1. Facebook – Truly, this one is a no-brainer. One of @TheMrsThornton’s earliest downloads and still probably the most used, I’ve actually got pictures of her asleep with the app open, fingers still on the screen.

2. TweetDeck – Along the same lines as Facebook, this was an early download that she still checks constantly. Bare in mind, I do the same and even have the desktop version installed on my work machine, but hey! Its my job. She’s tried a few other twitter apps but keeps coming back to the good stuff… and have i mentioned she’s topped 550 followers? Not bad for someone who thought twitter was dumb, not six months ago.

3. Traffic Rush – While I haven’t delved into this one quite yet, it seems to be my better half’s fall back when she’s exhausted all other options. Apparently you’ve got to stall or slow down cars as they come into intersections before they crash. I think I’m more of a “watch ‘em crash” kind of guy.

4. Whrrl – This one is my fault. Business partner and location based media monster, Whrrl has a handy app that some in high places say is the next twitter. Imagine tweeting with pictures all the while being associated to a location. Now that they’ve added societies and fun facts, Whrrl is more engaging than ever. I really can’t speak much on this considering I’m checked in at home right now for my 33rd time and I’m in the founders society.

5. Words with Friends – The subject of Ben’s tweet and the most recent of offenders, this handy app seems to eat away at the attention spans of all who play it. Yes, I’ve got the app and yes I play it but nothing to the level of the ladies. Ben and I have played a few games against each other for lack of things to do while the wives were buried.

There you have it. 5 ways to lose your wife via iPhone app. Newlyweds, dodge these apps on both sides, long-timers looking for a break, I hope you took notes. Either way, these apps are functional and very entertaining. Check them out via the links provided.

oh, and all links are to facebook pages to keep from popping your iTunes with each link. You’re welcome!

Mid year, 2005 I was introduced to Joomla, then Mambo by my good friend Pat.  I was in need of an easier way to build multiple sites with user profiles and managed content among other things.  Rather than go to code school, spend 10 years practicing, then reinvent the wheel Pat suggested I try out Mambo.  The system was fairly simple to set up and use.  The bugs where well documented and the fixes weren’t typically that difficult.

To make things even better, there were thousands of developers world-wide that were active on forums for when you really hit a wall.  I took up my post in the open source world contributing to front-end development and posting fix reports to the forums I came across.  Spring turned to summer, Mambo to Joomla and tonight, almost five years later, I find myself setting up and modifying the latest version of Joomla to build a community.

I won’t bore with the technical details but I will give kudos to the developers for making the transition to Joomla 1.5 relatively intuitive and keeping the overall user experience decent.  To this point it seems that the latest versions of several of my old friends (Community Builder & Fireboard to name a few) are more stable and harder to break than previous versions.  Overall I’m pleased.

Next steps include full integration, custom user profile setup, and social media integration.  I’m also bug-checking a Facebook connect plugin that I think will complete the overnight masterpiece.  So to this point, that’s all I’ve got.  Anyone have any recent experience with these systems?

This got me thinking and I broke down and downloaded the first free news app I found. What did I learn from this new MSNBC app? Pay attention here… Absolutely Nothing I hadn’t picked up via twitter in the previous two days. Hmm… have I gone rogue? Shunning traditional media for this new wave stream of BS from biased and inconsistent sources?

No actually. I follow several of the traditionals on twitter but for the first time in our history, I’m able to check sources via crowd-sourcing. A media outlet might tell you something is going on but in most cases, it’s already gone on and they’re giving you’re their interpretation. Now we pull points of view from those on the ground, half-way around the world in real time. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it Fox News… (sorry, couldn’t hold it back any longer)

So no, none of this is breaking news. We all have at least heard about this phenomenon of real-time news gathering via social media… I only post this because it snuck up and eased my attention all the way away from my typical sources… and I’m alright with it. I wonder what’s next?

Cable is already on its way out. Apple TV and other “On Demand” systems like my beloved U-Verse are easing ahead of traditional cable purchase in my house. I’m starting to realize that I can buy episodes for a buck or even seasons of my favorite programs for $20 and enjoy myself every time I turn on the TV. At what point do we stop paying premium prices for 600 channels we don’t ever watch? When will at&t offer a VOD only package? That would do it! Rent/buy the shows you want, spend the rest of your previously $150 cable bill on “away from the boob-tube” activities.

Traditional news is dead or dying, television and radio are en route to a similar death, newspapers are moving to digital and according to Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt, the distribution distinction between TV, Radio, and the Internet will be gone by 2015 (barring the end of the world and all). Take a look! We are probably within one generation of not knowing what a paper boy is. Hell, my picture frame in my office doesn’t stay on one image for more than a couple of seconds. And somehow we’re not only ok with all this data but we’re buying in at record pace. Don’t believe me? Check to see if you mom’s on facebook yet. Mine is.

So I guess its not a matter of whether or not you’re plugged in, the question is “Are you plugged in enough?” Comments on this rant? Please? This one has had my head spinning for a few days now.

