Twitter for Google TV

All my Google TV posts up until now have had to do with video content on Google TV; this is a different kind of app. Lets take a look at Twitter for Google TV.  We all know what Twitter is, I use it several times a day, and now I can use it from my TV.

The first thing you see is the recent tweets, my TV can display four, I don’t know if larger screens display more, and menu options.  You can post tweets, search and manually refresh the list (the list updates automatically on mine, approximately every two minutes).  Aside from the list of tweets you can also see “Mentions” and “Favorites”.  I am surprised “Lists” are not available.  If you go to the right of feed you get some more options; for the main feed they are “reply”, “retweet”, and “favorite”.  You can also open any links (with Chrome) from that tweet, search any hashes, or visit a mentioned person’s profile.  If there is a picture included in the tweet it will show on the right-side of the screen above any links.

In the mentions list you can easily reply to a mention, favorite it, share it with others, open included links, search any hashes, and visit a mentioned person’s profile.  The sharing is cool, because just like when sharing from your Android phone, any sharing app you have installed comes-up as an option.

In the favorites list you can unfavorite a tweet, share it, open links, search hashes, or visit profiles.

In a person’s profile you can see their latest tweets or their favorite tweets, with all the right-hand options (listed in the respective above list description).  It is also easy to follow or unfollow someone.  When you are looking at someone’s profile you also get a little “Home” button in the top-left of the screen to take you back to your feed.

Typeing a new tweet is very easy and straight forward, you click the “New Tweet” button and then type upto 140 charecters.  Once typed you can either “Cancle” or “Tweet” it.  The real down-side here is it doesn’t auto-fill mentions, but that is livable (for now; Twitter, update your app).

Search always does a text search, so finding specific people can be hard this way.  But finding tweets about a topic is good.

One thing people like to do a lot with Twitter involves sporting or political events and the PIP feature of Live TV.  This allows users to live-tweet while having Twitter and the event on the TV screen at the same time.

You can add a Twitter widget to your homescreen (Home –> Options –> add widget).  This allows you to see the latest tweet from your feed.  Clicking on the widget opens the Twitter app.

Website:  http://www.twitter.com
App:  http://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.twitter.android.tv
Twitter:  http://www.twitter.com/twitter

FYI, you can follow me on Twitter @thekylesouza.