Web Client for a Web App: Why Brizzy Works for Twitter
Posted by | Posted in web2.0 | Posted on 30-09-2009
It isn’t often that one startup takes the API of another startup and makes something useful out of it, but Brizzly has figured out how to do just that. Love it or hate it, Twitter has become the social network that’s here to stay, with celebs tweeting night and day about their inane exploits. Yet part of the frustration of using Twitter is actually using their website, and it all comes down to a matter of links. If someone links to a photo, it’s a text link which you have to open in a new window (tab) to find out what it is. No previews, no inline viewing. Since the 140 character limit is not great for long URLs, shorteners pick up the slack, which leaves you wondering where exactly the 301 redirect will take you. Finally, let’s face it, some of us have friends or family that just tweet too much, and there’s no good way to put a lid on certain people’s updates.
Brizzly fixes all of that, and hopefully will be moving out of beta-invitation stage soon. (Drop a line if you’d like an invite.) It lets you mute individuals you follow temporarily so you can clear up your tweet stream, and it automatically follows shortened URLs and displays the actual path in each tweet. Best of all, it brings up images and YouTube videos inline, so you don’t have to follow any text links to get there, significantly speeding up checking in with everyone’s updates. It’s a Twitter power-user’s dream tool, and a great way to reinvent the wheel while adding useful features, instead of just cloning it.
