As Twitter began to fail on a regular basis, many of its users turned to other micro-blogging services to continue on with their 140-character lifestyle. Some returned to Jaiku or Pownce, others starting plurking, and just recently, an open source Twitter clone launched called identi.ca which has people “denting” (Yes, really – it won the vote). And then there are the true social media addicts who joined each one of these services as they launched. For these folks, maintaining a presence in all the communities can be difficult, which is why finding a universal status updating service can help.
To update your social status on multiple services, there are several different options to choose from. We’ve listed some of the most popular ones below:
HelloTxt
HelloTxt was one of the first status updating services to arrive and still has the biggest list of supported services – currently 21 – to choose from. This list is the largest thanks to HelloTxt’s support of several Twitter clone services that were either built for or that have attracted a non-English speaking userbase like the popular Italian service Meemi, the German and French Frazr, and the Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and French beemood.
HelloTxt is also available on the go on your mobile at m.hellotxt.com, via email, and via SMS. There’s a facebook application, too.
Supported Services: Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce, Facebook, MySpace, Brightkite, Bebo, LinkedIn, Hi5, Plaxo, Tumblr, Meemi, Beemood, Plurk, Gozub, Frazr, Numpa, Mexicodiario, Feecle, Fanfou, Identica.
Ping.fm
Ping.fm is a newcomer, still in private beta (get in with the invite code “pingyoulater”), and is fast becoming a popular competitor to HelloTxt. It doesn’t have any of the smaller, foreign language services, but it still has a long list of services available – 17 in total at the moment – including a couple that HelloTxt misses like Xanga and Blogger.
In addition to the Ping.fm Facebook app, Ping.fm integrates with IM services like AOL, Google Talk, and Yahoo! Messenger. There’s also an iGoogle Gadget, a mobile web page, and an iPhone web app available. Profilactic uses Ping.fm’s API to power their status updating service.
Supported services: Bebo, Blogger, Brightkite, Facebook, hi5, Identi.ca, Jaiku, LinkedIn, LiveJournal, Mashable, MySpace, Plaxo Pulse, Plurk, Pownce, Tumblr, Twitter, Xanga.
Sendible
Sendible is the latest addition to the list of social media message-sending apps, this one more focused on the ability to schedule your messages than to do mass updates. Although the service supports several different services with more on the way, they have not yet provided an easy way to update all the services at once. However, the fact that messages can be scheduled is Sendible’s unique feature, which is why it will have some draw – at least until another competitor comes along offering this and universal updates, too.
Supported services: Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, SMS, and email. They will also soon be supporting Friendster, Hi5, Orkut and Xing.
Read our review of Sendible here.
SocialThing!
Somewhat mistakenly hailed as a competitor to FriendFeed, SocialThing’s goal is really to be more of a “digital life manager” instead. Yes, it does stream your social media a la FriendFeed, but it also allows you to interact with that stream by sending data back to the supported services. In addition, you can use SocialThing! to update your status at any time by clicking on the “Post” link found on the top-right of the homepage.
Supported services: del.icio.us, Digg, Last.fm, Twitter, Vimeo, YouTube, Facebook, flickr, Pownce. In progress are LiveJournal, MySpace, and RSS. Users can also vote on what services will be added next.
Read our interview with SocialThing! founder, Matt Galligan here and a review of SocialThing! here.
Minggl
Minggl is a social interaction manager that comes in the form of a browser toolbar for Firefox 1.5+ and IE6+. With this toolbar, you can auto-login to your social networks at once and stay updated with the latest info about your friends’ activity on the various services. Via its “Status Blaster” feature, you can also easily update all the multiple social networks Minggl supports at the same time.
Supported services: MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Digg
Apps!
There are several apps out there that allow you to interact with the various social services you use without logging into the services’ web sites. However, the problem is that most of these apps focus on just one or two services, usually FriendFeed and Twitter. If that’s all you need, then there are tons of apps to choose from including Twhirl, Alert Thingy, bTT, feedalizr, and mySocial AIR. (Plurkers can use Plurkair or Plurk It.)
Mac OS users have it even better, though – they have access to a downloadable app, MoodBlast, which updates Twitter, Tumblr, Pownce, Jaiku, Facebook, Skype, Adium, and iChat.
However, what we’re really in need of is a cross-platform app that does the same. For example, Ping.fm or HelloTxt on AIR would rock. Someone build that please?
Read a review of Twhirl and Alert Thingy here.
