Local Web developer Collin Robinson is in the running for a Mashable award for Best Social Media Management Tool for a Twitter app he created called Who Unfollowed Me? The app lets Twitter users, or tweeps, keep track of which other tweeps stop following them.

As more people start using the social media website Twitter — there were 175 million registered users as of Sept. 14, the site reports — software offshoots that enhance usage are multiplying.

Indeed, there is a community of people in Central Oregon who designs such software, just as others here develop iPad and iPhone applications, said Ruth Lindley, marketing manager at Economic Development for Central Oregon.

One developer of Twitter applications, or apps, in Central Oregon is 31-year-old Collin Robinson. He has been attracting national attention in the past few weeks, as one of his creations is up for a major industry award.

A freelance Web developer who lives and works in Bend, Robinson runs the design and development company CJGraphix with his wife, Jennifer. This year, under the aegis of CJGraphix, he has produced three Internet-based Twitter apps, and he hopes to release another before 2011.

Who Unfollowed Me? is a free and premium service — located at http://who .unfollowed.me — that allows Twitter users, or tweeps, to keep track of which other tweeps stop following them and tweet about the intelligence directly from the site.

The app is a finalist for the Best Social Media Management Tool award from the influential and highly trafficked social media blog Mashable.com. Mashable is giving out awards for the fourth consecutive year. This year, there are 25 categories for Mashable awards.

Robinson has been reaching out to fellow tweeps in Bend and elsewhere to ask for votes, which can be submitted to the award site one time per day. And the tweeps are responding in great numbers.

When a fellow tweep first nominated Robinson’s unfollowing app for the award, Robinson was thrilled. “If I can make it to the finals, I’ll be a happy guy,” he said he remembers thinking.

On Nov. 30, when Mashable announced the five finalists for the award and he saw his app listed, he doubted he could win.

“It’s a little David versus Goliath,” he said.

Who Unfollowed Me? is up against a few heavy hitters in the world of Twitter apps, such as Tweetdeck, which allows users to see the latest updates from accounts they follow in categorized lists, and HootSuite, which enables users to simultaneously post on Twitter, Facebook, Linked- In and other social media sites.

But as votes for Robinson’s app rack up on the award site, he has become more confident. “Now I actually think I can win,” he said.

Robinson is quick to admit his unfollowing app was not the first of its kind.

Traffic going up daily

First, he said, there was Qwitter, which e-mails Twitter users when others unfollow them. But then Qwitter stopped working, he said, and there was a void in the unfollowing-app niche. After developing it for a week, Robinson launched Who Unfollowed Me? in February. Since then, he said, “I’ve just watched the traffic go up every day.”

And now other unfollowing apps have entered the market. Two of them are JustUnfollow and ManageFlitter. Qwitter has resurfaced, too.

“I started by emulating other people,” Robinson said, “and now it’s kind of funny to see other people emulate what I’m doing.”

Who Unfollowed Me? is different from other social media apps Robinson has designed in the past in that people come back to use it again and again, he said.

Another app Robinson released this year, called Twush, gives tweeps a way to confess a Twitter crush, or twush, on other users in their network.

The idea came about after a lunch conversation with a friend a few months ago. “She said, ‘I have a Twitter crush,’” Robinson recalled. “‘Oh, you have a twush,’” he replied. Robinson went home and wrote down his idea, registered a domain name and spent a few days setting up a website for his new concept.

But he has seen people use twush as a novelty, just once or maybe twice, he said.

Who Unfollowed Me? is different from twush in this respect, and others. Some users pay $4.99 a year for premium services on the site, and these days Robinson is seeing 200 new accounts being registered per month. Currently, he said, the site has 350,000 registered users and receives 90,000 visits per day.

The other app Robinson released this year is called Follower Review. It gives Twitter users numerical information on the ways they and their followers use the social media site: how often they retweet, or forward, information; how often they link to sites in tweets; how often they reply to others’ tweets; and how frequently they add hashtags, or labels, to their tweets.

Mashable does not pay award winners. But already the nomination of Robinson’s unfollowing app has brought up thousands of new users and Twitter followers.

The added attention is likely to come in handy, as Robinson continues to develop new Twitter apps and other technologies.

Before the year is up, Robinson said, he hopes to release an app called So Forgetful, which will allow users to set reminders for themselves in the form of tweets and e-mails. The app originated, he said, from his wife frequently nagging him to take out the garbage on Sundays.

And Robinson is eager to expand Who Unfollowed Me? to Facebook.

Lindley said EDCO does not know exactly how many software developers live and work in the region. But she does know such people abound here, mostly for quality-of-life reasons.

After all, their work is not necessarily tied to the region, so they might as well live here, she said.

“Simply by being nominated in the Top 5,” she said, “it brings attention to the independent development community that we have, and a lot of folks don’t know that we have a lot of software developers. … It brings attention to the kind of entrepreneurial talent and software talent that we have in Central Oregon.”

SocialEatia

Robinson is not only involved in his own projects. He currently works at the office of SocialEatia, a soon-to-launch Web venture that will help restaurants and other food-related businesses coordinate their social media presence, and show hungry Web surfers posts from myriad local establishments.

Robinson is designing Social-Eatia’s website, and when he’s done, he will develop iPhone and Android apps for the service, said SocialEatia CEO Evan Julber.

Julber said SocialEatia was born after Julber told Robinson about how a family friend of Julber’s was struggling to find time to update all her restaurant’s social media sites, and Robinson essentially said he could have an app for that.

These days, Robinson said, he spends about 35 hours a week working on SocialEatia and about 20 hours a week on his own projects, including his own apps.

“His work ethic is excellent,” Julber said of Robinson. “I know he’ll work till 1 or 2 in the morning, and he just loves programming and learning new programming techniques.”

Attention tweeps

Who Unfollowed Me? at http://who.unfollowed .me/