To move up in the game you need to attack and kidnap other Twitterers and stop them from doing this to you. To achieve this you need to save up and upgrade certain things like your headquarters, vault and holding pen.

I don’t think you will waste a lot of time on the site but it’s worth checking out. Regardless, it has to be one of the best illustrations of how Twitter can be used for something Non-Twitter

Link : SNODS

At first glance I was a little bemused about what Tweet Knot actually does but it’s actually fairly simple. First of all, you can sign in using your Twitter login details, which is a good time saver. Then you can decide whether to follow other knots or creating your own.

You are probably thinking : What is a Knot? Well, a Knot is pretty much a group or community who share a common interest. Anyone can create a Knot and anyone can follow other Knots.

So for example, say you wanted to create a knot about japanese gadgets. You would create a knot called ‘JapaneseGadgets’. You would then add the members of the group, which is basically the Twitterers you want to post updates from. So you would probably add several Twitter users as your members who post about gadgets from Japan. And anyone who wanted to see the tweets from these members can do so by viewing www.tweetknot.com/japanesegadgets.

Through the Tweet Knot home page you can tweet to your regular account or to your Knot group. The home page itself isn’t the best designed in my opinion and it generated a horizontal scrollbar for me too (on a 1152×864 resolution).

Tweet Knot is a nice idea and I can see how many people would find it useful. Though, I don’t know if it will prove to be popular, particularly because you can currently only use the site through the TweetKnot home page itself. Perhaps if the service is integrated into some other Twitter scripts it will prove to be more popular.

Link : Tweet Knot

Splitweet makes it incredibly easy to check and update mutliple accounts. Additionally, it lets you check the latest reference to your ‘Brands’, which kind of works in a similar way to Google Alerts and helps you see the latest reference to your brand, product, website or whatever (or even the film star you’re stalking!).

At the top of the page is your dashboard. All of your accounts are listed here and are color coded. You can post a tweet to one of your accounts or all of them, a great time saver.

The main dashboard shows you the latest replies to your accounts. You can choose to show the latest tweets from any of your accounts here. You just need to unmark the accounts you don’t want to see tweets from. Next to each tweet is a handy Retweet button too, something which everyone is waiting for Twitter to add!!

I found viewing the latest tweets from all accounts to be overwhelming though the color coding for each account does help a little. It also seems to refresh too much with multiple accounts selected which made Firefox load slightly slower for me (I had 6 accounts selected).

One of my favourite things about Splitweet is that the latest @replies to your account are shown down the right hand side of the page. This is exactly what I am looking for as I essentially tweet from one account but check the latest @replies for the rest.

It would be better though if it allowed me to select which accounts I wanted to check for @replies for too (i.e. seperately from my main dashboard). This would allow me to see the latest tweets on the main page for my personal account but still see the latest @replies down the sidebar for all my accounts.

I did notice that the sidebar was sometimes very slow in refreshing though. As it stands, there is still a reply which is shown on my replies page but isn’t being shown in the sidebar.

The sidebar also shows the latest references to your brands. This is useful too but unfortunately they place the latest references at the top of the sidebar, above the @replies, and you cannot move them around. Which is a shame as I believe @replies are more relevant to most people.

Overview

Splitweet is perfect for anyone who has more than one Twitter account, and is worth checking out if you only have the one account too as it displays your @replies and brand mentions down the right side of the page so you don’t need to manually check it.

It’s not perfect but it’s incrdibly useful and easy to use. I have been tweeting through the Twitter home page for as long as I can remember but I have switched to Splitweet as it makes checking my other Twitter accounts a breeze.

I recommend checking out

Link : Splitweet

There is clearly a demand for this kind of thing as a new url shortening service has been launched called Tweetbucks. Instead of showing Google Adsense ads, Tweetbucks shows ads from thousands of merchants from affiliate sites such as Commission Junction, Linkshare and the Google Affiliate Network. They pay 70% of the commission to you so if an affiliate pays out 5% you would effectively get 3.5% commission with 1.5% going to TweetBucks.

You do not have to include an advert in your shortened link. I shortened the TimeToTweet URL to http://bit.ly/dNi2M and did not include an advert. I then decided to include a frame and it was shortened to http://bit.ly/SHGof. This time the link added a large banner at the top of this blog, as seen below.

Tweetbucks pays out once a month to those who reach their $25 threshold. There is a $5 dollar sign up bonus plus you can earn 10% commission for a 6 month period from those you refer too.

