Jacket
Iron Man

Featured Links:

Album Artwork by Paul Fischer of Dancing Cat Studios

INTERVIEW: All a Twitter featured on View from Vahalla

Twitter's Tee Morris — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:30:55 +0000

With the return of Bird House Rules, I am getting back into my groove on this blog. Que Publishing has been instrumental in bringing me back into this groove after contacting me concerning All a Twitter. As mentioned in the previous BHR, the book is being featured once again in Barnes & Noble Bookstores everywhere, and asked me “Whatever you can do to get the word out…” I sent out a query to my Twitter and Facebook networks, letting them know that I was available for interviews.

From Twitter I heard from long-time-friend of the Bird House @Odin1eye who featured me in a particularly fun interview on his blog View From Vahalla. This blog features podcast reviews, commentary and rants on Social Media and the world it impacts, and (now) interviews. Odin1eye and I talk about about how Twitter has changed, where it is headed, and what went into the writing of All a Twitter. Here’s a selection from the interview:

I find that the Social Media Experts (a/k/a Evangelists, Mavens, Enthusiasts, Oracles, etc. a/k/a Social Media Douchebags a/k/a SMDs) are becoming less and less tolerated. Some of these self-proclaimed Twitter Messiahs are preaching their gospel to a flock in the hundreds of thousands, but tend to follow back less than a thousand or even less than a hundred.

What’s up with that?

I’m just going to call it like I see it: Everybody wants to be Chris Brogan (@ChrisBrogan)(respectful [ding]) but so few are achieving the balance between pro and personal. Chris isn’t perfect, but he is maintaining the genuine while managing the massive numbers. (One of many reasons I got that trust agent to write the AAT Foreword.) There are others like Jeff Sass (@sass) and CC Chapman (@cc_chapman) who are putting forward that effort to stay honest on Twitter. Between 2008-2009 there were SMDs left and right who nurtured the numbers and then stopped participating in their feeds. Oh sure, they would preach how they used Twitter to “connect” but look at their feeds and it would be RTs, quotes, and questions that linked back to their own site.

This interview was a real pleasure, and I hope you enjoy the read. Feel free to comment, post, and share; and expect more from my blogosphere-podosphere tour this month.

@Twitter, Please Share Your Feelings with the Group…

Twitter's Tee Morris — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 16:15:06 +0000

Twitter, as you hear me say in Speak Geek to Me, is being hailed as one of the greatest innovations in modern communications. What does it mean, then, when a tool that revolutionizes how we exchange ideas and share thoughts suddenly decides shut its users out and make a change without notification?

Changing its interface as one would change underwear, Twitter apparently pulled a back-handed “Give the People What They Want” by removing the new Retweet feature. This feature has been in Beta since the Fall of this year and Twitterakians were kept in the loop as early as idea conception. Sure, there was a slight learning curve and not everyone took to it, but third-party clients adopted it into their user interfaces and many like TweetDeck and Twittelator Pro added the functionality with their own flair. I even covered it in the last Bird House with a video addendum.

But this morning I got a tweet from John Merlin (@zard) from the UK:

Ahahaha! Wondering if @ITStudios will be recording a new vidcast for the lack of retweet

I asked what he meant by that, and he directed me back to my own homepage. (Click for a full view.) Notice anything missing?

And that is how I found out about Twitter removing the new Retweet option.

What angers me is not that Twitter removed the function. As I eluded to earlier, it was received with mixed reviews; but I’m wondering if enough of these so-called “Social Media Gurus, Mavens, and Experts” (which will be covered in a future podcast) rose a big enough stink to pressure Twitter in removing the option. Whatever the reason, that is Twitter’s decision in the end, and any changes they make I will roll with because I’m not paying for Twitter’s service. I appreciate what they do and that I’m getting it for free.

What I don’t appreciate is Twitter making these changes seemingly on a whim without notifying their network. I went to Twitter Blog, Twitter Status, and Twitter’s Twitter feed. As of 11am EST there is no mention that the new Retweet feature will be removed from Twitter.com’s user interface.

