Okay great, now I’m following all of these people; how do you sort through it all? The first tool I use is Tweetscan which is a real-time Twitter search engine. Yes, its really real-time. I can search for my name and see who has tried to @message me. I can also look up interesting memes like Heath Ledger and OpenID. My favorite feature is the email alerts for specific search strings delivered to you daily. Again, I do this for my username to make sure I didn’t miss something directed at me and then can reply accordingly.

Now a lot of these features can be done with Twitter’s mobile features but honestly, I don’t use SMS with Twitter (thankfully I’m a faithful m.twitter.com user) and with the new limit on 250 SMS messages, it wouldn’t make sense anyways.

Another application I use to find what’s what in my area is Twitterwhere (the other one). This is a cool application written by Matt King that gives you tweets within a certain mileage of your listed location in Twitter. There are RSS feeds along with a slick Adobe AIR app to go along with it. I’ve used this to stalk … err … find all of the people I’ve been following in Portland. It was also the application that got me thinking about starting pulseofpdx.com.

Here’s the problem; you just can’t do it. Its impossible.

I’ve been working with a few folks on pulseofpdx.com and one of the things I wanted to do was whip up a t-shirt (how can you not have a t-shirt for an as-yet-completed website?!) that would help get people fired up at the next Ignite Portland. I figured a few words on the back, maybe 4 or so, in big, bold letters and then on the front something like “Follow the pulseofpdx.com”. (Bear in mind I’m open to suggestions on this). Where else would I turn for the pulse then to Twitter? Here is what I found (newest first):

	voiceofra : @kveton liberal neohippies are more PDXer terms << (2008-01-15 20:08:02)
	Zolotkey : @kveton Diversity is what PDX in one word could be. :) << (2008-01-15 19:26:56)
	RobHayes : @kveton microbeer, gore tex, quadrant-ed, slow food, self-evangelizing, voodoo doughnuts << (2008-01-15 19:15:49)
	aziari : @kveton my contribution to add to the mix: progressive. eclectic. sustainable. << (2008-01-15 19:09:13)
	JefftheGreat : @kveton: silicon forest, liquid sunshine, non-californians, Idaho’s Portugel, flanel, tree, ducks, subaru, medical mary jane, liberal, etc << (2008-01-15 19:07:26)
	bryce : @kveton webfeet? << (2008-01-15 19:05:17)
	slyness : @kveton keep it simple, ‘local geek culture’ is enough. what if nongeeks in pdx what to be part of the pulse. local tweet culture? << (2008-01-15 18:59:10)
	jabancroft : @kveton Not all Portland geeks are tree hugging greenies. Just be careful with that brush you’re painting with. ;-) << (2008-01-15 18:58:36)
	Seeger : @kveton open source, bike-friendly, fleece-and-gortex fashion, left-leaning, latte-swilling… Looking forward to drinks Thursday! << (2008-01-15 18:55:37)
	sparkwatson : @kveton DIY? Grass Rootsy? << (2008-01-15 18:54:20)
	Zolotkey : @kveton independent << (2008-01-15 17:26:36)
	metafluence : @kveton pioneers << (2008-01-15 17:26:11)
	spinnerin : @kveton I like ‘hippie geek’ to describe Portland, personally. << (2008-01-15 16:59:24)
	sarahgilbert : @kveton: community. definitely not ‘weird,’ because the whole ‘keep pdx weird’ thing originated in austin, which makes it seem like cheating << (2008-01-15 16:38:08)
	cookingupastory : @kveton idk if one word can do it. bliss? pdx has it all. << (2008-01-15 16:35:26)
	windley : @kveton wet << (2008-01-15 16:31:54)
	samnagle : @kveton organic, green, autonomous, natural, Innovative, Original. I guess that wasn’t one word. << (2008-01-15 16:30:29)
	slyness : @kveton “local geek culture” could be Twitter LGC or just the fact that three words are better than four. kick that hippy to the floor. << (2008-01-15 16:12:40)
	JefftheGreat : @kveton drop the word “hippy” << (2008-01-15 16:12:12)
	slyness : @kveton pdx’ers are weird not hippy. << (2008-01-15 16:10:29)
	mtrichardson : @kveton @samnagle or maybe just ‘portland geeks’ – doesn’t portland connate hippie well enough already? << (2008-01-15 16:02:05)
	sarahgilbert : @kveton: ‘local free-range geek culture’? << (2008-01-15 16:01:44)
	slyness : @kveton drop the word hippy << (2008-01-15 16:01:37)
	samnagle : @kveton maybe just “hippy geek” << (2008-01-15 16:01:00)

l

Okay, so if you’re still reading … wow … bravo to you. That’s a lot of dialog. Here’s the thing … I can’t figure out 4 words that describe Portland. I can find 4 words that do it for me (if you’re playing a long from home they are “local hippie geek culture”) but what about everybody else?! Not everybody wants ‘ducks’ or ‘hippie’ or even ‘geek’ for their 4 words. Darn it. What then is the Pulse of Portland?! Well, that’s easy. Its something different for everybody. That’s what makes Portland such the independent, free-range, local, hippie, geek, culture, art, eclectic, progressive, sustainable, silicon forest, liquid sunshine, non-californians, Idaho’s Portugel, flanel, tree, ducks, subaru, medical mary jane, liberal, microbeer, gore tex, quadrant-ed, roasted, distilled, brewed, slow food, self-evangelizing, voodoo doughnuts, webfeet, wet, organic, green, autonomous, natural, innovative, original and blissful place that it is.

The solution? Look for a feature on the site in the near future that lets you choose-your-own-adventure when it comes to your Pulse of PDX t-shirt. Your color of shirt. Your 4 words. All of it the Pulse of PDX. As my father-in-law is known for saying: we have the technology.

Man I love this city.

Because you all were so curious … ha!

Update: I should give props to Pascal Van Hecke for pointing this out and for not doing anything mean … thanks Pascal!! :-)