Link : Tweetbucks

After writing my post about it all the other day, which was 4 days since they last replied to an email, I sent one last desperation email to them asking for a refund :

I have did my best to be incredibly patient with you guys but you seem completely uninterested in resolving the issues I have with the script and with my forum account.

therefore, I would like to uninstall the software and get a full refund.

Please tell me how I should proceed?

Kevin

This morning (2 days later) I received this email from them :

Dear Kevin,

The forum accessibility has nothing to do with the use of the software application. Thank you.

Sincerely,
Support

Granted, forum accessibility has nothing to do with how the software application performs. However, it doesn’t change the fact that their product was crashing on me periodically and I had to restart it, it doesn’t change the fact that they haven’t upgraded my forum account so I cannot post any support queries and it doesn’t change the fact that I just paid $167 for this script and would, at the very least, like some sort of support!!!

I have wasted enough energy on them so I have just requested a refund directly through PayPal by raising a dispute. I have also removed the banner ad from Time To Tweet. Whilst I do like the script, their support is just plain awful, therefore I can’t recommend such a product to readers.

I’d like to think that they would provide a refund right away but no doubt they will draw this into a dispute. I’ll keep you guys posted with how I get on

If there is any other scripts you would like me to try just let me know and I’ll look into it.

Cheers,
Kevin

However, their support doesn’t seem to match up to the quality of their product. I signed up to their Twitter Support Forum after purchasing the product however the authorisation was never sent (which means I can’t post).

So I emailed them about this the day after signing up and not getting an activation email :

Sent 14th May 2009
Hi there,

I have signed up to protwitter at http://twitterproforum.com/ but have not received an authorisation email in the last few days so I cannot post.

Also, I have noticed that hummingbird crashes every now and then. Is this a common problem?

Kevin

Someone replied later on that day (They didn’t even leave their name so I’m not sure who replied to me) :

Received 14th May 2009
Kevin,

If you have not received a conformation email, first check your spam filter, if you cannot find it there then please re-sign up. It is not a common problem for hummingbird to crash, please make sure you have all the necessary prerequisites. Thank you.

Sincerely,
Support

This annoyed me. I had just paid $167 for this product and they seemed completely uninterested in helping me. I have used vBulletin for close to 8 years now so I know how easy it is to manually activate an account that hasn’t been activated (it literally takes 5 seconds) so asking me to sign up is just plain lazy on their part.

I replied to them later the next morning (their email had been sent during the nightime in the UK) :

Sent 15th May 2009
Hi there,

The activation email is definately not there as I have did a search in my regular email and in my spam folder.

If I sign up again then I would not be able to use my usual username as I have already signed up with that. Could you please quickly manually approve the account System0. You are using vbulletin so it only takes 2 seconds to change the usergroup.

I do have all the prerequisites for the software. I have a top of the range gaming laptop running on vista so that is definately not the issue. I have just found that if the script is opened for a long time it just crashes for no reason and you need to switch it off and back on.

Kevin

Unfortunately, this was never replied to. Nor was my follow up email on the 17th.

Now I could sign up to the forum again with a different username but I’m perhaps a little stubborn. The way I see it, I just paid $167 for this product so why should I have to go to the hassle of signing up again because their software didn’t send me an activation email.

And is there much point signing up to the forum again anyways as they seemed to completely disregard my comment that the software crashes from time to time (which isn’t a major problem but it still happens). So no doubt all support queries are responded in this way.

I do still believe that HummingBird is a great product and if you are looking to increase your follower count it seems like there is no better alternative around at the moment. However, just bear in mind that direct support from the HummingBird team does not seem to be that good, particularly not for a script at this price.

As I mentioned yesterday, in addition to my personal Twitter account, I have about 4 other accounts which I use to keep my blog readers updated of the latest posts on my blogs. I don’t check these accounts as much though.

It’s not that I don’t want to use these accounts to interact with readers, it’s just very timeconsuming to monitor so many accounts as you need to sign in, check for @replies, reply to those who tagged you, post an update and then sign out. You then need to do this all again with the other accounts.

Hummingbird makes this whole process incredibly easy. The script is pretty much a basic browser with Twitter functions built in. So unlike other scripts which just access the Twitter API to post updates, Hummingbird lets you use and update Twitter in the same way you would on FireFox, Opera or Internet Explorer.

However, what makes the whole process quicker is the Twitter accounts feature. Once you have added all your accounts to HummingBird you simply need to click on the account you want to use. The script will then automatically sign you out of your current account and sign you into the next one. I know this doesn’t sound like much but it really does speed up the process of checking multiple accounts.

