This is hilarious! Don’t let the title mislead you-it’s humor.

For the past few days I have been trying the Power Twitter Add-On for Firefox. While I noted a bug early on with some truncating of tweets, this bug appears to have been fixed with an updated released yesterday. Overall, I have been very pleased with this enhancement for the web-based version of Twitter.

Below are some screen shots of the expanded capability found in the Power Twitter add-on.

1. Expanded Search Options: Power Twitter adds a search box to your profile page and feeds. On the profile page, it allows users to search Twitter entirely, or the user’s updates only.

Search Box-Profile Page

On the feed page there is a search box also-but it doesn’t break it down by user.

Search Box from Feed

2. Expansion of YouTube, Flickr, and TwitPic links inline with stream. Below is a YouTube video that is appearing right within the stream-it can be viewed without going to the linked site.

You Tube movie display in Twitter Feed

This is a TwitPic expanded within the stream.

TwitPic Response in Feed

3. Link expansion within stream. Power Twitter will expand links (in most cases) to show the title of the website, such as shown below.

Link Expansion in Feed

4. Re-Tweet link for URL’s. There is a new enhancement just added that shows an “RT” before a link, that can be clicked to insert the link automatically into a new tweet.

Re-Tweet Link in Feed

5. Showing last posts: Below are pop-ups that appear when hovering over user’s photos in the “Following” section and tweet feeds.

Recent Post Expansion from Following Box

Recent Post Expansion from Feed

For the latest on Power Twitter and additional features, see the Firefox Add-Ons page.

Respect Your Followers!

There has been a lot of discussion on Twitter recently about the dislike (sometimes intense dislike!) of automatic direct messages (aka, “auto DM’s”). These are automatic messages that can be setup by user via a third party service to generate a message to new followers with a pre-established set of text.

Yesterday I saw how this can really hurt someone trying to establish a good following on Twitter. A tweeter friend of mine (I’ll call her “Follower A”) returned the follow of someone who had followed her earlier in the day (”Follower B”). Follower A immediately received an auto DM with a link to Follower B’s website. Put off by this, Follower A promptly un-followed Follower B.

Unfortunately, I happen to be familiar with Follower B, and know that this person is a friendly and engaging individual with their tweets, not at all impersonal like their auto DM. Follower A is also friendly, engaging, and popular, and probably would have established a good tweeting relationship with Follower B. But, because of Follower B’s auto DM, this will never happen.

Today another popular tweeter posted that she had received approximately 100 auto DM’s yesterday alone, presumably after seeking new people to follow. This caused her to miss some of the truly personal DM’s, and of course, she was not happy. The auto DM’s usually do not make for a very good first impression to new followers.

To sum up the problems with auto DM’s:

1. They are considered by many as “spam.” In a sense, they truly are. All that is generated is a generic impersonal message to all, and not selected individuals.

2. Not everyone likes direct messages as it is, and these are even more of a burden to those folks.

3. Auto DM’s are very impersonal, and usually contain information that a new follower should have already read in the “Bio” section of the profile.

4. These messages can be burdensome to those who use the DM feature often for more personal contacts.

5. Some people will automatically un-follow tweeters who use auto DM’s. You may not only be losing followers, but business, good contacts, or even future friends.

The moral of this post: Auto DM’s may very well be more of a hindrance than an asset to your tweeting experience. Turn them off-or others may be turned off by you.

Edit: What do you think of auto-DM’s? Are there scenarios where you feel auto DM’s are okay? Interested in hearing your thoughts!

Facebook Apps: Bah Humbug!

I now have approximately 150 “friends” on Facebook, and find myself getting overrun with app requests. The funny thing is, most of them come from primarily one person, who seems to think the more the merrier when it comes to playing with apps.

Personally, I like some of the apps, and enjoy sending things to friends that I think they will enjoy as well. Notice the emphasis on “I think they will enjoy.” This means there is some thought behind the sending of app requests. I have a small group of friends on there who I regularly exchange goodies with, but we all, for the most part, stay within reason. This one person, however, seems to think that when you send a request for an app, you should send at least three at a time-from the same app, that is.

What is up with that? All I can figure out is that she is trying to meet the quotas needed by item on some of these apps in order to send other items further down the list. For example, to send a holiday candle, you need to send to 8 people, but to send the candy cane you need to send to 16. The intention, of course, is not to send them all at once-but over time.

Isn’t the purpose of apps to send along wishes to people to make them smile? Well, I’m not smiling when I go to Facebook and find I’ve received 50 app requests in one day, and 35 of them is from the same one person. If I were to accept them all, I would have to process each one individually-not only is that time-consuming, but I have neuropathy in my fingers, so it is also painful!

So now, I will probably end up having to block all app requests from this individual-she has left me no choice. At one time, she would send a request here and there, and was pleasant to interact with. But now she’s just a downright pain.

So folks, I leave you with some general rules of thumb for sending Facebook apps:

1) Don’t send them to brand-newbies until they have had a chance to kind of get their feet wet on Facebook. They need to learn to navigate the “important” stuff first-like adding friends, accepting friend requests, filling out their profile, etc. There will be plenty of play time later.

2) When you go to send someone an app for the first time, look to see if they accept it. If not, they might not want them, or might not be tech-savvy enough to know how to use them. Continuing to send app requests to these folks is only a nuisance.

3) Don’t ever select “all” friends to send apps to-be selective. Not all of my friends, for example, are on Facebook enough to play games, or enjoy games. Hence, I will only select those friends who I think would like to receive the game and leave the rest be.

4) Limit the number of app requests you send a person each day. This can vary by individual. Know your Facebook friends and get a feel for their preferences before jumping in to sending frequent app requests.

5) Don’t send anything based on a “forced invite.” This is where the app won’t show you your results, such as from a quiz, unless you send the app to others first. In most cases, there should be a “skip” option you can select to not invite others. If there is not, this is actually a violation of Facebook terms.

So the moral of the story is, be considerate of your Facebook friends when sending apps. Know their preferences, or even ask if you are not sure. For some, the receipt of apps is a pleasant diversion from everyday life, but for others, they may be a burden. Don’t be a burden-be a real “friend!”