I must admit when somebody first sent me a link to the microblog, Twitter, my first reaction was, “what a colossal waste of time”. It seemed to be full of updates on the most banal aspects of people’s dreary lives. “Going to see Batman tonight.” “Just had fish and chips for tea etc” I was ready to dismiss it as a faddy thing for kids. Enthusiastic friends convinced me to have another look.
Basically Twitter allows you to write very small postings of 140 characters. I mean you can just about write a decent haiku in 140 characters but surely reducing communication to this extent renders most messages meaningless?
But there seems to be a bit of a buzz about Twitter, so I read a bit more and it turns out Twitter works quite happily on your mobile phone. If you can convince people you have interesting stuff to say - they will subscribe to receive your messages known as tweets.
Suddenly I saw potential. Covering live events Twitter would allow you to communicate the exciting moments or decisions directly to people’s mobile phones. Motions passed at conference, new products released, scores at sporting events. It allows companies to set up a text alerting service for free – a powerful new way of reaching customers provided you have something interesting to say. Aside from personal tweets, the BBC the Guardian are twittering even Gordon Brown is twittering.
Another way of looking at Twitter is your own personal newswire update to the world on the latest event of importance to you or your business.
The great thing about Twitter is its versatility you don’t need to have a mobile phone. You can update on a computer and users can subscribe using RSS feed (to be covered in depth soon).
Just as some people like to talk on the phone whilst others prefer face to face contact Twitter offers choice. Users of facebook might be interested to know that you can synchronize your Twitter updates with the “what are you doing” section of your profile. A quick text message will tell your friends colleagues what you are up to and they can choose to find out from their facebook account, their mobile phone or through an rss feed or by visiting the Twitter website. That is what is so seductive about Twitter – it is the choice you give people in how they access your information.
Twitter is not the only microblogging site on the block. Other players are Pownce, jaiku and plurk. Whilst they do not quite do the same thing as Twitter they have unique features of their own. I’ll probably blog about them in future.
How to setup a Twitter account
1. Visit www.twitter.com
2. Click on the big green box that says Get started – join
3. Fill in details as requested including squiggly writing to convince Twitter you are human
4. Click on “I accept – create my account”
5. Twitter asks for your email so it can check your contacts to see if your friends are on Twitter
6. Skip this step by clicking on “skip”
7. Tell Twitter what you are doing
8. The search bar at the top allows you to search for people or organizations you might want to follow
9. The “find and follow” link allows you to search for friends by their email or just invite them to join Twitter and follow your postings (tweets)
10. Click on add devices and fill in your mobile phone
11. To set up email alerts – from people you choose to follow click on notices
Follow our skinflakes on Twitter for a daily update on interesting social networking sites
http://twitter.com/skinflakes
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