photo credit: Glenn Batuyong
The Problem: Twitter Rations
I loves me some Twitter, I do. But herein lies a problem: I’m finding that having Twitter open while grinding away at the day job isn’t really viable. Y’all are just too distracting. The conversation is bad enough, but then there’s the fascinating links you fine people send on, that inevitable see me skimming articles then realising I’ve just lost fifteen minutes.
Goddamn you all.
There’s a second level to this, as well. As I get further into voice work, it’s important for me to be visible and responsive on Twitter, rather than just throwing tweets into the ether. This puts me into a space I imagine that a number of you are in already, and I know Catherine’s been in in the past. You’ve got the day job, which needs to be looked after, because it pays the bills. And then you’ve got the work you love, and chances are there’s a lot of conversation around that on Twitter.
While there are points in the day where I catch up with Twitter via the deliciousness of Tweetdeck, when I’m on Twitter Rations the problem boils down to this for me:
Enter The Tweetymail
In short, Tweetymail rocks. It’s made managing Twitter while on Twitter Rations so much easier, by pushing all of your Twitter interactions to your email client. You register one or more email addresses with your Tweetymail account, and then you receive alerts of new Twitter activity via email. New follows, direct messages, mentions, and keyword searches all come straight to your email client.
Here’s a shortlist of the features I’ve found super-valuable:
Email notification when someone mentions you
Every time you’re mentioned on Twitter, you get an email with the full text of the tweet, and handy links to reply or retweet that tweet, or forward it as an email. If you’ve been popular and there’s been several mentions since Tweetymail last checked, you’ll get several tweets together. Here’s an example email:
A mentions email inside Gmail
Far and away, this is the biggest benefit to me. You set it up in Tweetymail via a ‘mentions alert’, and as long as I’m reading email regularly, when my name is invoked I will appear like a swarthy ifrit of legend and reply.
Responding to a tweet via email
No matter whether you’re getting a tweet emailed because you’ve been mentioned, or because you’ve set up a search for certain keywords (which Tweetymail supports very easily) every tweet that comes in via email. Because of those three links in every emailed tweet, no matter whether you’re getting it via a mentions alert, or via a search for certain keywords.
Click the relevant link, and you get a new email message opened. In Gmail, it looks kinda like this:
Replying to a tweet
That makes any action in Twitter possible with two clicks in your email client, which isn’t bad at all.
Tweeting via email
Sending a new tweet is even easier than replying to a tweet via email. It’s done by sending an email to tweet@tweetymail.com from one of your registered addresses.
Those are the core features that sold me on Tweetymail. Now, I’m a a believer (I couldn’t leave her / if I tried) The public beta is over, but you can try the full features of Tweetymail free for a month, and subscription is pretty cheap at $2.99 US per month for full access. Anil Chawla, the developer (@anilchawla on Twitter) is super-responsive, and started a conversation with me on Twitter to clarify my confusion around the limits set in the subscription models after I mentioned Tweetymail. (I’m glad he did, too, or I wouldn’t have signed up)
If your curiosity is peaked, I won’t take poorly if you go check out Tweetymail now. I’ll be here when you get back.
All of this is just scratching the surface of Tweetymail. There’s a host of other features available as well that make managing Twitter easier, including scheduling (which admittedly I don’t have a use for yet myself) Here’s a few more useful features, to my mind. You can also check out the full user guide for more info.
Getting search results via email
Just like the emails you get when you’re mentioned, you can also get results for specific searches, batched up with 20-50 results per email. (you specify how many updates you want between those boundaries) This is a great way to keep a record over time of something you’re interested in, whether it’s a hashtag game, an event hashtag, or just a particular term. (I’ve got a regular search on ‘voice over’ running myself)
Making blocking easier
One thing I’m lousy with is blocking dodgy users – spambots, SEO MARKETING GURUS, or cheap shills for porn websites. One of the great things that Tweety mail does is enhance the regular emails you get for new followers or direct messages by replacing the contact email address you give Twitter with an account-specific email address that Tweetymail gives you. Here’s an example of a new follower notification:
gilydjk is absolutely a Real Human (click for larger image)
It gives you great context on the kind of user who is following you, with their most recent tweets. It also gives you easy one-click emails to send to follow the new user, or more importantly, block them. Guess which one I did with dear gilydjk? It’s nothing you couldn’t do yourself, but it’s just that little bit easier.
Retrying failed tweets
This is one area where the usability really shines. If you send a tweet that’s too long, rather than just getting a ‘tweet failed’ response, you get an email that looks like this:
Out by one lousy character! (click for larger)
It tells you how long your tweet actually was, and gives you an easy link to create a new email containing the old text, so you can trim it down quickly. Now, admittedly you’d get that correct out of the gate with a client like Twhirl or Tweetdeck, but it’s well-thought out functionality for an email cient that makes things just that little bit easier.
So that’s what I’m finding great about Tweetymail so far. Let me know if you’ve got any questions in the comments about the product. Also, I’d love to hear how you’re making managing Twitter easier yourself! Share your most august wisdom in the comments.