Digsby Worth Checking Out

Digsby is a neat little communications program that combines IM, email and social networking websites all in one. I’ve been using Pidgin for my IM predominantly, but the addition of Twitter to Digsby makes it an attractive alternative.

For IM, Digsby handles AIM, Yahoo, Google talk, MSN, ICQ and Jabber. It seems to have most of the basic features you’d expect from an IM client and I haven’t encountered any problems yet.

You can add Gmail, Yahoo mail, Hotmail, AOL/AIM mail, POP or IMAP accounts. I’ve just used it with a Gmail account as a way to be alerted when there is incoming email, but I’m curious about the IMAP and POP functionality. One neat feature is the ability to send emails right from the IM window, without having to open another application or webpage.

For social networking, you can add your Facebook, Myspace or Twitter accounts. I currently just use Twitter, and Digsby provides me with updates to recent Twitter activity, and lets me update my status. If you use Facebook or Myspace, Digsby will alert you to new friend requests, messages and other activity.

With Twitter, the interface isn’t as customizable as Twhirl or Snitter, but so far has been more stable than either of those and doesn’t require AIR. Digsby’s Twitter pop-up notifications display all recent activity, placing @s first. There isn’t much customization available for the Twitter interface, but it handles the basics well.

For me the real strength of the program is having all these things tied together in one package. You can turn off pop up notifications and sound for any or all accounts if, for example, you only wanted to be alerted for emails and not Twitter, or you only wanted sound and no pop-ups.

Digsby is still in Beta and could use a few more features and options, but right now it behaves well and has been reliable. I’m impressed!

From IM To Microblogging - or: Twitter is the New AIM

When IM started gaining serious popularity years ago, it suffered from a problem of incompatibility with other IM services. AIM couldn’t talk to MSN, Yahoo IM, ICQ or others. Windows Messenger and Yahoo finally learned to talk to each other and now Google chat can connect to your AIM buddies in Gmail. Then came services like Trillian, Pidgin and Meebo allowing people to log into multiple services from one location, even if they didn’t talk directly to each other.

Now we’re seeing the same thing with Twitter, Pownce and other social media sites. Twitter is still ahead of Pownce with number of users and posts, but a few people have switched. A lot of people have accounts on both but only check Pownce occasionally.

For now, we have a problem. Once you add in other social networking sites like LinkedIn and Facebook, things get even more complicated. I personally don’t use Facebook and LinkedIn; I do use Twitter but don’t always check Pownce every day. The point is that each person has their own preferred sites, and it can be difficult to keep track of who’s on what.

Microsoft and Yahoo came together. Google and AIM came together. The real glue that helped connect people with each other was the third party applications like Pidgin. I don’t see Pownce and Twitter coming together any time soon, but will a decent third party app come along to bridge the gap?

There’s a problem with that solution, however. Moving people away from your sites by using third party applications cuts out a lot of site-based advertising and other gimmicks. If people aren’t going to your page to use your service, you stand to lose out on revenue (if that was a goal of yours). Twitter and Pownce don’t use ads at this time, and so this point is a bit moot, but I think there may be a lesson in there somewhere.

Updating your social networking profile isn’t an easy task considering that you probably have more accounts on more sites than you can count on one hand. Keeping up with multiple socmed sites can be tedious. If you don’t keep up on several, you could miss out on interactions with friends.

Sometimes, too many choices can hinder us, and I think that’s what we’re seeing right now. The social media scene needs to consolidate and coordinate more. Functioning as part of a group rather than individuals just might produce better results for everyone involved.

Twitter vs. Pownce: the Ultimate Showdown!

Apparently some people out there haven’t quite caught on to the microblogging craze, or are a bit confused about the differences between the two. Here’s a somewhat lighthearted look at the two in a no holds barred, knock down, drag out fight.

Lets get ready to rumble!

In the light blue corner, the reigning champion - Twitter.

Twitter has been around longer and has a large userbase. The number of clients, addons, extensions, related websites and methods of access is impressive. Lately though, the champ has been stumbling, suffering from extended outages and downtime.

The various clients available for Twitter, when working, are a great alternative to the web interface. My current favorites for Windows are Snitter and Twhirl, but both can be buggy at times. There are also multiple plugins for firefox available. If that’s not your cup of tea you can get at Twitter from IM or SMS. If you’re a fan of text messaging, this can be a fun way to occupy your time while riding the subway to work.

