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h3rald h3rald@h3rald.com
Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:14:59 +0200
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content/articles/journotwit-review.textile
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----- :type: article -:tags: [] - +:tags: +- review +- web20 +- internet +- software :date: 2009-10-19 11:19:17.607000 +02:00 :permalink: journotwit-review -:title: "JournoTwit - Bringing order to your tweets" +:title: "JournoTwit - The best way to organize your tweets" :toc: true +:summary: A review of _JournoTwit_, a minimalist but feature-packed Twitter client able to help you to really organize your tweets. ----- Since I started using "Twitter":http://www.twitter.com on a regular basis, I started feeling overwhelmed by the endless stream of data generated by the people I was following.@@ -22,15 +26,112 @@
The good news is that I found at least _one_ web-based client able to do all this: "JournoTwit":http://www.journotwit.com. h3. Introducing JournoTwit + +JournoTwit was born – as many software projects – to scratch an itch: + +bq. Probably the last thing anyone was expecting me to do — even myself, was to create my own twitter client. However, I've been a little fed up with not having the features I wanted and running 5 or 6 accounts, I was getting annoyed at using several different applications just to have them logged in concurrently. [...] In under 24 hours I put together a twitter client that functioned enough for me to call it my one and only. A few more days and I added in enough features that I felt it was good enough for public consumption. It is however, not perfect and I have plenty of improvements on my to do list for it. + +p(((. ??"JournoTwit's introductory post":http://www.spodesabode.com/discussion/280/journotwit-the-twitter-client-thats-not-just-for-journalists/?? by Andrew Spode Miller ("@spode":http://twitter.com/spode) + +After months of _public consumption_, JournoTwit became a feature-packed Twitter client able to compete with a lot of mainstream alternatives – albeit remaining always relatively unknown to the masses. You can call it a _niche_ Twitter client, able to satisfy a few basic needs: +* The ability to manage multiple Twitter accounts at once. +* The ability to categorize all incoming tweets automatically, according to the type of information within them. +* The ability to keep track of unread tweets. + +These three features alone were enough to make JournoTwit my one and only Twitter client. And no, it's not only for journalists and writers. + +h3. Interface overview + +After logging in, JournoTwit looks like this: + +!=/img/pictures/journotwit/interface.png! + +**Note:** I am using the <em> "edge":http://www.journotwit.com/edge/ </em> version of JournoTwit, a sort of development snapshot with the latest features. + + +At the top, some more-or-less intuitive icons allow you to perform all the most common _global_ actions: +* Tweet +* Manual refresh +* Mark all columns as read +* Add new columns +* Quick search +* Edit settings +* Logout + +Next to this global toolbar, there's a list of links, each corresponding to a column. Clicking a link toggles the visibility of the corresponding column. + +In each column, tweets are displayed in different column according to their state: +* Read +* Unread +* Selected + +You can select one tweet at a time by clicking the *+* icon. This toggles the tweet-specific actions: +* Reply +* Send a direct message +* Save as favorite +* Retweet +* Translate + +Pretty intuitive and easy to use, so far. h3. Default columns -h3. Custom columns +When you login, you'll notice that all your tweets are _not_ presented in the traditional, disorganized single-column stream layout. Instead, they are _sorted automatically_ into different columns, according to their type: -h3. Available actions +- My Feed := All the tweets _you_ sent. By default, this column is minimized. +- No-Mention := All tweets containing your username without the "@", i.e. every time someone mentions you sneakily, without sending you a reply. +- Messages := All the direct messages you sent and received. +- Mentions := All the tweets containing your twitter username (with "@"), such as replies to your tweets. +- Statuses := All the tweets posted by people you follow that do not contain any link or cannot be categorized through other columns. +- News := All the tweets posted by people you follow containing links to articles or non-multimedia web pages. +- Retweets := All the retweets posted by people you follow. +- Visual := All the tweets posted by people you follow containing links to pictures or videos. Where possible, media is displayed inside the tweet. +- Audio := Same as above, but for audio items. +- Chatter := Attempts to collect all conversations involving you or people you follow. -h3. Advanced settings +Surprisingly, these default columns are enough to make your Twitter experience easier and more manageable, without configure a single setting. They're obviously not perfect: some images are not resolved automatically, for example, but it works well otherwise. + +Still this may not be enough for your needs or maybe simply not the right thing. No problem: JournoTwit is extremely flexible when it comes to organizing and sorting out your tweets. + +h3. Adding new columns + +All columns except for _Mentions_ and _Messages_ can be modified as you see fit. These two columns cannot be modified simply because there's nothing you _need_ to modify it, if you think about it. But they can be deleted, of course (and re-created in a blink, if you delete them by mistake). + +Let's go through the slightly geeky process of creating a column. + +When you click the **Add New Columns** icon on the top-left corner you'll be prompted to further clarify whether you want to add a... +* Set of Columns: i.e. the default columns provided by journotwit _or_ a single column containing all the tweets. Useful if you mess things up and you want to start over again. +* Preset Column: choose from many different columns according to your needs, from different tweet types to memes (#followfriday, #musicmonday, etc.). +* Custom Column: create your own personal column, according to your specific needs. + +Because the overwhelming majority of my readers is composed by geeks, I'll just describe how to create a custom column, so that you can fully understand the power of this tool, in the right hands. + +h3. Adding a custom column + +!>/img/pictures/journotwit/custom_column.png! + +The creation of a custom column doesn't take long, but there are quite a few things you can configure. First off, you have to specify whether you want the column to collect _local_ or _global_ tweets: local means the people you follow, while global means everyone on the planet. Simple enough. + +Then comes the juicy geeky part: search terms and tags. Simply type a valid "Twitter Search query":http://search.twitter.com/operators in the textbox, so something like this: + +@from:jonobacon OR #ubuntu -jaunty@ + +...will hopefully fetch all tweets posted by "@jonobacon":http://www.twitter.com/jonobacon or tweets about Ubuntu, but not related to the Jaunty Jackalope release. You can also add more text box and thus perform more search queries within the same column. + +Then you can filter by tweet type, enabling or disabling Statuses, Visual, Links, Audio, ReTweets and Chatter. Useful to remove the noise (if you follow "@brentspiner":http://www.twitter.com/brentspiner, make sure you disable _ReTweets_...). + +Finally, you only have to configure a few more settings: +* Whether you want to be alerted with a _beep_ when there are new tweets in this column. +* Whether you want the column to display tweets or a tag cloud. +* The name of the column. + +That's all. Simple enough. As a side note, the "No-Mention" column is nothing but a custom column in disguise: if you try to edit it, you'll see it's nothing but a search for "_username_ -@_username_ -from:_username_". + +h3. Other features and advanced settings h3. Conclusion + +* Lack of mark as read (per tweet). +* Lack of shortcut keys for tweet navigation.
