Can I Please Have Some Ketchup With My Twitter Tots?
Twitter is making big waves these days and has been throughout 2007. If you haven’t heard of Twitter, it’s kind of like Instant Messaging but different and better.
In their own words:
Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing? Bloggers can use it as a mini-blogging tool. Developers can use the API to make Twitter tools of their own. Possibilities are endless!
And I’ll just add – THE WHOLE FREAKIN’ GLOBAL COMMUNITY!!
You have 140 characters to answer the question, “What are you doing?”
So what’s the point?
Well, people want to know what you’re doing, what you think, where you’re at, what you’ve found, what you’re watching on TV, what you’ve written, what you’re listening to, are you awake or sleeping, are you going out or staying in, what you like or dislike, answering others questions, on and on.
How Do I Tweet?
You use a computer or mobile device. It’s all at http://www.twitter.com. You have four tabs on your Twitter home page – Recent – Replies – Archives – Everyone. The default tab Recent will list the recent tweets from the folks you follow. Replies are people who have sent you Tweets. Archives list everything you’ve typed in the 140 character text box and sent. Everyone is, well, everyone on Twitter, and it helps you find other interesting people and what they’re Twittering about.
How Do I Follow Someone?
Start with your friends and family or go looking for Tweeters in the stuff you’re interested in or not interested in, which can turn out to be something you’re interested in. If you read a blog or blogs and admire the blog’s author, maybe the blogger has a link on their blog to their Twitter profile. Click on their profile to follow them. Or you could just start tweeting to no one and get a feel for it. Then go out and find tweeters by using the tools listed in this article.
Your first Tweet in the 140 character box could be:
- Hello Word or
- Hi my name is
or
- Good morning Tweets or
- I’m in L.A. anyone available for lunch or
- I found this cool link if you like
or
- Does anybody have this type of phone that I have? It’s a Fabulous Phone 500 and I think it’s broken.
- I think you get the idea.
How Do I Enhance My Twitter Experience?
Here are 55 articles and tools that will assist you with your Twittering:
- TweetVolume
- Help at Twitter
- Tweet like a Pirate
- Twitter saves lives
- Extra Super Tuesday
- Bring lists to Twitter
- Twitter through Skitch
- A game at Wordy Birdie
- Quit smoking with Qwitter
- See who’s Tweeting locally
- The Twitter FAQ at Twitter
- Photos and Videos on Twitter
- What is Twitter Doing Today?
- Follow a daily poll at StrawPoll
- Post to Twitter with TwitterMail
- Another Firefox add-on – TwitterFox
- TwitStats – More stats for your Twitter
- Politweets – When Twitter gets political
- Show some appreciation using tweetgift
- Twitter on your iPhone at thincloud.com
- Have a question? Check out Dearlazy.com
- Virtual Assistant Sandy works over Twitter
- Your Twitter stats provided by TweetStats
- Visualize your Twitter feeds with tweetPad
- A List of News Organizations using Twitter
- Make your feelings known with plusplusbot
- Eavesdropping on Twitter using overheard.it
- Follow Snoop Dogg and check out the badge
- What have you tweeted in the last 24 hours?
- Look for more people to follow using Twubble
- What Twitter Does For Me by Remarkablogger
- Do real-time Twitter searches with Tweet Scan
- Create a crowd with CrowdStatus (alpha status)
- Create groups of private tweets with GroupTweet
- Why I Deleted My Twitter Account by GapingVoid
- Need more than 140 Character? Twitzer for Firefox
- Follow a conversation using Quotable. Very Nice. 🙂
- The Big Juicy Twitter Guide by Caroline Middlebrook
- Use Commuter Feed for you local traffic incident reports
- TweetCloud – Creates a tag cloud of your Twitter words
- Send your latest Flickr photo to Twitter with SnapTweet
- TwitterShare allows file sharing reported by ReadWriteWeb
- Twittown – The Unofficial Twitter Community (alpha status)
- Summize offers a better Twitter search reported by Mashable
- Twitter: A Valuable Marketing Tool & Much More by ClickNewz
- Foamee tracks who you owe beer or coffee to (and vice versa)
- A real-time geographic visualization at twittervision. Just plain fun
- A new kind of Social Portal called Gridjit reported by The Blog Herald
- Write Text Longer Than 140 Characters in Twitter by Digital Inspiration
- Twitter Meter queries all indexed words sent to Twitter’s public timeline
- Harvest On Twitter – A Future Twitter Business Model? by ReadWriteWeb
- Turn your Twitter status into an email image signature or for your website
- Five Reasons Twitter is an Essential Social Media Tool by Search Engine Guide
- 17 Ways You Can Use Twitter: A Guide for Beginners, Marketers and Business Owners by Dosh Dosh
- Twhirl – A Twitter client that runs on your computer using Adobe AIR to run it. I’m currently using Twhirl in addition to Flock for my Twittering. It’s pretty darn nice.
