TwitterCamp, an Apollo-based visualizer
Daniel Dura has open sourced TwitterCamp, an Apollo-based Twitter visualizer. It was originally used at ApolloCamp.
I ran it on my Mac most of Tuesday watching tweets fromIgnite Seattle's friends go by. It makes for a great Twitter visualizer. As it is Apollo-based it will also work on PCs.
At Ignite Seattle we used Twitterific 2.0 (pic) to share tweets with the crowd and those who couldn't make it to the event. Twitterific is a slick Mac app that auto-updates with your Twitter friends feed. It was definitely a big help to us. We didn't have time to create a custom visualizer and the app worked great for our purposes. We simply fed Twitterific the Ignitesea credentials and it auto-updated with the latest messages from us and our friends. Our only issue was the dark background of the app. It looks great on a computer for personal use, but the dark background made it difficult to see on a projector screen.
I think TwitterCamp will work even better (it's actually designed for this use). I like that it distinctly presents each message as a voice bubble coming from the user pic in a grid format. Also, you're able to resize it to fill the enitre screen. To reskin it you just have to modify four image files (though I think it would be worthwhile adding a config screen to future versions). To install it you need to install the Apollo runtime (something that you'll want to do sooner or later anyway) and then grab the TwitterCamp install.
Twitter is an amazing resource at events. It enables you to share what's happening realtime and with almost no effort. Since there are so many input methods (web, third-party apps, IM, phone) multiple people can update a single feed. As an event-organizer it is great. For personal use I am almost overwhelmed by my Twitter feed. It's too much. I over-committed. I can't consume my Twitter stream to my phone anymore; I have to consume it via RSS (and apps like Twitteriffic). I can't imagine I am the only person with this issue.
(Thanks for the pointer Bryan)
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[04.11.07 06:25 PM]
Excellent, now instead of pretending to do work while watching my Twitter feed come in via Twitteriffic, I can fully commit to not working and watching it feed in full screen :-)
Just kidding... this would have been great @Ignite.
Between this and Finetune, I'm really digging the apps I'm seeing come out of Apollo. I think Adobe may have been succesful in creating the mythical 'write once, deploy everywhere' for desktop apps we thought Java was so many years ago.
Cheers,
Randy Stewart
[04.12.07 03:18 AM]
Good to see bdeseattle listening to my interview with Nova Spivack in the screenshot... :-)
http://blogs.talis.com/nodalities/2007/03/nova_spivack_talks_with_talis.php
TwitterCamp looks interesting, too, but I think I might stick with Twitterrific for personal use just now...
[04.12.07 03:30 PM]
Great article, and really great application Daniel! Thanks for making me almost famous. :-)
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Daniel Dura [04.11.07 11:26 AM]
Brady,
Thanks for the comments and input. I am planning on releasing an update to the application in the next week that will add a configuration panel. It will allow users to select files from the local file system so that they can customize the look of the interface. If anyone else has comments or request, please feel free to add comments to the TwitterCamp page.