The ability to track topics and conversations on Twitter was a very useful feature that Twitter disabled. You can still search Twitter using http://search.twitter.com/ but you have to do it manually each time you want to find something. The search feature does work well for discovering the most popular topics on Twitter.

If you want to track topics or keywords in real time, all you have to do is add “laconica@west.spy.net” as a contact in your jabber supported chat client. I recommend Adium http://www.adiumx.com/ which allows you to use iChat, MSN, Google Talk, AIM, Facebook, and many more all at the same time.

Once you add “laconica@west.spy.net” as a contact, send them a message with the word “help” and you will get a full list of commands.

Here are some of the key commands.

add_service - Add a service you can post to.
help - Get help for commands.
off - Disable updates.
on - Activate updates.
post - Post an update to a service.
services - List all known services.
track - Track a topic
tracks - List your tracks.
untrack Stop tracking a topic

To add your Twitter account just type this message

“add_service twitter username password” of course substitute your username where it says username and your password where it says password.

To track a topic, simply type a message

“track topic” replace the word topic with any word or phrase you want to track.

This also works for identi.ca and army.twit.tv

If you have any questions, post them into the comments.

Uploaded by www.cellspin.net

Uploaded by www.cellspin.net

Uploaded by www.cellspin.net

This is a test of the CellSpin text feature. It allows you to type a message and then send it to sites like Twitter,Facebook, and Pownce. The most amazing thing is that you can also post to your blog. The app currently supports Blogger, Live Journal, TypePad, and Wordpress including self hosted blog. I will also test the audio and picture posting features.

Posted with the CellSpin iPhone App.

If you aren’t familar with Simpify, it’s an iPhone app that allows you to stream your iTunes library to your iPhone via wi-fi or 3G. It’s been available to jailbroken iPhones for awhile but now it’s available to everyone through the app store. This app sounds great in theory but how does it work? I figured the setup would be quite involved but it’s actually as simple signing up at the Simplify site, downloading the desktop client, and entering your username and password into the iPhone app.

The first test I did was in my office over wi-fi, when you launch the app it tells you which iTunes libraries are available. I selected my computer and the next screen gives you the ability to browse by artist, song, album, playlist etc. I selected the song, it buffered for a few seconds and then played perfectly. The app displays all the info from iTunes but also includes a bio of the artist and lyrics to the song. I did the same test over 3G and the buffering took a few seconds longer but then it played perfectly. If listening to your entire iTunes library on your iPhone or iPod Touch wasn’t cool enough you can also share up to 30 friend’s libraries.

Download from the App Store

Here are some pictures of the app.

Posted from the Wordpress iPhone app.