Challenge: 7 Days of ONLY Tweeting via SMS

The original idea around Twitter was “to have a dispatch service that connects us on our phones using text.” (140 Characters by @Dom Sagolla) Before API, thats applications programming interface, you could tweet directly through the website or by sending a text message. Now that we ALL have smartphones, we use apps like @TweetDeck and @Echofon – or the desktop clients. Or we tweet from one of the other thousands of 3rd-party applications available. 

But for a short while back when texting meant T9, SMS was the way to tweet. I decided that for one week I would give up tweeting from Twitter.com, Echofon for iPhone, and the TweetDeck desktop client; I was going to tweet via SMS for an entire week. 

Anyone can update their timeline through text message (update Settings > Mobile). And everything you need to know about effectively tweeting via SMS is here. But could it actually be done for 1 week? My daily log is as follows:

Day 1: This is hard. I’m getting a butt load of texts. “Stats” is a nice feature. I hate that I can’t view @replies.

Day 2: Aside from the nearly 50 texts (timeline updates) before 9am (mtn time), this has finally come in handy. I can easily turn “OFF” my notifications and work on my paper.

Day 3: iPhone’s don’t count characters but I’m finally getting a feel for what 100 to 120 characters looks like. It was nice being able to focus on my paper without being distracted every 2 seconds with a text. 

Day 3 (later): I cheated. In retaliation against my paper, I logged onto Twitter.com. #c8fail

Day 4: Still had notifications turned off. Didn’t tweet much today.

Day 5: I KNOW I’M MISSING OUT. Am I addicted to my timeline? Tried RTing more today – you can only RT somebody’s most recent tweet – meh. Having notifications on prevented me from napping.

Day 6: Realizing that I’m not tweeting as much and of value. Missing the inspiration from my timeline?

Day 7: N/A

I cheated on the evening of Day 6. And by cheated, I mean, I gave in. I don’t think this says anything about my dedication in general, but rather, my dedication to Twitter – and that’s a good thing, right? 

Note: There are a few points I’d like to make, whether you determine these as positives or negatives of SMS tweeting, is up to you.

1. SMS tweeting results in a smaller timeline. You have to individually and manually turn on the users that you want notifications from. Pro: staying up-to-date with fewer, and more meaningful, users. Con: missing out on potentially valuable information in your timeline.
2. No trending topics and hashtags. Pro: TT’s – “out of sight, out of mind.” Con: #hashtags can be tweeted but not viewed.
3. No @replies. This really drives me crazy. Pro: less distractions – the only way a user can contact you is through DM. Con: it makes responding to users and conversing with users nearly impossible.

The quote in this article is from 140 Characters: A Style Guide for the Short Form by Dom Sagolla, co-creator of Twitter. (@Dom and @thebook)

3 Needed Tech & Media Updates

I try not to complain (too much) but recently, I can’t help but wonder why developers didn’t include the following (and obvious, in my opinion) features:

1. @replies via SMS: Over the past seven days, I have been experimenting with the original SMS method of tweeting. After a solid week of SMS tweeting, I feel that I have become somewhat proficient. However, there is one flaw: I can not view my @replies and it is driving me nuts! The only way to view @replies is if you chose to follow a user in your SMS timeline and you see that that user has tweeted at you. Other than that, DM is the only way to contact a SMS tweeter. And seriously, who DMs somebody unless you’re into #twitterafterdark. 

2. Exporting Facebook photo albums: So to make up for my lack of time spent on Twitter, Echofon, and TweetDeck this past week, I decided to update my privacy settings on Facebook. Out of my 67 photo albums (when did I get so many??), I chose to keep my travel albums viewable by everyone. Essentially, I’m using Facebook as a storage unit for the other 4,000 pictures from college. So, my frustration is this: I can’t export my Facebook photo albums onto my computer. I’m sure it could be done… one photo at a time. But that’d be a pain in the you-know-where.

3. Automatic sourcing from iBooks to iWork: I didn’t order an iPad because my 2nd generation MacBook still runs perfectly fine. But after playing with it for an hour (I know, I’m a hog) at the Apple store last weekend, I so want one. As a Communications student, I write a lot and I could see the iWork software combined with the iBooks app as being extremely useful. As I was playing around with iBooks, I had an idea: there needs to be automatic sourcing from iBooks to iWork. What I mean is, if I copy a phrase from a book or textbook in iBooks and I paste the selection into my document on iWork, I want my iPad to automatically source the reference in the correct MLA/APA format. Computers do everything else, why can’t they source my papers, too?

Why haven’t the developers addressed these issues? If you know ANY way around these problems, please comment!