Why is our Beta Trial Delayed?

As many of you know, we were expected to start rolling out our new twitter client to some beta-triallers a couple of days ago. So, what's the delay?

1. Infrastructure Issues

Our server-side architecture had to change significantly to enable the uber-cool functionality that our twitter client relies on. As is always the case with software development, this threw up some unexpected difficulties. We simply hadn't envisaged the complexity required to adjust to, and fix, these.

2. SSL Certificate

We've been trying to order an SSL certificate from 123-Reg. Their level of service has been very poor with no communication when problems occurs. They have until lunchtime to deliver otherwise we're off to Go Daddy.

3. Breaking changes to Twitter API

Within the past few days Twitter made some changes to their API that has broken the 3rd-party library we're using. The fault developed because a, previously assumed, numeric field in their response now sometimes has the value "100+". This causes exceptions when you expect it to actually be a number! We know the library authors are working hard to fix this but we just have to wait for them.

So, where are we?

Issue 1 has been fixed, but issues 2 and 3 are still outstanding. As soon as they're resolved, we're ready to roll.

Apologies to everyone that's waiting for this trial. We really appreciate your patience and we'll let you know the instant it becomes available.

Twitter & TweetPivot announce 2 new Twitter Clients

Last night we announced our new Twitter Client. Little did we know that only a few short hours later Twitter were going to announce theirs. If you study the 'numbers' very carefully it does look as though @ev and @biz got slightly more press coverage than us, but we're trying to catch them up!

Twitter has done what it should have done a long time ago - revamp its website. After all, 78% of Twitter users still use it so it was well overdue some TLC. This move certainly reduces the differentiator that the leading 3rd-party Twitter clients have enjoyed. The website may now be "just good enough" to suppress power users' temptations to look for a fuller client.

However, we believe that the TweetPivot Twitter Client still stands apart from the crowd. We have made a departure from the usual fixed-column approach and developed a client whose core area is dynamic.

So, if you're looking for something different, something remarkable and you'd like to have a say in how it's developed why not sign up for the beta trial?

Helping Non-Profit Organisations find Volunteers with @TweetPivot

I have been on the look out for ways that TweetPivot could develop its social mission.

Recently @NetSquared tweeted:

How are you recruiting volunteers online? Share your expertise for this month's #Net2ThinkTank! (@ reply us or see: http://bit.ly/9iN6cI )

This got me thinking about how visualising Twitter followers using TweetPivot could be used to identify potential new volunteers for non-profit organisations.

It seems reasonable to me that a good place for an organisation to start looking for volunteers would be amongst its Twitter followers. Tweeps that follow a non-profit organisation on Twitter are likely to have an interest in its cause, indeed some may already be active volunteers. Others may be more passive supporters who could be 'converted' to volunteers, given the right circumstances and approach. For example, the non-profit organisation could use direct messages (DMs) to engage targeted followers individually on Twitter with a personalised approach tailored to their interests. Such approaches take time and care to do well, therefore careful selection of who to target is important to efficiently attract more volunteers. This is where TweetPivot can help.

By using appropriate filters in TweetPivot a non-profit organisation can reduce a follower list to a smaller number of people to target. For example, if you are looking for volunteers for an event in a particular location, then a filter can be used to quickly identify followers in that area. You could then filter out the ones who are not very active on Twitter (e.g. with a small Follower Count) as they are unlikely to respond to your DMs. If you need to reduce the number of 'Tweep targets' further, then you could restrict your list to people with a reasonable Klout score (a measure of Twitter influence).

Once your subset of followers is identified, you can save them to a Twitter list. You can then monitor the tweets of this group and spot openings for a Twitter conversation.

As an example, in response to a tweet looking for volunteers for an event to be held in the UK, we looked at the 2500+ @crisiscamp followers: http://bit.ly/9jrxwI and used location filters to select just followers who are based in the London, then saved them to a Twitter list.

A video of this process can be seen at: http://bit.ly/9nh5P2

If you try this approach, then let us know if you find it useful as a way of finding new volunteers in the comments below or by replying to @tweetpivot.