Two tools to add cool people on Twitter

In explaining Twitter to people (something I seem to be a doing a lot lately), one of the questions I get the most is, "So who should I follow?" I've long wished for a tool, myself, that would let me bulk-add cool people to my network. Over the holidays I checked out two new tools designed to do that.

Autopack is a basic directory of Twitter users by group, with the capability to follow entire groups as once.

The first is AutoPack, an offshoot of wiki-based Twitter directory called Twitter Pack. AutoPack is a long list of Twitter user accounts broken into categories (such as Quotations, Lawyers, and Green Building). The directory itself is incomplete, but what's cool is that you can sign up for everyone in a category at once. This is the way signing up to follow Twitter users should be: find a flock, and sign up to all the cool people in it. Otherwise you'll just end up following a piece of the general conversation. I'd like to see this concept developed further, and as I said, the directory content itself needs work.

There's a another new tool that I've found very useful: Mr. Tweet. This one analyzes your current network of Twitter followers and followees and identifies other people who are influential in your circle. I tried it against my account and it found people I know and respect that I wasn't following--a win, in my book.

Mr. Tweet also provides useful stats on the people it finds for you. It shows you who else you know that follows them, how often they update their feeds, and how many followers they have (although, as has been discussed, that's no indication of Twitter quality).

Like AutoPack, Mr. Tweet will do the lifting and follow the people it finds for you if you let it. You do have to give the site (and AutoPack) your Twitter ID and password if you want it to do this, however. This illustrates the poor security model of Twitter. The service really needs a more secure system, like OAuth, for dealing with third-party enhancements. People are getting to used to typing their Twitter passwords in to non-Twitter services, and scammers are taking advantage of this.

That said, I like Mr. Tweet, and recommend it.

Mr. Tweet has reminded me to follow people in my field.

[rhyscampbell]

I recently blogged about how to do this with my Twitter app Tweet-SQL

http://sqlclrnews.blogspot.com/2008/11/making-friends-with-tweet-sql.html

I'm sure twitter will restrict this soon due to abuse by spammers.

[stiennon]

DO NOT EVER GIVE YOUR user NAME and Password to a Twitter application. Are you crazy? Would you give up your banking ID to a money manager site? If you value Twitter and your social network do not give up you credentials, or for that matter recommend sites that require you to give up your credentials.

Sheesh.

-RS

[JasonGooljar]

Most sites that are genuine (like Tweetree and Twitpic) are going to ask for Twitter credentials. It's like Facebook Connect that's how it works. You just have to be aware of the good and bad.

[mndanielscnet]

I've tried MrTweet and it's fantastic, though there is a big lull on the amount of time it takes for them to get back to you with your recommendations. (I've heard that they're upping their team/abilities to meet the demands though so that's good for new/potential users, as my wait time was between 3 and 5 days)

With all of the phishing scams going on I'm weary of any site that asks for my login credentials and would probably have stayed away from AutoPack or TwitterPack but might give them a second thought now.

Come on Twitter, let's monetize the site AND implement things like OAuth. It's good for the people and it's good for business. :)

@mndaniels

[bethesdafrog]

would love to use these sites, but will have to see tighter security features before i give my user id and password on twitter, and with tighter security features twitter may also force these third party apps to change their own features and functionality.. probably in the near future what with the uproar re. phishing and spam on twitter lately.

pascal

[rhyscampbell]

Twitter are working on OAuth. Sounds like it might be coming in the not too distance future.

[defining]

Thank you for this article. Glad you touched on twitter security, it's been bugging (no pun intended) me for a while.

How does one verify that a site asking for a twitter "credentia"l is genuine? Twitter need to communicate this its users.

From one comment above I now know that Tweetree and Twitpic are genuine, but when registering for Twitpic and it asked asked for my twitter "credential" I supplied the information with trepidation.

[sperlingreich]

Could Mr. Tweet or AutoPack be the reason I have received dozens of followers in the last 24 hours. I am setting a personal record for number of new followers in a single day. And I agree with Rafe, be very careful who you give any of your social networking or blogging passwords out to.

http://twitter.com/sperling

[Jayphen]

AutoPack automatically lists Twitter users who have added themselves to the 'Twitter Pack' wiki. These Twitterers could be anyone - not necessary 'cool people'. I won't link to that wiki since this has hit the Digg frontpage, but it's not hard to find.

[AndrewRich]

Um, no. These services facilitate yet more Twitter spam. The point of Twitter is keeping up with people you know, not randomly following Mr Popular.

[gary_e]

After 6 months of being off the air we just re-launched http://WhoShouldiFollow.com, another site that helps you find interesting people to follow on twitter.