High Tech Household

In part 1 of this series, we looked at the major social networking sites and their uses.  In this part II of the series “An Introduction to Social Networking” we will try to answer the question “What is Twitter.”  Created in 2006, Twitter has become an international phenomenon especially within the last year.  It was used heavily in the last Presidential election, it has become a favorite communications medium for many celebrities, and in its most prominent role, it played a key part in getting news out from the Iranian elections by allowing protesters to get their story out without the filter of the Iranian government.  Millions of users from around the world assisted the protesters by setting up proxy servers to get around government blocks, and protesters gave constant updates, uploaded pictures and video, and produced a groundswell of support from the worldwide community.  The most surreal moment for me came that Saturday when I was flipping through the cable news channels, and they were all reading off of Twitter live on the air to report what was happening. So what is Twitter, and how does one use it effectively?

What is Twitter?

Twitter is a communication service in which users send short, 140-character messages called “Tweets”.  The service was originally intended to be integrated with cell phone SMS text messages, hence the 140 character limit.  When a tweet is posted, it goes on the general timeline, which is a reverse-chronological list of all tweets worldwide.  Obviously, with millions of users, following the general timeline is a virtual impossibility.  Luckily, over the years, Twitter has come up with a variety of ways to filter these tweets.  This includes following and hashtags.

Following: Much like friending someone on Facebook, when you follow someone, they show up in your personal friends timeline.  This allows you to follow the tweets of people you are interested in rather than the general timeline.  This is much more manageable, but can get unruly once you follow a lot of people.  People can also follow you as well, which means that they see your tweets on their personal timeline.  You do not have to follow everyone who follows you.  It is good to be selective to match the type of tweets that you are interested in seeing.

Hashtags: Hashtags are topical tags placed in twitter that are easily searchable.  A hashtag is a topical keyword or phrase preceeded by a # sign.  For example, if one wanted to view all tweets surrounding Windows 7, one could search (at search.twitter.com) for #Windows7.  Additionally, if I wanted to tweet on the topic of Windows 7, I would include #Windows7 in the text of my tweet.  Multiple hashtags can be included in a tweet, and groups have also formed that have their own hashtags.  Most twitter tools out there allow you to create and store hashtag search results as virtual timelines (more on twitter tools in a bit). So if I wanted to tweet about the Windows 7 launch because I want to set up my home theater PC (htpc for short), as well as have it show up in the technology category on twitter, I could tweet “Looking forward to picking up #Windows7 and setting up my #htpc.  #technology”.  This would show up under three Twitter searches:  #Windows7, #htpc, and #technology.  Notice that I included hashtags in both the body of my tweet and after the main content of my tweet.  Twitter is also very useful for asking questions:  “Anyone know about what features are in the latest release of #firefox?”  Hashtags are a great way to get targeted information and sort through the banal “I am walking the dog right now” type tweets.

Communicating with Others

Twitter allows you to send both public messages, known as mentions, and private messages, known as direct messages, to other users.  There is also the option to forward a tweet that you find interesting to your followers (known as “re-tweet”).

Mentions: A mention is a public message or reply to another Twitter user.  To send a message directly to another user, you simply type the user’s twitter name preceded by an @ symbol.  For example, if you wanted to send a tweet to us at High Tech Household, you’d simply take our twitter account, “HTHTweets” and use it in the message.  For example: “@HTHTweets, I really enjoyed your post on #Windows7.”  That tweet would both show up directly in our mentions timeline and in the #Windows7 hashtag search.  When browsing the timelines, if you hit the reply button that twitter uses, it simply places the @twittername in the tweet entry area.

Direct Messages: To send a private message to another user, you simply type a D followed by the username.  For example, “D HTHTweets Thanks for the tip on how to use twitter.”  This message would only be viewable by the HTHTweets accound and no one else.  It is important to know that in order to send a Direct message, that user must be one of your followers.

Retweet: Retweet is not an official Twitter function, but has become very commonplace.  It is a way of taking a tweet you find interesting, and forwarding it onto others.  A retweet is almost the same as a mention, except that it is preceded by the letters RT.  So if I wanted to retweet to my followers that someone liked our Windows 7 post, I would tweet “RT @JoeUser @HTHTweets, I really enjoyed your post on #Windows7.”

Twitter Tools

Truth be told, the Twitter web user interface is not very intuitive or practical.  Because of that, and because Twitter has an open API, a variety of twitter tools have surfaced to allow for aggregating tweets in a way that makes sense.  Most have the ability to show multiple timelines in columns, and the ability to add, show, and hide columns.  Columns can include your own followers, the general timeline, your mentions and direct messages, and any number of hashtag searches that you decide to add.  So these tools can allow you to view and communicate with multiple timelines at once.  The most popular (and best, in my opinion) tool for this purpose is TweetDeck (pictured below).  Other popular tools include TweetGrid and Twhirl.  Numerous tools also exist for mobile smartphones such as UberTwitter and Twitterberry for the Blackberry, Tweetie and Twitterlator for the iPhone, and AndTweet and TwiDroid for Google Android phones. There are also other auxilliary tools such as Twitpic for sharing photos, Twitterfeed which posts tweets on a user’s blog.  An extensive list of the top 21 twitter tools is available at TechRepublic.  If you are serious about using Twitter, using these tools is essential.

Tweetdeck

Conclusion

Twitter is one of the more complicated and hard to explain of the social networking tools, but is useful for communications on various topics.  It is probably one of the more conversational social networking sites (limited to 140 characters, of course), and has taken the tech world by storm.  This article barely scratches the surface on how to use Twitter or its many uses (including Microblogging, news, networking, and general  conversation around various topics and events).  In the next post in this series, we will review sharing of information on the web through social bookmarking.  In the meantime, happy tweeting!