The idea of Twimbow arrived after having realized all the precious time I was wasting on Twitter due to the lack of tools that could really help me getting the most out of this great social media platform.
Most Twitter users would definitely agree on this point: Twitter is a wonderful service, many users are addicted to it and use it everyday, but sometimes it is very difficult to keep track on what's going on and stay in touch with your favorite “tweeps”. Let's face it, time is limited and it is crucial for everyone to use tools that let you optimize the amount of time spent on Twitter and social media. Moreover, as a “consumption” platform, you would love to read as much content as you want without loosing focus and organize it, eventually, for future reference.
This is where Twimbow comes into help (the original idea came from my personal need to save time when using social media). Twimbow is a web based social media hub, very different from any other similar service around, that helps you organize your online conversations and keep track of what is really important for you. It helps you avoid “noise”, saving time and getting the most out of your Twitter friends.
Here are five ways Twimbow can help you organize your Twitter Experience.
1) Color Labels
On Twimbow, you can assign Gmail-like color labels to users. Unlike Twitter lists (that you can use on Twimbow, as well), color labels lets you quickly identify a user or a group of users among the others and quickly filter them in / out in your timeline.
By default, there are three labels: family, friends, coworkers.
If you want to create a new label, click on the rainbow-colored icon on the top-left corner of the central column (home buzz) and click on “new label”. Then you can choose the name and the color.
Alternatively, click on the grey vertical icon on the left of a tweet sent by a contact you want to assign a label to and a. choose the color label b. click on “Add / Modify Labels”.
If you want to quickly check which users belong to a certain label, just click again on the labels icon on the top-left corner of the home buzz and click on the body-shaped icon on the label. The users belonging to that label will be shown.
Last but not least, you can check / uncheck colors in the central column to show/hide those users. Bonus tip: Want to mute certain users? Assign a color to them and uncheck it 😉
2) Twimbow Monitor
Unlike other similar services, Twimbow doesn't let you create more than three columns. Everything else you want to keep track of (keywords, users, tags, lists) go to the Monitor. The Monitor is the area at the bottom of the main user interface. Open it by clicking on the “Up” arrow on the left and start adding stuff. What can you add? You can add any word, tag, combination of words, advanced search phrases, lists.
Examples you can try on the Twimbow Monitor:
- red –> you get realtime notifications for any mention of “red”
- red OR blue –> you get realtime notifications for any mention of “red” or “blue”, in the same monitor
- red AND blue –> you get realtime notifications for any mention of “red” and “blue”, in the same tweet
- @[user] –> you get realtime notifications for any tweet sent by @[user]
- @[user/listname] -> you can keep an eye on the list called “listname” created by @[user]
- #tagname -> you get realtime notifications for any mention of “red”
3) Schedule Tweets
4) Focus on news
Twitter is a great way to come across interesting news, but the problem is that you should jump to other tabs to read them. On Twimbow, you can use the “Reader”. It lets you click on an link and read it from within Twimbow, in a “magazine-like” format.
5) Filter everything!
Twimbow provides users with a very powerful filter engine that lets you filter out everything you don't like from your timeline. This is a great way to avoid stuff you don't like (example: Foursquare checkins, Paper.li “daily summaries”, tweets about certain subjects and so on). Just open the settings pane and add any filter you want. In the example below, I added “became the mayor of”, “checked in”, “4sq.com” to filter every tweet related to Foursquare checkins.
There are actually many more features that will make you stick with Twimbow as your main way to stay in touch with the Twittersphere. Want to discover more? Just check the Twimbow blog, very useful tips and tricks over there. Please let me know if Twimbow is helping you get the most out of Twitter in the comments below…and if you want to know more, feel free to send me a tweet @filos 😉