Twitter List Feature - What is it ?

Twitter is about to show off the list feature. In short it can be said as a simple alternative to Suggested User List feature. To make it more simple, the List feature in Twitter will help you to your followers into certain categories. The idea is to allow people to curate lists of Twitter accounts. Lets know this new list feature of twitter in detail.

I think there wont be any one who doesn't know what are categories. You can create categories for your followers using this list feature. To make things more clear here is an example. You can create a list like favorite friends, celebrities, bloggers, geeks etc.

These lists you create will be set for public viewing by default, but you can also set it to private if you dont want certain lists to be viewed by the public.
Other people can now follow these categories or lists you have created.



If the lists you have created is set to public, then other users can see a "Follow this List" button in it, so that they can follow this list too. And if the list are private they wont see the "Follow this List" button.

If your question is how this list feature can perform? Lists have the potential to be an important new discovery mechanism for great tweets and accounts.
With in a few days the platform tea will give out information on the Lists API. So the developers can add this list feature in your favorite twitter Applications too.

Post to Twitter through Desktop Application / Update Twitter Status From Desktop

There are many twitter desktop applications available on the net that will help to post to twitter directly from your desktop. Usually we post to twitter / Update twitter status from the Twitter website. It is very easy to post to twitter when we are browsing. But when no browsers are opened up and we need to update our twitter status quickly, then it becomes a pain. So here is a desktop application for twitter that will help you to post to twitter/ update your twitter status right from your desktop.

Almost all the twitter clients for desktop have similar features. Twhirl is one of the best twitter client around.
Twhirl stands out from most of the twitter clients for desktop, because it supports both Windows and Mac OS X operating systems. So almost all internet users can use Twhirl. This is because Twhirl uses the Adobe AIR platform.
With this wonderful twitter client, desktop tweeting will be very easy and you need not open any web browser to update your twitter status or for posting your updates to twitter.

Some of the Features of Twhirl - Twitter Desktop Application

• Twhirl can connect you with multiple Twitter accounts and also supports laconi.ca, Friendfeed and Seesmic accounts.


• You dont need to bother any more shortening big urls for twitter. Twhirl can Shorten long URLs (using digg.com, bit.ly, snurl, twurl or is.gd)


• You will be notified when new messages arrive.


• You can also post to various other socail networking sites aprt from twitter, like Jaiku, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and more via Ping.fm


• Post images to TwitPic


• Search tweets using Twitter Search and TweetScan, and follow topics in near-real time with saved searches


• automatically find tweets mentioning your @username

Screen Shot of Twhirl - Twitter Desktop Application

There are many other features too.
When you hover the mouse cursor over your twitter friends avatar, options will be displayed like Retweet, direct messages, favorite , replies.

Download Twhirl

How To Avoid Getting Banned on Twitter - 10 Useful Tips

Twitter has gained a magical ability to bestow credibility and relevance upon any one who uses it. Due to the growing trend twitter has almost a million users. So they too finds it to manage the same. Hence, we need to use twitter with some caveat. Recently one of my friend got banned on twitter. Till then i didn’t knew that twitter too bans its users whom it finds as a spammer. Once twitter find you as a spammer the very next you are banned. Since majority of the people uses twitter well,  they find it difficult to admit when they come to know that they are banned from the twitter world. This is just an embarrassing situation. Here are 10 Tips that will help you to avoid getting banned from twitter.

1. Avoid Mass Follow : The first thing that might run into our mind when we join twitter is about the number of followers. Some of twitter users express a desire to get a mass number of followers in a short time. For that they try to follow as many people as possible in the hope of getting a follow back. When this follow process in twitter gets into an unusual way (following some 600 people a day – don’t get surprised this actually was a case with one of my best friends) twitter consider you as a spam and bans you from it. So don’t do  a mass follow and risk your twitter account. Follow people only if you find them worth.


2. Forget the Twitter Auto Follow Sites : Some websites promise you a huge number of followers in your twitter account in a short period. When you reach 2000 followers in twitter your account will be noticed for any spam behaviour.These sites are of no use and put your twitter account into risk by putting spam updates into your account and like wise. Never join any of these sites.


3. Avoid Duplicate Tweets with Multiple Twitter Accounts : For some or other reason people create multiple accounts on twitter . But keep in mind that posting same updates in multiple twitter accounts of yours will make twitter ban you easily. What ever be the reason you must never post the same updates in your account to another account of yours. When the updates consist mainly of links and not personal updates, there is a chance to get marked as spam and get banned from twitter.


4. Following Act : This point is mentioned in twitter policy. Following and unfollowing the same people repeatedly, as well as following and unfollowing those who don’t follow back, are both violations of our terms of service. So never do this.


