// what do you think?

Comm

Why You Should Use Favorites in Twitter

I’m a big fan of using the favorite feature in Twitter. (Here’s my favorite’s page. You can also subscribe to the RSS feed) Why? Well to be honest I mostly use it like a bookmarking feature. I do the same thing with Google Reader’s Star feature.

If I like something and want to share it I either retweet it or *share* it Google Reader. But what if I want to come back to something later?

I access both services a lot on my mobile phone and I find I don’t want to, or have time to, click through a link to read a full article (this is often true of my Online, non-mobile behavior) so I add a star. (I find it interesting that both Twitter and Google Reader use a star the same way but Twitter calls it “favorite”.) I may also favorite something because I want to come back later and blog about it.

I even go as far to pull a feed of those favorited items into iGoogle so I remember to go back to them later.
Twitter GReader Starred items in iGoogle

My good friend, fellow Boisean and fellow ADHD‘er Steve Nipper @nipper blogged about an idea he’s had that started off as a tweet (BTW he’s a user of the favorite feature).

My Thoughts on how Twitter could be Improved | The Invent Blog

What percent of your followers do you think sees every tweet you make? 5%? 10%?

That, in my opinion, is the biggest defect Twitter has.

What if #1: What if you could anchor a tweet in the river (so the threaded conversation I mentioned above could take place)?

What if #2: What if you could tag some of your own tweets as something the REALLY want your followers to read AND it was really easy for users to see them. Sure, you could mark it as a favorites, but most people use that function to tag their personal favorites (of other people). Mine: http://twitter.com/nipper/favorites. Additionally, most Twitter users don’t even know that favorites exist (or that they have RSS feeds). Addressing this what if would instantaneously convert Twitter into an actual microblogging platform instead of a stream of consciousness.

My thouhgts is that if you really want #1 - that’s what FriendFeed is. My thoughts on #2 and how it ties to this post is that’s what favorites and retweets are for. There are already many services being built on retweets it seems like favorites could be the next Twitter API opportunity. What tweets are getting the most favorites or maybe building a widget that displays your favorited tweets on your blog like you can do with your Google Reader shared items.

I did some poking around to see if some of my other favorite tweeple were favorite feature users:

  • Forrester analyst Jeremiaha Owyang @Jowyang obviously does (no surprise there).
  • Uber user Robert Scoble @Scobleizer does but not very actively. Probably because he spends most of his time likeing items on FriendFeed.
  • Twitter founder and CEO @ev seems to favorite more than he actually tweets.
  • E2.0 visionary and all around good guy Hutch Carpenter @bhc3 does.
  • VC/entrepreneur Guy Kawasaki @guykawasaki does not (no surprise there since most of his tweets aren’t even him).
  • Former Idahoan turned Portlandian, Silicon Florist founder and ReadWrite/Web author Rick Turoczy @turoczy does.
  • And on a random note, Ashton Kutcher only has one favorite and it’s a saved link to an assasin, uh…..ok.

To Steve’s point I think if someone started building tools around the favorite feature that may drive more wide adoption of it. Do you use it? Do you see any value in it?

P.S. Completely random side note the favorite feature apparently throws some props to the British/Canadians since their spelling works as well http://twitter.com/tacanderson/favourites or http://twitter.com/tacanderson/favorites. Go figure
<

Similar Posts:

Share This Post
  • Facebook
  • StumbleUpon
  • del.icio.us
  • Diigo
  • Posterous
  • Tumblr
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Scridb filter

About Tac

Social media anthropologist. Communications strategist. Business model junkie. Chief blogger here at New Comm Biz.

  • http://inventblog.com Nipper

    Nice post Tac!

    If you haven’t been using the “Note in Reader” bookmarklet…I highly recommend it: http://googlereader.blogspot.com/2008/05/share-anything-anytime-anywhere.html

  • http://www.newcommbiz.com Tac

    I don’t use Note in Reader that much. It’s kind of been replaced by the Feedly http://www.feedly.com/ plugin for me.

  • http://www.newcommbiz.com Tac

    I don’t use Note in Reader that much. It’s kind of been replaced by the Feedly http://www.feedly.com/ plugin for me.

  • http://addingunderstanding.com Joshua Brauer

    I have found stars/favorites work well for just this purpose. Another nice feature has been using shared items (as well as other bookmarking like del.icio.us to create linkblogs that run along side your blog sharing items of interest as I mentioned in http://addingunderstanding.com/drupal-for-in-the-news-blocks.html

  • http://addingunderstanding.com Joshua Brauer

    I have found stars/favorites work well for just this purpose. Another nice feature has been using shared items (as well as other bookmarking like del.icio.us to create linkblogs that run along side your blog sharing items of interest as I mentioned in http://addingunderstanding.com/drupal-for-in-the-news-blocks.html

  • http://inventblog.com Nipper

    Nice post Tac!

    If you haven't been using the “Note in Reader” bookmarklet…I highly recommend it: http://googlereader.blogspot.com/2008/05/share-…

  • http://www.newcommbiz.com/twitters-favorite-feature-starts-to-get-some-dev-love/ New Comm Biz » Twitter’s favorite feature starts to get some dev love.

    [...] recently blogged about the ‘favorite’ feature in Twitter, how I use it like a bookmarking feature and how I hoped that developers would start building apps [...]

  • http://www.newcommbiz.com/top-10-posts-july-2009-analog-trumps-digital/ New Comm Biz » Top 10 Posts [July 2009] Analog Trumps Digital

    [...] Why You Should Use Favorites in Twitter 4/14/09 Tweets-13 Post Rank-8.8 Comments-3 [...]

  • http://gabrielcatalano.wordpress.com/2010/07/01/favorites-the-final-frontier/ Favorites: The Final Frontier « gabriel catalano | in-perfección

    [...] one of the most underutilized, yet potentially most powerful components to the social web: the Favorites feature on Twitter. The truth is, anyone can “Like” something. But when you’re their “Favorite”, it’s [...]

Follow along and stay updated.

Subscribe via RSS

Archives

Bad Behavior has blocked 2876 access attempts in the last 7 days.

site arama kelimeleri porn, porn, sex, sex, porn, porn videos, porn videos, online porn download, sex videos, free porn, porn video sex, porno film, sex film, porno, porno, Turkish Porn, Porn Videos porn, porn, free porn, free porn and best porn video, hd porno, Turkish porn, hd porn, hidden porn shooting, high quality porn And live as virus-free porn, sex, sex tracking site Turkiye'nin En Buyuk sikis izleme sitesi. Turkiye'nin En Buyuk sikis izleme sitesi. Turkiye'nin En Buyuk sex izleme sitesi. Turkiye'nin En Buyuk porno izleme sitesi Turkiye'nin En Buyuk sex izleme sitesi Turkiye'nin En Buyuk rus porno izleme sitesi. Turkiye'nin En Buyuk Online porno izleme sitesi. Turkiye'nin En Buyuk Online lezbiyen izleme sitesi. Turkiye'nin En Buyuk Online porno izleme sitesi.