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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."

As the recession looms on, more and more people are turning to social media and blogs to look for jobs. Jamie Varon (@jamievaron) has generated buzz in the Twitter community with her new website called Twitter Should Hire Me, where she blogs candidly about her attempts to get a job at Twitter. In this interview, she shares her tips on how to use social media to land the job of your dreams, even in a recession.

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."

The last paragraphi is the kicker, but the whole article shows why some political groups get social media and some don't.

Mainstream politicians have responded by pressuring service providers to shut down extremist sites and member pages. Although well-intentioned, that strategy is just further proof of how out of touch they are: As any record company exec will tell you, the Web is far too dynamic a place for blunt regulations. The only way to win over Europe's digital generation is to engage with it on its own terms, in its own media. European political parties need to realize that in the era of Internet politics, winning means ceding a little control -- otherwise, they might lose it completely.

How do you track what links are being clicked on on Twitter? Today Hendry Lee (follow him at @hendrylee) shares some tips on how to do it. Much of Twitter is

The Twitter #ideaparty is fun, once you get the hang of it. To get started, I just went to www.tweetchat.com, entered my Twitter name & password, then selected ideaparty to get into the chat room. Nice thing is that it then automatically plugs in the "#ideaparty" for you, but of course that counts as some of your 140 characters for a tweet. There is so much traffic already in the #ideaparty already on some days, I can hardly wait to see how it goes on the BIG launch day, Tuesday March 24, 2009, for the World Wide Rave for Wishcraft 30th Anniversary edition. Awesome stuff!

Current features of Twadle include: * Create short links on the fly - just type a long URL, and it will be replaced with a shorter one, saving you valuable characters. * Live Tweet Preview lets you see what your Tweet will look like - short links and all - before you hit Update. * Track links - see how many people clicked on the link you posted. Great for learning how to write compelling headlines. * Attach Files to your Tweets. Right now you can attach images - but MP3s and more are coming! * Super Secret SEO Feature - upgrade your account with an Invite Code, and add extra features to Twadl. You won't be dissapointed.

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!

...here's how to manage the followers you have in a way that's mutually beneficial...

At the time of this writing, I have over 91,000 Twitter followers. No, I don't read every word they type. No, I don't recommend that you try to get 10s of thousands of followers...but here's how to manage the followers you DO have in a way that's mutually beneficial...

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...

Be twittered has a gadget AND a moble gadget for twitter -- I'd love to hear how you like it. This means you may add a gadget to your homepage of igoogle to keep up w/ twitter on your start page. The mobile gadget allows you to put the app on your cell phone to track twitter. This is from 32 hours.

Mobile app and iGoogle gadget.

"TiddlyTweets is the work of Fred and Jonathan from Osmosoft. It serves as an example of a client-side mashup, creating a useful application in a web-friendly way, using only HTML, CSS and JavaScript. If you're interested, you might like to know how this application is put together. It's really a TiddlyWiki loaded up with plugins. Read on for how to hack this "

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

How To Use Twitter With Google Friend Connec

How to do APA citations on tweets

How to use Facebook in Google Wave? Watch the video here at http://www.whytwitter.co.uk

Would you like to talk to your Twitter friends or set up a spontaneous conference call? Normally you'd have to agree to hook up over Skype or something else. But soon you could be making calls via Twitter. After signing in with your Twitter name and password you select how the call will be carried, either via browser, SIP ID or number/Mobile Phone. You then plug in your friend's Twitter name and generate a "Phweet" which is a unique shortURL for sharing the call with one or more people.

A Phweet is a shortURL that makes it easy to conduct voice conversations and conference calls between Twitter friends. You don't need to create a new account to use Phweet. Simply sign in with your Twitter username and password. thanks to Beth Kanter

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-/