Updated 27 October 2011
Twitter is text-messaging on steroids (born March 2006). Twitter uses the SMS protocol to deliver short (140 characters or less) messages to your phone; your IM account; your Twitter home or m.twitter.com (accessible when logged in); or a stand-alone Twitter application. You decide where you want to read your “tweets,” the name for each short message.
On This Page
- Overview
- Twitter Shorthand
- Twitter Tutorials
- Twitter Clients (applications)
- Twitter Search
- Twitter Stats and Tools
- Case Studies
- Twitter Utilities (not updated – circa 2008)
On This Site
Overview
The Twitter service is free; messages sent to your cellphone may not be (depends on your cellular plan). My recommendation is to begin with the web-enabled Twitter home and branch out from there. TweetDeck is my favorite desktop app; Twitter is my favorite iPhone app.
From the Twitter FAQ:
Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing? Bloggers can use it as a mini-blogging tool. Developers can use the API to make Twitter tools of their own. Possibilities are endless!
And it’s the possibilities that are interesting.
As envisioned, Twitter was not unlike Facebook status (before Facebook made the “is” in the “Kathy is…” prefix an option) … and not unlike LiveJournal, which was initially envisioned as a place for small groups of friends to share personal, “journal-like” entries with one another. As with the communications technologies that preceded them — telegraph, telephone, phonograph, Internet, web — the community created new ways to use the technology, ways not envisioned by the technologist/creator.
Of course, sometimes those personal notes can be, well, important. See this 2008 story about a Stanford student whose Twitter account helped get him out of jail. In Egypt.
I’m working out a taxonomy of genres (2008). As with genres, this resource list is a work in progress. Add comments, please, if you have ideas for either genres or resources.
Twitter Shorthand
- Follow: < follow twitterID >. The key to making Twitter work for you. Social networks have no value when there’s no network! When you follow someone, their tweets (posts) will appear on your home page (or however you chose to read your tweets). You can also follow by clicking on the “follow me” link on their Twitter webpage (http://twitter.com/twitterID)
- Group Your Messages: < #hashtag >. Similar to tags on Flickr, hashtags are a means to “group” tweets around a topic. Hashtags were popularized during the 2007 San Diego fires. See hashtags.org for real-time tracking of Twitter hashtags.
- Send Public Message (aka “at message”): < @TwitterID >. You can send an “@” message to anyone on Twitter. These appear on the public timeline.
- Send Direct Message: <d TwitterID >. You can direct message people only if they are following you. Direct messages do not show up on the public timeline
- Track A Subject/Person: < track word/phrase > Useful for those monitoring the twitterspace for organizational intelligence using your mobile device. Turn this off with < untrack word > More from the Twitter blog
More at Twitter Lingo
Twitter Tutorials
- Twitter 101 – 2008 – from Charlotte-Anne Lucas (via twitter)
- Twitter Fan Wiki – wiki developed by, and for, Twitter users
- Twitter Help – from the source
- Twitter In Plain English – Lee LeFever’s “Plain English” series of videos takes geek topics and makes them digestible by normal folks. In this video, he focuses on the initial Twitter concept of real-time updates to a small group of real-life friends.
Twitter Clients (applications)
Flock– a cross-platform “social web browser” that is powered by Mozilla (the guts of Firefox)- TweetDeck – desktop and mobile application; purchased by Twitter
- Tweetie – now the official Twitter app
- Twhirl – a cross-platform, multi-account Twitter desktop client built with Adobe Air. Full-featured.
- Twitbin – a Firefox plugin that allows youto send and receive messages, from inside your firefox browser.
- MadTwitter (Windows) and Twitterrific ($9.95) – Twitter desktop and mobile client; not as full-featured as Twhirl
TwitterPost– Mac only client- Twobile (Touchscreen Windows Mobile 5) – brings desktop functionality to your mobile device; development ceased in 2010
Twitter Search
- Summize – real-time Twitter search; purchased by Twitter.
