Update: TwitterBar for Firefox was sold to HootSuite and renamed HootBar in March of 2011. TwitterBar for Chrome was discontinued in October of 2012.
My Firefox add-on TwitterBar, the world’s most popular Twitter client for Firefox’s URL bar, has been acquired by HootSuite and has been renamed “HootBar.”
HootBar users now have access to great HootSuite features like the Hootlet: instead of typing “–post” at the end of your tweet, if you type “–hoot”, you can schedule your tweet for later, send your message to networks besides Twitter (like Facebook or LinkedIn), and track stats for link clicks.
The rebranded version of TwitterBar is still awaiting approval by Mozilla, but you can install it manually here. More information on the TwitterBar-to-HootBar change is available at HootSuite’s “TwitterBar to HootBar” transition page.
This is a completely miserable move from my point of view.
HootSuite started out strong, and I absolutely loved it back then, and then made the move to take away most of the capabilities in order to capitalize on “pro” features. Once again, another amazing utility has gone to dust, because surely, “hootbar” will do the same.
The amazing thing about TwitterBar was its simplicity. We have now lost that simplicity as well as an amazing utility.
Oh well.
Will you work in future versions of Hoot bar?
Girish, I will still be assisting in HootBar’s development for the time being.
Great!!! Thanks for the reply
@Mark Lynch: Did they take away the features in the “free” version but they are still in the Pro version? I can’t see how much they are charging but is it worth the price to purchase?
@Communibus Locis It’s now $5.99 per month for the “pro” features that are still available, with one exception. Before they went “pro”, you could have “Team Members” to be able to access your account and post on the same accounts and such. Now, the “pro” comes with support for a single extra team member, and every other costs an extra $15 per month, which is even more than a regular “pro” subscription, which is weird.
And really, $5.99 isn’t bad for companies especially, but when you have to add in team members in a company, it gets a little expensive for small companies. And as for the average user, it really isn’t cost-effective to purchase the “pro” for myself, because I only use a portion of the features, but they are all “pro” features.
I used to use Hootsuite because it was an amazing application, and was much cleaner and much better than TweetDeck or similar alternatives. And being web-based, it went where I was. But with the “pro”, it’s hard to support what has been capitalized.
As for TwitterBar (Or HootBar…), TwitterBar was simple, like I said. I can already tell from the hype HootSuite is making about Hootbar that it’s going to get complicated. I mean, come on, –hoot instead of –post ? They’re trying to brand the crap out of it, and it’s just going to drive it to the ground.
I just got the notification that “TwitterBar 4.0” is available for the upgrade. I think I’ll just keep my version for now.
(All pricing for HootSuite was found here)
http://hootsuite.com/pro
FWIW, you can still type –post to post directly to Twitter. –hoot is a new feature, not a replacement of –post.
@John: I don’t use the service, I was just curious, but trying to figure out how much an extra team member cost made my hair hurt.
I’m being dumb, I’m sure, and I spent all of 30 seconds reading it but shouldn’t per team member cost go down? or…..are you buying a BLOCK of users?
Regardless, $15/month/team member better ensure that my tweets are gold plated, or at least makes me a sandwich every time I hoot.
@Communibus Locis
I’m not sure why it costs more. Actually, the more you buy, the more the cost goes up.
From their website:
1st Team Member Always Free for Pro accounts
Next 4 (2nd to 5th) $15 each
Next 5 (6th to 10th) $30 each
Next 5 (11th to 15th) $50 each
Sorry, @Mark. I know a John Lynch. My bad.
@Communibus Locis
It’s alright,
I know a few as well. :P