I’ve had a lot of friends, colleagues and random people on the net ask me about Twitter recently.  In fact, one has asked me while I’ve been writing this blog entry! So I thought it was due a blog.  I have previously written for ADCOLOG about Twitter’s possible use in Adult & Community Education, but the Twitter Phenomenon just goes from strength to strength.

What is Twitter?

Twitter is a “Microblog”.  It allows you to post, from a computer or text message, a short message of 140 characters (a tweet).  This can then be read by anyone (unless you specify otherwise) and will be sent to your accounts of people who follow you.  You will see the tweets from anyone you follow.

……And the point is?

Amazingly, it is almost impossible to explain.  However, once you’ve started using Twitter you’ll probably find it addictive.  In terms of social use, it’s about those little things that people get up to in their daily life. Here’s an example.

I went to Whitby a few weeks back.  Nothing happened.  There would have been very little point me writing a blog about it.  However, there is a really nice art shop in Whitby.  I didn’t know this, so I didn’t visit it.  Someone told me when I got back.  Now, had that person been reading my Tweets, they would have seen my “Off to Whitby today” Tweet and could have tweeted back “Go and see that art shop – it’s great”.

In terms of work use, it is similar.  It is less useful to know people are going to Whitby, unless, of course, a big contact of yours is coming there on the same day as you.  It is more useful to know the peopel they are meeting, the subjects they are talking about, the places where the funding is and the resources they are looking at.

OK, I’ll give it a try

Just a word of warning…Twitter isn’t a tool for everyone. It is also one that takes a while to grow on you.  Don’t panic if you don’t get it at first.  You will NEED to be following a good deal of good tweeters with an interest in what you do.

How do I get started?

Sign up at Twitter.Com.  Link Twitter to your phone.  Then, start finding people.  You can find me at www.twitter.com/kevupnorth and, if you work in community or education, you will find some good Tweeters among my follwoers and followed.  You could also go to Twellow, the Twitter Yellow pages, and find people.  If you’ve been Tweeting for a while, you can go to TwitsLikeMe, that examines your tweets and finds people tweeting about similar subjects.  There are more tips to find friends from RRW here.

DON’T wait for your contacts to Tweet.  Don’t worry if you have no contacts.  Start tweeting every little thing you can tweet, and they will find you.

How do I Tweet?

There are many ways.  You can send by text, via programmes like Ping.FM or Spinvox or via mobile phone applications like Twibble.  Or you can just log onto Twitter and do it.  You can also set up the Twitter application in facebook to update your status with whatever you Tweet.

To reply to someone publicly, put @ and their user-name (so @kevupnorth).  This highlights to them that you have replied to them and replies will not be posted on facebook.

You can send a direct, private message via Twitter to.  Put d a space and their username before the Tweet.  Only they will see this.  You can only D peopel who are following you as well.

Twitterquette

Like every part of the internet, Twitter has it’s own set of rules:

When referring to another Twitter user, also refer to their user name with an @ in front of it.  So, if you were going to the shops with me you might tweet: “Going to the shops with @kevupnorth”.

The use of the letters RT stand for “Re-Tweet”.  This is when you are passing on a tweet you think may be of interest to someone else.  You put “RT (their username) and then their tweet or and edited version.  So, if I Tweet: “Looking for a place to live in Leeds” you could tweet “RT @kevupnorth Looking for a place to live in Leeds”.

The use of a hash-tag helps people group Tweets for analysis.  I’ll explain what I mean by that below, but concentrate on their  use here.  You’ll start to see people using tags, then, when appropriate, you can use them yourself.  So, #uktrain refers to any train in the UK.  So, rather than tweet: “Just heading on by train to Glasgow” you would tweet: “Heading to Glasgow on #uktrain”

The reason for this is to help group things together.  Everything on Twitter is public, and this means that the information can be used to show trends and follow news.  So, when Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, you could search for #Katrina to see all the Tweets regarding that.  Sometimes tags are used with conventions.  During the recent snow storms in the UK the tag #uksnow was used, often followed by the convention of putting your postcode and a rating out of 10 (so #uksnow LS1 8/10).  Later, people were able to plot exactly how severe the snow had been and where on a Google map, using the Twitter data.  To look at Twitter trends for yourself use search.twitter.com or Twist

That’s pretty much it.  It will take you a while to get used to it, and there are limitless gadgets and gizmos that allow you to do things.  TwitterVision, for example, shows exactly where people are Tweeting from.  To see a list of gadgets visit mine or my colleagues delicious  tags here (mine) and here (my colleague, Scott Hibberson).

If you work in education, here are some peopel you can follow

If you work in journalism here are some peopel for you to follow

Here are the world’s top tweeters (I’m 58,106th sadly)

If you want to do PR using Twitter read this first

If you work in Libraries, read this blog

Please add any more links in the comments section.