- Topsy – real-time Twitter search, trends
Twitterment – powered by GoogleTwitterSearch – basic search from David TroyTwitter Search – basic search powered by Google from Steve RubelTwitStat – searchable, real time Twitter analyticsTwitterTroll – real-time search, indexes tweets from the public timeline; features most popular search terms; by Brad Williams
Twitter Stats and Tools
- TheArchivist – archive Tweets
- Trendistic – visualize Twitter trends by hashtag or phrase
- TwapperKeeper – archive Tweets (handle, hashtag)
- TweetGrader – compare profile “Grades” – provides historical data (handle creation
- TweetStats – Seattle start-up provides historical data on RTs, @s, tweet timeline; also shows trends
- Twittercounter – Amsterdam start-up is the best tool for comparing accounts; charts show followers, following or tweets (free and premium)
- Twoolr – similar to TweetStats but also provides info on topics (free and premium)
Case Studies
(2007-2008)
- 5 Ways to Use Twitter for Good from Lifehacker
- Movie & Television Social Media Marketing Using Twitter from eleven marketing
- The Benefits of Twitter For Bloggers from ProBlogger
- The Latest In Learning Fast: Edu-Twittering (tip) from Fast Company
- The Inspiration That Is Twitter (tip), from soup to nuts
- Twitter Is Paying My Rent, how journalist Marshall Kirkpatrick uses Twitter
- Twitter v Text Message List (tip) from QWU blog, a Rhode Island marketing firm
- Using Twitter To Support A Conference
- Why Short Is Tweet For The Blogging Community from the London Guardian
Twitter Utilities (not updated – circa 2008)
- Communities – Twitter Fan Wiki guide to Twitter communities — to help you find “buds” to follow
- Hashtags.org – real-time tracking of Twitter hashtags.
- LoudTweets (tip) – ships Tweets to your blog (I’m a fan of the reverse process!)
- PoliTweets – follow presidential candidate mentions on Twitter
- Quotably – provides a threaded view of Twitter conversations
- ReTweetMe – reminder service
- Tweetclouds – Make a word cloud from a public Twitter stream or from free text
- TwitDir – a Twitter directory; top 100 updaters, top 100 favoriters, top 100 followers, etc
- TwitterCensus – poll the TwitterSpace
- Twitterholic – provides statistics on the top 100 people on Twitter based on number of followers (Barack Obama leads at the moment)
- TwitterMail – send and receive Tweets via email
- TwitterMap – up to 100 entries per map location, reflecting th most recent public updates in the last 12 hours are displayed.
- TwitterNotes – log in with Twitter account and begin taking notes; you can make your notes private (so that they do not appear on your public timeline)
- TwitterVision – real-time mashup of Twitter public timeline and Google Maps API
15 replies on “Twitter Resources”
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Apple now has Rhapsody as an app, which is a great start, but it is currently hampered by the inability to store locally on your iPod, and has a dismal 64kbps bit rate. If this changes, then it will somewhat negate this advantage for the Zune, but the 10 songs per month will still be a big plus in Zune Pass’ favor.
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Hi. Thanks for the info! FYI, the “Twitter Help – from the source” link goes to an “Oops.
The page you were looking for doesn’t exist.” message at twitter.
-AA
Thanks for providing this list! I’m a big Twitter user myself.
I’m also working as an intern at Webbed Marketing, a social media marketing agency. As Twitter fans, and fans of 80s rock, we recently recorded a Twibute to Twitter: Pour Some Twitter on Me. I hope you’ll give it a listen, and if you like it, add it to your list of links.
http://www.webbedmarketing.com/twitter.html
Thanks, please let me know if I can provide any additional information.
[…] Twitter resources […]
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[…] To participate, all you need is a cellphone, text-enabled or not, to report live or a web browser to provide a time-lagged report. The website has a map (GoogleAPI) showing current reports (”tweets” — read this if you aren’t familiar with Twitter). […]
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TO add: Twitter/FriendFeed desktop client Alert Thingy just released version 1.3 of the software
[…] concert with developing a page of Twitter resources, I’ve started (in-work!) identifying message genres (types). Note that some follow […]