Fragmented Tech

TrackThis is a small project that has been in my notebook of ideas for awhile, and I finally started working on it during the past couple weekends. It’s a simple Twitter service that allows you to track FedEx/UPS/USPS/DHL over Twitter.

After following the @trackthis bot, send it a direct message with the tracking code and a nickname for the package (ex. 123456789123 Macbook Air). Then any time your package changes location the bot will send you a direct message like:

Depending on how your account is set up, you can get the updates over email, IM or SMS (IM and SMS both have a “Direct Messages only” option). For the complete instructions (there isn’t really more to it) head over here. If there’s any problems/questions just contact me.

I’ve seen a lot of new Twitter services being brought to my attention in the past couple of days. Three of them seemed very interesting, since they all help with gathering information through the Twitter network.

ChaCha Launches Twitter Service

ChaCha, a service where humans answer your questions via SMS, also operates on Twitter. Send your question to @ChaCha and a human guide will respond with an answer and URL. ChaCha is best for finding out small factoids, scores of a game, etc. If you’re looking for some user feedback or recommendations, the next two services will be more useful. This service seems most useful for information on the go, since a quick Google search is probably faster. Read more info about the service.

@Answerme, It’s Like Yahoo Answers for Twitter

I first saw @answerme mentioned a couple days ago and is similar to an idea that I was working on. The tool provides a way for you to ask a question to a larger audience than just your followers. After sending a message to @answerme the question will be posted on the website, and re-tweeted on the account. Any Twitter user can reply to your question by sending a message like “@answerme @pb30 The Mac is superior.” The person who asked the question can then pick a winner. See the complete instructions for more.

PollDaddy Launches Twitter Polls

PollDaddy recently launched Twitter Polls, an easy way to create a poll and post it to your Twitter account. There’s no real special functionality here. But all the configuration is on one page and it doesn’t require a PollDaddy account.

I often hear that the power of Twitter is the ability to find high quality information fast. However this often comes from the A-listers who have thousands of followers. It’s nice to see some tools to even out the playing field.

There has been a lot of discussion recently about two new services, FriendFeed and SocialThing. Both sites provide ways to aggregate your friend’s activity across a variety of Web 2.0 sites. A major difference between the sites is that FriendFeed wraps a social network around your friend’s activity. This is a fundamentally different approach, and creates a whole different experience.

What Is FriendFeed

FriendFeed is (yet another) social network. You sign up, you add all your friends (again), then you can view all of their activity on the web. FriendFeed allows you to comment on any item (ex. any Twitter message, or any story dugg). You can also post things directly to FriendFeed, almost like Twitter.

What I Like About FriendFeed

• Imaginary Friends: This is one thing I wanted from other social network aggregators, the ability to track people who haven’t signed up for the service. While it is a great idea, the implementation could use some work.
• Public Profile: FriendFeed does offer a nice public profile with links to all my networks. It’s nice to have one link to give to someone instead of 8.

What I Don’t Like About FriendFeed

• Yet Another Social Network: I don’t see the purpose in commenting on a third party site. If I want to reply to a Tweet, I’ll do it on Twitter. If I want to reply to a blog post, I’ll do it on the blog. That’s where more of the audience is, and most likely, more of the publisher’s attention. FriendFeed just adds one more place to check for responses
• Adding Friends Twice: Let’s say I find some new friend on Digg that I want to follow. I first friend him on Digg, then have to go search (by name) for him and add him on FriendFeed.
• Adding Imaginary Friends: I like the idea of adding imaginary friends, but the process is kind of painful. It takes too many clicks to add one friend, and there’s no way to import friends from Twitter, Digg, etc.

What Is SocialThing

SocialThing is more of a social activity aggregator. After signing up you enter in your credentials for the various other social networks. SocialThing then displays a news feed style layout of your friend’s activity. From this view, there is some interaction with the social networks. For example, you can reply to Tweets on Twitter, or view all the replies to a Pownce message.

What I Like About SocialThing

• No Friend Adding: I just enter my information for the sites I want to track, and SocialThing grabs my friends from the site. It’s also always in sync with the site, so once I add a friend on Digg, they show up in SocialThing
• Interaction with Social Networks: As mentioned above, SocialThing adds in a way to interact directly with the given social network. This makes it more than just an RSS reader. I’m sure this will be expanded on as more services are added. Also, the iPhone version allows posting to Twitter and Pownce.

What I Don’t Like About SocialThing

• Popular Services Are Disabled: After the inital release, the dev’s disabled some of the more popular services, like Digg, del.icio.us, etc. The devs have also mentioned that they will be adding a Digg-like voting page for picking new services to track

So thats my view. I am looking for an aggregator of activity, not another social network. SocialThing just makes more sense for me. Make sure to add me on FriendFeed (pb30), and I’ve got a couple SocialThing invites one invite for anyone who comments on this post.

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