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April 16, 2008

Look Out Twhirl, Alert Thingy Adds Twitter Support

Michael Arrington

37 comments »

Alert Thingy, the FriendFeed desktop application that launched just three days ago, just launched v 1.2 of the service, with Twitter support.

In addition to viewing FriendFeed data streams and posting directly to FriendFeed, users can now also post directly to their Twitter account as well. Users cannot directly view Twitter streams through AlertThingy, although they can get that information by following FriendFeed users who include Twitter data.

This makes FriendFeed even more useful. Twhirl, a competitor that was recently acquired by Seesmic, works with Twitter, Pownce and Jaiku, but users rarely use more than one of those services. Lots of people use both FriendFeed and Twitter, however (FriendFeed often to read information, Twitter to post), and they may find Alert Thingy a nice alternative to Twhirl.

I’m finding that I use FriendFeed a lot more now than I have Alert Thingy installed. And if they continue to innovate this quickly, I may find I uninstall Twhirl for good. Things they need to add - the ability to view Twitter directly, outside of friendfeed (including replies and direct messages), and integration with snurl to easily shorten included URLs.

CrunchBase Information
Alert Thingy
Twhirl
Information provided by CrunchBase
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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 16th, 2008 at 10:28 am and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Trackbacks/Pings (Trackback URL)

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Comments

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  1. David

    April 16th, 2008 at 10:34 am

    That screenshot is why I stopped tracking Scoble on the web. At least Arrington has something interesting to talk about. Oh and a personality.

  2. bs

    April 16th, 2008 at 10:35 am

    the only people using twitter, twhirirril, etc. are located in silicon valley. These “startup” guys need a reality check, and see that facebook has this feature, and noones going to re-register for the 1000th time to use something thats already on facebook.

  3. pte

    April 16th, 2008 at 10:40 am

    why people would think building a startup on top of another startup would be useful?

  4. Andy Merrett

    April 16th, 2008 at 10:40 am

    Wow, bs, I didn’t realise I’d moved from SW London.

  5. engtech

    April 16th, 2008 at 10:43 am

    Here’s the same functionality for Firefox users who use the website:
    http://internetducttape.com/20.....s/#twitter

    Here’s another ton of Firefox scripts for adding features to the website:
    http://ffapps.com/
    http://internetducttape.com/tools/#friendfeed

  6. Mark Evans

    April 16th, 2008 at 10:44 am

    I love Thwirl but FriendFeed is looking more interesting and useful. I may have to spend more time on it. :)

  7. Michael Arrington

    April 16th, 2008 at 10:45 am

    bs - this blog ain’t for you, dude.

  8. Michael Arrington

    April 16th, 2008 at 10:46 am

    mark evans - to me, friendfeed is a datastream, twitter is a conversation…

  9. Nick O'Neill

    April 16th, 2008 at 10:46 am

    I wanted to say that “Alert Thingy Smacks Twhirl and Calls it a Bitch” but that would be inappropriate right?

  10. bs

    April 16th, 2008 at 10:47 am

    i like this blog, but i dont see why twitter gets mentioned like its the new facebook, when it isnt

  11. Nick O'Neill

    April 16th, 2008 at 10:50 am

    @bs … I’d do your homework before you say that … Twitter may just be the new Facebook my friend

    Also, why do you call yourself bs?

  12. David

    April 16th, 2008 at 10:52 am

    Ok now I read more carefully. If Alert Thingy allowed me to view Tweets from friends who don’t use FriendFeed, it would be a slam dunk. Until then…

  13. Tim

    April 16th, 2008 at 11:01 am

    @David You can create “imaginary” friends on FriendFeed and basically follow Tweets from friends who don’t use FriendFeed but are on Twitter.

  14. David

    April 16th, 2008 at 11:06 am

    @tim That’s a good idea, but you have to admit a little strange. So I follow my imaginary FF friends who follow my real friends on Twitter? Hmmmm.

  15. Jordan

    April 16th, 2008 at 11:09 am

    Yeah, but “imaginary” friends on FF are about as fun as imaginary friends in the real world.

    What FF should be doing (and could possibly be doing) is working on reading my friends from all of the services I told them about, then attempting to build my friends for me, instead of having me create them.

    This way, I could send my friend a link to his prebuilt FF self and he could claim it.

  16. not bs

    April 16th, 2008 at 11:14 am

    @bs : best comment I’ve heard on this blog. reality check.

  17. adventureran

    April 16th, 2008 at 11:29 am

    Hmm. Doesn’t work for me. I click on get remote key here and nothing happens. I do have a FF account, along with Twitter.

  18. Michael Arrington

    April 16th, 2008 at 11:42 am

    I’d ask Seesmic founder (and twhirl owner) Loic Le Meur for a comment, but he’s been off skiing for weeks. He’s European.

    http://twitter.com/loiclemeur/statuses/788689599

  19. Mark Bao

    April 16th, 2008 at 11:48 am

    That screenshot made me think about the Leopard skin of Snitter (another AIR Twitter thing):

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/j.....882953698/

  20. Jeff Tidwell

    April 16th, 2008 at 11:51 am

    If you’re looking for a desktop client that helps you discover a broader range of content from your social networks, you should check out the new desktop viewer from Chirp: http://www.chirp.com

    Our product calls in updates from Facebook and Twitter too, but also the images from Facebook, Flickr, and eBay. Give it a try and let us know what you think.

    Jeff Tidwell
    http://www.chirp.com

  21. Loic

    April 16th, 2008 at 11:54 am

    Hey Michael :) I have been skiing on sunday only heh. Tough investor!

    Some twhirl news coming soon…

  22. engtech

    April 16th, 2008 at 12:17 pm

    Here’s the same functionality for Firefox users who use the website:
    http://internetducttape.com/20…..s/#twitter

  23. engtech

    April 16th, 2008 at 12:17 pm

    Here’s another ton of Firefox scripts for adding features to the Friend Feed website:
    http://ffapps.com/

  24. Harry Wang

    April 16th, 2008 at 1:11 pm

    @bs: I think you are onto something. I have been to several cities as of late and only the handful of big, tech oriented cities (or metropolises) seem to have people who use (or even heard of) twitter. Twitter needs to counter this with user profile demographics of active users…

    Harry “silly Michael, Twits are for twits” Wang ;)

  25. Brick Marketing

    April 16th, 2008 at 2:45 pm

    Will be interesting to see how this fairs against Twhirl?

  26. alertthingy

    April 16th, 2008 at 3:18 pm

    Loic, had the opportunity to take @alertthingy on Twitter after the Baines strategy backfired… its a great app tho and a great way to understand why twittering will be the new fb and business network all in one etc

    and why twitter domain grabbing can kill a great product in the wrong hands … what is that worth in todays market?

  27. funkyboy

    April 17th, 2008 at 2:00 am

    I think there are many people using more than one service. For example I use twitter, jaiku, pownce and tumblr simultaneously and I know of many which do the same.

  28. Boredcollegekid

    April 17th, 2008 at 2:12 am

    Links need to be clickable ie in the Twitter posts, hate having to open up the links to the twitter to get a clickable one. Also FILTERS! Don’t want to see double posts in twhirl and alertthingy
    A majority of my twitter friends aren’t on the Friendfeed bandwagon at the moment so while the posting to twitter is great, being able to view my stream would be killer, namely to consolidate apps and cut back on the API limitations of Twitter.
    Oh, and being a linux user, not having the ability to manually download alertthingy (twhirl says its not compatible but you can manually download and install) even though AIR is now on Linux is a tad disappointing to say the least.

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