Category Social Media

I downloaded Seesmic for Windows today! (I’ve been waiting for this, ever since I saw it announced and previewed at PDC09!  Get ready for a whirlwind tour of “Wow, that’s cool” and a whole lot of “Seriously? Fail.”   And yes, this post will be heavily focused on comparing it to TweetDeck and the experience encountered there (Hey, have to judge against a baseline, right? :))

Starting with the basic look and feel – this is how things look when viewed from the “All” Tab – Quite uniform, side by side.

Here are some of the Positive things about this interface:

• Seems to have a nice scrolling feel to it, and updates rather dynamically
• Each Column fits ~13 tweets (TweetDeck tends to hit a maximum of 10 tweets per column)
• The ability to interface and work with the Twitter defined Lists, so all lists you’ve created can be managed in this screen!

Some things I would consider gracious limitations of this interface

• No ability to modify the look/feel of the interface (I’m stuck with black text on a white background)
• I’m limited to a maximum of 5 columns available on screen (TweetDeck lets me get atleast 6 columns)
• For whatever reason, the ability to manage the Twitter defined lists = fail, and users are unable to be dragged into Lists to be managed (see below)
• Dragging a person and dropping them onto a Twitter Lists leaves a lock on them (and fails)

Alright, but once you see past the interface, you can tweet easier and better, right?

Here is a side by side tweet test, using Seesmic Desktop, and TweetDeck

When using the Seesmic for Windows Interface, a tweet which looks like:

Test Tweet from Seesmic Getting your beta on for the holidays! (Exchange and WinMo6.5) https://www.pkguild.com/2009/11/getting-your-beta-on-for-the-holidays-exchange-and-winmo6-5/ 

translates into –39 Characters Remaining and Posting Failed

Taking the exact same tweet:

Test Tweet from TweetDeck Getting your beta on for the holidays! (Exchange and WinMo6.5) https://www.pkguild.com/2009/11/getting-your-beta-on-for-the-holidays-exchange-and-winmo6-5/

And the Tweet auto shortens and is ready to tweet, with a surplus of 31 characters!

So, what you’re going to say is “Well, you can click “Link” enter the URL and shorten it.   Yes, I absolutely can, if I thought there was a purpose behind manually shortening a URL when I clearly expect the App to be intelligent enough to figure that out.  If TweetDeck can figure it out, and he’s a behemoth of memory and obesity, Seesmic can get a clue and do the same.    I had WANTED to do this test with the Web based Twitter interface which USED to auto-shorten URL’s, but apparently, they did away with that.  WTF? Yea. Seriously.

So, sadly, the sheer lack of features in Seesmic for Windows prevents me from going into too many more details.  And don’t get me wrong, this is a POSITIVE review, it’s just with the sheer lack of features, optimizations, simplicity and ease of use compared to TweetDeck, I won’t  be switching full-time like I had planned to.

And if you think that Seesmic for Windows will use less memory than TweetDeck – At first (and by at first I mean at IMMEDIATE Launch) it will use up less memory than TweetDeck since TD prestages a lot and pulls up history, however shortly after running the two will start to even out and normalize.    So this won’t be a win for Seesmic for Windows.

I do encourage you to take the plunge and dive into the beta, check it out and make your own judgement and decision.  It can ONLY get better, because in its extremely sparse state at the moment I’m not sure it could possibly get any worse!

Yea, that’s right! Facebook was all “Hey, I know you like to share your tweets with the Facebook Community, well NO MORE!…” Well, kind of no more.

If you are like me, you may have noticed that ever since Tuesday November 3rd after 8PM Central – Your tweets have shown up on Facebook as Private “Only Me”

However, after I took steps to figure out WTF happened, I solved it, and I’ll show you how too!

Out of nowhere, Facebook decided to setup some function called “Publisher Control Default” which if yours looks like mine, it’d look like this:

Effectively making it so all content generated (such as Tweets) or other “Publisher Controls” were showing up as Only Me – seen above

This can be easily fixed by doing the following

So, what this means for you is – You no longer have to worry about the loss of your visible tweets and the pure WTF-ness this was provided by Facebook (WTF Seriously!)

Also, if you’d like to follow me on Twitter or Facebook, feel free to send an invite :), and respectively, if you want to join my Mafia or other stuff, I love new friends!

If you haven’t already read these old tutorials (FaceBook Mafia Wars (by Zynga) secrets ! :) – What’s new in Zynga’s Mafia Wars)  on tips, tricks and other information around Mafia Wars, it never hurts! But this isn’t about high-level details, this is about nitty gritty cost effective decisions of how to keep your mafia outfitted and destroying the competition time and time again.   Yes, this has come out of my constant need to run statistical information of what is the best, and the most appropriate investment of my mafia wars resources (whether it be energy or otherwise)

This data was collected by fighting someone else and seeing what weapons at that point I was using, then charting them down to ATTACK, DEFENSE and relative COST to obtain said item.

Here is a breakdown of that data – distributed into their appropriate groups (Weapons, Armor, Vehicles)

What you may notice here, is that I call out TNT as the best item to aim for. (And yes I intentionally avoid putting the other locations of areas I don’t care about :))   As far as the cost benefit analysis and the ROI of the weapons go, TNT is far cheaper and provides JUST as much bang for the buck as the Canonazo without the extra 22 energy cost – I’d pursue Canonazo’s later on if I was hard locked in with TNT but otherwise, there really isn’t a whole lot of value of pursuing anything less than that considering the 42/20 value of TNT – So get yourself some TNT!

