There are quite a few twitter directories. This is a quick overview of directories for people on twitter, the tweeple directories.
Twellow wants to be the Twitter Yellow pages that lets you browse by category.
Initially you had to add yourself and a short bio, and then select some categories to appear in, as well as indicate what other social network you belong to. Now, you don’t have to that. Twellow watches twitter messages to automatically discover tweeple and classify them by analysing their messages and bio.
What I found interesting trying to find some people by category that I came across quite a few people who associate themselves with some topic in their bio, but never seem to tweet about. Perhaps they are interested and just never tweet about it, but Twellow found that word in their bio, so added them to the category anyway. Anyway, using Twellow you may come across tweeple you might otherwise not have found, but then again, are often also unlikely to start an conversation with.
The Twellow site used to be unusually busy and incredibly ugly, with way too many different colours combinations and gradients, but the site is improving and does have a lot of information.
Twellow makes no effort to distinguish between real people and bots.
Tweeple Pages used to be a directory to which you had to login to using your twitter credentials to create your profile, but they are using Twitter’s OAuth support now.
Once you’ve logged in, all you need to enter is a comma-separated lists of interests, and Tweeple Pages will categorise you according to those subjects. You can take the time to add some additional details, such as your home page, and some other social networks you may be a member of, but you do not have to do so.
The biggest problem with Tweeple Pages is that you do not just need to login to enter your own data, but even need to log in just to search it. Sadly, that is still the case.
When I did log in to search a few months ago, it turned out not that it did not work well yet. I entered a word to search on, and what I got was a bunch of warnings followed by a fatal error.
I tried this again today, and the site seems stable now. I did notice that several people showed up twice in the search results and could not discern any obvious order to the results, so I am guessing results are ordered by signup. The site is still rather slow.
Tweet Fleet was originally known as Flock Up, and it still has flocks
- that
is Tweet Fleetesque for groups.
You do not need passwords for anything, and do not need login using Twitter OAuth either, which is a bit worrisome; you can enter anyone’s name into any group. It seems to check whether the Twitter name exists, but does not check that you are you.
If some people decide to have fun with that, Tweet Fleet will quickly deteriorate into the least reliable directory of them all, if it isn’t already.
I just tried to visit it again, and found that it seems to have gone. There is only a generic Ruby on Rails welcome page there now.
Just Tweet It is a directory to which you have add yourself. You can not pick your own tags, nor add categories. You have to use the Just Tweet It categories.
Within each category, users are listed in chronological order. New categories are announced as they appear. You can list yourself in more than one category, however, you will have to add your details all over again, which is tiresome. As a result, Just Tweet It does not show as many results as a smarter site could show.
The upside of this unfriendly signup is that fewer people add themselves to every category they think of. Thus, the signups in each category are more likely to match the tweeple’s actual interest.
Each category has its own RSS feed, so you can subscribe to it to remain informed about about new additions.
Omnee does not just display third-party data on your profile, but actually uses it.
Omnee lets you use any tag to describe yourself, with no limit to the number of tags. Most other directories show your twitter profile statistics and your last tweet, and order search results by number of followers. Omnee is a lot smarter.
Omnee draws information from various services, such as TwitterCounter,
RetweetRank, twInfluence and Twitter Grader (all discussed in Twitteristics).
Omnee does
not just display third-party data on your profile, but actually uses it. Omnee
uses it to determine display
order, the size and colour of your name in overviews. It thus manages to convey
a lot of information in a small amount of text.
Another smart thing about omnee is that you add yourself and add or remove tags by sending a message to omnee on twitter. That simple mechanism makes it permanent available to you on twitter without any passwords and login issues.
Wefollow is similar to omnee in that you can simply send a message to @wefollow to add tags. It got a lot of attention because it was created by Kevin Rose of digg.com fame. That, and its attractive simple layout are clearly helping it to gain a lot traction.
Technically the first version does not compare well to omnee. You can only add three tags, not as much as you like. While restricting the number of tags makes some sense, restricting the number of tags to just three is may seem a bit too restrictive, but it is quite deliberate.
There is no command to remove a tag. To remove one tag and add another, more relevant one, you must re-add yourself with three tags again.
TwitR is twitter directory much like wefollow; you must pick three tags. TwitR uses OAuth, so you log in through without having to give up your passwords to them.
However, TwitR earns big minus points for abusing your credentials for spamming a registration message without asking your permission to do so.
Tweeter Tags still requires you to login with your twitter credentials. They
have not upgraded their site to use Twitter OAuth yet, but they do have an
interesting I’d rather not give you my Twitter password.
option;
follow them on twitter, then choose that option and they will send you a direct
message with a password to use for Tweeter Tags.
Once you
are logged in, you can add any number of tags your profile. The Tweeter Tags home
page lets you search for tags to find other tweeple.
The current version of Tweeter Tags apparently tracks which tags you used
recently, to automatically show your profile in results for that tag.
The Tweeter tags design is colourful yet simple. They use sans-serif fonts which help give it a clean look, but makes it harder to read. The multiple colours do work well with the tag clouds they show.
Twitter Link Up does not require your Twitter password, it requires you to sign up as a member instead. They also want to know your birth date, but there is no check that your twitter profile is really yours. The site is also about as slow as twitter itself and does not seem to work at all until you allow JavaScript on ning.com.
You need to pick tags from a list, and should be able to add tags not in it yet, but that does not seem to work very well yet. There are lots of sign up options, as if you are signing up for some social platform like facebook (and you are, you are signing up for ning.com). It feels like overkill for a mere directory, and there isn’t much there anyway.
Some directories still require you give your twitter password. I recommend avoiding these directories as well as those that do not verify your identity at all. If you really do want to use a directory that still requires your password, do use the Two Passwords Twitter Tip.
Go with the directories that either verifies your identity using Twitter OAuth or lets you add yourself and make changes by tweeting.
Do register a gravatar before joining any of these directories.
Do register a gravatar before joining any of these directories. That way, most directories will pick up your avatar without you having to do anything. There is likely to be a delay of perhaps a few days between your gravatar update and any third-party site picking it up.
It is likely that you will quickly gravitate to one directory as your directory of choice, but do check out other directories from time to time. The different directories do have different lists. And, if you really want to be found, you should add yourself to all them.
Omnee, TweeplePages and TweetFleet ceased operation. The broken links links have been removed.
Twitr ceased operation. The broken link link has been removed.
The twitterlinkup.ning.com subdomain is gone. The broken link link has been removed.
Copyright © Tamura Jones. All Rights reserved.