Twitter Lubrication

You’re using twitter, in fact you’re almost addicted, constantly tweeting, constantly checking replies, directing your direct messages and keeping an eye on your twitter count, twitter grade, and all-round twitterinessicity. But, aside from the outages during heavy usage periods (thanks @BarackObama), it has some shortcomings.

First, I’d like to be able to see what’s causing all the buzz on twitter without having to go to the search page, I’d like to view the bios inline of those people who follow me, so I can see quickly whether I might want to investigate their tweets and ultimately follow them. I also want a quick and simple way to retweet a post so I can pay it forward when someone posts something so fascinating it has to be shared. Finally, I want to be able to hide certain bot-tweeps that I follow (news sources, and press release agencies) while I’m reading the tweets from friends.

So, all these things are lacking in the standard version of twitter, but install the Greasemonkey scripting language on your Firefox browser (worth doing for lots of other reasons) and you can then install a range of scripts that enhance the twitter experience:

The incredibly insightful Ann Smarty on Search Engine Journal brought four such Greasemonkey scripts to my attention:

Twitter Display Popular Trends – shows you the latest buzz on the Twitter Home right above your Following section.

Now Shoosh! – lets you hide friends on an ad hoc basis to keep noise levels down. You’ll see a “mute” link after their username.

Twitter Friends Bio at a Glance – this should definitely be part of the native twitter page, it displayers followers’ bios, as well as their friend and follower count and web link.

Retweet This – This script makes it a lot easier to retweet a tweet without having to type all the RT and @ gubbins each time. However, it can truncate the retweet so be warned. Adds a little icon below the favorite star and reply arrow.

There is another script Ann recommends, although this one I was already running, Twitter and FriendFeed Short URL Expander, this script displays the full web address for links shortened by snipr, tinyurl.com, is.gd, zz.gd and bit.ly, which can be useful for spotting spammers and scammers on twitter.