Get Track back on your Twitter with Twitter Spy!

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Twitter Spy is an excellent way to get xmpp streaming and track functionality back on your twitter.  You can use an jabber compatible IM client, even Google Talk or Gmail.  I use Adium for this on the Mac and Pidgin is an excellent alternative for Linux and Windows users.

Here is how to set it up for your Google Account

To get it set up in Google Chat (the IM feature with in GMail. This will work for Google Talk as well):

1. In Gmail, go to the chat sidebar and paste in twitterspy@jabber.org

2. In the popover that opens, click Invite to Chat

3. You will get another window, click Send Invites

This will generate an auto response for twitterspy and twitterspy will then become a friend that you can IM with. First thing to do is IM ‘help’ (no quotes) and you will get a list of the things you can do:

autopost    Enable or disable autopost
follow    Follow a user
help    Get help for commands.
lang    Set your language.
leave    Leave (stop following) a user
off    Disable updates.
on    Activate updates.
post    Post a message to twitter.
search    Perform a sample search (but do not track)
track    Track a topic (summize query string)
tracks    List your tracks.
twlogin    Set your twitter username and password (use at your own risk)
twlogout    Discard your twitter credentials
untrack    Stop tracking a topic
watch_friends    Enable or disable watching friends.
whois    Find out who a particular user is.

You can then then use twlogin to log into twitter via TwitterSpy in Gtalk. Then you can post new messages to Twitter.

For example, if I want to track the techganghow, I simply IM: track techgangshow 

This will show all posts with techgangshow in it, except those posted by the user techgangshow.

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