For more information on the tools above and how you can use them please be sure to check out Demo Girl and Twitterholics.
Final Thoughts
Twittering is like having everyone in a big room from around the world and everyone is walking around talking with each other. Pretty cool.
Although, I have this vision that there’ll be a huge Twitter convention where everyone will be in the same conference room, and it will be completely quiet except for some clicking sounds, actually a lot of clicking sounds. Why? We’ll all be sending Tweets via our mobile device and too busy to look up and start talking to each other. 😉
Here’s my Twitter profile – http://www.twitter.com/BillS2000
Feel free to leave your Twitter profile in the comments so everyone can becomes followers and followees.
Rob Williams says
Tater Tots > Twitter Tots
But twitter is good too!
I’m already following you. If anyone wants to follow me, head to twitter.com/orangejack
Rob Williams’s last blog post..Stir-ing things up
Dominic says
Thanks for the advice. I have installed Twhirl and it looks pretty good.
Follow me – http://www.twitter.com/domfosnz
Dominic’s last blog post..Hello world!
Bill Stevens says
Yaro’s got a nice post over at http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com/897/yes-i-am-on-twitter/ with a video.
Here’s another cool trick from the video:
In Google type:
site:twitter.com “weight loss”
Press enter and there you go. Fill in the topic you’re interested in.
Very cool!! 🙂
SnapTweet says
Howdy…your SnapTweet link is incorrect.
Bill Stevens says
@SnapTweet – Sorry about that. Corrected.
Bill Stevens says
Check out this link as well at Make Tech Easier –
http://maketecheasier.com/16-interesting-things-you-can-do-with-twitter/2008/04/14
Geoserv says
STUMBLED!!
Voted for you at:
http://www.newsdots.com/tutorials/55-twitter-tots-learn-technology-online/
http://www.topstumbles.com/tutorials/55-twitter-tots-learn-technology-online/
Geoserv’s last blog post..PliggRanker v9.9.0
Bill Stevens says
@Geoserv – Awesome – Thanks
Narc says
I tweeted an @reply about this to you, but here it is for posterity: Thank you, thank you, thank you for the Qwitter link, which pushed me to trying to quit smoking again.
I’m http://twitter.com/narc if that’s not obvious 🙂
Bill Stevens says
@narc – Thanks. It is hard to quit. I used to sit at my desk programming thinking, “How am I going to quit?” But I did. It was a combination of looking at my 2 year-old daughter (needs a father who’s alive and healthy), I started exercising – so smoking made it painful to exercise, and just feeling sick a lot. I had a untouched pack in my car for about a month before I threw them out.
Eric Herberholz says
Nice list of articles. Thanks. BTW, I saw this, as you mentioned it in twitter.
RandyBrown says
Nice Site. I am new here but will be visiting more often as you have done a good job.
Thanks
Kaka says
thanks nice article 🙂
Bill Stevens says
@Kaka – Thanks for stoppin’ by.
Scoville Scale says
Don’t forget about iPhone Twitter apps such as Twitteriffic…
Ed Harris says
I think it’s time I learn about “tweeting.” Everyone seems to be doing it to advertise their website…except me.
Ed Harris
Bill Stevens says
Yes I kind of skipped the iPhone stuff because I don’t own one. I wish I did but I think the service here in Omaha, NE isn’t up to par. At least that’s what some of my friends tell me. Thanks for stoppin’ by Scoville Scale.
Bill Stevens says
Yes, there are some folks who use it for advertising, driving traffic to their blogs/websites, making deals, etc. It’s a time sink so it’s best to maybe set a specific time you use it and for how long. Thanks for stoppin’ by Ed.
chrislittle09 says
Thanks for sharing this post.
