Twitter

Hi. You might try this thread as well. I thought I'd be more likely to tweet than blog. I like it but I've been really busy lately. If I had an iphone or something I'd probably tweet more often. At first I thought I would just post updates but I have found following people is fun. I have learned not to try to read every tweet since my last tweet or I would be completely over whelmed.

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=134194&highlight=twitter

I use it to harass Newt Gingrich.

I like Twitter, though my learning curve for it (feeling it out) took way longer than did my getting used to, say, Facebook. (For someone like me who really likes long-form writing, 140 characters can be, er, daunting!)

I use it to keep up with, and consult with colleagues. (In Education now, they're called your "PLN" Your Personal Learning Network.) I guess because "peers" was too short a word.

My personal twitter I use to keep in touch with family.
My business accounts I use for promotions, polling, keeping an eye on trends, casting a wider net, scoping out possible JVs, linking helpful articles/sites, interesting blogs. That sort of thing.

It's microblogging on steroids.

Feel free to add me Absolute Write-rs.

happywritermom said:

If so, how do you use it as a writer?

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My Twitter client, EventBox, allows me to follow hashtags. I follow the #writing tag. There are maybe 200 #writing tweets per day. There's a lot of noise, but about 5% of #writing tweets link to an interesting article or blog post. That's a reasonable hit rate--it works out to maybe a dozen interesting links per day--and EventBox allows me to scan through the noise quickly.

Dale

I'm sure it's fun, but keeping up with tweets, Facebook, MySpace, and heaven knows what else cuts into my writing time. Most people say a whole lot of nothing, too. Even the writers.

If people want updates they can read my blog--which also cuts into my time, but I feel obligated to only update it once a week and focus on my writing and books in my reports. I keep it short and funny and use lots of pictures.

YEah I only manage a few tweets a week. If I did more I wouldn't do anything but tweet.

I'll see your tweet, and raise you a plurk.

(Same basic idea, different program, uses a horizontal timeline.)

I just did a search for #writing on my twitter page, and a long list of relevant tweets came up, but is the #writing something you can subscribe to (or follow), in an ordinary twitter account?

Ok, I just discovered you can't, but you can refresh the search if you save it, or you can use a third-party tool: http://www.contentious.com/2009/03/08/hashtags-on-twitter-how-do-you-follow-them/ That #writing result is great, Dale.

Arrrrghhhh! Information overload!

When my daughter was overseas I followed the tweets of her group leader so that I could keep up with what was going on. (The kids weren't allowed to contact home.) Other than that, I'll stick with Facebook.

trocadero said:

I just did a search for #writing on my twitter page, and a long list of relevant tweets came up, but is the #writing something you can subscribe to (or follow), in an ordinary twitter account?

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It's not subscribing, exactly, but...

With EventBox (my Twitter client), I search for #writing, and EventBox creates a new item in its sidebar. Then every time EventBox retrieves new tweets from Twitter, it also looks for new tweets that match the search.

So though it's not exactly subscribing, it more or less acts as if I've subscribed.

I know that many Twitter clients have a similar feature.

On the web, there are a number of sites that let you search for a specific tag. This blog post identifies some: http://mashable.com/2009/05/17/twitter-hashtags/

Dale

Little Bird said:

what's a twitter client?

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It's software that runs on your computer (or your smart phone), that you use to post to Twitter and to read other people's posts. There are now more than 700 gazillion Twitter clients to choose from. Each offers features to make life a little easier than using the Twitter web site directly.

When you're on the Twitter web site, look at the bottom of people's tweets. It will say something like "about 2 hours ago from Tweetie". That means the person used a client called Tweetie to post that tweet.

I use EventBox. TweetDeck is popular. Nambu looks interesting, but it's really buggy. Twitterrific is also popular. Scan 50 or so tweets and you'll see which clients are most popular.

Here are some Twitter clients listed on the Twitter web site: http://twitter.com/downloads

Dale

I do tweet. But I deleted my old account and made a new one yesterday.

I'm ronjacecilie on twitter.

I do try to tweet in English, but I allways end up tweeting in Norwegian :/ But if you want to follow me, do it. I'm sure you get a lot of laughs from those weird, Norwegian words.

Apparently twitter has its interfaces all documented so you (if you're knowledgable about this stuff) can write your own client, kinda like a newsreader or chat client. Looks like you can do a lot more from those other sites than from twitter.com but I won't give other sites my twitter passsword. But I do wanna write one so instead of my tweets saying "from web" they say "from Ben's nether regions."

Don't forget the #writegoal hash tag...That's the one I follow most often. You can post your daily (hourly, weekly, whatever) goal, and get good support & company from other writers working on their goals throughout the day as well. Great way to meet other writers, and get yourself *off* twitter and writing - so you can come back and report that you met your #writegoal!

I tweet a few times a day; it's reader outreach that's quick, simple and free. Also, all it requires is a slightly different thought or two on whatever you're doing at the moment, so I don't find it burdensome.