[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8yRaWY1xV8&w=479&h=291]
Referral Friday is part of an ongoing series inspired by John Jantsch's Make-a-Referral Week. For more about that, and loads more referrals for everything from cobblers to coaches to gee-tar teachers, start here. Pass it on, baby!
Those of you who follow me there know that I use Twitter in a way that has become decidedly non-mainstream: to inform and share in short, dense bursts, and in as entertaining a fashion as possible.
Some of the tweets fall directly from my brain to the little "What up?" box in perfectly-formed, 140-character packets. Many, however, do not. Wit just don't work that way.
Before Birdhouse, an ingenious little iPhone drafting app developed to help Twitterers who write, one of two things happened: (1), I posted something half-assed; or (2), I posted nothing as I mused over the best phrasing, invariably losing forever whatever germ of a gem I'd started with. Suckery! Confounded suckery!
To paraphrase one of the participants in this fan video, now that I have Birdhouse my teeth are whiter, my children, well-behaved and my tweets are "favorited" all the time. Well, not really; nobody's tweets get favorited all the time.
Birdhouse lets you save drafts of your tweets, star and review them, then publish (or presto!, unpublish them) as you like. It's not meant to replace other iPhone apps, but to complement them. (Although I wouldn't be surprised if those other iPhone apps start baking in something Birdhouse-like themselves once they do the Homer "D'oh!", so I hope for the developers' sakes they have some really neato features lined up for future releases.)
Full disclosure: I am a friend to and mad fan of Adam Lisagor (@lonelysandwich on the Twitter), who developed the app along with his able compatriot, Cameron Hunt (@camh) from my new-favorite city, Portland, Oregon. (Should we all just move there now? Seems like all the cool kids are doing have done it.) But hey, them what knows me knows I don't just SHILL. And even if I was, it's a crapload of functionality for just $3.99.
If you're just using Twitter to talk about what you had for lunch (and please, stop doing that!) or mostly to share links, promote yourself (stop that, too!) and shoot the shit on the backchannel, as they say, keep on using your regular iPhone client.
But if you want to use Twitter to entertain the world and make yourself a better in the bargain, Birdhouse is the tool of the month.
In the good way.
xxx
c
Birdhouse writing app for Twitter on the iPhone, just US$3.99