Hootsuite Is Down: TRY 5 other Tools to Schedule Your Tweets

With Hootsuite being down I saw myself and lots of other people in dire need to continue scheduling tweets. So here is a list of 5 other services, which will allow you to schedule your tweets.

They are all up and running. 

1.) Twuffer

Twuffer lets you schedule tweets on a clean interface and is completely free for you to use.

 

2.)  FutureTweets

FutureTweets is very similar to Twuffer and a service that is dedicated to allowing you to schedule tweets.

 

3.) Buffer

In case you were looking for a slightly easier method, Buffer might be interesting to you. You simply throw a few tweets in your Buffer and they are then scheduled FOR you throughout the day. No hassle of individual scheduling.

 

4.) BinReminded

This is another interesting tool allowing you to schedule your tweets in order to remind yourself about things you don’t want to forget. Definitely worth taking a look if you want a slightly different approach to scheduling your tweets.

 

5.) Twaitter

Twaitter is another tool which might take a bit of time to familiarize yourself with. Yet if plan on exploring something not only for the short term until Hootsuite is up again, I suggest you take a look, as besides scheduling tweets also offers a few more nice add-ons. 

Ok, that's it I hope the downtime of Hootsuite will end soon and if you are in desparate need for another scheduling tool, I hope the above ones help you with it! 


via: socialmediatoday.com

Amazon EC2 troubles bring down Reddit, Foursquare, Quora, Hootsuite and more

The popularity of Amazon’s cheap, easily scalable hosting is showing its downside right now, with a number of popular websites and services throwing up errors or being down completely.

Foursquare, Quora, Reddit, Moby and Hootsuite are among those affected by technical troubles on Amazon’s servers. The company’s status dashboard currently shows problems with the company’s Elastic Compute Cloud and Relational Database Service operations, based in North Virginia, with connectivity issues confirmed.

We can confirm connectivity errors impacting EC2 instances and increased latencies impacting EBS volumes in multiple availability zones in the US-EAST-1 region. Increased error rates are affecting EBS CreateVolume API calls. We continue to work towards resolution

Quora pulls no punches on its error page, stating: “We’d point fingers, but we wouldn’t be where we are today without EC2.”

We’d ask you to leave a comment on this story but our commenting system, Livefyre, appears to have fallen victim to the problem too.

Update: In an update on its dashboard, Amazon says that “Delayed EC2 instance launches and EBS API error rates are recovering. Were (sic) continuing to work towards full resolution.”

Update 2: Over seven hours into this saga, service is yet to be restored. Amazon’s latest update notes:

“We’d like to provide additional color on what were working on right now (please note that we always know more and understand issues better after we fully recover and dive deep into the post mortem).

A networking event early this morning triggered a large amount of re-mirroring of EBS volumes in US-EAST-1. This re-mirroring created a shortage of capacity in one of the US-EAST-1 Availability Zones, which impacted new EBS volume creation as well as the pace with which we could re-mirror and recover affected EBS volumes. Additionally, one of our internal control planes for EBS has become inundated such that it’s difficult to create new EBS volumes and EBS backed instances.

We are working as quickly as possible to add capacity to that one Availability Zone to speed up the re-mirroring, and working to restore the control plane issue. We’re starting to see progress on these efforts, but are not there yet. We will continue to provide updates when we have them.

via: TNW 

Best Twitter Apps for iPhone

During the iPhone's nascent stages, users had limited choices when it came to Twitter applications. But now, there are myriad services that allow you to blast 140-character tweets, and keep up with your buddies, too. So now, the problem is weeding out the pretenders from the contenders – not that we're complaining. 

So to help you decide which app is best for you, we're offering a brief overview, with ratings (on a 1-to-5-birdie scale, of course), of eight Twitter apps for iPhone. BlackBerry users, don't fret; we've got you covered, too.

