Once again, Commoncraft has created a no-frills, easy to understand video on a highly popular social tool, a micro blogging utility known as Twitter.I’ve been using Twitter to experiment with this interesting aspect of the web, and it is incredibly easy to do, since you’re limited to 140 characters to let others know what you are doing–a nice & brief way to stay connected.There are also educational uses for Twitter that can be used to interact with students. Not surprising this popular tool has created lots of Twitter mashups and applications that make it even easier to “twit” with your friends, or to follow those you find interesting (Hillary? Obama? Rheingold?).
One of my favorite tools that a Twitter fan developed is TwitterFox, which allows you to twit right from Firefox’s status window. Mind you, this is one of several dozen mashups available out there based on location, browser, websites, quirks, Google, GPS, traffic, and more.
All in all, Twitter is one of those tools you can use to push feeds, follow friends, and get RSS feeds from other websites. If you haven’t tried it by all means go for it. If you’d like to twit with me I’m at http://twitter.com/m3mo.
Filed under: New Ideas
c3library
anne1
mchlsamuelson
idahocat
ejhildreth
cfowles
m3mo
justinac
Memo
stevepoppino
trusteejohn
thawleyhouse
lburnett
Dylan Baker
infomaven4u
schase
jnonfiction
outsideagit8r
catalogeek
melanes
wedothatinidaho
funabiki
maryschitchat
librarynewsjoan
liesls
08corvette
smalltownlibrary
I’ve become a fan of Twitter, after initially fearing the experience would be like the episode of Leave it to Beaver where the Beav started keeping a diary and then we see day after day of “Went to school. Ate dinner. Went to bed.” “Went to school. Ate dinner. Went to bed.” “Went to school. Saw dead cat. Ate dinner. Went to bed.”
But Twitter has turned out to be more than that, I’m pleased to report. It’s a place where I can push out notes to friends, a place to record the funny things my children say, or strange observations (e.g. you can use a banana to manipulate your laptop’s touchpad whereas other inanimate objects don’t register), and it’s also become a place where I can connect with others. I recently started following the “tweets” of a few folks I don’t know personally, but whom I know via their blogs or the software programs they put out, and it’s offered me a great opportunity to see how these folks work. We sometimes think that because someone’s made a great accomplishment that they’ve somehow “figured it out” (TM), but follow them on Twitter and you’ll see someone who spends their time cleaning the house when they should be writing the next chapter for their book, or someone who’s a certifiable genius but has an amazing penchant for really bad junk food.
In short, it’s a great way to get into contact with the humanness of those around you, whom you are interested in or care about. And it’s fun, and great practice towards blogging and other online social activities.