Colleen Pence
Blog in progressArchive for May, 2009
Five Hot Twitter Clients for the Mac
If you’re visting from The San Antonio Media / PR / Business Tweetup (#samprb), welcome! Today I’m talking about Twitter clients for the Mac.
There are lots of fantastic Twitter clients available for Mac. I’m covering the five I’ve spent the most time with: Tweetie, Twhirl, TweetDeck, Nambu, and Seesmic Desktop.
Over the last few months I’ve become a big Tweetie fan, first on the iPhone and then Tweetie for Mac when it was released in April. I tried TweetDeck but even with all of its bells and whistles it doesn’t support multiple accounts—a must-have feature for me. Recently I’d heard lots of praise for Seesmic Desktop (developed by the company who purchased Twhirl in April 2008) and, after using it for a while now, I may have to switch alliances from Tweetie–it’s just that GOOD. Seesmic definitely gives TweetDeck a run for its money (or freeware as the case may be) at least until TweetDeck starts supporting multiple accounts. Nambu’s another new kid on the Mac block offering lots of attractive features (multiple accounts, FriendFeed integration, threaded conversations) for rabid Twitter users.
Each of these five Twitter clients has its pros and cons. Seesmic handles multiple accounts beautifully, integrates Facebook and will integrate FriendFeed, and appears to be fast and (so far) not buggy. Twhirl isn’t as fully featured as Seesmic but it offers support for multiple accounts and it’s been around longer so it’s probably more stable. TweetDeck does a great job making it easy to add people to groups, includes Facebook integration too, and it does a great job covering trending topics via TwitScoop. Tweetie doesn’t have columns, groups or trending topics but it allows for multiple accounts, it’s fast and user-friendly and it’s unparalleled among Twitter clients for the iPhone (vs. Twitterfon, Twittelator, and Nambu). Nambu has a tree-like structure for viewing/accessing multiple accounts and it seems like it would work well, but I had lots of trouble with it (although, to be fair, it might have been my internet connection at the time that gave me trouble, so I’ll definitely check out Nambu again).
Comparing features of Five Twitter clients for Mac:
Here’s a comprehensive chart comparing the five clients.
The Quick ‘n’ Dirty on Five Twitter clients for Mac
Tweetie for Mac – It’s Big Bird to Tweetie’s smaller and original iPhone client and now the foundation for the next version of Tweetie for iPhone.
Deets / Get it: http://www.atebits.com/tweetie-mac
Twhirl – Twhirl was purchased by Seesmic in April 2008. Seesmic says it will continue development but since they’ve released Seesmic Desktop my guess is that Twhirl will be phased out at some point.
Deets / Get it: http://twhirl.org
Tweetdeck – The most popular Twitter desktop client (across Macs and PCs), Tweetdeck offers powerful features but gets dinged repeatedly with complaints that it doesn’t handle multiple accounts (yet) and for the fact that it’s a memory hog.
Deets / Get it: http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta
Nambu – Often faster than Tweetdeck and comparable in nearly every way with it, Nambu’s a compelling new Twitter client that allows use of multiple accounts. It’s climbing the chart among Twitter clients. But I had a hard time getting it going. I also didn’t find it to be very user friendly and found it to be SLOW to load tweets (and it only holds up to 200 unread tweets). I plan to give Nambu another try soon.
Deets / Get it: http://nambu.com
Seesmic Desktop – The Tweetdeck Killer, Seesmic Desktop seems to be gaining ground on the other major Twitter clients for Mac at #13 (as of the writing of this post). The key, currently, is its ability to handle multiple Twitter accounts. Once Tweetdeck rolls that feature out, all bets are off.
Deets / Get it: http://desktop.seesmic.com
A few web Twitter clients that handle multiple accounts and allow you to schedule tweets:
More Twitter client resources:
Micro-blogging: 26 Twitter Desktop Clients for Mac
The most up-to-date info on which Twitter clients are popular
San Antonio River Walk’s Museum Reach Expansion
San Antonio River's Museum Reach Expansion
Wow. Words escape me (and the fact that it’s past 1:00 a.m. isn’t helping either), but luckily I have pictures of the San Antonio River’s Museum Reach Expansion preview tour as do many others. We also have tweets, lots and lots of tweets about the Museum Reach of San Antonio’s River Walk Expansion. And, thanks to Charlotte Anne and Willie Lucas, we also have video footage of tonight’s San Antonio River Tour!
I thoroughly enjoyed the preview tour of San Antonio’s River Walk Expansion this evening. Who wouldn’t love a leisurely, informative stroll along a pretty new stretch of the River Walk with some of San Antonio’s leading social media experts? Social Media Club San Antonio members and other social media enthusiasts gathered at the Brooklyn Avenue Bridge to get an early glimpse into another beautiful feather in our fair city’s cap: the Museum Reach Expansion of the San Antonio River.
