The country you’re living in should be automatically detected, but you also have the possibility to change it, if you want to see what’s going on elsewhere.

Select a Country, and it will display its most active conversations.

These most active conversations are updated nearly real time (every 5 minutes). I hope you’ll enjoy it! :)

On all conversations – tracked in real time on Twitoaster – you’ll find a new purple button called “Embed Conversation”. Simply define the size of the widget and copy/paste the code in a blog post, a forum, a website, etc. That’s it! Your readers can now react and follow the Twitter conversation.

This embed feature can be very useful if you want to highlight your followers’ reactions to a question, show a Twitter survey results… Your readers will have the opportunity to react in real time via Twitter, directly from the widget, without leaving your website/blog.

Twitoaster is not handling these simple mentions. The reason is it’s quite difficult to guess if a mention is just a spontaneous tweet someone wanted to highlight on your timeline; or if it’s actually a reply / retweet.

I already made a couple of tests using a time window algorithm (grouping mentions with the closest tweet you made) but it retrieved far too much “false positives”.

A good idea would probably be to mix this technique with semantic analysis, but it’s a heavy development for something that probably won’t worth it… Most of people who really want to reply (and not just drag your attention) are making a real reply.

So I’m opening the debate: Would you like to see these simple mentions handled on Twitoaster, or is it useless? If there are developers around, I’d be happy to hear their technical suggestions! Think also to share this post if you know some Twitter devs :)

Well… You obviously get an idea if you take a look on your number of followers. But when a tweet is retweeted by someone, this “someones’s followers” are also receiving – and probably reading – your tweet as well.

This is what I call 2^nd level Followers: the number of users who are receiving your tweets, but who are not following you directly. And there can be many!

Here is an example, with this @jbruin conversation read by 350,000+ users, where she has “only” 9,500 followers.

Because this number is different for every tweet you make, it is displayed on every Twitoaster conversations pages. A good metric for measuring how viral a tweet can be!

I also included an average count of these second-level followers on your profile pages, next to the regular followers number.

Let me know what you think about it!

Real time threading means no more “sync” delays. If you tweet, reply or retweet something from Twitter or any other Twitter application, you’ll see it a few seconds later, threaded on Twitoaster.

For Retweets, they are handled the same way replies are, which means you’ll find them in conversations, charts, rankings…

I hope you’ll enjoy these two brand new features!

• Servers changes: Twitoaster is about to move to new and more powerful machines. This new system will be “connected” to Twitter though their Streaming API (aka Firehose), bringing the features listed below.
• Real Time Threading: This means no more “sync delays” as all Twitoaster accounts will be synced in real time with Twitter. I know a lot of bloggers using the Twitoaster WP Plugin were waiting for it, and I hope they’ll like it.
• ReTweet support: Twitoaster is automatically retrieving your replies, threading your conversations. It will also retrieve your ReTweets and include them in the conversation. Charts and Rankings will also display ReTweets, bringing another level of analysis to optimize the way you communicate with your followers.

All of this is now ready and currently being tested (thanks to all beta testers).

The launch date is planned for Friday the 15th of January 2009. If you want to try it before time and join the beta testers team, feel free to contact me!

Last – but not least – I wish you a happy new year and I hope you’re all enjoying your holidays!

No “premium account” or whatever needed… Just a click from this page and that’s it, no more ads. Cool, isn’t it?

Remember these ads are Twitoaster’s only income. If they don’t bother you (or even better, if they’re so interesting you sometimes click on them) please do not hide / disable them!

If your feed reader supports it, you’ll be able to see all the conversation (threaded), directly from your reader. For the time being, three kinds of feeds are supported:

• Conversation feed: all the replies of a conversation.
• Twitterer feed: the 20 latest conversations of a Twitter user (each of them linking to the conversation feed).
• Popular feed: Most active / popular conversations (each of them linking to the conversation feed).

• How does it work? – Twitoaster converts your Twitter “location” field into geographic coordinates (latitude / longitude). Then, it uses these coordinates to get your country.
• What does it bring? – For the time being, two things: a map on your profile + conversations (click on the link in your sidebar) and countries ranking.
• What’s next? – These two implementations (map + countries ranking) are only a beginning. Geolocation opens the door to a lot of exciting features, like geographic search or location statistics: where are my replies coming from? which country is the most attentive to my tweets? … Other ideas or suggestions? I’d be happy to hear about them!

Please note the upgrade is still spreading (caches being updated) at time of writing. If you see any bug, please report it here.

A lot of work on Twitoaster, plus the fact that I’m currently relocating (and I guess you know how that can be time consuming)…

So here are the news:

• Servers change – Twitoaster is getting bigger and bigger, and I need to move the service on more powerful machines. I’m currently working on their configuration. The move is not planed yet, but I’ll probably do it in a couple of weeks. Because these new servers are costing quite a lot, I have added ads on Twitoaster. I know it sucks, but it’s necessary. I’m thinking to add an option in order to disable them. More info about this very soon.
• Real Time Threading – I’m working on a Twitter streaming API (aka Firehose) migration. This will bring real time threading to Twitoaster. No more sync, no more delays… Yes, it’s going to be great! Also working on it, and this will probably be operational with servers change.
• Geolocation – It was one of the most wanted features: use the Twitter “location” field in order to guess Users’ countries and produce countries rankings. The first version is almost ready and should be put online before the end of the week.

As usual, your feedbacks are welcome :)