Twitter 101

Here is my March 2009 Gone Surfin' column, which first appeared in the South Shore Clipper. If you have wondered what this Twitter thing is all about and whether it's for you or not, read on.

If you want more on Twitter, read my story in the Globe and Mail on fiction writers using the site in innovative ways.

And for past columns, visit the Gone Surfin' archive (which has some gaps, because I have not done a great job keeping it up to date).

All a-twitter

Spring is here, and the birds are twittering in the branches. Meanwhile, the media is chirping loudly – about the latest hot web site, Twitter.

Curious to find out what the fuss was all about, I signed up. (If you want to follow me go to http://twitter.com/PhilMoscovitch.)

Twitter is a site that asks users a simple question -- “What are you doing?” -- and gives them a maximum of 140 characters in which to answer.

Now, I have to tell you that I resisted Twitter for a long time. I just could not see the usefulness of a site that allowed you to write what you're doing in 140 characters or less.

And the first Twitter postings I looked at were no help. They said things like “Going to have a bath.” Really? Did I care? No.

But soon after signing up, I realized that – like with many interesting technologies – users have created their own culture and extended its uses beyond the site's original intentions. Very few people seem to actually tweet (that's another word for a Twitter post) about what they are doing at the moment. News organizations tweet breaking stories. Writer Arjun Basu uses Twitter for fiction: over 500 140-character short stories so far. Politicians like Elizabeth May post information that's both personal and political. Tech companies release the latest on their products through Twitter. People of all stripes post interesting links.

Like Facebook, Twitter creates interlocking networks. You may start off following close friends. Then someone forwards one of your postings to their followers (this is called re-tweeting). Friends of your friends start following you. Soon, you're drawing the attention of people you know nothing about.

Unlike Facebook, you don't have to be friends with someone to see what they post, and vice-versa. Unless you deliberately make your settings private, or use direct messages, all your posts and replies are public. They can even be seen by people who are not Twittering.

If you do wind up following a number of people, don't try to keep up with everything they have posted. One piece of advice I read was to treat Twitter as a stream. You can dip into it and see what's there at any given time, but don't try to keep up with all the tweets the people you follow are posting. It's a surefire way to drive yourself crazy and to waste lots of time.

You will probably also find it annoying to visit the Twitter website every time you want to check in. But you don't have to. There are plenty of third-party tools that allow you to tweet, search and read posts without going directly to the site. I use a widget for the Opera browser that stays open on the edge of my screen. There are also programs like Twhirl (for Windows), Twitterific (for Macs) and Twadget (a vaguely obscene sounding Vista sidebar gadget). Plus you can always post and receive updates on your cellphone.

If you plan to post links in Twitter, you will need a URL-shortening service. Many links are so long that posting them would take up a large chunk of your 140 characters. Fortunately, there are dozens of websites that allow you to paste in a Web address and then convert it to one that is substantially shorter. Then you can copy and paste the new URL into Twitter. Readers who click on it will be taken to the original site whose address you shortened.

I typically use TinyURL, SnipURL and is.gd (pronounced “is good).

Is Twitter fun? Sure. Useful? It can be. Will it change the world? Not likely. But it does offer an interesting window into what others are doing and thinking. It may seem unfamiliar at first, but its very simplicity, makes it easy to catch on.

One final word: Twitter does have its own conventions that may seem confusing. So, very quickly, RT means re-tweet (forwarding something someone else has posted). @ is the symbol that appears at the start of a posting to indicate it is a public reply. And # is the equivalent of a blog tag – a mark that sets off a keyword to make searching easier.

Now you're all set to add some tweets of your own to the spring chorus.