Twistory for calendars
For some time now, I’ve been using a program called Twistory to document tweets and send them automatically to my calendar. Now, any time @agentgenius tweets, it is sent to my Google Calendar.
Twistory is compliant with GCal, iCal, Outlook, Thunderbird and possibly more. After you’ve told Twistory which Twitter account you want to document, each tweet is then an independent, timestamped calendar event.
Why on earth would you need this?
I track a variety of Twitter accounts on Twistory and am frustrated that I’m limited to public accounts (meaning I can’t track my own tweets). Here are some uses I can think of for Twistory off the top of my head:
- If you have an assistant (or any third party) tweeting for you or about you, you should track that on Twistory.
- If there is someone on Twitter who habitually is abusive toward you or your brand, you could use Twistory to keep a record of their abuses (which we do).
- Similarly, if someone in your company habitually deletes tweets from the public record, Twistory will keep a record of them for your reference.
- If you are accountability-conscious, you should track your own tweets simply for record keeping purposes.
- If you are forgetful and need to reference things you’ve tweeted and need to search them, this is perfect since you can search the text of most calendars.
- If you’re a team leader, you should track what all of your team members and admins are saying on Twitter, even if you never refer to it.
- If there is a useful media outlet on Twitter that you’ll want to search later or simply have a timeline for, this is an easy way to track.
What other ways can you think of that tracking a Twitter account would be helpful?
Bonus: how to hide Twistory in Google Calendar
If you don’t want to junk up your calendar, you can actually hide all of the Twitter accounts you’re tracking and they’ll still be tracked in the background. I highly recommend this- I hide Twistory so I can still use my calendar as well, a calendar.
To temporarily hide multiple calendars:
- Click Settings at the bottom of the calendar list to the left.
- Select the Calendars tab.
- De-select the appropriate checkboxes under the Show in list column. Only calendars that are selected in the Show in list column will be displayed in the calendar list to the left of the event grid.
AK Stout
April 30, 2010 at 9:46 pm
If you’re like me, you have way too many things already on your calendar to be adding tweets. While I think the reasons for tracking tweets are valid, I would suggest using a feed reader like Google Reader to keep up with the tweets of those you choose instead of placing them on your calendar. When I find individuals on Twitter that provide info that I know I’ll want to read at my leisure on an on-going basis I subscribe to their Twitter RSS feed via my Google Reader so that I can read them all in one spot either from my PC or when I’m waiting in line at Starbucks on my phone.
Lani Rosales
April 30, 2010 at 10:16 pm
Thanks for stopping by, AK! 🙂
Per the above, “If you don’t want to junk up your calendar, you can actually hide all of the Twitter accounts you’re tracking and they’ll still be tracked in the background. I highly recommend this- I hide Twistory so I can still use my calendar as well, a calendar.” I’m with you- junking up a calendar isn’t helpful at all, so it’s smart to use a service like Gcal that lets you hide calendars. 🙂
I subscribe to several thousand people on Twitter, but there are people specifically that I document their tweets. Per the above, here are several reasons why:
“I track a variety of Twitter accounts on Twistory and am frustrated that I’m limited to public accounts (meaning I can’t track my own tweets). Here are some uses I can think of for Twistory off the top of my head:
1. If you have an assistant (or any third party) tweeting for you or about you, you should track that on Twistory.
2. If there is someone on Twitter who habitually is abusive toward you or your brand, you could use Twistory to keep a record of their abuses (which we do).
3. Similarly, if someone in your company habitually deletes tweets from the public record, Twistory will keep a record of them for your reference.
4. If you are accountability-conscious, you should track your own tweets simply for record keeping purposes.
5. If you are forgetful and need to reference things you’ve tweeted and need to search them, this is perfect since you can search the text of most calendars.
6. If you’re a team leader, you should track what all of your team members and admins are saying on Twitter, even if you never refer to it.
7. If there is a useful media outlet on Twitter that you’ll want to search later or simply have a timeline for, this is an easy way to track.”
Roberta Kedzierski
May 12, 2010 at 3:37 am
I love the idea of this, and have tried to subscribe but my tweets do not show up on on my Google Calendar. I have clicked to show all Calendars. I use Chrome for Mac. Is that a problem?
Lani Rosales
May 12, 2010 at 11:41 am
Hi Roberta, for me it took quite a while for them to begin showing up. If you don’t see it by tomorrow, let me know and maybe we can walk through it together? 🙂
Emma
May 18, 2010 at 10:52 am
I’d had twistory showing up in my google calendar in the past, then deleted it for a while.
When I tried to re-add it, it wasn’t working. I Googled for a bit & it seems that it’s got somewhat flakey – & Twistory’s own tweets said that it was a Google Calendar issue. twitter.com/twistory I’ve just downloaded & tested with Sunbird & that’s fine.
Just as a matter of interest, as you’ve said you can’t track your own tweets in twistory, is that because you’ve set them to private?
Missy Caulk
November 21, 2010 at 1:49 pm
Since we can have multiple calendars in Google, why not just set up a specific calendar for that?
Good idea! You Rock!
Lani Rosales
November 21, 2010 at 2:08 pm
I have it on my main calendar but just hide all activity and only refer to it when I need to. The best use I’ve gotten out of it so far is people saying “I never said that” after deleting a tweet… “oh yes you did,” my calendar says 😉