Although I have applications like TweetDeck and Twhirl on my pc and have installed some FireFox Twitter plugins, I use the Twitter home page to post updates and check my @replies about 95% of the time.

Today I have been instead tweeting from the HummingBird client itself and I love it. It’s saving me a lot of time and making my twittering much more productive, something which I am always trying to improve.

The only slight downside is that when you are using HummingBird to mass follow or unfollow, you can’t use it for twittering. So you would have to do your twittering on your regular browser. It’s not really a major problem to be honest though I thought I’d point it out.

Do any readers have multiple Twitter accounts? If so, please leave a comment and let us know how you manage them all

Thanks,
Kevin

HummingBird is a product that I have been looking at for about a month now. In short, the script helps you follow and unfollow users in mass at the click of a button. It doesn’t access the Twitter Api so it won’t slow down like other scripts. Instead, HummingBird simulates how a regular person would follow and unfollow someone via their browser, however it does it all for you automatically.

I actually went through the checkout stage a few weeks ago but I was simultaneously reading 3 or 4 reviews of the software at the same time and 2 of those were negative, which put me off from hitting the buy button.

For some reason, this software is dividing opinions. The main criticisms are :

• It’s costly : It is. There’s no denying that at a wholesale value of $197, HummingBird isn’t cheap. I agree with many people that it should be selling for around $50 or under. The developers intentionally increased the price of the script so that they could give affiliates more commission. And it has worked!
• Affiliates are spamming everyone : Hummingbird is being linked by loads of twitterers, many of whom are doing so to claim back the money spent on their product. I’ve read a few articles from bloggers claiming that the developers are not only condoning it, they are encouraging it. I’m not sure if this is the case though.
• The script features can be found elsewhere for free : I read several articles saying that the script is just not worth it and that the majority of features can be found elsewhere for free. Which was good news to me as it meant that I didn’t have to spend a lot of money to use those tools however, none of the articles actually told you where you could get these tools for free.

The fact of the matter is : the script is costly and many affiliates are spamming their followers. However, I haven’t seen any other sites offer what HummingBird does.

Therefore I took the plunge and bought the script. One of the main things that persuaded me to try the script out was this review from John Chow. In particular, his video convinced me it was worth the purchase. In it John walks you through the software and shows you exactly what the script can do.

Check it out for yourself below
* The volume is pretty low in the video so you might have to turn your speaker volume up more than usual to hear it clearly.

The video above should give you an idea of how HummingBird can help you build followers by following other users. Is this what you are looking for?

Is Hummingbird Worth It?

The question ‘Is Hummingbird Worth It?’ is what most people are asking. I think the question should really be ‘Is Hummingbird Worth It To You?’, as it really depends on what you are looking to achieve with your Twitter account.

Building a large follower list by following other people is not something I plan on doing with my personal Twitter account.

However, I have about 4 other ‘News Bot’ Twitter accounts at the moment which I use to post updates from my blogs to readers (for example, @Time_To_Tweet). I want to build large follower lists with these accounts as it means that more people are being updated about my latest articles. Up until now I have been doing this manually, which is tediously timeconsuming.

Which is why I am so impressed with HummingBird. Time is something which is very important to me. I am trying to maintain and promote 3 or 4 blogs and sites at the moment. Building the twitter accounts associated to these sites is something which I want to do, however I don’t want to spend countless hours trying to achieve it.

Put simply, this script does everything I am looking to do with Twitter with these accounts at the moment :

• It lets me manage multiple accounts.
• It lets me mass unfollow without removing those who are following me.
• It lets me mass unfollow without removing VIPs i.e. people I don’t want to unfollow.
• It lets me mass follow without trying to follow people I have already followed and unfollowed. This will stop me annoying users and run the risk of getting banned from Twitter for abusing it.
• It’s all automated. I just select someones list of followers which closely resemble my target group and click ‘follow all’ or remove those who aren’t following me by clicking my own following list and clicking ‘unfollow all’.

The script is by no means perfect. There are some features which I’d love to see like the ability to schedule follows a week or month in advance, something which I think would be great as because of the 1,000 daily follow limit the script has to stop after a while. If you could schedule a list if people to follow then it could automatically start following them the next time you load the application.

I’ve been using it for less than a day so time will tell if this purchase will prove to be worthwhile. However, so far I have been incredibly impressed with HummingBird and I’m sure it will help me build up a large follower count on some of my Twitter accounts (including the one for this blog!).

