This is a brief tutorial to the major concepts behind Gridjit and how to set it up and start using it. The screenshots below all link to larger versions of the image, so just click on the image to get an expanded view.

This first screenshot is what my Gridjit looks like at the moment. I default to the FriendFeed grid because I enjoy the richness of the media that comes through that network, as opposed to the straight text that comes from Twitter.

I tend not to spend the majority of my day on FriendFeed or Twitter so I wanted something like a dashboard that let me quickly scan what people were talking about, participate if I want to and then let me get back to my busy job. Gridjit has been an ideal way for me to do so.

In the FriendFeed grid, I can comment on items, “like” them and view more comments / posts from the user in question. All of the activity is grouped around users so I don’t have to hunt through a long, chronological stream just to see all of the activity from a given user. This is nice because I tend to pay more attention to some people than others so it’s somewhat of a filter.

Backing up a bit, let me talk about setting up a new account because Gridjit does some interesting things behind the scenes.

This is the signup screen of course. The thing to note here is your username. If you choose the same username that you use on Twitter and FriendFeed, Gridjit will try to automatically link your new account with your account on those services. It can’t do so completely without your password / Remote key, so we’ll deal with that later.

The other thing to note is the option to “allow everyone to view who you follow” option. This is a tie back to the earliest version of Gridjit which let you discover new users and content just by clicking on the username of someone in your Gridjit screen. Twitter eventually disabled open access to this feature through their API and FriendFeed never did support it, so Gridjit relies on having people’s API credentials in order for it to work. Because of this, it’s a bit clunky now so it may change / go away in the future. But it is nice when it works. I recommend leaving this option checked if you’re comfortable with doing so.

This is what your Gridjit screen will look like immediately after signing up. As you can see, there is not much there yet but we will fix that in a minute.

First, however, click on the “Sharing” tab. Here’s what my Sharing tab looks like:

Interesting, right? I didn’t put in any of my FriendFeed or Twitter information yet, but Gridjit found my accounts because I used the same username here as I do on both of those networks. One consequence of this is that sometimes Gridjit finds the wrong person or can’t find your account if you have a different username on those networks, or if someone else uses your preferred username somewhere else. That’s easy enough to fix, and we’ll look at that now because it’s also time to finish setting up my FriendFeed and Twitter accounts.

If you click on the “+ Share” button, the Gridjit UI will expand to reveal this screen:

Click on the Settings link and you will see the FriendFeed and Twitter accounts that Gridjit was able to find for you.

You’ll notice that there is an option to set your password for both of these accounts. This is optional but necessary if you want to pull in your FriendFeed and Twitter streams, post, comment, like, etc.

If you click on the “set password” link for Twitter, you’ll see this:

And there is a similar screen for FriendFeed.

Please note that FriendFeed API access requires your remote key, not your FriendFeed password. I wish all services did this because, frankly, I don’t really want your passwords.

Now that I’ve set up my FriendFeed and Twitter accounts, I can click back over to the “Following” tab, and I now get an aggregated view of both my FriendFeed and Twitter accounts.

Gridjit recently added support for my comments, likes and rooms that I’m a member of, so it’s easier than ever to stay up to date with the conversations that I’ve taken part in.

If you click on the Twitter button in the network menu on the Following tab, you’ll get a similar grid for the latest activity from the people you follow.

In a similar fashion, Gridjit also lets you view your replies via Twitter. Mari Smith asked if you can reply to replies. That feature is coming but for now you can still use the @username method of replying to people from Gridjit’s posting functionality, which I will discuss next.

Click on the “+ Share” tab again and this time you should see this screen:

Because you’ve set up your FriendFeed and Twitter accounts, you now have the ability to post to both Twitter and FriendFeed. One thing to note is that when you start typing in the Twitter box, Gridjit will automatically copy your text down into the FriendFeed box. This feature is eventually going to go away in favor of something cleaner, but for now it’s an easy way to post to both networks (but please be polite).

The final screen to look at is the Settings screen. This can be accessed by clicking “Settings” in the top right of the screen. It’s pretty basic and just lets you manage your username, password, email settings, etc.

Finally, I’d like to discuss some of the design concepts behind Gridjit.

As I was building the first version early this year, I started to notice the multiple dimensions that my online profile has. Back in the good old days when there were just blogs and static websites, my online profile consisted of a couple of URLs.

But now, with social networks, lifestreamers and a myriad of social services, my online profile is multi-faceted. Gridjit is one of the first services that I am aware of that actively tries to capture this multiple dimensionality and display it in a way that is easy to navigate and discover the dimensions of others online.

In the current version, this is primarily done through the “Following” and “Sharing” tabs which reflect the two most common dimensions online today.

I’m spread out all over on the internet, but Gridjit pulls in the various aspects of what I do onto the Sharing tab so that my friends can easily see what I’m up to. Another important aspect of my online profile is what I’m consuming and who I’m subscribed to. This is especially important when I discover a new person because I not only want to know what they’re sharing, I also want to know what they are reading, listening to, and watching. I’m interested in the influences on a person’s life because that’s part of what makes them who they are. One of the main goals behind Gridjit is to make that discovery process easier, and more fun. The next version will hopefully do an even better job of that.

Stay tuned.