So, if Twitter isn’t talking, what exactly is happening?

This lack of notification is not only inconsiderate to users that liked the new Retweet option, but it is downright rude to developers that have incorporated the new RT options in their programs. Attempt to retweet messages automatically in the new TweetDeck and you receive an error message. The incredibly handy RT icon featured in Twittelator Pro is now disabled. These options that developers spent time (regardless if it took a few minutes or a few hours) integrating into their apps are now rendered useless; and now they must return to their digital drawing boards to remove these options in order to keep their apps streamlined while maintaining stability and reliability.

And if this editorial/rant sounds as if I’m taking this slight from Twitter personally. I am. A bit. You see, the folks at Sams Teach Yourself Twitter in Ten Minutes offered me the opportunity to write for the next printing a brand new chapter featuring many of Twitter’s recent changes. Guess what was one update covered in that new chapter…

Thanks, Twitter. Thanks a lot for the heads up.

I liken this Twitter trip-up (Go ahead, you can call it a “twip-up” if you want to!) to a news story I saw this morning on how United States military surveillance drones — you know, those multimillion dollar robots our tax dollars pay for — were being hacked by Iraqi insurgents with off-the-shelf video software priced at $26. Considering the amount of technology, design, and intelligence that goes into one of these Predator drones, that is just plain embarrassing. So is Twitter — a landmark in modern communication — failing to notify users and independent developers “Yeah, we’re changing our mind on that whole Retweet tool…” While Twitter does have the prerogative to make such a dramatic change, they should at the very least extend a courtesy to the people utilizing their network that such a change will occur. There is no excuse for this kind of disregard. They have two blogs, a new “Notifications” feature on users’ homepages, and of course they have a Twitter account. Would a quick message to the 2,763,628 people following have been so hard? First “password” and now this?

Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.

Bird House Rules: Episode #8a — Keeping Up with TweetDeck (Video Addendum)

Twitter's Tee Morris — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 04:13:43 +0000

Just when you thought I was done with TweetDeck v0.32.1…

TEE MORRIS’ TWEETDECK EPISODE
THE VIDEO PODCAST!

The audio is still the same, but now I have MOVING PICTURES to go with it! this is NOT going to be a regular feature at the Bird House, but when the mood strikes me, when the time allows, and when it is something that REALLY NEEDS the visuals, I will offer this kind of video addendum. I hope you all enjoy it!

Imagine That! Studios now presents to you the highlights of TweetDeck v0.32.1…in colour!

Featured movie and TV clips:

Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl
Iron Man
Monty Python’s “Spanish Inquisition” sketch
Firefly

Featured Resources on Twitter:

“What’s New on v0.32″ from TweetDeck’s Support Forum
Camtasia for the Mac
LinkedIn
Facebook
YouTube.com

Album Artwork by Paul Fischer of Dancing Cat Studios

Bird House Rules: Episode #8 — Keeping Up with TweetDeck (v0.32.1)

Twitter's Tee Morris — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 05:15:43 +0000

Finally….after several attempts…after daring the Fates…after waiting for just the right time…and weathering an unseasonal snowfall in Washington, D.C.

TEE MORRIS’ TWEETDECK EPISODE!

This has been a long time coming, and I have decided to pull out all the stops and not only post a longer-than-usual BHR, but in the feed tomorrow and posting on YouTube as well will be an accompanying video companion to this podcast, filmed and edited on both Camtasia and the Final Cut Suite, bit-cheeezzz!

A labor of love and a lot to take in, here comes the highlights of TweetDeck v0.32.1!