The latest round of upgrades to the system involve some user experience changes and more importantly, spam filtering upgrades allowing you to filter out posts from newly created accounts as well as those using multiple trending terms in a single post. I liked that these filters can be adjusted on a sliding scale.

Tie these filters to previously available filters for usernames and available moderation of feeds and you can make any feed suitable for the church bulletin. They’ve got more upgrades on route and Michael has even suggested customizable feed views so that when I post a link like this:

http://jaythornton000.tidytweet.com/CollectiveBias.atom

It could formatted to match my site, very cool concept, especially for setting up third party feed sites.

The long and short of TidyTweet is that it’s a powerful tool that is going to keep improving. If you have need for twitter feeds, take a look at their site. The product is great and the guys behind it are second to none.

TidyTweet is one of the latest Twitter tools to cross the feed and one of the first in a while that caught my attention. I’ve since implemented and am helping with the beta testing… for a price.

My charge was a brief interview with Michael,  lead developer of TidyTweet at Rockfish Interactive, one of the more progressive agencies I’ve come into contact with. This is what Michael had to say. ~it’s a read but worth it, trust me.

[me] Tell me about TidyTweet.

[Michael] TidyTweet was built to solve a serious problem that we personally encountered at Rockfish Interactive. At Rockfish, we build engaging websites that often include social elements such as Twitter feeds. For example, a company may want to display the last 10 tweets that mention their brand. This is a great way to engage the community and show the buzz around a product or brand. However, doing this occasionally tends to attract spammers who mention a keyword or brand just to get their tweets listed on that page. So, rather than just write an internal tool to solve our problems, we decided to build it as a product to help others in the same position.

TidyTweet is a web-based service designed to help individuals and companies create customized Twitter feeds that they can protect from inappropriate content, spam, and any other content they want to filter. Simply create an account on TidyTweet.com; create your feed using search phrases and filters; grab the RSS feed or embed code; put it on your site and you’re all set. We’re currently in a private beta testing phase and offer the following features:

• Various moderation levels such as requiring manual approval or auto-approving after a delay
• Built-in and custom inappropriate language filters
• Auto-approval of specified users
• Auto-rejection of specified users
• Customized URLs for accounts and feeds
• Multiple output formats such as ATOM, RSS, and an HTML/Javascript widget

What changes and additions are you planning?

Our next couple of features will be focused on more proactively fighting Twitter spam. Our research has shown that a large amount of Twitter spam comes from 2 sources: brand new accounts and/or accounts tweeting using hash tags of 2 or more trending topics.
New Accounts: Once Twitter realizes an account is a spammer, they will shut down the account which means that spam accounts have a limited lifespan. By automatically rejecting new accounts, we will immediately cut down on a large amount of spam.
Multiple Trending Topics: One tactic used by spammers is to include multiple trending topics in their tweets so that anyone viewing those trending topics will see their tweets. For example, “Watch movies for free online #iranElection #Michael Jackson #google”. By eliminating any tweets with multiple trending topics, we’ll be able to eliminate this type of spam.

What are your key markets?

Any users looking to include a Twitter feed on their website will benefit from TidyTweet. Users can range from casual bloggers who want to show their tweets on their blogs to large companies who want to include social elements on their sites. TidyTweet will especially help companies who want social elements but can’t afford to take on the liability of including unfiltered community-driven content on their sites.

How long have you been developing TidyTweet?

The idea for TidyTweet was first tossed around approximately 6 weeks ago. Rockfish has always been an entrepreneurial company and immediately committed to seeing the idea come to life. Six weeks later, we’re in private beta testing.

Have there been any unforeseen challenges to date?

Developing a product around Twitter and specifically Twitter spam has been both exciting and challenging due to the ever-increasing popularity of both. Twitter continues to release new features and is constantly making tweaks to their products, and spammers are constantly finding new ways to use Twitter to push their message. This means that we have to constantly stay on top of changes to Twitter and remain proactive in fighting to eliminate spam.

How might someone get in on the beta test group?

Registration is free, and our signup page can be found at http://tidytweet.com/BetaSignup.aspx. We are approving a limited number of people for the beta test group on a first come, first serve basis. However, someone who feels like they would make a good candidate for beta testing and hasn’t already been approved can send a tweet to @tidytweet mentioning this blog entry, and we’ll do the best we can to make an exception.

So there’s the long and short on TidyTweet. Even as we work through the few bugs I’ve hit, I’m supremely impressed with the usability of the tool and recommend it across the board. Look for updates from Michael and myself on twitter and don’t hesitate to contact them directly with any specific questions you might have. Here are all the ways you can get in touch with TidyTweet.

Homepage: http://tidytweet.com
Email Support: tidytweet@rockfishinteractive.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/tidytweet
Feedback forum: http://tidytweet.uservoice.com
Rockfish Interactive: http://rockfishinteractive.com

Today’s Tweak is on setting up Analytics Filters to limit out traffic from your own IP Address. Read on and please don’t hesitate to ask any questions or make comments below.

