Twitter Crowds at CrowdStatus.com
Other April 13th, 2008
EduCrowd at CrowdStatus
New Crowd: ESL EFL Teacher at CrowdStatus
Ok, I just started EduCrowd, which must mean that I am the first edublogger to stumble upon CrowdStatus, a mashup site that lets you create your own crowds to follow their most current twitter tweets. Each crowd creator decides who is in the crowd, so it is sort of a personal thing. But you can share your crowds by tweeting the publicc URL. The public URL for EduCrowd is http://crowdstatus.com/EduCrowdcrowd.aspx … DM me on twitter if you would like to be included in the EduCrowd or the ESL EFL Teacher Crowd (@metaweb20).
Also check out http://grouptweet.com which lets you set up and communicate within user-established groups.
Ok, so what is the beauty of CrowdStatus then? I believe it is the ability to break the binds of our PLNs (Personal Learning Networks) and have a little more fun with twitter. For example, I can create a “crowd” on the topic of dog lovers, gourmet cooking, camping, or fishing, etc. I no longer have to stay inside of (isolated in) my primary twitterverse. I can now participate as an onlooker of sorts into many different communities that I self-create. Then, if I choose, I could reply to a specific person even if I am not following them. I can even invite them to enjoy the “crowd” by sharing the public URL; so that they can now participate in a new community that they are interested in but not previously connected with. Crowds are created by people you choose, they don’t have to be following you or you following them. So how do you find people that match your varied interests? You used the twitter search tool or tweetscan to build your crowds. With CrowdStatus, I can now be 100% of all my interests, not just the edublogosphere. I am a whole person again! My twitterverse(s) just multiplied!
Related twitterings:
TwitLinks – Tweets for Busy Peeps (links from the most popular tech twits)
GroupTweet – Send private Twitter messages to specific groups of friends!
5 Ways to Find More Friends on Twitter -Resources from our friends at RWW
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Frank's Blog - 21CT is licensed under a 
Hey Frank – how similar is Crowd Status to GroupTweet? Liz Davis wrote about Group Tweet in this post last night.
Group Tweet is good for setting up communicative groups in twitter, I use it for a group of teachers. CrowdStatus is very different. It just creates a collection of people that you want to add to a group so that you can take a quick peek at their recent activity. You (the creator) decides who is in the group, people cannot join. So you could break all your twitter clan down into discreet groups (ie, techheads, languages, pedagogy, math, science, etc.), then monitor recent tweets at a glance … not much functionality at all, just another way to look at your twitterverse, or expand it into other interests (cooking, horses, astrology, etc.). With Group Tweet, people have to choose to follow your new group, etc. Much more complicated. CrowdStatus is a lot more fun and wider reaching in a way. As with any tool, it needs to be explored of its own merit and possibilities. Ready to get a new “crowd?”
I will check out Crowdstatus because i think i can use it to build online friends. I just love to that. Thanks for sharing the information and the link.