Diving into a rich and overwhelming social network like Twitter can be difficult. I know of many teachers and academic-minded people who are still unsure about the merits of the tool or are simply unsure where to start. The following 10 (+1 bonus!) beginner's guides to Twitter each do a tremendous job at informing without confusing.

ShoutOUT is a full-featured messaging app with voice dictation. Speak your text messages or social networking status updates and see the results in seconds-there's no faster way to create and send messages.

In a new report, Nielsen reveals that Facebook users spent an extraordinary 13.9 billion minutes on the site - in the month of April alone. Lagging far behind, at 5 billion user minutes, is MySpace, the network launched in 2003, and purchased by News Corp. in 2005. For years, MySpace was the go-to networking site, but it recently lost significant ground to Facebook and Twitter.

Typically, when you schedule something - at least something happening in the immediate future - you don't spell out the date and time, but rather say something along the lines of "let's have lunch on Friday at noon." And that's where Task.fm looks to differentiate itself in the crowded market for reminder services. The service takes a Twitter-like approach to getting reminder data from you, with a 140-character limited form that wants you to input the answer to "remind me about …" Input things like "Mashable event Thursday at 6pm," "flight tomorrow at 8am," or "basketball next Monday at 7pm," and Task.fm figures out the date and adds it to your reminder lists.

TweetGrid is a powerful Twitter Search Dashboard that allows you to search for up to 9 different topics, events, converstations, hashtags, phrases, people, groups, etc in real-time. As new tweets are created, they are automatically updated in the grid. No need to refresh the page!

A search engine for browsing twitter users based upon what they're talking about now!

If you were out with a girl and she started twittering about it in the middle, would that be a deal-breaker or a turn-on? BIZ (dryly): In the middle of what?

Is there a numerical cap on how many friends we can have? Many cite the so-called Dunbar's number, 150, as a ceiling on personal contacts, but social-networking sites may enable users to burst past that number for friends."

For the first time in Common Craft's evolution, one of our videos "Twitter in Plain English" is being used in the mainstream media. For the most part, we're excited to have our work in front of millions. However, it brings up some questions and we're curious what you think.

By now you've most likely joined Twitter (and if you haven't, you need to, pronto!). Twitter is not only a ...

Busy teachers may feel that taking the time to learn how to use Twitter isn't worth the return for the students benefit, so that's why this list of 100 tips, apps, and resources is worth browsing.

There are several promising iPhone clients for the Twitter messaging service. Jason Snell takes a look at three of them.

Share photos with your friends on twitter with twitpic. No signup required, just login using your twitter account

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...

Enter Plurk; it's another Twitter clone which takes the Twitter concept and puts it on a timeline. The service has an odd, quirky feel to it; it's much more visual than Twitter, and it's fun to use. It uses colors to emphasize your 'moods', and it introduces the concept of karma, which should be familiar to Reddit users; the more you use the service, the more karma you get. In this case, karma even lets you unlock certain features, which almost feels like a mini game (if you like very boring mini games). Finally, just like Pownce, Plurk lets you divide your friends into "cliques", which is just a fancy word for groups.

Abstract: Social network sites (SNSs) are increasingly attracting the attention of academic and industry researchers intrigued by their affordances and reach. This special theme section of the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication brings together scholarship on these emergent phenomena. In this introductory article, we describe features of SNSs and propose a comprehensive definition. We then present one perspective on the history of such sites, discussing key changes and developments. After briefly summarizing existing scholarship concerning SNSs, we discuss the articles in this special section and conclude with considerations for future research.

Power.com, a Web start-up from Brazil with some prominent backers, aims to become the portal through which people access their online social lives. It's up against no less than the world's biggest Internet companies.