There are a large number of websites that extend Twitter’s functionality. Tweetscan lets you easily search Twitter for tweets containing certain text. Twitter Karma helps you keep track of who is following you and who you are following. Twitterpacks help you find people with the same interests as yourself. Tweetstats reports on your usages, and there are a host of other websites as well.

Reliability is an issue with Twitter, and drives people to Pownce during the downtime. Twitter officially broke up with Joyent recently, and some of the stability issues may improve. Time will tell.

In the green corner, the cagey up and comer - Pownce

Pownce has just come out of beta and has some catching up to do with regards to the number of users. A reasonable number of people have signed up, but a majority of them don’t use it much. Activity has picked up with the recent Twitter outages, but it is still far behind.

Pownce goes beyond the realm of just text and allows you to post pictures, videos, music and other files easily. Also, it’s remarkably simpler to add links just by clicking the button, compared to the usual cut and paste then tinyurl process with Twitter. Most of the videos are just youtube viral videos, but it’s a fun way to share amusing vids with friends. The ability to share photos is very cool. I threw up a picture of my dog, but there are some gifted photographers out there who frequently share some excellent material. I personally enjoy these very much. There is a lot more creative stuff being shared around on Pownce compared to the Twitter’s pure text and links.

There are a few fan created and third party applications and extensions for Pownce, but for the most part Pownce is still in the infancy stage for this category.

One cool feature in Pownce is the ability to group friends in sets. This can be useful when your friends list starts growing and you need an easy way to sort or separate them. I wish Twitter had such a feature.

Also, if you wish, Pownce has plenty of room to provide all of your other contact information like Twitter ID, Flickr, Facebook, IM, email, blog, homepage. I find this a handy way to find people on other networks. I just go to Pownce, click their profile, and presto, all the info I need. Currently Twitter just allows one link for each user.

Pownce has a nice interface for finding friends. It can easily scan your Digg, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, GMail, Hotmail, AOLmail and Yahoo mail contacts. Twitter will only search email contacts (from the same 4).

Point by Point Comparison

Number of users/activity: Advantage Twitter, by a large margin. Pownce may slowly creep up, but Twitter has a huge head start.

Third party support, addons, and extensibility: Advantage Twitter, by a lot.

Reliability: Advantage Pownce. Twitter has been having problems lately and it’s trying people’s patience.

Accessibility: Advantage Twitter. Web, IM, Txt and local clients provide many options for getting connected.

Flexibility: Advantage Pownce. Videos, pictures, music, easy linking, and text sans the 140 character limit.

Friend Finding: Advantage Pownce. Both let you search by name, but Pownce has more options for importing from other services.

Tally

That’s 3 for Twitter and 3 for Pownce. OK, the numbers are misleading. Twitter wins, easily, if only because it’s what people are using right now.

In the end, it all boils down to what you want. If you want to share a variety of media types, you need Pownce. If you want more access options, Twitter is the way to go.

Personally, I’m still using Twitter most of the time, because that is where the action is. I also use Pownce on a daily basis and enjoy the different kinds of content that pops up there. If you into social networking and web 2.0, you should probably start using both.

Before long we’ll start seeing clients that aggregate both Pownce and Twitter, and by then there will be no reason not to enjoy the benefits of each.

-Jeff

A Look at Twitter

I recently discovered Twitter and quickly developed a fascination with it. If you aren’t familiar with it, Twitter is a web application that lets you post 140 character updates to the web. You can follow other people’s updates and others can follow yours. You can update from the web, from a local application, from a cell phone, email, or IM.

After expanding your circle of followers and followees, it becomes apparent that Twitter is a bit of a close-knit community. It quickly became apparent to me that the people I was following were following each other, and their followers were following me and I was following them etc.

One person described twitter as being “incestuous” referring to the way everyone in this family follows each other. It’s an interesting phenomenon.

What people use Twitter for varies greatly. Some people do just update what they are doing at the moment, while others use it to direct people to their latest blog posts. Many people like posting random thoughts and commenting on the random thoughts of others. It also serves as a nice IM client, sending messages to all your friends and followers who happen to be online.

Twitter is frequently hampered by technical issues and often goes down for short periods of time. As things get ironed out, I can only see more and more people using the service and think it has enormous potential in the workplace (as more than just a time-waster).

-Jeff