mark.bockenstedt.net » Search http://mark.bockenstedt.net Tech Tips, How-To's, and Miscellaneous Geekery Tue, 19 May 2009 03:05:39 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 Twitter Search Tips http://mark.bockenstedt.net/2008/09/03/twitter-search-tips/ http://mark.bockenstedt.net/2008/09/03/twitter-search-tips/#comments Wed, 03 Sep 2008 21:15:18 +0000 Mark http://mark.bockenstedt.net/?p=379 Everyone knows that search.twitter.com (formerly Summize) is a great way to aggregate or find tweets with certain criteria. Here’s a few more tricks that will help you narrow your search results:

  1. Use a boolean: searching Obama OR McCain will give you results containing either of those keywords. String them together as you like (Gustav OR Josephine OR Ike). If you want tweets about Obama but not McCain, search Obama -McCain.
  2. Phrase queries: If you’re trying to string together multiple words, wrap them in quotation marks (“is down” vs is down) to match that exact phrase.
  3. Use hashtags to follow topics: If you’re wanting to follow a topic that’s also a common word (#fail vs fail), be sure to include the hash sign (#) to limit your results to the topic you’re looking for.
  4. Find updates with a word and emoticons: This one isn’t so much useful as it is just neat. Try searching panda :( and you’ll find a bunch of sad pandas. Or, use panda :) to find happy pandas.
  5. Use link filters: Try using filter:links to find tweets with links in it. For example dmtweetup filter:links retrieves all tweets with the word dmtweetup that contain links.
  6. Geographical searching: Use the keywords near and within to find tweets near a geographical location. near:”Des Moines” within:30mi fetches tweets made from a 30 mile radius around Des Moines. Go ahead and add a keyword to really hone in your area. For the rest of the world, substitute mi with km.
  7. Find tweets to/from a user: from: and to: are great for getting tweets sent from and to a user. You can also search @chewbocka to find anything that references that user, since Twitter doesn’t consider a reply to be anything but tweets where the name is first (ie @alice @bob isn’t a reply to bob)
  8. Make searches time sensitive: to limit results to a certain timeframe, either since A and/or before B, use the operators since: and until:. Format the dates as YYYY-MM-DD and you can limit tweets to just September 2.

Searches are case insensitive, so don’t worry about how you type it – just be sure to spell it correctly.

Got other neat search tricks? Leave them in the comments for everyone to enjoy.

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]]> http://mark.bockenstedt.net/2008/09/03/twitter-search-tips/feed/ 0 Tweenky Gives TweetDeck Some Competition http://mark.bockenstedt.net/2008/09/03/tweenky-gives-tweetdeck-some-competition/ http://mark.bockenstedt.net/2008/09/03/tweenky-gives-tweetdeck-some-competition/#comments Wed, 03 Sep 2008 14:00:37 +0000 Mark http://mark.bockenstedt.net/?p=375 I was tipped off by @microblink last night to a new third-party Twitter service called Tweenky. I was quick to jump onboard with the service knowing nothing about it. After the last few lackluster services I reviewed, I was taking a shot in the dark that this service would be something worthy of reviewing. I have to say, I was not disappointed.

Tweenky has nearly everything I’m looking for in a good Twitter client (post about that to come later this week). It also supports the social network Identi.ca, though it’s kind of auxiliary to the main purpose. Coincidentally, all Twitter features work in Identi.ca too. Rest assured I’ll have a full-fledged review of this site worthy of my reviewing time to come also. But for now, enjoy some screenshots…

Main UI

Fetching Tweets

Fetching Tweets

Search Results

Showing Folder Options

There are a few highlights I’d like to point out:

  • Searching is so easy, it’s foolish not to use it. I preferred to add my searches to Quick Links so they showed up in their own pane. There’s also folder view, but I’m all about concise.
  • Shows hot topics on Twitter (some users are certainly interested in this)
  • Ability to switch views (timeline, replies, your tweets, etc). No direct message reading yet though.
  • The service auto updates and colors certain tweets according to their status as read
  • Colors your tweets a soothing shade of green
  • Did I mention that searching fricken’ rocks?
  • Since it’s a web app (part good, part bad) you only have to set it up once. I’m going to enjoy hitting the site from other locations with my preferences saved.

Updated: Just to clarify the title, comparing Tweenky with TweetDeck is not entirely a fair comparison as the realms of use are entirely different (web-based vs AIR). The competition comes from the features each employs and the user experience that comes from the apps.

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