The Twitter Timeline
When using Twitter, what you see is the public timeline which is arranged according to time, not according to relevance meaning person A says something and person B responds 12 minutes later, but there is no visual association between the two because the arrangement is by timestamp. This can make it difficult to visualize conversations and for people interacting with hundreds of others simultaneously can cause extreme attention deficit. There are multiple ways to visualize threading and you may be surprised at which one I think is best.
Quotably
Quotably.com is a service that proclaims to “bring order to Twitter” but I’ve held of for DAYS in publishing this article in hopes that it wouldn’t look like this:
Before all the geeks riot and say “you’re an idiot!” just relax- I’m now well aware that Quotably has been replaced by Summize. “Lani, you’re still an idiot!” the geeks say- again, relax… I’m also aware that Summize has been replaced by Twitter search which is built into Twitter, I’m getting there. So Quotably is no longer around, but according to several sources (who recommended I check it out despite it’s non-existence, thanks guys) it was among the most slick threading options around.
Tweet Scan
TweetScan is awesome for searching for terms that have been used in the public timeline but despite what some people think, it’s not a threading tool, it’s just a search tool (but is awesome because you can set up alerts for when someone mentions you).
Tweader
Tweader is the newest toy on the market and shows tweets in the public timeline as they relate to each other. The good is that Tweader offers options on viewing- you can see them as bubbly, plain or otherwise so visualization is customizable. The bad is that it seems quite inaccurate. I think Tweader is pretty but there is a better option. The conversation below implies that these topics pertained to each other, but there are tweets missing, out of order and down right non-topical:
The Winner Is:
I know it’s crazy to look to the original source for the best options, but Twitter has built in threading now in their search (formerly Summize.com) that seem to be the most accurate (although not 100%, it’s not psychic) and easy to read, just compare the image below with the image above and you’ll see how the conversation REALLY went (Christoph got spit on by a stranger in Vegas, in case the conversation makes no sense):
The bottom line is that there are many options out there to visualize your conversations which is useful for mental organization and reputation management, but for the best option, I like the original source! This is a great way for agents AND consumers alike to learn more about a neighborhood, community event or news topic! What real estate uses do YOU see for threading?