Guest introduction by Coach Ian Scott

Featured movie and TV clips:

Six Million Dollar Man
Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl
Iron Man
Monty Python’s “Spanish Inquisition” sketch
Firefly

Featured Resources on Twitter:

“What’s New on v0.32″ from TweetDeck’s Support Forum
Camtasia for the Mac
LinkedIn
Facebook
YouTube.com

Album Artwork by Paul Fischer of Dancing Cat Studios

Special Edition: Cirque du Social Media

Twitter's Tee Morris — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 05:30:11 +0000

As promised, here’s a completely off-the-beaten-path episode of Bird House Rules (which will also appear on Imagine That Studio’s In Your Right Mind and the New Zealand podcast Whispers at the Edge. Three times the size of a usual Bird House Rules, this special edition features special guest Philippa Ballantine, and is part-Social Media discussion/part-Arts Review of Cirque Du Soleil. Cirque offered to Blogworld attendees free tickets to any of their shows in exchange for reviews of whatever show they saw.

Pip and I are reviewing three:

Yes, Ká was that good!

We wanted to say “Thank you” and go above and beyond what Cirque asked of us. Enjoy this special edition of Bird House Rules and Whispers at the Edge, and make plans to catch a Cirque du Soleil show in Las Vegas.

Guest introduction by Philippa Ballantine

Featured Links:

Album Artwork by Paul Fischer of Dancing Cat Studios

Bird House Rules: Episode #5 — We’re Gonna Give It the Power Twitter!

Twitter's Tee Morris — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 04:30:09 +0000

Are you using Power Twitter? I am continuously surprised how many of my friends from the Bird House are not taking advantage of this fantastic add-on for Twitter. Power Twitter takes Twitter to the next level, and keeps your eye on the Twitter.com homepage.

What exactly does Power Twitter do to your browser? Click on the image below for a Before-After shot of a browser armed with Power Twitter:

Quick reminder: Next week, I’m at Blogworld, so please come on out and say “Hi!” I also encourage tweeting from my speaking events.

Other articles and cool links cited in this episode:

83 Degrees, the developers of Power Twitter
TechCrunch reports on Bit.ly cracking down on malicious links

Guest introduction by Shannon or akaMonty out in Cyberspace…

Drop-in from this episode are from:

Star Wars
Iron Man

Album Artwork by Paul Fischer of Dancing Cat Studios

Book Reviews and Blogworld are All a Twitter

Twitter's Tee Morris — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 04:15:51 +0000

We’ve passed the month mark and a lot is happening, both in the blogosphere and the podosphere. People are really becoming All a Twitter!

Chiming in from out west is a review from Linda VandeVrede of Valley PR Blog who said:

What I like best about “All a Twitter” by Tee Morris is his conversational style. He’s not trying to be a lofty author, speaking from on high. He’s just sharing what he has learned since he first started tweeting in spring 2007. He covers a lot of ground, and in fact the book is 280 pages long, and includes a section that explains tools for twitter as well as twitter speak.

SocialMedia.biz’s Chris Abraham gives a delightfully eclectic review of All a Twitter. While he calls the opening (What is Social Media, how do you set up a Twitter profile, how do you tweet, etc.) boring, he turns on a dime and raves:

The second half of the book is not only interesting but has Tee written all over it and offers up the who and the why with quite a dose of subjective opinion…

…he tells it like he feels it. He even sacrifices our beloved-but-on-our-shit-lists Guy Kawasaki in a nationally — possibly internationally — published book about Twitter. I mean, I am not only amazed but snap, he really has an opinion not only on Twitter but on how it can and should be used — and his advice is good.

Rounding off the reviews is the man behind the Foreword, Chris Brogan, in this video review of Twitter books:

In the podosphere, Bird House Rules — after two shows — is making a name for itself, appearing in “New & Notable” under both Technology and Software How-To, and breaking into the Top 15 “Technology > Software How To” list alongside many tech podcast favorites:

Click to enlarge

And if you didn’t notice the change in the sidebar, I hope to see you all out at Blogworld in October! I’m officially on the guest list and will be presenting two talks, one on Podcasting and another on security in Social Media. If you head out to Sin City for this Social Media Mega-Event, please stop me and say “Hi!”

Thank you again for the wonderful reviews, everyone! If you have your copy of All a Twitter or have your media player plugged in for Bird House Rules, make sure to leave a review on Amazon.com or iTunes. I’d love to hear what you think.