What is

?

"The messaging system we didn't know we needed till we had it"

- Biz Stone

What does Twitter do?What does Twitter do?

• Broadcasts messages of 140 characters

• People who follow you receive your messages• You receive the messages of those who you

follow

The Twitter message processThe Twitter message process

Someone following you

Someone following you

You!You!

Someone you follow

Someone you follow

# followers

# updates

update

# followingupdate

It’s popular!It’s popular!

• 145 million user accounts• 90 Million Tweets per day• Traffic to Twitter.com up 100% this

year • Twitter users on mobile devices

are up 250%• Australian audience growth of

400% in 2009; >30% have visited Twitter.com

• Twitter website twitter.com

• Other websites• By phone (SMS)• By smartphone app’s• One of the many

clients:

There are lots of ways to tweetThere are lots of ways to tweet

TweetDeck, Tweetie, Twhirl, Seesmic, Twitpic, Echofon, Twitteriffic, Gowalla, Paper.li, Twittelator, Twidroid, UberTwitter, Tumblr, Shareaholic, etc, etc …

Icons of the people I follow

Icons of the people I followMy lists (of people

I follow)My lists (of people

I follow)

My postsMy posts

My bioMy bio

A public page on Twitter.com

# followers: 177# updates: 550# following: 141

List of messages of people I follow –

my ‘stream’

List of messages of people I follow –

my ‘stream’

Private direct messages

Private direct messages

My lists (of people

I follow)

My lists (of people

I follow)

Where I post my updates

Where I post my updates

A ‘logged in’ view of the same page

Lists on TwitterLists on TwitterFull listing of

people I follow (and their

latest post)

Full listing of people

I follow (and their latest post)

Icons lead to profile pagesIcons lead to profile pages

Create lists with your own categories

Create lists with your own categories

You can also follow other people’s lists You can also follow other people’s lists

Some Twitter jargonSome Twitter jargon• The hashtag: #

tag a conversation for easy search, following and categorisatione.g. #conferencename, #companyname, #anysubject

• The @ symbol (reply)use @joffaboy [message] to send a public, direct message to joffaboy

• DM or ‘direct message’ begin the message with D joffaboy to send it privately to me

• RT or ‘retweet’ resending someone else’s tweet (your followers see it too)

• and many more… see Twitter’s official glossary: http://bit.ly/a6FDLi

Applications have inbuilt tools to retweet, reply, etc.:

Why use Twitter?Why use Twitter?

• You can share– what you are doing– corporate news– other people’s news– interesting links– good news stories– emergency info… and more

in a very small message

WhyWhy Tweet? Tweet?

• Twitter is micro blogging

• Twitter is social messaging

• Twitter is a source of news

• Twitter is social media marketing

What is Twitter for?What is Twitter for?

… … for mundane reasonsfor mundane reasons

… … and importantand important

• Trust can be misplaced (fake accounts, spammers, dodgy links, identity theft)

• You don’t get to choose who follows you• You can follow anyone you want• All your messages are public• Everyone can see who you are following–Unless…• You make your account secured• You send direct private messages

Some warningsSome warnings

Twitter clients: TweetDeckTwitter clients: TweetDeck

My streamMy stream@deecdnews

stream@deecdnews

stream

mentionsmentions

My list’s stream

My list’s stream

Search term stream

Search term stream

Twitter clients: HootSuiteTwitter clients: HootSuite

Twitter clients: TwitterfallTwitter clients: Twitterfall

Lots of other toolsLots of other tools

Who to follow?Who to follow?• Twitter.com and other sites provide

recommendations• Follow people (or lists) that trusted tweeple

follow• Ask for recommendations• Check out #FF (Follow Friday) recommendations • Use a recommendation tool

(e.g. see http://oneforty.com/category/Find%20People or

http://klout.com, http://wefollow.com/ )

The Twitter APIThe Twitter API

Over 70,000 program calls to the Twitter API per

second

API = Application Programming Interface

Metrics for TwitterMetrics for Twitter

http://maps.google.be/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=nl&geocode=&q=brussel&sll

=50.805935,4.432983&sspn=4.936731,11.074219&ie=UTF8&ll=50.839227,4.354191&spn=0.019269,0.043259&z=15

http://bit.ly/b8Em5z

• Short URLs are now built into Twitter 20

140TinyURL.comTinyURL.com

Short URLs = more wordsShort URLs = more words

Bit.lyBit.lyGoo.glGoo.gl

Ow.lyOw.ly

Is.gdIs.gdTiny.ccTiny.cc

Embedded images and videoEmbedded images and video

yfrog.comyfrog.com

twitpic.comtwitpic.com

TweetPhoto.comTweetPhoto.com

Pikchur.comPikchur.comPicktor.comPicktor.com

twixtr.comtwixtr.com

fotki.comfotki.com

•Embedded images and video now built into Twitter

New features for Twitter.comNew features for Twitter.com

The future …The future …

Where else to go?Where else to go?• Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter • Twitter http://support.twitter.com/groups/31-twitter-basics • Mashable http://mashable.com/guidebook/twitter/ • Delicious http://www.delicious.com/popular/twitter • Alltop (Twitter news) http://twitter.alltop.com/

• Victorian Government on Twitter: http://www.vic.gov.au/social-media.html

• Government 2.0 Toolbox Twitter Guide http://bit.ly/c6dHGz

• VPS Hub (Twitter wiki) http://www.intranet.vic.gov.au/connect/government-20-action-plan/wiki/vicgov-twitter