blog one another

I'm being followed on Twitter!

Photo by fmgbain (license), adapted by Jon Reid

This is Part 5 of a series on Twitter Practical How-to's.

It happens sooner or later: Twitter notifies you that someone "is now following you on Twitter," but you have no idea who they are. Your first followers were the friends you told, and maybe a handful of services you followed which automatically followed you back. But eventually, you are followed by a complete stranger. Who are they? What do they want? Are you being stalked?

It can feel especially odd if you are used to the enclosed walls of Facebook, where friendship is always mutual. But remember, Twitter is not simply Facebook status updates, without Facebook. By default, everything you tweet is public, and anyone can follow you. (If this bothers you, go to your Twitter Settings and select "Protect my updates". But think twice before you do so, because you will be missing out on the opportunity to meet interesting people you don't know.)

So how did they find you? Here are a few different ways:

Twitter WAS a Cocktail Party: Why @Replies Mattered

Photo by SanFranAnnie (license), adapted by Jon Reid

Fresh on the heels of Twitter Is A Cocktail Party comes my second TwiTip guest post, Twitter WAS A Cocktail Party. Has Twitter seemed unusually quiet to you this past month? It's because you no longer see what one person says to another. This is a big deal because @replies were the main thing that created Twitter's virtual cocktail party effect.

In my article, I explain the old (and easily misunderstood) @replies option, what Twitter changed, and how you can work around the change for selected tweets. Following the metaphor to its bitter end, it's like the host of the party turned up the music so loud that it's possible to have conversations, but difficult to overhear any. But if you think your conversation might benefit others, you can shout. See my article.

More Twitter tips here on blog one another:

• Why Twitter?
• Before You Sign Up for Twitter
• Twitter Practical How-to's

And just for fun (or is it serious?), Saint Francis on Twitter.

Twitter Is a Cocktail Party: How Not to be Overwhelmed

Photo by SanFranAnnie (license), adapted by Jon Reid

• Have you tried Twitter, only to be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of tweets?
• Has the number of people you follow on Twitter grown to the point where you can no longer keep up with everything?
• Do you start your Twitter client and spend so much time catching up on unread tweets that hundreds of new tweets come in during that time?

If you answered "yes" to any of the above, you will benefit from my guest posting on TwiTip, Twitter Is A Cocktail Party. Go check it out.

More Twitter tips here on blog one another:

• Why Twitter?
• Before You Sign Up for Twitter
• Twitter Practical How-to's

And just for fun (or is it serious?), Saint Francis on Twitter.

Who to follow on Twitter

Photo by Kevin Krejci (license)

This is Part 4 of a series on Twitter Practical How-to's.

How many Twitter users are out there? Since one celebrity alone has 1.5 million followers (and I am not one of them), I'd say it's a safe bet that there are at least 10 million. Out of all those people, who in the world should you follow? Obviously you will want to follow any close friends who tweet, but what about beyond that?

An important thought-barrier to overcome is the idea that following on Twitter means listening to someone tell you about their day. As you will see below, in addition to normal people, there are services, organizations, robots and jokesters occupying Twitterspace.

For anyone who is just getting started, here are my recommendations for who to follow on Twitter:

What to tweet (and what not to)

Photo by hiddedevries (license)

This is Part 3 of a series on Twitter Practical How-to's.

So you've learned the basics of the Twitter vocabulary (a few strange characters) and have set yourself up with a Twitter client for reading and writing. Now… what should you actually say in Twitter? That is, what should you "tweet"?

If you have done any blogging, I want you to consider the following statement. Twitter is more that a "status update" service; Twitter is a blogging service. It just happens that the blog posts are limited to 140 characters — which is why it makes sense to call this "micro-blogging." So blog away, however you like!

…But If you haven't done any blogging, that last paragraph was probably less than helpful. Let me try again, giving some more detail:

Use a Twitter client

Photo by Kristian D. (license), adapted by Jon Reid

This is Part 2 of a series on Twitter Practical How-to's.

It is easy to assume (especially for anybody used to Facebook) that the way to use Twitter is to go to the website and log in. This works and is a quick way to get started, but is probably the least effective way to read and write Twitter messages (or "tweets"). For the best user experience, free yourself from your web browser and use a Twitter client.

Not the Website?

So why would you not use the Twitter website? I mean, Twitter is a web thing like Facebook, right? …No, it's not. Twitter is a data service; the website is one way of accessing that data.

You still need to be familiar with the web interface because you will use it from time to time:

I added red lines to highlight the most important parts. The largest section, of course, is the list of recent updates from the people you follow; this is called your timeline. Beside that in the right column are two important parts that are easily overlooked: mentions of your name (formerly @Replies) and direct messages. (See part 1 if you do not know what these are.)

Twitter characters: @, d, RT, #

(CC) Gaetan Lee,
www.flickr.com/photos/gaetanlee/

This is Part 1 of a series on Twitter Practical How-to's.

Messages in Twitter (affectionately called "tweets") are straightforward: You have 140 characters, so just type something. But there are a few special characters that you will need to know, a sort of "Twitter alphabet soup." The Twitter characters with special meaning are: @, d, RT and #.

Quite honestly, when I first began using Twitter, I thought, "These special characters are some kind of code. They have geek appeal, but there is no way ordinary people will use them." I thought they would severely limit the potential Twitter audience. But I'm afraid I underestimated the willingness of ordinary folks to use special characters. Those learning Twitter are likely to be people who have done terse phone texting and used Internet acronyms like LOL. And after all, there are only four codes:

@: Talk publicly to another person

Messages starting with @ are called @replies because they are used to reply to someone else's tweet. Taking my user name "jonmreid" as an example, if you start a message with "@jonmreid", I will see it on the web interface within @jonmreid in the right column(right under "Home"), even if I don't follow your tweets.

The @username can also appear elsewhere in a message and it will be shown to that person. This is a fairly recent change Twitter made, and they changed the term from @replies to mentions, but most people still call them @replies. So if you want to call someone's attention to your message, include @ and their user name somewhere in your message.

Twitter Practical How-to's

Photo by Ben Ward (license)

If you have made it past the question Why Twitter? and taken your first steps in Before You Sign Up for Twitter, it's time for practical how-to's! This series will be helpful if you have been timidly poking at Twitter but still feel a bit lost, overwhelmed, or underwhelmed. (I include "underwhelmed" because that's probably a sign that you haven't developed a style of Twitter use that works for you.)

My previous two series originally started as a single, catch-all Twitter series which I divided into two as the topics became clearer. This time, I'm going out on a bit of limb by listing the topics up front. I have less time to blog than I thought, and someday (soon, God willing) I will have full-time employment again which will limit me further. But regardless of how quickly I write these, I wanted to give you an outline of what is coming so that you know what practical how-to's you can look forward to.

Animation of Flight 1549 emergency landing

Remember US Airways Flight 1549 making an emergency landing in the Hudson River? I know, it's so two months ago. But check out this animated rendition of the flight:

I am struck by how quickly things happened, and how little time they had. But did you notice the ending? Yeah, there it is again…

Saint Francis on Twitter

• Name Francis
• Location Assisi, Italy
• Bio Trying to lead a simple life of love for Jesus

FrankOfAssisi

1. …not so much to be retweeted as to retweet about 1 hour ago from TwitterFon