We really wish Twitter would have implemented threaded replies into the service when it first launched. This would’ve made it much easier to track conversations across Twitter. Instead Twitter users have to rely on a host of conversation tracking services to fill the void that Twitter has left wide open. Summize, now Twitter Search, is one of the best services for tracking conversations on Twitter. While many tools exist, only a handful correctly deliver on their promise. Tweader is the latest Twitter conversation tracker to hit the market. However, it doesn’t deliver on its promise correctly either.
Using Tweader
Tweader is very simple to use. All that is required is the ID of the message in the conversation you’re trying to track. You can find the ID by clicking on the time-stamp of the message. Clicking on the time-stamp will take you the page of the twitter message. At the end of the url for the message will be 9 digits. This is the ID number of the message. Tweader will grab any part of the conversation that happens before the message that you entered. You can view the conversation in three different styles: regular, chatty, leftward. These styles provide a very basic styling that changes the background image behind each message.
Broken Promises
There are a host of problems with Tweader, which is why we feel it doesn’t do what its designed to do in a way that’s beneficial to users. As aforementioned, the service only tracks conversations that happen before the message you enter. Providing information of the entire conversation is what we call “tracking the conversation”. Isn’t that the purpose of the service? Why are we only receiving what comes before and not after? Secondly, Tweader is relying heavily on what Twitter says. Instead, the service should use semantic technology to gather context clues to provide better conversation results. If it had it might have provided the correct response for this conversation:
On the other hand, Twitter Search had no problem keeping track of the same conversation:
Words of Advice
Anyone can throw together a bunch of code that pulls the information that Twitter already provides. In doing so, you’re creating a half-baked product. Creating something useful requires you to go the extra mile and provide what several other services are too lazy to provide. Tweader has a great user interface and it’s dead simple to use. However, none of this matters because it doesn’t correctly deliver on its promise. Tweader will be useful for those that don’t “tweet” much. However, if you’re an @ reply fanatic, stick with Twitter Search.
