Twitter is often referred to as “microblogging.” Basically Twitter and services like it (Jaiku, Pownce, Plurk and others) allow you to broadcast what you are doing, thinking about, reading, watching, listening to, etc. to the world (or to just those you allow to follow your updates).
Wondering why you might want to Twitter? Here is yet another great explanation from CommonCraft in this video clip:
In this video clip they explain that Twitter basically lets you fill in the gaps between blog posts or email updates. One thing they don’t mention is the ability to have conversations using Twitter. Sometimes it is handy to broadcast a question to your friends and/or peers. You can reply to “Tweets” or direct message (DM) people you follow.
While the uninitiated may feel that all Twitter-ers eagerly overshare with the world, it is possible to be selective about who can read your updates. All you need to do is set it so that anyone who follows you has to ask for permission first.
You also might consider setting up separate accounts for personal and professional use where the personal one is locked down, but the professional one is open for anyone to follow.
One nice aspect of Twitter is its integration with other websites and/or services. You can post your Twtter updates on your website or blog. You can also sync it with Facebook, MySpace, or FriendFeed so that it updates your status there too. You can also use other services to update Twitter if you’d prefer. Ping.fm, for example, will update lots of services at once, so you can actually use one of them to update Twitter rather than the other way around. If you use FireFox, you might like to try out the TwitterFox add-on. Twitterfox adds a box to the lower right-hand side of your FireFox window that lets you follow your Twitter conversations and make updates without visiting the website.
Sure! Twitter is great for discussions and sending out updates. You can set up a Twitter account for a class or a group of people and anyone involved or interested can follow the account. Then you can post updates as frequesntly or infrequently as you want.
We’ve set up a Twitter account for OIT, so you can follow our News and Announcements and our OIT blog posts. Follow us on Twitter!
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@Laura Little
Yeah – I read that yesterday. I’ve been pondering how to assess the longevity of social media services/networks. I am sure that people new to social media hear things like Pownce closing and wonder, “Well, how do I know if I start using something that is will still be around next year/next month, etc.?”
Of course, my solution is just to sign up for them all and play around, but I doubt other people want to do that.
What do you think?
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Pownce is going away at the end of December.