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I told him what I thought of Twitter as a micro-blogging service: it’s a collection of emotional grunts. But it’s wonderful nonetheless. And enough people are hooked on it that Twitter has reached critical mass. If something big is going on in the world, you can get information about it from Twitter. Twitter also gathers other information, like people’s experiences with products and services as they interact with them. A couple of months ago, for example, I was stuck in the airport and received extremely poor service from Lufthansa. I twittered my displeasure, which made me feel better - at least I was doing something besides wait in an endless line. I’ve also Twittered complaints about the W Hotel (no Internet, cold room) and Comcast (the usual Internet gripes).

the fact that users are texting more substantive observations and opinions in real time, and the company has a valuable information database it can sell to businesses

"We can measure the tweets," he says. "We're trying to figure out what are the appropriate metrics around engagement and how to convey those."

he follows so many people because he thinks of Twitter as the new phone company

Brands have to be more than just faceless organizations online. They need to offer value added content about their brand/industry/sector.

Each brand can represent more than its product or service. It represents a whole industry and related content attached to that industry.

By simply monitoring what people are saying about you, you’re using Twitter better than 95% of the companies out there.

Don’t be shy about asking people on Twitter to spread the word for you.

most people don’t have the chutzpah to ask for help.

one of the functions that networks such as Twitter does is to serve as something of a human powered feed, a real time living stream of links, content and conversation often times generated by our friends, peers or the people we look to as "filters"—indivisuals who we trust to seperate the wheat from chaff.

the internet is still about information—but it's also about attention

We have a deficit in attention.

I think where I’m going with this is that I worry that the ed. tech. blogosphere is reasonably saturated.  Related to Darren Draper’s post on Twitter Set Theory, I feel like there are some central figures whose spheres overlap considerably and a whole lot of us outsiders trying to penetrate that inner circle.  It’s as if folks like Will Richardson, David Warlick, Wes Fryer, Vicki Davis, Dean Shareski, Stephen Downes, Chris Lehmann…(and, yes, you Scott) are having an awesome cocktail party conversation and I’m standing on the outside staring over their shoulders and listening in, trying to get a word in, but not penetrating that conversation at all.  I know there are LOTS of us on the outside looking in. 

My theory is– don’t worry about getting your voice out there, or comments, or rankings, or even being invited to the right parties (inner circle) — rather focus intently on children, your vision, and leaving education better than you found it. Concentrate on helping those within your sphere of influence to make principled changes in education that is in the best interest of kids.