Advocate's Studio

For the last week or so, I have been playing on Google Wave. I can now provide at least an introduction to a hands-on account of it for Studio readers. (Thanks Carlos!) My initial impression is that it is an engaging mash-up of email, chat, wiki and collaborative tool. While it has aspects of each, Google Wave is most definitely its own animal.

The main screen approximates an email inbox, but that is pretty much where the similarity ends. If all boxes are open, you can see an inbox-like organization at the top left, called Navigation, with familiar categories, such as inbox and trash. You can see all of your inbox or only waves started by you. Bottom left shows contacts. Middle window shows the waves in which you are participating and far right shows the individual wave you select to view. If you commence a wave, it also shows in the far right column.

As you can see from the screenshot, the inbox can look a bit overwhelming. But there are many ways to manipulate it and focus on the content you are interested in. Green-backed numbers show waves with unread information. Clicking on that wave brings you into the portion where the new information is located. Waves are not time/linear in aspect, but instead appear like conversational branches – responses to individual comments attach at the comment. There can be more recent entries showing at any point in a wave.

You can minimize any of these boxes, and bring them back up when you so desire.

For me, the single coolest feature of Wave is the ability to “extensify” your wave experience. Much like adding gadgets to the Firefox browser to customize your browsing experience, you can add gadgets, robots and extensions to the waves to modify the wave experience. The list of gadgets is growing. I have used the map gadget and I recently signed up with 6rounds so that I can use their video chat gadget (will report back on that one as well – the 6rounds site is a pleasure to play around with).

The downside is that gadget implementation is not as seamlessly easy as found in other venues or on other sites. You must add gadget URLs and/or include the robot as a wave participant from your inbox in each wave you create or edit.

I know many have complained about Wave’s complexity. It is, in fact, complex compared to other on-line applications. However, I am convinced the complexity can be overcome with experience (if I can figure it out, anyone can). I also see loads of potential here: it is a great means of targeting a group of contacts and collaborating on a plan, document, or strategy. I also think it could change the way we communicate on-line, if enough people are willing to invest the time and energy to learn the ins and outs of it.

It helps to bear in mind that it is in closed beta right now for a reason. There are bugs and glitches to be expected and it is fair to anticipate Google will improve it during this process. I found that downloading a developers version of Chrome and adding Google Gears helped with some of the bugginess.

I also imagine that Google and third party developers will look for ways to address the many concerns raised by users over the last few weeks and, maybe, even simplify the Wave experience for the masses before public launch.

Overall, I am impressed with what I have seen and I have not yet been put off by the bugginess. I recommend that anyone able to secure entry into the Wave beta give it a try. At the very least, you could get involved in  the process of helping Google craft a promising communications platform that might actually make our jobs that much easier to perform in the long run.

LauraKGibbs on Flickr

If you are reading this blog, chances are you are somewhat familiar with the social aspects of the web. We look on-line for all sorts of reasons – community building, promotion, news, research – the list goes on and on. I think my listed reasons are pretty compelling in varying degrees for most people.

How do you feel about the possibility of combining these purposes when searching out applications to assist you in negotiating the Web? I am not talking about the “hunt and peck” method required for sussing out information on Twitter or the other more general purpose social sites and aggregators or running searches in your favorite engines. I am talking about “one stop shopping” sites that combine social community with reviews and recommendations on specific tools.

The Web is moving towards specialization and some sites are taking full advantage of that trend. There are two I will highlight here, and one I will briefly mention as it is unfortunately down for revamping at the moment.

First, consider oneforty, a recent invite-only site dedicated to providing a forum for twitter applications. There are hundreds of applications that touch on or fully incorporate Twitter. Oneforty seeks to organize, highlight, provide ratings for and promote these applications through the input of the community of members on the site. Calling it a directory is too simplistic, as it offers community feedback and even “App Store”-like tendencies. Users can search for, rate and purchase applications (if they have  cost associated with them – many are free). Your Twitter persona is your oneforty persona. Ultimately, oneforty may well become a forum between developers and users, which should enhance user’s ability to find the right apps and affect their future development. While it is in private beta, you can request an invitation at the site here. Follow oneforty on Twitter here.

Next, check out Appolicious, a similar venue for iPhone applications. Ever try finding apps through the App Store interface? By joining the site and loading up your applications, Appolicious will make recommendations for you. Appolicious will also make general recommendations based on its own app preferences. You also can load your friends into Appolicious and receive recommendations from them. You can also turn to the Appolicious community user base for their recommendations. Searching a specific application will bring you to reviews. You can view the day’s top stories about apps, and a real time stream of users comments about apps. While it may sound a bit overwhelming, it would be difficult not to get all the info on a particular app on Appolicious from trusted sources. Follow Appolicious on Twitter here.

Another site, Unwrapp, combined similar elements but encompassed all sorts of applications and tools. Unfortunately, a trip to their site showed that it is being worked on – hopefully it will return soon.

Like oneforty, Appolicious combines social activity with information gathering on the specific topic of iPhone (or Twitter) applications. Who better to turn to than a community of experts or friends? I am impressed with this trend of community-based information sharing, and can only see this model growing in popularity on the social Web.

Following the introduction (and controversy) regarding iPhone Twitter client Tweetie 2 over the past several days, I thought I might share my own personal thoughts, feelings and preferences regarding my Twitter-interaction (contraction: twitter’action).

For, to best experience Twitter, especially when one has a large number of follows, one must consider using different tools for different jobs.

Louis Gray, whose own post on the subject inspired my post here, outlines why different clients work best for different uses.

