djByron [Dan Byron]husband, father, christian, musician & technophile ( but not a dj )

Ran accross Twerp Scan today and wanted to pass it along to all those using Twitter.  Everyone using Twitter knows that “spwitter” or twitter spam is becoming an issue.  Not a day goes past that I don’t get at least a couple messages in my inbox letting me know that somebody is now following me.  Ok, cool… Or not… Turns out that the person now following me is following 10K but only 10 follow in return. So what’s up with that?  Spwitter is a relatively new way of spamming where a user will follow as many as possible hoping for a few “courtesy follows” in return.  That user can then send their spam messages and/or links out to those who are now following them.

Enter Twerp Scan… Now granted from the start this is not a tool that you’ll use every day due to the limitations of the Twitter web site, but it is useful none-the-less.  Basically what it does is scan the list of people following you and allows you to filter by a few different criteria.  The two most important, and telling criteria are 1) the number of people they are following and 2) the followers-to-following ratio.  Once you go to the site and check it out it’s pretty self-explanitory.  Here’s a very brief walk-through.

1. Filter Criteria:
   First, set the basic filter criteria of who you would consider a spammer.  This includes the minimum number of people they are following (begins at 500 and goes up from there.)  There’s also a drop down list to select the followers-to-following ratio. 

   

1. Login:
   Next sign in using your twitter username and password. NOTE THAT this is a login prompt coming directly from Twitter and not from Twerp Scan. This is a really cool feature because it means that you’re not giving your login information to a third party site but rather to Twitter.  Really nice. 

   

2. Seek and Destroy:
   Probably first thing to do is click the “verdict” column header and see what is considered spam and handle those accordingly. I simlply drag the link to another FireFox tab and “block” the user if they are indeed spam.  Another column worth sorting by is the “~R” (or ratio) column.  Usually spammers wil have a hign followers-to-following ratio (meaning that they follow many but few reciprocate). 

   

So go check out Twerp Scan and see just how many of your followers are legitimatly interested in your conversation.

Note:  I started this post earlier this evening but I had a chance to post it, Chris posted almost the same thing! Great minds eh.

If you’re a seasoned Twitterer this probably won’t come as anything new, but after a couple months of experimenting I wanted to share what I finally settled on with regards to my current configuration.

FIrst of all, what app do I use? Currently I bounce back and forth between two apps, Twitterific and Twhirl. Twhirl is a little more feature laden probably due to the fact that it’s built on Adobe’s multi OS AIR platform.  This allows Twhirl to be installed on both Mac and PC and also means it is probably in development more than Twitterific.  Twitterific on the other hand is a Mac only app and is nice due to the fact that it has a really small GUI footprint (can be docked in menu bar vs main dock) and it has Growl support which means pop up notifications of new tweets.  Unfortunately these minor but very useful options are not available in Twhirl due to current Adobe AIR limitations.

So what does my Twtter “configuration” look like?  As of today I follow over 130 and  I can break those I follow into two different categories.

1. Regular “Friends”:
   Tweets from this group are streamed in via Twhirl or Twitterific. Each program is configurable to automatically get new tweets at specified interval (I have mine set to get new tweets ever 4 minutes).
   
    
2. Local / close “Friends”:
   I have a few local and close friends that I want to follow 24/7 so I follow them via “device” updates, in my case I have these updates sent via SMS to my cell phone. You can also set up your IM to get these device updates as well.
   
    
3. BUT WAIT!!!
   What about tweets that are directed to me ( @djbyron ) or include me in the body, but were sent from someone who I do NOT follow with device updates (see number one above). These are tweets I will might want to respond to right away.  This is where Twitter’s “track” feature comes into play.  I simply send the phrase “track djbyron” from my device (cell phone or IM) and now i won’t miss a tweet that contains my username.  Below is a screenshot of sending the command via IM but you can do the same thing using SMS/Text Messaging. (You would obviously substitute “djbyron” with your own username.)   

   

Oh did I mention that I LOVE Skitch!  Makes doing screenshots like this so easy.

Fellow Twitterer from Seattle Twittered this today and I just wanted to second his motion.

“Ain’t Twitter great? meeting so many cool people from all over the world, i love it” - dustindk

I joined twitter in August of 2007 but didn’t actually start using it until this month.  I’m not sure what inspired me, or how I found my first “friend” on there but once I found one, it was easy to find many more with similar interests.

For those of you not familiar with Twitter take a minute to watch the video.  Some of you may ask, “why do I want another social website, I already have a Facebook account, a Myspace, etc?” For me Twitter fills in the gaps where those sites leave off.  Plus it’s really easy to use.  You don’t have to go to Twitter.com to use the service if you don’t want to.  There are numerous third party  apps in addition to the native IM and SMS support.  For me I do a couple things.  I have Twhirl running all the time which is a small desktop app for Windows and Mac that allows you to receive and post updates, respond, direct message and pretty much every other aspect of the service without having to touch a browser.  Occasionally, I’ll use Google Talk or Gmails built-in chat to follow in real-time as well. When I’m out and about I can post status updates via SMS (text message) and even follow other’s updates all from my cell phone (just make sure you have a text plan to support it

So what do you post?  Anything and everything from simple “what are you doings,” to questions a friend may be able to answer for you, pictures, blog update notifications… Yea basically anything. Well…. Maybe not anything.