TwitterWatchDog.com

-by Al Ferretti and Skeeter Hansen

Block Twitter Spam with TweetBlocker

Last week by suggestion from our good twitter pal Alexi, we tweeted out the “Double Barrel Super Soakers”, to help fend off those that choose to spam on Twitter. Now you can arm yourself with TweetBlocker too.

“Tweetblocker is a free resource for Twitter users and application developers. Using highly advanced filtering, we catalog and rank the top spammers on Twitter, allowing users to quickly and easily find spammers.”

TweetBlocker allows you to check for any twitter users spam grade. Grades are just like grade school, A-F. A being you are clean and F indicating that you may be a “spammer”.

Additionally, you can get a personal spam report which displays a detailed ranking of all the people you follow on twitter. You can easily block twitter users you think are spammers. (TweetBlocker uses twitter oAuth for athentication)

TweetBlocker also provides an API for application developers to retrieve a twitter users grade as well as report a user as spammer.

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-by Al Ferretti and Skeeter Hansen

Twitter releases their guide “Twitter 101″

Skeeter and I joined Twitter in December of 2008. Since that time, Twitter has exploded in popularity across the globe. Surprisingly, there wasn’t an official guide by Twitter, until now.

The Twitter guide Twitter 101 for business covers; getting started, learn the lingo, best practices, cases studies, other resources and more.

In the beginning of the twitter 101, Twitter states:
“Every day, millions of people use Twitter to create, discover and share ideas with others. Now, people are turning to Twitter as an effective way to reach out to businesses, too. From local stores to big brands, and from brick-and-mortar to internet-based or service sector, people are finding great value in the connections they make with businesses on Twitter.”

Many people have expressed that they “don’t get it” when it comes to Twitter.
That was when we released our very own Twitter Success Guide 2.0.

Do you have a Twitter success story that you would like to share?
Likes/Dislikes? Please comment below..

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-by Al Ferretti and Skeeter Hansen

Twitter Tools (part 4 of 6): “Photo and Video Sharing”

Photo and Video sharing on Twitter has become more and more popular. While many of you have taken advantage of Twitpic for photo sharing. Here’s some additional places
you may want to consider next time you would like to share a picture and/or a video.

PHOTO SHARING:

Pikchur Use your computer, cell phone, or any other mobile device to post your pics, and Pikchur takes care of distributing them all over the social web for you! An upgrade package is available to track stats too.

TweetPhoto offers a lot of the advanced options you might enjoy for free: Stats, geo-tagging, retweeting, favorites, and more.

Twitgoo is probably the most Twitter-like one of the bunch. You can tweet right within (after signing in) and include an image from the section where you post your Tweet.

yfrog Upload an image or video from your desktop or from an URL, enter your message, enter your credentials to Twitter, and click post it. a simple interface.

VIDEO SHARING:

12seconds Create short video clips that you record with your webcam, mobile phone, or upload. Show people where you are and what’s going on.

TwitC Use Twitc to organize, search, view, comment, share, embed, batch download, collect, favorite, rate uploads, view timelines and profiles, post links to or embed files, and send updates to your profile on Twitter, MySpace, Facebook and 35 other sites.

Twiddeo Twiddeo Upload from the web, your cameraphone and record from your webcam.

TwitLENS TwinLens- Simply login with your Twitter credentials and you are ready to start sharing media on Twitter.

Have you tried these photo and video sharing sites?
Which ones do you like or dislike?
Do you know of any other photo and video locations that integrate with Twitter?
We love your comments, please post them…

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Twitter “Updates” become “Tweets”

Until recently, Twitter has asked everyone to “update” their twitter status, by text, by an application, or by the web. The updates posted are also known as “tweets” by many people.

Now, if you look in the upper right hand corner of your twitter page (next to your following) you will see the word “tweets” instead of updates. This change makes sense because most people have called them tweets and it brings more of an official theme to Twitter. The talk is that the word change is because Twitter trademarked the word “Tweet”.

At the time of this post, the homepage (where you send the tweets from) still has the “Update” button, and is likely to change to “tweet” in the near future.

Please leave us a comment on what you think of change or better yet leave us a “tweet”.

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by Al Ferretti and Skeeter Hansen

Twitter Tools (part 3 of 6): “Blackberry, iPhone and other mobile phone apps”

BlackBird
The blackbird app has been working with Twitter for some time. The screenshots featured on its website are a bit old-school. Blackbird now apparently shows the user’s avatar, updating the look of the app a bit.

Twitterberry
The Twitterberry app works over the data network so you don’t need to use SMS and be charged for texting. Data pack charges will probably still apply, though.

Tiny Twitter Tiny Twitter will work for any older smartphone as well as the BlackBerry. The homepage features a 140px column in an homage to the Twitter message character length.

iTwtr - itwtr is an open source Twitter client for iphones.

Twittai – Twittai is a Java-based Twitter client compatible with more than 200 kinds of mobile phones.

ceTwit – Twitter client for Windows Mobile. Not as cool as the iPhone versions, but then again, what is?

Twapper - Send updates from your 30boxes calendar to your mobile phone using Twitter.

Tweetie – $2.99
The paid tweetie application with the most props. Allows you to use Twitter exactly as you would use it from your computer. Automatic link shrinking and automatic posting of pictures to Twitpic.

Twitterific – Free with Ads
Twitterific is one of the more widely used free iPhone apps. It may not have the more advanced features of some other apps, but it keeps users from switching with its fast and seamless interface.

Twinkle
Twinkle keeps the easy-to-use streamlining intact with a few extra features, including Geolocation so that you can talk to other Twitter users around you.

Twittelator Pro – $4.99
Twittelator is a full service application for Twitter for the iPhone. Voted #7 of all social media networking applications for 2008 in the AppStore.

Twitterfon
Twitterfon is a simple application for iPhone and iPod Touch. Not many advanced features but very easy to use

Qik – Stream videos from your mobile phone to Twitter using Qik. Surprisingly, it works really well – try it out.

Twitxr Share pictures and text from Twixtr from any mobile device.

GPS Twit This geolocation app lets your friends find you using Twitter.

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Follow Skeeter Hansen @SkeeterHansen

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-by Al Ferretti and Skeeter Hansen

Twitter Tools (part 2 of 6): “WordPress Plugins for your blog”

This is part 2 of 6, twitter tools and apps “WordPress Plugins for your blog”. To keep things simple, we’re sharing a tidbit with a link to some of the more popular wordpress plugins that integrate with Twitter.

Twitter is becoming more popular and if you have a wordpress blog, it is a good time for you to incorporate Twitter into your blog.

Create Your Own WordPress Twitter Widget
Step by step tutorial

Top Twitter Links by TwittURLs
TwittURLS displays the current top posted twitter links.

Tweetbacks for WordPress
The tweetbacks plugin imports Tweets about your post to your blog as comments.

Tweet This
Tweet this plugin allows you to add a “Retweet This” button  Read the rest of this entry »