TwitterCamp, an Apollo-based visualizer
By Brady Forrest
Daniel Dura has open sourced TwitterCamp, an Apollo-based Twitter visualizer. It was originally used at ApolloCamp.
I ran it on my Mac most of Tuesday watching tweets fromIgnite Seattle's friends go by. It makes for a great Twitter visualizer. As it is Apollo-based it will also work on PCs.
At Ignite Seattle we used Twitterific 2.0 (pic) to share tweets with the crowd and those who couldn't make it to the event. Twitterific is a slick Mac app that auto-updates with your Twitter friends feed. It was definitely a big help to us. We didn't have time to create a custom visualizer and the app worked great for our purposes. We simply fed Twitterific the Ignitesea credentials and it auto-updated with the latest messages from us and our friends. Our only issue was the dark background of the app. It looks great on a computer for personal use, but the dark background made it difficult to see on a projector screen.
I think TwitterCamp will work even better (it's actually designed for this use). I like that it distinctly presents each message as a voice bubble coming from the user pic in a grid format. Also, you're able to resize it to fill the enitre screen. To reskin it you just have to modify four image files (though I think it would be worthwhile adding a config screen to future versions). To install it you need to install the Apollo runtime (something that you'll want to do sooner or later anyway) and then grab the TwitterCamp install.
Twitter is an amazing resource at events. It enables you to share what's happening realtime and with almost no effort. Since there are so many input methods (web, third-party apps, IM, phone) multiple people can update a single feed. As an event-organizer it is great. For personal use I am almost overwhelmed by my Twitter feed. It's too much. I over-committed. I can't consume my Twitter stream to my phone anymore; I have to consume it via RSS (and apps like Twitteriffic). I can't imagine I am the only person with this issue.
(Thanks for the pointer Bryan)