Speed Joe says
That dish certainly looked yummy to my eyes. I would love to eat it someday and hope that it is as tasty as it looks.
Speed Joes last blog post..Vodafone verlängert die Aktion: DSL All-Inclusive sechs monate kostenlos
Penthius says
A year later and I am still twittering and with thanks to your article and links . I still come back here from time to time when I need to visit them.
To those who think what will I say using Twitter , well I started out connecting with other parents around the world who like me have kids with Autism , twitter we all found was a nice quick way of popping and saying hi and giving a quick update on how things are goin – it really works for us !
and now I am using it to promote blog posts , it lets twitter know everytime I publish – its just too easy !!
Penthiuss last blog post..Book of Changes 04:23 Season 4 Finale
Bill says
@Penthius: Thanks Penthius. What a great comment to receive and wonderful to hear how you’re using twitter. Very cool.
Alan Jamal says
i am building a new site with a twitter clone php script as soon as i am ready i will post you the website adres. meanwhile keep twittering
Tim says
Twitter’s becoming famous day by day and almost all of my friend’s are using it. By the way i liked the picture at the top, the dish looks very delicious.
jeremy says
Just found out that Twitter links are no-follow, still it is a great way to get your followers to visit your website. I am twitting every time I write a good article. (Not too often!)
Hex Bolt says
Just found out that Twitter links are no-follow, still it is a great way to get your followers to visit your website. I am twitting every time I write a good article.
good
David says
Great effort for this post..Cheers!!!
Well i had created account on Twitter since and could not get impress with its simple interface. But now I have come to know about its significance socially. Twiiter is the power of today for socializing and for sharing your updates of web aswell.
Elicia Maulden says
Hello, I’m a webmaster in Paris. Just wanted to tell you I thought your website was cool. Thanks for updating it!
nuvi 255 says
I still have not really got into twitter more of a facebook fan, i think ill start using it soon
Augrae says
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http://evertweet.com/beta-party/
gallery804.com says
A nice article,thanks for your great job.
Beth says
Its funny running into this old post about twitter and see how it was just starting to become part of pop culture. Look at it today in 2010, every news caster, and business has a Twitter. Like Larry King, do you really think Larry is “tweeting” all day long?
Bill says
@Beth: Are you saying that Larry King DOESN’T tweet all day? You’re breaking my heart. 😉
George says
Twitter is definitely a strong social network which can be a good start for any business, personally I never have time for twitter, find other things more important even if i takes 5 mins to tweet.
JDM Parts
jessemarry says
twitter is very strong social networking site. For our websites and for personal use it will very useful to share with all. Thanks for sharing the information
Irena says
I admire Twitter sucess. It becomes more and more popular. Recently I also registered my new account on Twitter and I am very impressed by it´s features
Amit Inizer says
Twitter is awesome… we can share our thought worldwide within second… more n more people see your link and comment on it and get the chance to communicate many people of different kind fields…
so its great..
Raffaello Tamagnini says
well thanx for your post. here in italy twitter is not so common in italy but I have just registered and I m starting to like it. i hope in some time it spreads around in europe as in USA
kikio says
Twitter is amazing.
get the chance to communicate many people of different kind.
angelio says
We must know Twitter. and i like it.
and about this will list the recent tweets from the folks you follow.
Cadouri says
Very very interesting! I love twitter and I use it a lot for my personal and business account!
Rattan says
I thinks ketchup is not too good for this. Hot sauce is better. I am Indonesian and I love hot food and spicy food. But…, the problem is there is no food like that in my town. Only similar food named “rissol”.The shape is almost same. Inside it you can find so many vegetables. The best is with egg and small dices of carrot.
Shawn says
I prefer ketchup any day. Add a drop or two of Tabasco and you will be in heaven. Delicious!
Just Naira says
Thanks for this great post. I can now use my twitter account better now since i now have means of getting people to follow me.
Bill says
Just Naira » Thanks Just Naira. Glad it helped.
michael4877 says
I’m not a big twitter fan, but it can be fun and have its benefits, plus the company just sold I think for a ton of money, so obviously they have been doing something right
Thanks
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johnbravo says
Very very interesting! I love twitter and I use it a lot for my personal and business account! http://www.kuratalqadam.com/
Fussed Blogger says
Great share!
Twitter is a best source of traffic from other countries. I think using these tools we can yet increase traffic from Twitter.
Thanks for sharing.