Although I am not a huge participant of the social media scene, I find myself actually sustaining use of Twitter. For those of you who don’t know what Twitter is, according to Wikipedia:
Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send “updates” (or “tweets”; text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) to the Twitter web site, via the Twitter web site, short message service (SMS), instant messaging, or a third-party application such as Twitterrific or Facebook.
Updates are displayed on the user’s profile page and instantly delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them.
What makes Twitter attractive to me, versus other social media, is how simple the concept is and how easy it is to participate. Since tweets cannot be more then 140 characters they’re ideal for posting random thoughts or having wide conversations with potentially dozens or hundreds of other users. No huge commitment for participating is needed. Just a free moment to share a thought.
It can also be a great place to meet and network informally with a wide group of people. I’ve helped people I’ve never communicated with integrate a payment gateway into their website. An even better example is my friend Sara actually communicated with a developer of kayak.com when she twittered about some problems she was having with their site.
If you’re interested in twittering there is a lot of ways to go about it. You can do everything you need directly through the Twitter website. However, serous twitters use third party software which makes twittering more powerful. I currently use the Twitterfox Firefox extension which I recommend. Prior to that I used the Twitterbar extension. Twirl and Snitter are desktop clients that have both been recommended and look very good.
If you’re in front of a computer semi-regularly, or an avid text-messenger as you can twitter though SMS, you should consider checking out Twitter.
John,
I’m finding that I’m using tweet deck more and more these days, mainly because it allows you to group your contacts. I use this to section out people from specific groups I’m following, for example sitepointers and various designers/developers I’m following. It works for me.
To update my own twitter account I use netvibes mostly because I use it at work for various key feeds i’m subscribed to, I’m still not that inclined to text from my phone as I usually forget about the internet when I’m away from the PC. That’s probably a good thing 😀
I’ve come to the conclusion that twitter is a great thing, from being very dismissive of it at first . It’s one huge constant global IM conversation that never stops, and that’s part of the attraction of it.
Andy
I love this article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/18/AR2008041802803.html?referrer=emailarticle
You have not explained how does one Twitter.
Is it like send SM from your Cell phone or is it like sending emails from your PC?
If I have to send a message to my friend, is it better than calling him or better than sending an email or SMS, is it like posting on Facebook???
how do you start to twitter?