There's a lot of reasons to hate Twitter these days, but I'm a believer in Twitter and I feel there's just as many reasons to love it. Twitter is a great communication tool (when it works), I also think there's ways to use Twitter as a productivity tool that will probably never be beat for me. Bkkeepr is only one of these services using the Twitter API that I've been trying out lately, but it's simply a mobile book tracking (and bookmark) tool that you update using Twitter.
Just use a bookmark, you're probably saying. I do. But, here's why this is useful to me. I borrow tons of books from the library, I don't usually read all of them before they have to go back for holds, but I do start them. I request them again to continue reading but usually end up with 4 or 5 post it notes with pages numbers written on them. With Bkkeepr I can keep track of where I stopped in those books on one page (no more paper, woo hoo!) I can update that page easily using Twitter direct messages.
The profile page is extremely simple to follow. I'm currently only reading one book, but my profile page has a few entries for the pages I've stopped at along the way. I can start as many books as I want though. I can also tell bkkeepr when I've finished a book.
I also like the badge for bkkeepr. It's just a simple text badge, no fancy formatting or crazy logos. I might add it to my sidebar just because it's so simple.
There's links included on title pages to conveniently add them to your other favorite book tracking sites like Goodreads or LibraryThing.
Twitter's API has allowed people to come up with some amazingly unique and simple tools. The mobile capabilities of Twitter have helped some of us find some creative ways to manage our thoughts, time, and assets. It's also the reason why I can't give up on Twitter quite yet.
