FriendFeed Catchup in GMail

Sam Harrelson on July 26, 2009

I absolutely love FriendFeed's GMail IM integration. It's how I consume most of my FriendFeed content as well as lots from my favorite folks on Twitter that I have piped into FF via the Imaginary Friends (now Rooms) feature.

So, if I miss a few hours and want to catch up on what is going on in the Valley or from the folks I follow (and left GMail open on my Macbook), I can just open up the "Chat with FF" message waiting on me in my GMail FriendFeed label and scan. Plus, I can go back and search topics or people I'm interested in after a few days.

Not completely practical for everyone, but I love the feature (and greatly miss the good old days when Twitter had the same IM integration with Track).

my tweetdeck

Sam Harrelson on December 6, 2008

so here is how I have TweetDeck set up in its own Space (bottom left) on my macbook pro (click the images to go to Flickr and see full sizes).

all tweets from everyone I’m following on the far left (rarely look at), Pals next (about 50 people I really follow), Watch (tech and news followings) and replies.

Continued in Part 2 (since TweetDeck scrolls right)…

Asheville group (from a Summize search for Asheville so I can see if anyone is tweeting about my hometown), PartnerCentric (from Summize search on term partnercentric, which is where I work), Wofford group (from Summize search on my alma mater), Replies and then Direct Messages.

looks crazy, but works well for me!

AIM Mail Widgets: Webmail Finally Growing Up

Sam Harrelson on November 19, 2008

I logged into my AIM mail account today. That’s not something I do frequently. However, if these new widgets I found waiting for me are any indication of future development, I may be giving AIM (how about AOL Mail?) a second look.

aim widgets.jpg

AOL is famous for having been a walled-garden portal in the past. However, as I wrote last week, AOL is really on the ball with the whole spirit of the open web by introducing ways to bring in content from such places (competitors?) as Yahoo Mail, GMail, Twitter, Facebook, etc on the main AOL homepage, which does millions of impressions every month.

And the results from this newfound embracing of openness are more engagement, more pageviews and more attention. AOL is on to something.

With these new widgets in AIM mail, you can integrate Yahoo Mail, contacts, AIM, AOL Finance, Mapquest, etc within your inbox. GMail has this same feature with its Labs platform, so it’s good to see competition there. The trick with AIM is that they are bringing in properties from outside the AOL universe (unless the AIM Mail team knows something about a Yahoo/AOL deal that we don’t). Nifty.

However, my main question is if this is a sign of the future? Will you eventually be able to update Twitter or your Facebook status (or send Facebook messages) within AIM or AOL mail as you can on the AOL home page? If so, that will be very compelling. Will I ditch GMail for AIM even if that happens? Perhaps not, but I will definitely take a second look at my AOL/AIM mail.

It’s time for web-based email clients to grow up and become platforms instead of proprietary gardens of in-house developers. I’m glad to see AOL is helping to make that happen.

BearHug Camp Today

Sam Harrelson on September 12, 2008

For all those interested in the wild-west world of micro-blogging (Twitter, Identi.ca, TWiT Army, etc), BearHug Camp starts at 9am PST today.

Strange name, but this really looks like it will be a very important day for the future of the web…

TechCrunchIT » Blog Archive » BearHug Camp is here: “Friday, September 12 at 9 am, BearHug Camp begins. The brainchild of Dave Winer, BearHug is based on a tactic Winer used to great effect in bootstrapping coincident work by Netscape and Winer into what we now know as RSS. Recently, we’ve seen the emergence of similar strategies in the so-called micro-blogging segment that has grown around Twitter.”

You can follow along live from Leo Laporte’s stream at TWiTLive.TV

Branding on Twitter Study

Sam Harrelson on August 18, 2008

Jeremiah Owyang continues his insightful series on branding and Twitter with this piece about how brands are succeeding on the Twitter platform.

If you’re at all interested in how microblogging will shape the future of direct performance marketing (it will) and corporate communications (it will), make sure to read this:

Web Strategy: The Evolution of Brands on Twitter: “Last week, I listed out 9 reasons Why Brands Are Unsuccessful In Twitter, and other microblogging technologies. Companies are caught between the minutia of the discussions and their willingness to be human or add value to the conversations. Although a one-sided view of what’s going wrong, now let’s focus on what’s going right.”

It’s amazing to see how much the perception of Twitter has changed in 2 short years. So many people I speak to now see the business application of Twitter (or microblogging in general) whereas a year ago, I was being laughed at for bringing Twitter up in such conversations!

Twitter Search and Summize Acquisition

Sam Harrelson on July 15, 2008

62181382-65A2-46D6-9DF9-79B956C7F95B.jpg

Twitter has taken another step to finally put down the great FailWhale of ’08 by acquiring the real time search service Summize:

Twitter Search
We’re excited to announce that Twitter has acquired Summize—an extraordinary search tool and an amazing group of engineers. All five Summize engineers will move to San Francisco, CA and take jobs at Twitter, Inc. This is an important step forward in the evolution of Twitter as a service and as a company.

Since Twitter’s track functionality has been down, I’ve been a heavy user of Summize (and recommend you do the same through the new search.twitter.com interface).

Here’s to keeping things back on Track on Twitter…

What Is a Social Media Marketer?

Sam Harrelson on July 8, 2008

I’m still dubious of the term “social media” (or marketer for that matter), but here’s an interesting piece with a variety of voices from Tamar Weinberg…

The Definition of Social Media Marketing: How to Find the Best Social Media Consultant » techipedia | tamar weinberg: “With many individuals finding great success with social media (and as an aside, a basic understanding of search engine optimization), they immediately consider themselves social media marketers and consultants (as well as seasoned SEOs) and offer to sell their promotional services. What skills, though, do successful social media marketers have that put these individuals above the average (or addicted) social media user, and better yet, above the traditional marketer? I asked several social media consultants, bloggers, marketers, search engine optimizers, and social media addicts about what they considered to be essential skills and characteristics of the most efficient and results-driven social media consultants. In the many paragraphs that follow, learn from many of the experts and hear what they consider success when using social media to engage with consumers about products and services.”

25 Kwippy Invites

Sam Harrelson on July 4, 2008

I’ve got 25 invites to Kwippy, which is a Twitter-esque service.

How is Kwippy different from Twitter? You can find out more at their blog here. I don’t think it’s a “Twitter Killer” but I’m willing to give anything a chance at this point. Clearly, there’s a need for a Twitter-like service that has constant uptime and widespread adoption. Whoever figures out those two variables will be the next web giant.

If you’d like to get an invite, send me an email, direct tweet or leave a comment here.