This morning I realized I had neglected Twitter over the past few weeks… well really, months. What happened? To tell the truth, I think it was partly due to the fact that my Twitter stream has become too much for me to follow. As I write this, I am at 497 on my following list. While that is no where near as many as some Twitter users have these days, I do try to follow everyone as much as I can, or at least I did. Funnily enough, have updated my Facebook page more than Twitter for the month of June.

If you asked me to place the blame on someone else besides myself, I would have to say it’s because my favorite Twitter client, Twhirl, has halted development. The team has since focused on developing Seesmic Desktop. Upon getting the alpha download email, I had grand thoughts in my head. However, after seeing the release, I absolutely hated it. Gone was the simplicity and compactness of Twhirl. And more importantly, no FriendFeed! I just can’t accept that. So I stuck with what was familiar and chose to uninstall it.

But then it hit me… Had I given it a chance, would I not have got burned out on Twitter? Seesmic Desktop has 1 key feature I wish they built into Twhirl… the grouping of contacts. I follow lots of Japanese bloggers, designers, twitter celebs (no, not those celebs), and all sorts of segemented groups. Keeping everything organize is a must.

Good news, Seesmic Desktop does have plans to add back FriendFeed as well as make the UI a bit more plesant to the eye. So for the time being, I will keep wading through the Twitter stream that I have amassed. How do you keep a hold of your Twitter follows?

Saturday, June 27th, 2009 at 5:46 pm in Thoughts.