Twtlens: An Easy Way To Create Your Own Twitter Aggregator

twtlensTwtlens is a new service that allows you to create your own twitter aggregator (or lens as they call it) around any group or community of users that have something in common (location, work, interests, passions, etc.), as a means to have direct access to the community pulse, and tap into what’s on their minds at any given moment.

twtlens is built on the same platform powering UAE Tweets, that was previously reviewed here, enabling you to create similar views of Twitter for your own groups and communities; customizing it with your own logo, color scheme and background image.

To create a lens of your own all you’ll have to do is have a twitter account that follows everyone within the community you want to aggregate tweets from, and then go through the quick sign up process on twtlens.

Each created lens will then aggregate all tweets from the community in one interface, make those tweets searchable, extract trending topics (words and #hashtags) from the tweets, extract the most popular shared links by the community, and list the new links that are being shared by them.
Search results and trends can be made available through RSS feeds too.

twtlens

Twtlens which was developed by Dubai-based CloudAppers, is still in Alpha (with limited testing slots open at this moment), and the team are working on adding more features in the form of widgets that twtlens creators can add or remove at will.

This service is currently available for free, but according to CloudAppers, a paid model is in the works and should be unveiled soon.

UAE Tweets, A Twitter Lens On The UAE

UAE TweetsAmong the Arab countries, the UAE has to be the top country in Twitter usage so far, with more and more users getting on board every day, it becoming a source for instant information and news about what’s going on in the country, and with several events being organized around and through it.

To make it easier to follow tweets coming from users in the UAE, the team at CloudAppers have gone on and released a new site called UAE Tweets, which is a UAE twitter aggregator.

According to their description: UAE tweets is a twitter lens on the UAE, to provide a quick view of the UAE community pulse, and what’s on their minds at any given moment.

For their tweets to be aggregated on UAE Tweets, all UAE Twitter users have to do is follow the user @UAETweets on Twitter. It currently displays that it is following 391 UAE Twitter users and indexing their tweets.

An important feature is that the top 10 trending topics being discussed by Twitter users in the UAE are listed, and by clicking on any of them lead to the search results showing what is being said about these topics by UAE users. The service’s built in search engine also enables searching for other terms and topics being mentioned by UAE users.

UAE Tweets

Other than the users’ tweets, UAE Tweets also provides sections with the latest links being shared by users, as well as the most popular of those links.

The site’s design is really nice and simplistic, following the same design patterns as the Twitter interface, and making it straightforward to use.

UAE Tweets is still a work in progress according to CloudAppers’ founder Baher Al Hakim (@DrBaher).