Group items tagged

Evan Williams and Biz Stone of Twitter Robyn Twomey for TIME ENLARGE + Print Reprints Email Twitter Linkedin Buzz up! (44) Facebook MORE... Add to my: del.icio.us Technorati reddit Google Bookmarks Mixx StumbleUpon Blog this on: TypePad LiveJournal Blogger MySpace The one thing you can say for certain about Twitter is that it makes a terrible first impression. You hear about this new service that lets you send 140-character updates to your "followers," and you think, Why does the world need this, exactly? It's not as if we were all sitting around four years ago scratching our heads and saying, "If only there were a technology that would allow me to send a message to my 50 friends, alerting them in real time about my choice of breakfast cereal." Related Audio Host Katherine Lanpher talks with TIME's Just Fox on stocks vs. bonds and Barbara Kiviat about the housing market's new movement Download | Subscribe Specials The World of Twitter Specials Top 10 Celebrity Twitter Feeds Specials 10 Ways Twitter Will Change American Business Stories The TIME 100: The Twitter Guys by Ashton Kutcher More Related The TIME 100: The Twitter Guys by Ashton Kutcher The TIME 100: The Twitter Guys by Ashton Kutcher The Future of Twitter I, too, was skeptical at first. I had met Evan Williams, Twitter's co-creator, a couple of times in the dotcom '90s when he was launching Blogger.com. Back then, what people worried about was the threat that blogging posed to our attention span, with telegraphic, two-paragraph blog posts replacing long-format articles and books. With Twitter, Williams w

"Injecting Twitter into that conversation fundamentally changed the rules of engagement. It added a second layer of discussion and brought a wider audience into what would have been a private exchange. And it gave the event an afterlife on the Web. Yes, it was built entirely out of 140-character messages, but the sum total of those tweets added up to something truly substantive, like a suspension bridge made of pebbles."

"Because social-networking tools are forums for personalized, socially focused conversations, the communities that spring from these tools are person/people-centered. As Porter explained, this person/people-centeredness results in the value of participation being opaque for anyone who is not participating. To address this problem, we made sure that students who chose not to participate (because the value of participation is opaque for them) had access to our tweets by incorporating an RSS feed-like Twitter widget in our LMS. (See Figure 5.) Many widgets like these can be found online, although we should note that this particular widget has limitations. As seen in the example in Figure 5, the widget only displays Joni's posts, not the back-and-forth exchanges between her and members of her network. Students might incorrectly assume that the interaction is one-sided and less than dynamic. Besides keeping students apprised of the resources we shared via Twitter, however, this widget allowed them to vicariously discover Twitter's value. Some students later chose to join us in Twitter because they had a better understanding of what they were getting into because its value was less opaque. Ultimately, we found that Twitter helped us achieve our student-engagement objective, but we also quickly discovered that students' Twitter participation led to other notable instructional outcomes."

Those who have panicked that their Twitter followers have dropped - don't be paranoid! The twitter spammers have again taken the axe. Twitter self corrects about every 90 days and you'll get used to it. The fact is that Twitter is for meaningful, authentic communication - albeit short and if you do that, it can be a fun, and useful part of your personal learning network. It is unique to you and how you want to do it! Remember that it is not about the followers although you'll have people direct message you that you can somehow buy 200 or even 500 followers a day -- like that will enrich your life! Come on -- twitter is great and it is not about how many people follow YOU anyway - if you get tied up in that too much then you're probably really there for just selfish reasons anyway. Enjoy and have fun!

How will this start changing the game? Josh Korr of Publishing 2.0 reports that about a week ago, four journalists from Washington state began reporting a major local story in collaboration with each other on Twitter. Writes Korr:Those four journalists weren't in the same newsroom. In fact, they all work for different media companies. And here's the best part: Some of them have never even met in person.Could journalists have discovered the same thing we have also been exploring collectively online? That collaboration strengthens a network and draws more readers, not less. I also agree with Korr that news organizations need to start investing in smart journalists who get the power of cooperation. To summarize what these fine professionals did: Acted in real time and focused on the reporting of the events - in line with the Twitter culture of immediacy as well as a sense of urgency for their readers at the respective mastheads Collaborated with each other to cover the story as it was unfolding instead of worrying about the credit - imagine the first cross-news organization team that wins a Pulitzer, now wouldn't that be news? Provided higher quality news than just one person doing the reporting. There was some skepticism in the comments to Korr's post. Maybe this is not the first time journalists network for a news story. This collaboration so open on Twitter seems quite novel to me.I know some of my readers are journalists or are studying journalism. What possibilities do you see...

The 5 Irritating People You Meet on Twitter-and How Not To Be One of Them

This is a great article about twitter. And I really like the idea that it is a LOT about what we can DO with twitter data that makes it so compelling (all those great apps out there). "Websites that once saw their traffic dominated by Google search queries are seeing a growing number of new visitors coming from "passed links" at social networks like Twitter and Facebook. This is what the naysayers fail to understand: it's just as easy to use Twitter to spread the word about a brilliant 10,000-word New Yorker article as it is to spread the word about your Lucky Charms habit. Put those three elements together - social networks, live searching and link-sharing - and you have a cocktail that poses what may amount to the most interesting alternative to Google's near monopoly in searching."

OH my goodness - this looks like a good example of how NOT to use Twitter. Seems to be almost as many apps to abuse Twitter as to use it. L-/

To include more, we'll limit each one to the Twitter capacity of 140 characters. We're looking for insights on how social media has changed business, media, technology, life, not necessarily in that order. Anyone who wants can either leave 140-character comments here, or Twitter them addressed to @stevebaker

You don't need a $800 book to figure out Twitter and how to use it for marketing purposes. Geez. It's not rocket science for crying out loud.

Twitter is a lot like a dinner with a large group of friends at a big table in a busy restaurant. Everyone is chatting, there's a lot being said, and if you're not focused on a particular conversation, it sounds downright noisy. So just like a large group setting in real life, there are some conventions about how people tune in to listen and the most effective ways to be sociable.

Twitter is an interesting and practical real-time messaging system for groups and friends. It's just not completely obvious how to get into the "club." So, here's a newbie's guide to this new platform. We don't cover every feature of Twitter, but this should help get you started.

An essential read from RWW about how Twitter staff are using or perhaps not using Twitter in relation to hard-core tweeters. (c/o SS)

Measure the spread of tweets over the world. The speed at which Twitter spreads information is fascinating. Yet looking at your timeline it's not always easy to grasp how tweets participated to the show.

"There are hundreds of articles on Twitter all over the web, so I am not going to waste your time or mine on how to use twitter or the importance of it. All I can say is Twitter is the best thing that has been around in terms of marketing and networking." - direct quote from post

Below you will find 25 links to help you get started on Twitter and how to use and maximize opportunities using it's service.

Top ways to Tweet!

All you need to know about Twitter Spam, Twitter News, Twitter Information, TwitterFilter, Social Marketing, Google Wave