Inside the Mind of Sators

Twitter is all the latest craze these days.  There’s some key applications that I have found to make the whole Twitter social media micro-blogging process very streamlined.

1. TweetDeck (www.tweetdeck.com) - Definitely my number 1, in fact I have a whole screen dedicated to TweetDeck.  You can update your Twitter and Facebook status from one form, have multiple columns of data – ie my columns are: All Friends, Facebook Friends, Replies, TwitScoop, then several search columns for topics I’m interested in.  Easy to Retweet, shorten URLs, etc.
2. DestroyTwitter (www.destroytwitter.com) – Ok my biggest complain about TweetDeck is that it doesn’t really do multiple Twitter accounts…DestroyTwitter is very similar to TweetDeck…I prefer TweetDeck, but I use DestroyTwitter to follow a second twitter account on the same machine as TweetDeck
3. HootSuite (www.hootsuite.com) – Web interface that allows you to tweet to multiple Twitter accounts in one post.  Also supports posting to Ping.fm and displaying Google Adsense advertisements in your shortened URLs, however at the time of this writing, that feature was broken.
4. Tweepler (www.tweepler.com) – ok not everything is about displaying Tweets.  Tweepler is a very slick interface that shows you who has recently followed you, and gives you information about each user allowing you to easily choose to follow them as well, or ignore them.
5. TwitterCounter (www.twittercounter.com) – Some  people just want statistics…how many people are following you compared to yesterday, and how many people can you expect to get tomorrow based on following trends?!  TwitterCounter to the rescue.
6. Ping.fm (www.ping.fm) – Ok by far the best multiplatform status update broadcasting tool I’ve ever seen.  You can post one update to everything from Twitter and Facebook to GTalk and AOL.  Many many many ways to send updates as well such as SMS, Email, Web, Mobile Web, IM, etc.
7. MePing (www.bryanbartow.com/apps/meping/) – Yes, hootsuite can post to Ping.fm, and Twitter can automatically update your Facebook status…I got too many wires crossed and shut off the connection for services updating each other and am letting Ping.fm be the only multi-platform announcer.  BUT, I don’t like having to go to the website, so MePing is a lightweight little app that allows you to quickly shout a message to the Ping.fm network

There’s my seven favoriate apps.  What are you using?  Oh ya – hit up the follow @sators.

Boy, I blew it.

This week I have learned a really hard lesson about not letting my frustration get the best of me.  I have joined the ranks of Kevin Colvin, “theconnor“, and others who have gotten themselves into carreer trouble through Facebook, Twitter, or in my case, their blog.

This weekend I had some unfortunate circumstances happen to me on the road.  Really in retrospect now it seems silly, but at the time I got really fired up about it.  At the time, it seemed like the people who could do anything to resolve it didn’t really care.  Perhaps I didn’t know them well enough…whatever the case, I was wrong.  All of these perceptions on Sunday boiled over and frustration and tension got the best of me, and so I let out what feelings I was having at the time on this here blog.  (Don’t bother trying to find the post…it’s gone.)  Boy, that was another example of where I was wrong to say the least. Not only did I say things I didn’t mean, but I brought up issues that weren’t even relevant or that aren’t even bothering me – seems my frustration was feeding on itself – and thus my demise.

I was sitting on a plane, created the blog, posted to my facebook, and the flight took off.  An hour and a half later when the flight touched down, I came to my senses, deleted it, and took every reference to it down.  Too late.

The people who I thought didn’t care actually did, and those same folks who could have and eventually would have resolved the circumstances in which I had suffered read my fuming blog post.  It is those same individuals who controlled whether I worked for them or not, and after reading my admittingly inappropriate post, decided it best that I not be with them any longer.

I can’t blame them, this is absolutely 100% my fault.  Just when I had started to feel like everything was going well with this gig, I go and shoot myself in the foot.  It’s definitely a wake up call to me – I’ve never done this before, being so blunt online or letting my frustrations and emotions run away.  I wouldn’t recommend it.  Not only was it just plain foolish, but I put in writing things that I didn’t even mean.  I let the emotion of the moment dig my grave.

It’s a sad day, naturally gray skies and starting to rain outside.  Ultimately, I’ve learned a big lesson here at the cost of working with a great band, an awesome crew, and in a fun environment.

I decided to raise the bar a little and try out some new blogging tactics. Thus, the unveiling of a whole new look – welcome to my little island of thoughts. If there’s any place that Jamie or I would ever love to be to relax, it’s the beach. Read more…