Twitter

Price: Free
Ease: 5
Aesthetics: 3
Speed: 4
Options: 5
Multimedia: 4

Overall tweetability:

It took long enough for it to appear, but when it did, the official Twitter app (which is really just a revamped version of Tweetie) instantly became a fan favorite. It's not too fancy looking, but gets points for its ease of use. When composing a message, a simple button tap hides the keyboard, and lets you access tools like username and hashtag search, URL shrinking, your iPhone's camera, your photo library and geotag services. Plus, you can search trending topics and nearby tweets, just like in real life. It's simple and to the point -- just like our favorite tweets.

Echofon

Price: Free
Ease: 4
Aesthetics: 2
Speed: 4
Options: 3
Multimedia: 3

Overall tweetability

Echofon was the top dog for a while, and it's still a good choice for Twitter users who want a free and simple app. The navigation bar runs across the bottom of the feed, and, while its options may be limited as compared to other apps (with its lack of URL-shortener, for example), there's something to be said for such a simple and clean interface. It's not as thorough as Twitter's app, but great for beginners.

Tweetdeck

Price: Free
Ease: 5
Aesthetics: 5
Speed: 4
Options: 5
Multimedia: 5

Overall tweetability

There's one reason why we love Tweetdeck so much: its columnar layout, similar to Safari's on the iPhone. To start, there are columns for users you follow, @ mentions and direct messages. But Tweetdeck also lets you add columns, which is perfect for those with more than one Twitter account or for adding customized searches and your Twitter lists. If you only download one app on this list, make it Tweetdeck. 

Twitterific

Price: Free
Ease: 3
Aesthetics: 3
Speed: 2
Options: 3
Multimedia: 4

Overall tweetability

Twitterific is another clean app, with the usual tabs – tweets, mentions, messages and favorites – but also a list of trending topics underneath a search bar. Our main complaint is that the Twitter stream lags and can be slow to update. Plus, it's annoying to toggle between streams. We would much prefer a navigation bar to this app's clunky menu.

Seesmic

Price: Free
Ease: 4
Aesthetics: 3
Speed: 4
Options: 5
Multimedia: 3

Overall tweetability

Seesmic is an all-in-one social-media client for the iPhone. While that's fine, we prefer to keep our Twitters and our Facebooks from clashing in a social media brawl. However, Seesmic is well-designed, easy to navigate, supports multiple Twitter accounts and lets you hook into MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, LinkedIn, Wordpress and countless other services. If we have any complaint, it's that, as a Twitter client, Seesmic just doesn't stand out enough, which can be a problem in the crowded app market.

HootSuite

Price: $2.99, or free for the Lite version
Ease: 4
Aesthetics: 4
Speed: 3
Options: 5
Multimedia: 4

Overall tweetability

For the person who's too busy to tweet in real time, HootSuite allows users to schedule tweets in advance. While that feature sets this app apart, we also like how easy it is to toggle between streams -- just by swiping a finger across the screen. HootSuite also offers Facebook integration, and, for pro users, lets you track the performance of your shared links. Our biggest gripe with HootSuite is the initial setup, which is too time-consuming, cluttered and not very user friendly.

Twitbird

Price: Free
Ease: 3
Aesthetics: 4
Speed: 2
Options: 3
Multimedia: 3

Overall tweetability

Twitbird is just too darn cute to leave off this list. (Just say its name out loud if you don't believe us.) It's aesthetically pleasing, and users can even customize the background of the main feed. Be warned, though: this app is pretty slow. Still, for a free app, Twitbird is stocked with options, including Facebook integration and list support. It's jut too bad they're rendered useless by the time lag. 

Brizzly

Price: Free
Ease: 2
Aesthetics: 3
Speed: 2
Options: 3
Multimedia: 5

Overall tweetability

It's about as much fun to set up Brizzly as it is to get a tooth pulled. Why on earth should we have to confirm our account via e-mail? There's not a lot to write home about once you've completed that arduous process, either. Sure, Brizzly is free, and we like how photos and videos show up in the main feed. (Note to other apps: copy that.) Other than that, you're probably better off looking elsewhere.