Ed. note: if you’re new to microblogging and Twitter, please feel free to just mark this post as read, ignore the email, move on to the next post, etc. It’s from a comment I left on a “Friendfeed and Twitter, where are we going with all this?” post on www.stoweboyd.com

Boy, I’d love to know some of the answers behind these questions. We’ve all talked for a long time about the relationships and “cast of characters” on Twitter being another reason “we” “won’t” leave (haven’t left).

But another thing I don’t hear a whole bunch about, when these FriendFeed-Twitter-Plurk(PLURK?!)-Pownce-Jaiku angst-a-thons come up, is the Twitter ecosystem. It seems to me that’s a big part of Twitter’s competitive edge and utility. No matter how cool the upstarts are, are they interoperable with Twitter’s “accessories” the many applications Twitter now feeds and is fed from?

On a regular basis on Twitter I use: Seesmic, Qik, Utterz, Summize, Tweetscan, Terraminds, TwitterBerry, Twhirl, is.gd, Tweetburner, Jott, TwitterFone, [Twittergram], Foxy/Twittytunes, Tweeterboard, Hashtags, Tweme, Rememberthemilk and Xpensr. Those last two are my favorite new use of Twitter: as a convenient, centralized “command line” to get data into my applications.

There are dozens and dozens of 3rd party applications that work with and through Twitter, not to mention the various bots (everything from mindfulness chimes to mainstream media news alerts to pr0n links) that have been created. I can think offhand of dozens of custom scripts, hacks, web and desktop and mobile clients, widgets and more that friends use. There are probably thousands of things “living” in Twitter world. There’s also a tremendous circulatory system of RSS feeds going into and out of Twitter streams and tying in other platforms like blogs and Facebook.

Can all this stuff be adapted to feed off of (and into) other APIs quickly and easily, should the momentum shift to another service? I’m not techie enough to answer that. But it seems to be a somewhat formidable barrier to entry, even at this embryonic stage.

Of course, Twhirl has been adapted to work with FriendFeed as well as Twitter, so perhaps it’s quite simple. Perhaps.

Seriously… PLURK?

This is awesome because if you know me, you KNOW I don’t know a G-D thing about developing, coding or, for that matter, following directions.

YET,

Using NewsGator Editor’s Desk (they are a client) I just hacked together a very awkward-looking but interesting little widget AND made it into a Facebook application. It’s an ugly* little alpha-proto-pre-prototype, but it took me less than an hour with no previous experience.

This widget is showing you the two most “popular” items from each of 6 of my feeds: Pistachio Consulting, Twitter, Flickr, Brainsieve, Qik and YouTube. The popularity data is limited because it is keying off the behavior of anyone using any NewsGator RSS tool to read any of these feeds. In the case of PistachioConsulting.com that means 22 users. The other feeds have fewer - or no - subscribers. But still.

It’s also a Facebook application, should you care to install a funky-lookin box of my content on your Facebook page. (NOTE: I haven’t had anyone test this out yet. I have no idea how it will look or work. YMMV. Don’t Drink & Drive)

But this is PRECISELY what I was getting at last November when I launched Brainsieve. I wanted a way to pull together “best of” content (as defined by how people interact with the content, not what I thought was cool) from anywhere that I was “broadcasting.” I wanted to put it all in one place, and I wanted it to self-editorialize. Meaning, “observe” audience interest and self-select the pieces that are most interacted with.

I realize that FriendFeed, SocialThing and any number of web presence aggregators also come close to the Brainsieve model, but here’s the point: a totally non-technical layperson built this and made it into a Facebook Application. For that matter, the widget above can be lifted and put anywhere. So this nontech chick not only built the tool, but the tool itself self-replicates. UPDATE: It also permits you to email and rate each individual item…

How ya like them apples? I’m impressed. What could you build?

*Believe me, there are way more configuration/beautification options here, I was just going for a quick proof-of-concept.

UPDATE: The Facebook application itself is not the point. Unless you’re an avid fan, or, say, my mother, you probably don’t need a widget displaying the “best of” what I have published on 6 of my RSS feeds. It could be prettified into a “Pistachio Channel” by which you could consume only the most popular things that I post, instead of trying to follow me a ton of different places, or drowning in a “Lifestream” that sends you every item I ever publish. It’s a “sampler.” The ability to read attention data (was the item read, emailed, shared, bookmarked, rated etc?) and sort the RSS feed accordingly is really hot though.

What’s amazing is that I can’t code my way out of a box. There was No. Coding. Work. Whatsoever to build this. Yet you can grab and re-publish the widget, email any item in it to a friend, rate any of the items, subscribe as a Facebook App, etc. etc.

Put differently, you can take ANY RSS feeds, combine them how you like (by popularity or date, # of items per feed, etc.) build a widget and convert that into a Facebook Application without ANY coding ability.

Current and upcoming subcontracting opportunities/requests for proposal:

Virtual Assistant
Wordpress Blog Maintenance
Graphic Designer

Description: Virtual Assistant

• extremely well organized
• good attention to detail
• prompt and accountable on managing their own projects and reporting back when complete or when something comes up
• extremely experienced and comfortable handling social networking sites, managing my accounts and logins, doing light blog maintenance on Wordpress (I will have someone else run the site, but VA will at times pitch in)
• good at managing upwards (i can be highly disorganized, so i can’t invest a lot of time in organizing the admin projects)

Responsibilities

• travel planning
• manage calendar (gcal)
• maintain & update contacts database (plaxo & others)
• help track/record expenses
• complete administrative tasks and projects
• assist with marketing tasks (opportunity to earn frequent large bonuses by securing paid speaking gigs)
• assist with maintaining social media presence (researching, organizing, streamlining and suggesting features to use on various sites and content streams)
• revamp and maintain filing system (help with move from paper to electronic)
• bookkeeping

Software: MUST have experience with

• some kind of financial reporting/tracking software
• google suite: gmail, gtalk, gcal, greader, etc.
• office apps: excel, word and powerpoint
• using an RSS reader & keeping up with blogs
• productivity/time management/product management software
• fluent in web search
• social networks: Facebook, LinkedIn, others

Should be willing to learn:

• Twitter
• specific finance apps like Mint, geezeo, freshbooks, xpensr, others
• WordPress blogging software
• specific project management software like Basecamp or other

If you have a recommendation or are interested, please contact Maria Thurrell via her site or via @mathurrell on Twitter.