Issue #11: Twitters and Tweets

My newest fascination is this site called Twitter. I know that most of my friends and family who read my blogs don't have a clue what Twitter is... so let me explain. It's a social networking site. It's not really like myspace, but it's not exactly a chatroom either. It's kind of centered around the question, "What are you doing?" Click here for more detailed info.

I have a special request to other twitterers in the last half of this post. If you already know your way around twitter, you can skip to that part. I won't be offended that you skipped the first half of my blog.... this time. ;)

Anyway, a friend of ours told Mike and I about Twitter and told us to join. I've had to learn some new terminology since joining Twitter. Like, a lot of folks there refer to their individual communities of followers as Twitterville or Twitterland. So, if they are directing a post at everyone, they will say something like, "Goodnight Twitterville!" Another word used is "tweet". When you send a post, it is not called a post. It is a tweet. So if you get on there and someone says, "I saw your tweet", you'll know what they mean. Here's another thing... "followers" and "following". You don't "add friends" on twitter. You "follow" people. Or they "follow" you. Our friend, Jim, told us that it's good form to follow someone if they follow you. In most cases I do that. But, I've run into a few that I chose not to either because after reading their tweets I found them to be very alarming and scary or they were solicitors that I found annoying. Let's just say, I'm kind of picky about the folks that I follow or allow to follow me. If I was more of an outgoing person, I might not be so selective.

When you are sending a tweet directly at an individual, you use the @ sign followed by their user name. So, if someone were saying something to me, directly, they would start it as @jcssbrown and then say whatever they wanted to say to me. Or if they were talking about me, rather than to me, they would refer to me as @jcssbrown and not as Chelle. And... no matter what you say on twitter, you have to be able to do it in 140 characters or less. If it takes more than that, you talk too much.

And here are some other cool things you can find associated with Twitter. I won't actually explain them all... you'll have to go look at them yourself. Just trust me; they are cool!

I use twitterfeed to let Twitterland know when I've posted a new blog. Nifty, huh? Also, if I'm away from home, I can use my cell phone to send and receive tweets. That's kind of fun. And then there's twittearth, tweetscan, twittervision, and tweetclouds. Those are what I've run across lately, but I'm sure there are several others that I am not aware of yet. If you are a twitterer and you know of some other cool Twitter related sites, post a comment and let me know!

Okay, so here's something that has been bothering me. I can't get any of my real life friends to join twitter and follow me. The only real life friends I have there are Jim, Mary, and my husband Mike. I acquired a couple of Jim's friends, who seem like REALLY nice people. The thing is, they are all technically minded and talk a lot about tech stuff. I like web-design stuff and I know a little about html. I can't write a code, but I can alter one if I need to. I know my way around a computer pretty well, but I'm not quite as technically minded as they are. Anyhow, I've managed to get a couple of new followers who have more of my interests... actually, they found me... I didn't find them. But at any rate, I'm glad they did. So, here's my query: If you are a twitterer and you love animals, love children, love crafts, love God, then why not follow me? You don't have to fit ALL those criteria, just one will do!