I will do a follow up post on my progress within the next week and let you know the best way to get the most out of HummingBird.

If you are interested in purchasing the script then please make sure you use the discount code RECESSION. This code will give you a 15% discount and will bring the cost of the script down to $167.45 (A saving of $29.55). I am not 100% sure but I believe it expires at the end of May 2009.

If you have any questions about the script or would like to see a screenshot of a specific area, please let me know

Link : HummingBird

Disclaimer

I need to put my hands up at this point and admit that I accidentally downloaded a cracked copy of the script first. However, it was not intentional. You see, many websites were telling readers to try the 36 hour demo of the script first to see if they liked it however the download page did not give you a temporary license and nothing was included in the zip either. I later read a lot of comments from people saying that the trial offer had expired.

One blogger said that you could still download the trial version of the script elsewhere and I found one on a torrent site. It was marked as the trial version and after downloading and installing it, the script said I had 36 hours left. However, the zip also containted a crack folder which had a cracked version of the hummingbir.exe file.

I was really impressed with the trial though and purchased the script this morning. I know that HummingBird is expensive however I would strongly discourage you all from downloading an illegal version of the script for a few reasons :

• You won’t get new updates to the script (apparently they are adding a lot of new features soon).
• You won’t get full support at Twitter Pro Forum.
• You could get yourself into a lot of trouble should the developers find out you are using an illegal copy.
• Last but not least, it’s wrong!

To some of you, this will fall on deaf ears however for the rest of you, I hope it convinces you that it isn’t worth downloading an illegal copy, particularly since you will probably be using a very old version of the script.

Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed this review

Kevin

It happened to me earlier this week. I noticed I was frequently being logged out of Twitter, which means that someone could have accessed my login credentials and is signing in from a different location, thus signing me out on my computer. So I changed my password.

Two days later I noticed that I wasn’t auto-following new users that follow me. I also noticed that the RSS feeds I have imported into my Twitter stream weren’t coming through. What happened? The third party applications like Twitterfeed and TweetLater I use to perform the above functions rely on my Twitter username and password in order to access my account for these automated features. So when I update my password on Twitter, these third party apps no longer have the correct information.

It was a swift reminder that I needed to go update all the third party applications that I use to manage my Twitter account. There’s no easy process for remembering to do this each time you update privacy settings for a given social media service. But given the streaming nature of Twitter and the ease by which you can push content and perform remote operations through Twitter apps, the necessity to remember to update third party apps increases exponentially when it comes to Twitter.

The best advice I can give is to keep your third party app usage to a minimum. Select applications that perform a variety of functions for your personal needs, so that when the time to update Twitter and all your peripheral applications cmes along, it won’t be such a consuming task. It may even be worth your while to pay for premium features from a preferred service, if this will enable you to centralize the activity that’s going on around your Twitter account.

As Twitter becomes more popular and cooperative network platforms enable more remote activity via other sites and applications, we’re likely to see even more services that provide these centralized activity hubs. They’re likely to include support for multiple social media sites as well, which may continue to be a catch-22 in some situations such as an updated password, but the benefits will outweigh the burdens.

Some new features include multiple account support, a filter for your mentions (formerly @username replies), direct messaging capabilities, favorites, and marks (your personal favorites). Other new features are more specific and custom than what you’ll find on Twitter’s website, including retweets, conversations, custom shortcuts, and shrinkable text. Complete Twitter bios and follow/unfollow/block capabilities have been added as well.

That’s a good amount of features added in a single update, and many of these features were already available on similar mobile apps, such as Tweetie. Looking at most of the features, you’ll note that they’re akin to what you’re likely to find on a Twitter desktop client such as TweetDeck or even Twitterrific’s own Mac desktop app. And the good thing about Twitterific 2.0 is that it’s moving more towards becoming a mobile application that supports all the necessary features we’ve grown accustomed to using web apps designed around Twitter.

Some of these key features include retweets, and the ability to glean all the pertinent information regarding a particular user without having to leave the mobile application. The conversations feature is also extremely important, as it threads updates together for relevant and fluid communication. This is useful no matter where or how you’re using Twitter. But for a mobile application where you’re less able to pull up separate browser tabs or windows in order to reference a tweet someone has responded to, the conversations feature for Twitterific 2.0 is adding a great deal of value to both its application and Twitter itself.

Want to check out more Twitter mobile apps? See here for a short list of the top mobile apps designed for Twitter users.