Wow! Look at our armor options! The best energy item for your bang is the Guerilla Squad only costing a mere 40 Energy! (With a close second for the Rebel Sniper – I do continue to use my cuban dollars to buy as many of those as I can, as 24/20 sure beats anything below it) But the 34/30 value of the Guerilla Squad is the best you’re going to get at this point in time.  It’s what wins the battle and what protects your Mafia – So pursue that, and ignore any other Armor option at this time.

We can see best from the Air, and that’s well proven with the power of the Hu-9 Helicopter! Yes I choose that bad boy, he’s essentially the same value of the Track Loader, with a 21 Energy savings to get that protection and attack strength ever so required.   While there certainly are a number of other options, look at the under/over on the energy cost differences – It is clearly negligible and well worth it to pursue the Hu-9 Helicopter of any other options that may be available.

So, as it stands these are by far the most cost effective and beneficial items you can get to protect your mafia.  This may clearly change when Moscow comes about, but until that point we’re in the clear about what it takes to defend, protect and grow our mafia’s! So take this information and if you disagree, let me know I’d love to be schooled on where I’m incorrect :)

Everyone wants to be sure to say things to guarantee they won’t be retweeted!  Well, here a breakdown of top items to guarantee YOU won’t get retweeted!

#10 – Be a douche!   We’ve all met the guy who frankly is a douche! You’ve seen his tweets! If you ever see an @ conversation with him and someone else you know it is obviously a typo!   He’s all about him-him-him! He clearly puts the TWIT into Twitter!    So rise up, take action and be sure to talk all about your new SEO techniques to make you millions, only $59.99 today!

#9 – Treat people like an idiot!    You’re all self important, you’re never wrong, so why change that personality once you get on twitter! I’m sure you and your 129 followers are loving your candid and quirky little ways, when even when proven and cited wrong with reference able material you continue down your track record of “Well, they’re just idiots!”

#8 – Ask people to retweet your lame tweet!     You definitely have a message to deliver, even if that message is “I must have 1000 followers by Tuesday, so please retweet my senseless plea for help!”   Far from it from me to suggest you obtain a personality and engage in conversation or sharing of information, definitely reach out to the RT-o-sphere!

#7 – Constantly start fights on twitter     I know we were having a conversation, but now I want to be rude and find something to fight about! Retweet me calling you bad names, yea!

#6 – Complain about how Twitter is getting too big!    You can’t help but complain! If it’s not that Twitter is growing too fast, it’s that it’s down today, you have an API limit, you’re following 2000 people and you cannot follow anyone else!  You’re going to switch to identi.ca today! Damnit, Twitter is like Facebook, or isn’t enough like Facebook! I MISS FRIENDFEED!

#5 – Be Racist on Twitter      Wow! You’ve sure reached a new level of engagement! Let’s take our own shallow selves and put it out to a mass of readers and listeners so we can appear ignorant on a global scale!   Racism wasn’t cool in person, and it’s even less cool when put into a social media context.   Let’s take it up a notch and get over your insecurities.

#4 – Talk about Tea Parties in every tweet     Yea, we get it.  You’re upset about something, and now you’ve decided to back a social movement which involves an idea of our founding fathers, but not taking into account the modern social meaning of the term ‘tea bagging’ and then you further don’t understand why we laugh when you talk about it?    Welcome to the internets!

#3 – Talk about your new ebook which will guarantee you thousands of followers on Twitter!   Hey, I opt’d to look at your profile instead of your ebook first, turns out you have 39 followers. WTF? Where is your credibility? If your $59.99 ebook works so well, why don’t you have more than a hand full of followers as you’re promoting?  That’s as good as the Hobo’s guide to CEO operations.

#2 – Be an unfunny contrarian    Hey, be a contrarian, I’m definitely game for that as I like taking an alternative position with an intelligent perspective on it.  But if you’re going to be contrary, at least be funny while you’re doing it.   You might even earn a retweet out of the deal!

And last but not least! Infact the number one way to guarantee you won’t get a retweet on twitter…!

#1 – If you don’t retweet me I’ll unfollow you!    Yea, I get it.   The very fabric of the universe rests upon whether this particular tweet is RT’d by me where I am.  I woke up to see I was unfollowed by the masses throughout the night because while I slept, I wasn’t auto-retweeting your hilarious antics of racist douchey contrarian bitching about the Tea Party failing to be understood by the “Idiots” in america.  IF I COULD ONLY BE ON O’REILLY FACTOR ALL OF THE PROBLEMS OF TWITTER WOULD BE SOLVED.

Yea, I get it.

Now, I encourage you to go out there, and Retweet away! And if you’re retweeting folks like above, be sure to let them know you’ve done them a special service!  And if you’re not or you feel there are even more appropriate ways and reasons someone shouldn’t be retweeted, pass that on as well!

I’m sure you heard the news! Twitter was DOWN!? Denial of Service attack which crippled Twitter, LJ, Facebook and more!

re: Serious Twitter Outage Ongoing, Denial Of Service Attack (Updated)

What really affected me in this outrage are all the poor countless souls who lost their lives as a result of this dramatic service outage.

Yes, you know what I’m talking about.  

All the poor helpless plants which expect their owners to water them when they tweet.   What if you were on life support and the only means of informing a nurse you needed food, antibiotics or pain reducers was twitter? YOU’D BE DEAD TOO!

Next time you think about Twitter, it’s more than just a communication medium.  It is a lifeline for the very beings who provide us clean oxygen in this world! My Oak Tree out front twitters me regularly, though he keeps retweeting Guy Kawasaki so I’m not sure what’s up with that!