San Antonio Museum of Art
Social Media Maven and KGBTexas public relations account coordinator Andi Narvaez came up with the idea for a social media preview of the river expansion project after viewing Social Media Club San Antonio’s incredibly successful coverage of the mayoral election earlier this month. She organized the tour along with Steven Schauer of the San Antonio River Authority and together they led our excited group of social media mavens up and down the new extension of the San Antonio River for two fun-filled, tweet-filled hours.
The grand opening of this stretch of the San Antonio River Walk will be celebrated all weekend long. Visit sanantonioriver.org’s Museum Reach page for details.
And, be sure to check out Trinity University Dean David Tuttle’s blog post about the Museum Reach preview tour. I’m sure the only reason he beat me to a blog post (and one that’s WAY more thorough than mine) was because he didn’t join the River Gang for margaritas at Tomatillos afterward. Darn that tequila. It gets me every time.
PodCamp San Antonio 3.0 smokes San Antonio’s already hot social media scene
The Air Force & social media: PodCamp 3.0
I’m not a podcaster (yet) but I figured the El Tropicano Hotel, home of Podcamp San Antonio 3.0, would be the place to meet people who are. I was right. Not only did I meet some amazing podcasters but many of the scheduled-on-the-spot sessions covered social media hot topics as well. Susan Price demystified the concept of co-working. Charlotte Anne Lucas talked about Using Facebook for Business. Patricia Porter talked about her year-long social media journey after her baptism-by-fire at PodCamp 2.0. Several great tweeps (and me!) led Twitter 101. Andi Narvaez revved us up about blogging. Matt Scherer taught us to Pay It Forward. Members of the 433rd Airlift Wing of the Air Force and local educators gave examples of how they’re using SM tools to educate and inform. Josh Eyestone taught us the ins and outs of video and SEO. Luis Sandoval taught us about building our network. Camp Maven Jennifer Navarrete was a gracious and effective emcee. And in the midst of it all, Leslie Baldwin, among others, podcasted live several times throughout the day.
And Donna Tuttle, esteemed SA Business Journal editor, covered the mane event. But that’s another story entirely.
I won’t go into the details of what made PodCamp San Antonio the unique, mind-expanding experience it was. Others already did a beautifully thorough and funny punny job. But what I can tell you is that after attending GreenCamp the week before and now PodCamp, I’m a camp convert.
Where else but camps (Freelance Camp, BarCamp, TweetCamp, GreenCamp, PodCamp, ActionCamp) can you go (for free!!!) to meet such a diverse group of local and regional people willing to get up in front of a room of virtual friends and strangers to share what they know in the hopes of teaching and inspiring others? Yeah, that’d be NOWHERE.
A San Antonio-sized thank you to PodCamp’s sponsors and to Jennifer Navarrete, Larry Hendricks, Leslie Baldwin, Michael De Leon, Nathan Lott, Richard Galvan, Shaine Mata and Stephen Vanderver for organizing PodCamp 3.0 and bringing all of us together. So, ya’ll, when’s PodCamp 4.0?
There were so many great speakers and topics at PodCamp 3.0 that it’s possible (highly probable) that I’ve left some out. If I did, I apologize. Please send me your info to include right away!
Social Media Coverage Takes San Antonio Mayoral Election by Storm!
Social Media Club San Antonio covers the mayoral election
On Saturday, May 9, Social Media Club San Antonio participated in an event never before seen in our city. The San Antonio Current joined forces with IGoSA.com, NewTek, and Social Media Club San Antonio to stream live coverage of San Antonio’s Mayoral Election over UStream. Social Media Club San Antonio had four members (Club founders Jennifer Navarrete and Luis Sandoval and Club members me and Stephanie King) stationed at the Current’s offices while other members of Social Media Club (Alan Weinkrantz, John Navarrete and Leslie Baldwin) were stationed at the various election headquarters around town. We also had one roving reporter (Shelley Cook) who roamed between all locations, giving us her unique perspective. Emceed by the Current’s Elaine Wolff and IGoSA’s Kaye Cruz, and directed by Ed Lozano, and supported by a huge cast of behind-the-scenes people who made the live event possible, the resulting broadcast was an amazing collaboration of journalists, social media enthusiasts, political commentary guests, bands, comedians and poets all who chatted, tweeted and performed in between updates on voter experiences and polling numbers. It was an experience like no other.
San Antonio is a hotbed of social media activity and as a member of Social Media Club of San Antonio I was thrilled to participate in this ground-breaking event.
For a complete stream of tweets during the five hour broadcast, check out #savotes here on Twitter. And, in case you missed it, here’s a little taste of what we were doing on Saturday night.
