Admit it. You don’t use Twitter, right? Twitter is social media and micro blogging gone nuts. In a technology and telecommunications world where everyone can talk to anyone about anything, Twitter is the latest.
Of course, it’s one thing to read Twitter tweets, something else to tweet yourself, and it’s something new to search and rummage through all those billions of tweets for something worthwhile to read.
Why Search Twitter Tweets?
Amazingly, there’s an answer to that question. Twitter, just in case you haven’t heard, is everywhere. Movie stars tweet. Retirees tweet. Neighbors tweet. Kids tweet.
Tweeting is basically a 140 character blog, where you can choose who (and some can choose you) reads what you can fit into three sentences.
You can sign up on Twitter and use Safari or Firefox to tweet and read tweets, but the real fun comes with a couple of the superb Twitter tools for the Mac.
Among my favorites are Twitterific and Tweetie. Both let you tweet and follow the tweets of others. Both have a singular shortcoming. Searching tweets.
Enter Incoming
Mac users are a curious bunch. Tweeting is usually proactive. You look for Twitter users to follow based on similar interests (Mac360 has over 1,000 Twitter followers).
Searching tweets is different. Incoming is the Mac Twitter tweet search utility that makes the next step a little more fun. If you’re new to Twitter, Incoming may seem like much ado about not much.
Scratch the surface and you’ll find there’s more to tweeting than inane tidbits from Ryan Seacrets or Ashton Kucher. There’s topics, too. Incoming finds and relates those topics in a slick and sassy interface.
(click the image above for a larger, pop-up view)
Incoming lets you search Twitter like never before. Track down trends, dig up topics, even translate tweets into your language. Grab a list of links from tweets, and scroll through Twitpic or yfrog images. Incoming even has spam control.
Phenomenon Or Time Waster?
I don’t want to judge. I don’t tweet but I follow tweets—some news, some celebrities, some events, some about Macs. Twitter can be useful. But it’s not for everyone.
It’s my understanding that a small percentage of Twitter followers tweet. No matter.
There’s a huge population of tweeters and searching through all that mass of 140 characters to find something useful requires automation. Incoming reduces the noise and clutter and makes it easy to click between and to topics, find trends, even track what others say about your or your company.
Incoming is well done and worth a look, whether you tweet or read tweets.
About Jeffrey Mincey
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