Make Your Own Twitter Dashboard With iGoogle.

A lot of my friends like TweetDeck for managing Twitter on their desktop. I like it too and recommend it over other 3rd party services I’ve tried. However, when it comes to flexibility AND simplicity, the best Twitter dashboard is the one I created using iGoogle.

Here it is in a nutshell.  First open your iGoogle page. Hover to the right of  HOME, drop down arrow appears, select Add a Tab.

Name it Twitter. Uncheck the automatically add gadgets.

From the blank page, select add gadgets. Search for and add TwitterGadget.

After you add it you’re prompted through your user name and password for Twitter and then this is what you’ll see on your page:

[TwitterGadget is a fully functioning Twitter tool that enables search, saved hashtag searches, DM, @Replies, Groups, etc. (more on that later)]

Next add a news services. I like Google News it aggregates from various sources. Having news right next to my Twitter tool allows me to contribute stuff that might be meaningful to my community. (Settings can be found in upper right side drop down of the gadget.)

Add GoogleReader. It is another great source to draw from when seeking stuff to contribute to your Twitter stream.

Tip: When you add RSS feeds to GoogleReader it’s easy to organize them by categories.

Now, arrange the gadgets on your page with the TwitterGadget on the right, GoogleNews and Google Reader on your left. So your page might look something like this.

From your regular Twitter Web Page  you can create an RSS feed for a hashtag # search and add it to your Twitter iGoogle Tab. I do this when I’m following live event feeds and I want to have the feed prominently displayed.

Otherwise, TwitterGadget has a robust search feature that also allows saved searches and doesn’t clutter the page but gives me easy access. The whole idea is to have as little noise on the page as possible with the greatest amount of information at my fingertips.

I also added Friendfeed Gadget and Facebook Gadget at the bottom of my Twitter page, just for fun. But most of the time I use Yoono to post to my services when I’m cross posting.

Again, my primary goal  here is to keep a clean, organized work space that I can quickly access news, RSS feeds, Tweets, Friendfeed and Facebook. If you blog using Blogger there’s a gadget for that too.

There are tons of other ways to make this work for the way you work, these are just a few of my ideas. Tell me what you think.

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