Twitter Twitterrific
Since last summer my friends and I have been redefining the use of status messages on Gmail chat.
Instead of the regular, “busy”, “available” or “away” messages – we would use the input box to post personal updates. Through our status messages we would let each other know if we were having a bad day, pass on cryptic messages, and engage in discussions without even firing up the usual chat window. Eventually we would post updates several times a day because we found that it somehow bridged the thousands of miles between us.
Little did we know however that around that same time there was already a Web 2.0 service that was doing an even better job at implementing this concept. The service is called Twitter, a social networking site which asks the simple question…”What are you doing?”
Depending on how you set it up, your updates (“tweets”) can either be accessed by anyone who wants to become your “follower” or just the select few whom you select/accept as your “friends”.
RECEIVE TWEETS
What’s really special about this service though is that you don’t have to be online to get tweets. Instead Twitter can send them to your mobile phone at no extra cost (Please note that first time around you will need to set it up and that entails sending one SMS to a London-based mobile number).
You can also keep track of friend’s tweets via the Twitter website or get updates on your preferred instant messaging client.
SEND TWEETS
Twitter allows you to post up to 146 characters of anything, such as a link to a cool website, a quote for the day, or some random thought. You can also opt to go by the book and post you current preoccupation.
The most basic way to do this is via the Twitter website where you type into the “What are you doing?” text box and hit enter.
Other ways are via your preferred IM client, or your mobile phone (by sending an SMS to a Twitter number). This is free for customers in the US and Europe but is otherwise a case to case basis everywhere else, usually at the cost of an international text message.
But you need not post updates via SMS if you don’t want to. For example I use Agile Messenger (an IM client for mobile phones) to post updates while I am mobile. There are other options out there depending on your phone network.
Last but not least if you on a Mac, the experience is even sweeter with a free program called Twitterrific that allows you to read and post tweets to the Twitter network from a very unobtrusive application window.
I’ve been using Twitter for about a week now and must say that I am hooked. Unfortunately though only a couple of good friends have signed up for the service. Both are subscribed to my random tweets. I also follow the tweets of web celeb Leo Laporte…and man, it feels like he’s a pal who’s just next door.
I encourage you to try it for yourself and let me know if it works for you.
UPDATE: Read Up on my quick and easy guide to setting up a Twitter account.
