Now let’s talk about TweetStats, another Twitter research tool that helps us dig even further into the stream of on-going global conversation that is Twitter.

TweetStats offers the ability to search for tweets by username and then it analyzes what it finds. You can get statistics that are charted or presented as a tag cloud.

TweetStats will show you a users tweet timeline, aggregate daily tweets, aggregate hourly tweets, who they’ve replied to, and what Twitter interface they most commonly use.

Some of the information is a little confusing because aggregate data is mixed with specific data, like replies. But, overall if you’re willing to infer a few things, you can tell a lot from the information, especially if you run it against some of the most heavily followed people on Twitter.

Tomorrow I’ll show you a tool that helps you determine who the most followed people on Twitter are and then after that we’ll look at a tool that helps you find people in their lists that you might want to follow. Remember, following people is a good way to get your own followers.

Perspective:

Twitter has many uses and how you use the tool has a lot to do with your own objectives. Right now people are still trying to wrap their minds about what it’s for and how does it help them communicate. While everyone is learning it is important to pay attention to what is going on. Spotting trends before they happen is an important part of gaining an edge and these Twitter research tools will be a big part of gaining insight into what’s happening.

So, what do your Twitter statistics look like?

Researching,

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com

Let’s follow each other on Twitter

UPDATE: Either I was smoking crack when I wrote this or these guys have changed their domain. Since I’m too cheap to afford a nasty habit like that it must be the other so, here is the link to TweetScan that works. I’ll go ahead and update the links in the post from twitterscan.com (which does show a listing in the WayBack Machines archives) to tweetscan.com.

Today’s Microtween is on TweetScan.com. TweetScan lets you research Twitter posts using keyword searches. You can research just a particular keyword, like “Obama”, or you can search for keywords by user. This is extremely helpful if you want to see what people are saying about a particular subject or if you want to track what a person is saying on a specific topic.

Depending on your keywords you can pull back some interesting results. For example if you put in the search phrase “darren rowse” you can see all the things that are said about him. Run that through some more analysis and you might find a trend.

TwitterScan even provides an RSS option so you can subscribe to a Twitter search result. Personally I think that is genius because it invites others to use the site like a service, which should promote usage and build value.

They also provide a search engine plugin that lets you put the TweetScan search in your toolbar. This is handy if you switch between the various search engines like I do. UPDATE: I’m not sure this is available anymore. I don’t see it listed on their site. Maybe it’s just not obvious anymore. I haven’t added it back to my Firefox since I move to using a Mac so I can’t tell you if it works or not. Just FYI.

Perspective:

Twitter is growing exponentially and like all social networking tools it is still maturing. How to effectively use Twitter is still undefined for some and clearly defined for others. One thing is clear though, because conversations on Twitter are public and searchable, there will continue to be growing interest in search, indexing, analyzing and reporting on what is said on Twitter. There is definitely some potential market gold in the data and in the next few Microtweens you and I will look at the tools that will help us dig into that data.

Twitter Scanning,

Charles McKeever
OpenSourceMarketer.com