First, consider the problems. Twitter, on its own, is a massive flood of sound-bites, bereft of organization, management or discipline. Twitter as a service is only now considering embedding some of the features that users have organically adopted and third party apps have made their mark with. First: how do you locate and attend to the information of interest? Next: how do you interact with that information, from following links to media to resharing it, from responding in the public time-line to engaging in one-on-one communications? Then: how do you take that information with you and access it on-the-go? Without even considering directories, analytics, fancy search functionality, bookmarklets, and other high-level applications, there are many options for managing Twitter and making it work for you.

Ultimately, your own preferences will dictate the services to which you regularly gravitate. Let me share the ones I use for Twitter’action. I am not including in this post the ways that I share into Twitter from outside of it. These are the apps I use for reading and interacting inside Twitter itself.

As a matter of background, I have tried most of the services available on my computer and several of the services available on iPhone, so please bear that in mind. Historically, I have tended to try services and then, after a while, gravitate back to the Twitter web because I value simplicity in my social web interactions.

Right now, though, I find that I am consistently using Brizzly for my web-based interaction with Twitter. Brizzly is a new service, still in beta, that incorporates many of the features users would like to see: multiple accounts; groups; autocomplete of contact names; an IM-like direct message box; a mute button(!); in-line media, including pictures and videos; a URL expander; a list of trending topics with explanations as to why (and some are pretty darn funny); saved searches; and, an endless page. Brizzly auto-refreshes the page without manual updates too.

Why are these features great? I love being able to switch with a single button between my Twitter accounts. I love being able to see pictures and videos in the line of tweets, without having to actually click on a link to get to them. I love being able to group my favorite twitter follows and quickly hone in on their information. I like to see my DM conversations in a stream. I like to be able to see the trends (without having to actually search and find them) and learn why they are trends without having to read the stream. And I like the auto-refresh – no more reloading every few minutes! While I haven’t used the “mute” feature (removes tweets from a particular user from the stream), I can imagine doing so.

I have become disenchanted with desktop clients – they tend to bog down my computer with extra processes and require me to manage multiple windows. For my time and money (free!), Brizzly is my hands-down favorite Twitter interface on my desktop and laptop. Brizzly is in closed beta, but I have a few invites left. If you would like one, please leave your email in the comments or send your email to me (check my contact page) and I will send one along.

The other piece of the puzzle for me is mobile Twitter. I find that I spend more time gazing at the stream during moments of down time while I am out and about. I use an iPhone, so my experience is limited to iPhone Twitter applications. I have used several of them, and I have now paired them down to two, with one add-on for push notification.

My main Twitter app has been Tweetie, and is now Tweetie 2 ($2.99 in the App Store). Yes, I paid for both versions. Yes, I think it is worth it and have no qualms about sending a little more money to this developer. Tweetie offers a great many features – it returns you to the same place in the stream where you left off; it offers messaging and reply indicators; it has a clever reloading mechanism (simply scroll up to trigger a reload); it incorporates third-party applications Follow Cost, Tweet Blocker and Favstar.fm; it provides live search with filtering; it has added tweeting options (when you hit the character count indicator); it includes a draft manager for saving and tweeting later; it has added new options revealed when you swipe tweets to the right (a feature from Tweetie 1); it allows controls over SMS notifications; it syncs saved searches from the Twitter web; it is able to create iPhone contacts from Twitter profiles; it works in landscape mode; and, it shows conversations in threaded format.

Why do I like these features? Returning me to my place helps me to ensure I haven’t missed a beat. Scroll/reload speeds up my Twitter reading. The added applications, particularly Favstar.fm, allow me to manage how people view my own Twitter contributions from right within the Tweetie application. More tweet features makes it easier for me to share media through Tweetie, taking full advantage of the iPhone still and video camera, and facilitates link sharing. Landscape mode, a necessity for my worsening eyesight, makes tweets easier to read. Threaded conversations are a must if you are engage in a lengthy one-on-one conversation (yes, they DO happen occasionally on Twitter).

But there are two features missing from Tweetie that require me to turn to two other applications: groups and push notifications. When I want to focus on a particular group of Twitter follows, I use Tweetdeck for iPhone (free). Group reading is pretty much the only reason I would use Tweetdeck rather than Tweetie, but it remains a compelling one. For push notifications of retweets, mentions and direct messages, I use Boxcar ($2.99 for one service, .99 cents for each additional service). My one service is Twitter, but you can use Boxcar to push your Facebook updates and email as well. It works very well – I can get push notifications from Boxcar in places where I have insufficient signal to get a phone call or text message.

As Louis Gray points out in his post, no single service is available on all platforms: desktop, Web and iPhone. So, if you are interested in having full-featured access to Twitter, you really have to consider employing more than one application. The endorsements of Brizzly, Tweetie 2, Tweetdeck, and Boxcar in this post are based entirely on my own experiences. I encourage you to check them out and see if they fit your purposes and meet your needs. Also, please feel free to post your own favorites (and why they are) in the comments below.

LSNTAP offers up a fantastic slide show of Fifty Tech Tips for Tough Economic Times. The hefty presentation is filled with free and open-source tools and tips on how to make the most of them in your law practice. And these tips are only for the month of July! Download the PowerPoint and sit back and learn a few things you may not have already known about some of your favorites, as well as some new options.

Spreading the writing wealth of the Studio across the internet, Huliq News has posted a guest post of mine entitled “Hey Mr. IT Guy, Where’s My iPhone?” in its Technology News section. Check it out over there, and feel free to leave comments or feedback right here. Happy Reading!