Posts Tagged ‘Twitter’

Instant Tweetup is a free iPhone application that allows users to find nearby Twitter users and send them tweets.

How Does Instant Tweetup Work?

Once launched, the application requests permission to use your current location. By providing your location, the application can scan your immediate geographical area and find Twitter users who:

1) Have set their “Location” settings in that area or,
2) Have their “Tweet Location” option on and have “checked in” nearby.

This “Tweet Location” feature is an opt-in feature that was added to Twitter a few months back. You can turn this on by going to Settings > Account > then checking on the “Tweet Location” checkbox. I tweet from home a lot so I have this turned off.

Once you use the application to find nearby tweeps, you can “@” message them an invitation to meetup with you and optionally include a bit.ly map link with your current location. You do not have to be following these Twitter users. The message is a simple “@” reply, not a Direct Message.

Possible Uses

1) Find nearby tweeps to follow. This works best if you already know the people. For example, you can follow nearby friends, schoolmates or workmates that you haven’t connected with on Twitter.

I personally follow a broad range of people on Twitter, but have also tried to find people in my home county to follow. This has worked well for me in terms of business networking. However, following people within a one to ten mile range (the Instant Tweetup range) in my small town is a bit too close for comfort. Imagine following someone and discovering they live on the same block. That could get strange.

2) Use Instant Tweetup to announce product or service offerings if you are a business. You wouldn’t want to blast it out to everyone all the time since some people will show up because they live nearby, not because they are looking to shop. For example, if you are the local sub shop, you could use Instant Tweetup to offer a special to nearby tweeps who are talking about lunch. If they are following your business this is an instant win, but if you haven’t connected with them yet then this could be considered spam.

3) Tweet out a business offer at a major event. If you’re at the Staples Center watching the Lakers wipe the floor with Seattle, for example, a concession stand or volunteer booth could tweet out an offer to those who are obviously at the Center.

4) Use it for an instant tweetup. Yes, if you have a group of friends in a nearby location, you can message them all and set a meeting place. “@MyGoodFriendJoe In line at Pinks in Hollywood, come and join me if you’re hungry! bit.ly/maplocation.”

One thing to keep in mind is that if you are tweeting these messages out with the map locations, you’re providing your location to the world.

Enhancements I’d like to see

1) Provide a way to filter out random people and only show Twitter followers. Depending on the context and the message, tweeting invites and your location at random people in your immediate vicinity can be both spammy and creepy.

I contacted Keith Moon (@keefmoon on Twitter), Instant Tweetup’s developer, and he said that he plans on adding color-coding to the results list to indicate if someone is a follower. That’s a step in the right direction.

2) Provide an opt-out feature. Right now, to “opt-out” of the Instant Tweetup application, a Twitter user would have to turn off their geolocation setting and also remove their Location setting. This would be an important feature request if people started using the application in a non-targeted manner. If a local business started sending out tweets at me every single day at lunch time, I’d eventually want to turn it off.

QUESTIONS

Do you have any other suggestions on how to use the application? Is it something you would use? Leave a comment.

[This is a follow-up post to "Foursquare Stalkers Go IRL."]

I usually don’t post my Foursquare location until after I leave. At dinner we decided to dine-in instead of takeout but by then the post was out and also over to Twitter.

As we waited for my salmon on brown rice plate, the cashier spoke my name into the microphone.

I never thought not to pick up the phone. Foursquare was fresh on my mind since I had recently written a blog post on PleaseRobMe.com, the stalker-enabler site.

As I went to the phone I figured someone was playing a prank and I would see this through. I didn’t recognize the voice on the phone that immediately started calling me “the biggest [insert homophobic language]“. There was nothing funny about that and the voice was even, as if he had done the same thing a dozen times earlier that night. I could tell from the stupid questions he was asking that he was trying to offend me, but still keep me on the line. I figured he was getting his jollies by recording the conversation so I hung up.

That evening I tried to figure out who it was and started closing up accounts and blocking people. My list grew longer and longer as I became more paranoid. Was it the PleaseRobMe guys, pissed because I linked to their Whois information on my blog post, exposing their address? Was it the Mayor of the place I visited, warning me off of his territory? I didn’t know.

The next morning I started some serious searching on Google and Twitter. Eventually I searched for “called me Foursquare” and found someone else who had the same thing happen to him. I kept digging and a reply to his tweet led to this PhoneLosers.com post. The site users had been stalking several people using Foursquare, Twitter, and Facebook and posting about their exploits.

