Notices

Here's a small guide for social network fans out there. Most of this may be common knowledge, but for new users this may be useful. Also, please add whatever you think will help.

Here we go:

While Facebook works well from the browser, you might want to be able to add statuses without loading the full page. To do this, you have two options that I know of. One is to link your profile with your twitter profile (you can use the FB app called Smart Twitter for that). Why would you do that? Because posting on twitter is much easier and you have several apps for this. If you don't want to use your main twitter profile, you can make one just for this purpose. Now you can use a program such as Mauku to quickly send status messages.

The other method is to install the mStatus statusbar app. This will use the ping.fm key (you will have to make a profile first). Ping.fm will allow you to post to various social network sites and mStatus app will allow you to do that in a matter of seconds. Really good way to send your thoughts with a few clicks (taps).

Checking out twitter and posting on it is possible via several apps. I mentioned Mauku which starts real fast, works well on 2G and is really good. If you want added functionality, you can use Witter or TweeGo (I think it's in devel for now, maybe got pushed to extras, not sure). TweeGo is one of the best looking apps on the N900. It is a joy to use. Unfortunately, its slower than Mauku, but, as I said, it's real pretty and has nice features.

Instead of installing apps, you can use web apps. TweetGo (not to be mistaken with TweeGo, this one has an extra 't' in the title) is found at www.tweetgo.net and has a large, finger friendly interface. Hahlo - www.hahlo.com - is another twitter web app which has a really nice interface and a great set of features. Ofcourse, you can always visit twitter.com as well


Here's a combo that I really like. Install the Twitter plugin for Contacts and Conversations (it may require installing the Pidgin protocols plugin first) and the FriendStatus IM Statuses Aggregator. Now, the first one will let you see the latest tweets from the people you follow straight in the contacts app (hint, click on Groups in your contacts app and choose Twitter to see only the tweets). It works great with FriendStatus, because FS will collect those tweets (alongside the IM statuses) and store them for later viewing - as the contacts app will show only the latest tweet. It works really well. Only problem is when a person posts several tweets in a matter of minutes, one after another, as the Twitter Contacts plugin refreshes at a set interval and will 'miss' some tweets. Only a problem with some automated tweets that are posted almost simultaneously (like those from engaget, for example, but you can use one of "the real" twitter apps to check those)

Sharing (and shortening) links is easy with a powerful browser such as MicroB. Visit http://bit.ly/. See the orange button that says "bit.ly Sidebar"? Tap and hold until you get a pop-up menu, then choose 'copy link address'. Open a fresh MicroB and paste the address. Add it to bookmarks. From now on, whenever you're surfing a website you want to share, while still on the website, open your bookmarks and choose the bit.ly link. It will open the web app to share whatever page you're visiting on twitter, Facebook, etc.

Sharing photos and videos on Fb is easy thanks to the Facebook plugin, but you can also install the Pixelpipe plugin. This will allow you to share directly on Twitter's twitpic, on picasa, flickr, youtube, etc. by making a Pixelpipe account. It uses a nice smart way to share on various networks through the N900's tag system. Tag something as 'twitter' and it will end up on twitter. You can, ofc, combine multiple tags on a single photo and define which tag is for what in your Pixelpipe account.

Finally, its not a social networking app per se, but Opera Mobile offers a great way to use twitter, FB and other networks in portrait mode. The portrait keyboard works well and is great for posting with your thumb!

There you go. I use mStatus to set my statuses quickly, FriendStatus IM Aggregator to check tweets from my friends, TweeGo to go 'full mode', Mauku when I'm on 2G, Opera, etc.

Again, feel free to add anything I missed

For the social networking side, N900 has too much focus on facebook. I don't care about facebook: in Brazil, Orkut dominates the scene. I think that it's also popular in India too. But there is no application for Orkut on the N900.

This miniguide is nice, tho. I wish it spoke a little about identi.ca / laconi.ca, a free (as in freedom - its code is open-source) alternative to twitter.

I think Mauku works well with those too.

Right, but Mauku lacks a ton of features. It does not even sort out @replies or direct messages at all. Plus, it is not open source and seems to be abandoned anyway.