5. Utilize DM the right way : Many twitter users these days send DMs (Direct Messages) to other twitter accounts. Sending personal Direct Messages are good but things go worse when you use DM the wrong way i.e. for promotional offers, advertising purpose etc. When people finds them annoying and they reports this to twitter which might soon get your twitter account to be added in the banned list.


6. Avoid Duplicate Tweets on Same Account: Think before Retweeting any tweets since you might have tweeted that already before. Like in step 3 Posting the same update again and again in your same twitter account will make twitter find you as a spammer and Ban you.


7.  Avoid the Hash Tags : Limit using too many # hash tags in your updates. You many use it since it helps but limit the number. Use it wisely.


8. Block the Spammers : As i said before having connection with any spammers will risk your twitter account to get banned. So when ever you find any body suspicious or as a spammer block them or unfollow them.


9. Don’t use Auto DM Tools : Some people use these Auto DM tools for marketing purpose like promoting their product through DM etc. Never Use the Auto DM tools. When people get irritated by these Auto DM’s (Direct Messages) they report them as spam which might risk your twitter account to ban.


10. Avoid Autofollow Tools: Twitter will ban you if it finds your twitter account have any relation with spammers. There are many tools for twitter that will help you to autofollow people. Never use them because you might be following spammers. So when ever you follow people spend some time to check whether they are good ones or not. Else that might end up in getting your Account Banned From twitter.

Now its your turn if you have any good suggestions or tips don’t wait comment them below.

Add a Floating Follow Me/US on Twitter Button To Your Website Easily

Most of the twitter users show their power by the number of followers they have. So its essential to get a good number of twitter followers if you want to become a power twitter user. Many websites out there put a small twitter icon, or a follow me on twitter statement near to their subscription button in their website to get followers. But actually these things go unnoticed for most of the visitors. So creating a floating Follow me/us on Twitter button in your website will surely grab viewers attention. (Each and Every visitor to your site will notice it for sure).

When i was looking for this i came across a website called Go2Web20  which gives the same. But it had many negatives. The most weird thing i found that it is based on JavaScript, so if a visitor with JavaScript disabled on his/her browser  visits the site then its of no use. Secondly it does not work on Internet Explorer (Still most of the people use IE). So i needed an alternative for this.

I found it easier to implement the same Twitter Follow floating button with the help of CSS. So, Here is a Simple way to

Add a Floating Twitter Follow Me/US Button to your website

The advantages of this method are :

It is compatible with all browsers.

It doesn’t use JavaScript at all. 

Add this CSS code to your Website First.

#twitter-follow { border: 0;position: fixed;  top: 200px; right:0;}

(Blogger users should add this before ]]></b:skin> in your template)

In the above code top: 200px; the distance from the top you can adjust it to suit your website.

Now add the following code to your Website. (For blogger users add the code in your template just after the <body> tag)

<div id="twitter-follow"> <a href="http://twitter.com/amalroy"><img src="http://img2.pict.com/91/e8/71/1279044/0/twitterfollowme.png" alt="Follow Me on Twitter" /></a> </div>

Replace my name with yours. Also if you need the image to be shown on left side just replace right:0; in the css code with  left:0;

You can replace “http://img2.pict.com/91/e8/71/1279044/0/twitterfollowme.png” with your own twitter Follow Me/US image if you want.

And here is the link for Twitter Follow US button.
http://img2.pict.com/ad/29/8b/1279120/0/twitterfollowme.png

You will now have a Twitter Follow Me button in your website similar to mine.

If you have any doubts regarding this comment it down.

Automatically Follow your twitter Followers with Tweet later

Most of the twitter users follow back the people who follows them. Getting two or three twitter followers daily wont be a problem to you when you need to follow them back. But what if you get hundreds of followers? It will be very hard to follow each and every one of them. So how about following your twitter followers automatically? If you are looking for something like that then Tweet later is for you.

Tweet later is a feature rich tool that not only help you to Auto Follow the people who follow you on twitter, but it has many other useful options. With Tweet Later you can…

• Track keywords on twitter



• Send Direct messages to your twitter followers easily at once



• Upload and Schedule tweets for future



• Add as many twitter accounts at once



• Ability to Auto Follow your twitter followers



• Automatically Unfollow your titter followers and more..

How to Automatically Follow Your Twitter users using Tweet Later

First you need to have an account in Tweetlater in order to enjoy this features. Don’t worry it is free.

So after creating an account at tweetlater go to “Add Account” section.

You will be presented with so many options in there. Among them you will see an option called Auto Follow the people who follow you and that's it.

Go to Tweetlater's website