The Activity Column Is The Best Part Of Twitter, And You're All Missing It

If you're a Twitter addict like me, and you use TweetDeck, there's a feature you need to know about: the Activity column.

The Activity column updates you whenever anyone you follow on Twitter "favorites" a particular tweet or follows another account.

The column is useful for…

• Finding new people to follow.
• Seeing what people beyond your immediate circle are talking about.
• Seeing content the people you follow like enough to "favorite" but not enough to retweet. Lots of people "favorite" something as a way of saving something to read later.

The column is fun because there's a voyeuristic thrill to watching it.

Oh, @mister-so-and-so sure does fave a lot of @miss-you-know-who's tweets, doesn't he?

Hmm. Bet @mister-tech-exec doesn't know I can see he just followed a vegan stripper.

I first noticed this column during the aftermath of the Boston Marathon attacks earlier this year. I wanted the latest information on what was going on, but I didn't know who was on the ground in Boston and I didn't know who to follow. But quickly, certain accounts - Globe reporters, police scanner accounts, etc - started showing up over and over again in my activity field.

Here's what the column looks like, and the kind of stuff I think about while reading it: