Popular Science “experts” get everything wrong about Twitter
I actually saw this post while following fuelfrog. Since they might change it, I wanted to preserve the text as is. And yes, they put a hard enter before every link. Since they didn’t link to subpages, I just won’t bother to a href them.
What Can I Do With Twitter?
Our experts geek out on your toughest questionsTo the unconverted, Twitter is just a way to deliver mundane details of your life to many friends at once. The free service(
Twitter.com) is a social-networking site in which you post updates, or “tweets,” to a page where friends who “follow” you can view them. But since it lets users post and receive tweets via text messages, it’s actually a powerful platform for getting things done on the go.To receive breaking news updates from cnn.com, for example, just follow Twitter user “cnnbrk.” Or send a message (“move car 30”) to user “timer,” and it will text back a reminder in the time you specify. Other functions are available through third-party sites: Enter your favorite RSS feeds on
TwitterFeed.com, and you’ll get a text whenever the feed is updated. Send the mileage, price and gallons to
fuelfrog.com each time you fill up your tank, and it will chart your fuel-efficiency trends. With i-Link home-automation software, it’s even possible to use tweets to turn on lights or open the curtains remotely (get details at
hacknmod.com).Dive in at
twitter.com to find more useful tricks. Of course, you can still let everyone know that you’re thinking tacos for lunch.
My response (posted via the wonders of bugmenot)
I found out about this post because I follow @fuelfrog. I found out about fuelfrog before I found out about @mymm (my mile marker). Not only does My Mile Marker know how to do subtraction (with fuel frog, you need to know the number of miles you drove since you last filled up, with My Mile Marker, you input your odometer readout), but it also makes multiple graphs, predicts how much you’ll spend in a year, keeps track of oil changes and the affect it has on your mileage, and just plain works better than fuel frog.
So, add mymilemarker.com to your list, it’s a great alternative to fuelfrog. And it can do math.
Also, Twitterfeed is totally different than you describe. You say it’s a way to get texts for RSS feeds (there are actual services that do just that, surprisingly), when in fact it’s a way to take posts from an RSS feed like @cnnbrk (for CNN Breaking News), @firefox_queries (for the latest support requests for Firefox) or @TheDailyWTF (for computer humor) and create a twitter account other people can follow that’s fed by that feed. Most people just use it to have their twitter account updated whenever they create a new blog post.
You even got @timer wrong, you need to first follow timer (it sends direct messages, and you can only receive those from people you follow), and you need to put the number of minutes before the message, not after.
John, I’m not trying to be rude, but it’s like you purposefully got everything as wrong as possible when writing this article. Do a little more research next time.
Sigh.
