Two new games, a very useful tool, and my new attitude toward Twitter
It's been a very busy couple of weeks at Mappdev HQ. Also, difficult. Let's recap:
I launched my second Flash game, Ruby Rocket, which I posted a preview of a while back. It's a very fun, simple, and addicting logic puzzle game that you can play in just a few minutes (but you might spend hours trying to beat it). You can play it on Facebook, or if you really do not wish to log in, on Kongregate.
I launched my first true Twitter application, built with the new OAuth Twitter API. It's called Tweep Tycoon, it's a very complete game, and you don't have to give me your password to play it. In Tweep Tycoon, you can buy other Twitter users as your pets, and climb the leaderboards by building the largest "social portfolio." The goal is to buy desirable pets that others will want to buy from you, so that the prices go up and you make more money. It's fun when you get into buying wars with others! You can play it at TweepTycoon.com.
I launched a Twitter tool that grew out of a personal need to remove a huge chunk of users that I was following, but who were not following me. I fell for a Twitter scam recently and ended up with hundreds of followers that I DID NOT WANT, and I needed a way to view those users and bulk-un-follow them easily. I tried a few tools online; one never worked, and another demanded $15 for what is essentially a handful of API calls. So, I set out to build my own.
Using the foundation I developed for Tweep Tycoon, in just a day of coding, I had "TweepSync," a tool that analyzes your friends & followers, extracts those people who are not following you, and shows them to you in sets of 20. You can un-follow (or bulk un-follow) these people and because it works in manageable chunks, the whole process happens very smoothly. I can't promise that it will work so well for people who are following thousands of users, but if you are in my boat, you'll be fine. You can find TweepSync at sync.tweepsync.com, and if you find it useful, all I ask is that you share it with your friends and maybe on your Twitter profile. I have some more tools in the works, like a reverse tool that lets you follow the people who are following you and a tool that lets you find new people to follow, so I'm hoping this will be the first milestone in a "suite" of useful Twitter tools for the masses.
So now that the products are out of the way, I'd like to talk about my new attitude toward Twitter. For years I insisted that I had no interest in Twitter and happily ignored it altogether. I spent most of my time on Facebook anyway, and I didn't think I was missing out on anything. Now thing are different. I while back I signed up for a Twitter account for my company, Mappdev (@mappdev), so that I could have an extra platform for announcing new products as I launched them. Recently, however, I realized that in order to build my marketing for my business (and incidentally, myself), I would need to get more involved in the Twitter conversation and put the same amount of time into it as I used to do with Facebook (especially since I'm doing Twitter apps now). So, I created another account for myself (@montoya_c) and started actively using both accounts each day. Though I still don't like Twitter itself, I've come to the realization that it's a great marketing tool and a good way to build a presence online. Coincidentally, I'm probably most interested in it since I am working with the API… that was the case with Facebook, after all. All that being said, I've also realized that I will perpetually be the person who is swimming after the ship weeks after it has set sail.
So, I'm serious about Twitter now and I'd like to ask you to follow me on Twitter if you use Twitter too. My accounts are:
- @mappdev — follow this if you are interested in hearing about my new games and related industry news.
- @montoya_c — follow this if you would like to talk with me and see the news & links that I share.
I can promise that I'll follow you back because I think Twitter should work that way already. My goal is to build a large following that I can use to market my work, but if that doesn't happen, I'll at least have a list of friends that I can talk with. That's what Twitter is all about, right?
So, in short: play my games, use my tools, and be my friend on Twitter. Thanks!
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3 Comments
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Following you on Twitter as ibneko. TweepTycoon sounds interesting, although… I don't think I have enough friends on my public twitter account to really do much…
(Ah, wait, that's a lie. Buying Starcraft… Woohoo!)
Ben: you don't need a lot of friends. You can buy anyone on Twitter, as long as you know their screen name (or you can even search by celebrities or global players). I happen to have Ashton Kutcher as my pet even though I consider him to be a douchebag.
Just cleaned up my follow list…thanks for coding that little jewel Christian!