Filters:
Yeah, big numbers look good but what if you develop/redesign/tweak regularly. You end up with blog stats through the roof on those days and craters on the rest. Let’s limit out any and all traffic from the places you do the most development work from. This provides for more accurate reporting on traffic, pages per visit and time on site.

Step 1 – Identify your IP address. I typically open a command prompt and drop an IPConfig. Fear not, non-techies, this is an easy one. Click Start, Run, and type “cmd” into the blank (with no quotes). Hit enter and you’ll see a little black window open. At that prompt type this: “ipconfig /all” again, without quotes, and hit enter. Look down the list for a line that says “IP Address” and write down the number to the right of it, possibly looking something like 192.168.0.1… type exit and hit enter and the window will close.

Step 2 – Setting up your filter. Open Google Analytics and click Analytics Settings in the upper left corner of the screen under the logo. Find your website profile and click Edit to the right of the name. Roll down to Filters Applied to Profile and click + Add Filter to the right. This is where we limit out any traffic coming from the IP Address that you just wrote down in Step 1. Make sure the radio button next to Add new Filter to Profile is clicked and give the filter a name. I called mine Local Traffic. Next to Filter Type use the drop-down box and select Exclude all traffic from an IP address then enter the IP Address you wrote down from Step 1. Click Save Changes and you’re all set.

As with all Google changes they disclaim suggesting that changes could take hours but you should see the effects take place on the next day’s report. Congrats! You are officially reporting accurately without your own interference!

For the longest time there haven’t been any justifiable alternatives to this set up. DSL was sketchy at best and didn’t deliver the same up speeds as cable, even after they matched the down speeds and Dish Network screwed up the Superbowl so they would never do.

Enter AT&T’s latest attempt at taking my paycheck, U-Verse. In researching I’ve noticed a lot of good in switching but also an obvious point of little or no savings versus a comparable package from Cox. They point out that for that matching price I get receivers for each of the three bedrooms but you must remember that you NEED the receiver to get any channels, unlike with Cox, where you get basic in the rooms in which you don’t have a receiver so I guess it’s a wash if you don’t go with all three receivers.

On a marketing note there was a good and bad in my research. Let’s lead with the good. They’ve got a website called UversUsers.com that has a full on forum and they direct most of their questions from the AT&T forums to that one to be answered by the masses. Very progressive for the big old phone company. Let the satisfied customers sell the product.

The bad news, you might ask? The site had to be moved to another server because of slow response due to heavy traffic. Do you really want the company that can’t keep their stuff working right handling your data? I would think that in selling technology and data such as they do, they might make sure to dot all t’s and cross their i’s before launch, but then, that’s why I’m a marketer now and no longer an IT guy.

Either way, I’m not convinced one way or the other and I’m out for your opinion. I’ve twittered the question as well and now I’m giving you a couple more options. You can leave a comment or vote in the poll below. Help me decide! U-Verse or Cox?

[polldaddy poll=1733542]

So now the question arises of whom should you follow? Everyone is different and uses Twitter for unique reasons. I look at it as a way to connect with like-minded industry types and local social media and ad types, which means I’ve got some serious cleaning to do. Here is my cleansing strategy. It’s loose but effective.

The Sniper approach – This is where most of my casualties of followership have occurred. During the day I’ve typically got either TweetDeck or the TwitterGadget for iGoogle running. As those I follow break my cardinal rules (20 posts in a row, consistent “get 16k followers overnight” posts, etc.) I unfollow. It’s an active pursuit and you have to be monitoring but it’s better than going line-by-line on your following list.

The Time-to-Burn approach – As the title suggests, this is one of those rotting in front of the television on a rainy Sunday afternoon while the kids are napping activities. It’s also recommended that you have a movie you’ve seen a million times running in the background. All you do is open your following list and scan down the list, line-by-line, page-by-page, unfollowing any and all that appear to be spammers. They’re usually easy to find. Usernames like @12kfromtwitter or @asdfjhsaduew (names are made up, but you get the point) are a dead give away.

The Anti-Social Networking approach – are you the victim of your own early naivety? You’re following any and everyone from an early attempt to gain followers and now you miss the few and far between messages from the 6 people you actually want to hear from every day? Maybe you need a clean slate. While I don’t recommend it, there are tools out there that will let you unfollow everyone on your list. Take a look at the Mutuality tool from Huitter (http://www.huitter.com/mutuality/). This tool will allow you to unfollow everyone on your list, those who don’t follow you, and even make sure you’re following everyone who’s following you (not recommended). The trick here is to view the report upon completion and re-follow those you actually wanted to keep hearing from.

These are just a few ideas on maintaining a healthy network on Twitter. I find twitter infinitely more enjoyable with a well groomed following list. Remember, twitter is like proper diet, Garbage in = Garbage out. Get focused and you’ve got yourself a powerful tool.