Tweet Tweetly Tweet (Name That Song)

So, Twitter?  What’s the big fuss about???

I hear you blogosphere… I asked myself the same question in the early stages of owning a Twitter account… Can I just say, that was in Feb 07?  I’ve had an account that long making me a bit of an early-ish adopter maybe… but not early appreciator… (tis a werd?) I actually really only started using it properly this month.

So, what is it? 

Twitter is micro-blogging tool for keeping up with people in real-time. It’s based on the simple question "What are you doing now?" and it works like this.

• I create a Twitter account at http://www.twitter.com
• I invite friends to follow me on Twitter
• I choose people to follow on Twitter
• Whenever the spirit moves me, I tell Twitter what I’m doing, thinking etc in 140 characters or less and Twitter tells all my followers.
• Whenever the people I’m following update with a new ‘Tweet’ I get the message in any of my chosen tools for keeping up to date (more about that further down the page).

Twitter can inform for me in a gazillion ways.  It can SMS my posse with my my update (depends on how they’ve got Twitter set up) and I can get SMS from any of my posse.  I haven’t got into this side of it because I can’t figure out if it costs me money…

It can be added into my Facebook account and be used to look after my status updates.  THIS is the primary reason I started getting in to Twitter.  I LOVE Facebook status updates – and being able to update Facebook, without being IN Facebook seemed a very good idea… especially as Facebook is blocked at work for most of the day…

Having Twitter meant that I could update the blog with status updates!  Whee… little tiny bits of ‘what am I doing’ at Singular Scene without having to make a new post.  I know… a little bit tragic… but fun nonetheless… the technique of doing this involves getting the ‘add twitter to your website’ code from my twitter account and pasting it into my blog templates.  It also required a bit of css coding to make it look like the rest of the blog… I’ll post more on that over at the Web Princess Blog… (remind me to tell you about the Web Princess Blog…)

I also have a Firefox add-in (seriously, get Firefox) called TwitterFox that sits in the status bar at the bottom of my browser which keeps a counter of current Tweets I can check out at any time and on which I can click to add a Tweet of my own and given that, when you know how much time I spend in front of my computer you’ll understand why I don’t really need to update Twitter from my phone…

Basically, it’s another form of blogging that’s a bit less word intensive and a bit more immediate.  It has proven useful for one particular man as it helped keep him out of an Egyptian jail! recently.  The rest of the time it keeps your friends and relations up to date with the inanities and enormities of your existence with very little effort required on your part.

And on that point alone it could be a curse or a blessing… So tell me, do you Twitter?