After looking through their site, I didn’t find my name on it so I couldn’t positively tell if they were the ones calling, but I was 99% sure. It was the same thing they did to the other guy. I figured the caller didn’t get enough satisfaction from my hanging up so he never posted to the site and went on to harass someone else.

Energy is very important to me. I’m very careful about the kind of energy I let into my life. After doing more research on the PhoneLosers site members, I saw some seriously creepy stuff so I left it and didn’t tweet about it or post about it for several days. It wasn’t until I told some people about it at a tweetup that I decided to review the site again.

They were now stalking dozens of people.

I felt bad that I hadn’t exposed the site earlier but I can’t do anything about the past. There is only the now and I’m acting now by working to close their juvenile operation.

I love our online community. I love playing in it and oversharing. And won’t let some loser site piss in my paddling pool without making waves of my own.

Related Posts
* Foursquare Stalkers Go IRL
* New Site Aims To Scare Foursquare Users – PleaseRobMe.com
* Are We All Asking to Be Robbed? (Mashable)

I posted this review of Steve Garfield’s book, “Get Seen: Online Video Secrets To Building your Business” to Amazon.com. In the spirit of my 2010 mantra “Own your own stuff”, I’m re-publishing my review here.

The Amazon.com Review

Get Seen is a MUST for anyone looking at doing online video. I’ve been following Steve Garfield’s work for almost two years now and couldn’t wait to pick up a copy of Get Seen and pour through it. This book doesn’t just talk about how important video will be, it shows you step-by-step how to use the tools. You learn practical tips, expert analysis on the best ways to use cameras, Web sites, and social media tools.

I highly recommend Get Seen and you owe it to yourself to also follow up and follow Steve’s blog, Twitter account, and other digital trails.

———-
Shameless Affiliate Link

Twitter has been giving my @jesseluna account the cold shoulder, not displaying tweets from others for over 8 hours. It’s 9:09AM Pacific Time and the last tweet update was at 35 minutes after midnight.

Apparently I’m not the only as The Next Web reports that many accounts have been affected. TheTwitter blog has not posted any information on this freeze out yet.

I can see Replies and tweets that use hashtags that I follow but that’s it. The Next Web also points out that you can see updated tweets using the Twitter Lists feature.

Hopefully Twitter can patch things up soon. Until this gets resolved, I’ll focus on conversing (not just reading posts or retweeting) then probably head over to Facebook to see what’s going on in the world.

Did your account freeze up? Did you jump to another social networking site? If so, which one?

Will these self-identified stalkers ruin your cyber community? Or will we ban these bullies from our playground?

A site called PhoneLosers.com has been stalking dozens of people using Foursquare, Twitter search, and Facebook. Supposedly, their main goal is to prank people and get them to post about them or the event.

This is part of the PhoneLosers.com forum post by someone named RBCP (appears to also be @rbcp on Twitter), urging people to stalk Foursquare users:

Make a new thread in this board for each person you stalk. If that gets out of hand, we’ll figure out a different way to organize it. It would be cool to include a phone call with your stalking, but I guess a transcript would work too. Most Twitterers are such attention whores that they’ll post about being stalked too. Or they might Facebook it, so check their Facebooks too and post their reactions in the thread you create. – RBCP

The name on the Whois listing for PhoneLosers.com lists a “Brad Carter” as the domain registrant.

There’s also a @PhoneLosers Twitter account and it shamelessly tweeted out:

Stalking people on FourSquare is fun! Come and listen to the sound clips at http://www.phonelosers.com/index.php?board=61.0 – @phonelosers

I have emailed Foursquare, GoDaddy (the domain host), and Twitter so they are aware of the situation and can take action.

Bank robber Willie Sutton was once asked, “Why do you rob banks?” His reply, “Because that’s where the money is.” The AP is taking the same approach and sending some of it’s Twitter links to Facebook, because that’s where millions of people are.

I think this will be a short term marketing strategy. And even today they started sending people back to the AP site. Using Facebook as an additional outpost is a good idea, but not as a center point.

If you have a domain, use it. That’s where the true riches are.

Related Posts:
* The AP Is Using Twitter To Send People To Facebook. Wait. What? – TechCrunch
* AP is Visionary: They See a “Siteless Web” – Steve Rubel Lifestream