Tweewer: News App & Google Reader Alternative Based On Twitter Lists
With the imminent demise of Google Reader just a few months away, the inevitable is happening: people have started to come up with unique ways to replace it. Not surprisingly, Twitter has formed the basis of one such solution provided by Tweewer, a web service that lets you view tweets by accounts in a Twitter list as if they were news items. Tweewer lets you view a tweeted link as it would appear on the website, or open the link in a new tab. You can retweet a news item, which is somewhat akin to the share function in Google Reader, and easily add a list of your choice.
Tweewer lets you follow your interests’ lists, which are public Twitter lists that you or any user has created. To add a list, click the plus sign at the top of the left column and enter the Twitter handle of the user who has created the list, followed by a forward slash and the name of the list. Example: @FatiWahab/technology. If you’re not sure where this comes from, open a Twitter list in your browser and look at the URL.
If you don’t want to spend time creating your own lists, you can use Tweewer to find them. Type in either a user’s name or a keyword for what you’re interested in, and Tweewer will find active lists for you to add.
All tweets from the list you’ve added appear in the left column, and you can click any of them to open the link on the right. You will notice that two close buttons – one grey and one red – are added to the page. The red button closes the link preview, while the grey button closes the left side bar.
To open a link in a new tab, click the tweet and a big blue ‘Open’ button will appear momentarily. Click it to open the link in a new tab. To save a list, click the star button. To switch between lists, pull down the dropdown menu and pick from the ones you’ve added.
Scroll to the very bottom of this column and you will see a row of buttons for controlling the left column, moving through the tweets, and opening or closing links.
Lastly, on Tweewer’s home page, you will see a bookmarklet that you can add to your bookmarks bar. When you click the bookmarklet on a webpage, it finds lists that the website’s Twitter account has been added to. You might not always get accurate results from this, but it’s handy to have around.
Tweewer’s interface does need a little improvement, but what it needs even more is support for signing in with your Twitter account so that it can show you your private lists as well.
