My Twitter Indoctrination
I've been thinking a lot about how I became so instantaneously obsessed with Twitter and how I use the tool.
All I can say is that the idea of getting little updates from folks throughout the day about the ephemera of their days is kind of delightful. Twitter is like passing notes in class. When I was in junior high and high school, that was my constant means of staying connected and making it through the day. Sure, I loved school (i'm a goodie two shoes nerd, what do you want from me?) much like I love my job but I often get lost in the bell jar when I'm working. Twitter keeps me connected. In the midst of discussing site launch calendars and budgets and recruitment, I twitter to talk about what happened on the bus or skinny jeans or blipster culture or presidential politics.
Damnit, I want to know what my friends are having for lunch and listening to on their iPods.
Twitter gives me that.
Mau asked, though, what should I be twittering?
Here's how I twitter:
- To answer the mantra question: what are you doing?
- To announce work and personal launches (like this post).
- To ask questions.
- To answer questions.
- To crack wise.
- To make note of something too small to blog but that mattered enough to give me pause.
- When I'm at the computer, I turn text messages off.
- As soon as I walk away for an extended period of time, I turn them on.
- I made my updates private. You gotta friend me to see me and I gotta know you (or know of you) to give you access.
- I try not to post too many times too often. If a long term or more private convo breaks out , I take it to direct message or IM.
- I don't follow all my friends all the time. Some of y'all get twitter happy and need a small case of pianissimo.
- I'm becoming the master of the 140 character sentence.
- I use the @<username> often and use the correct name. Twitter then tracks who you're talking at correctly. It's dangerous to use @<notquitetheusername> because there could be other twitterers with that name and twitter will think you're replying to them.
Twitter Lingo
Send these commands to 40404 or over IM and interact with Twitter on your mobile phone or chat window!
Inviting or Adding People
- invite 415-555-1212 john sends a text invite to john
- follow username you will get phone updates from this person (requires initial approval)
Getting More Updates
- get gets recent updates from all your friends
- get username gets this person's last update
- follow all turns on updates (entire friends list)
- nudge username encourages this person to update
Getting Less Updates
- leave username disables updates from this person
- leave all turns off updates (entire friends list)
- off disables twitter updates
- on enables twitter updates
Finding Out Stuff
- stats a few statistics about your Twitter account
- help sends back a list of twitter lingo commands
To update your own Twitter timeline, just text whatever is on your mind to the Twitter number 40404 or IM twitter@twitter.com.
Double Bonus: While I'm not committed to any candidate yet, John Edwards is my friend. That's going right for the web hipster's heart, innit?
Comments
I'm still not sure what to use it for and I'm finding hard to explain to online and meat space friends what it's for and why it's fun.
[[Hmph. I am still voting for skinny jeans.]]
;o)
i think it works better in a local context. twitter is a lot less fun IMO unless your network is in a specific place. post-SXSW, i doubt i'll see much of a use for it. (and my over-twittering will become normal again)
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