Are you Twitter curious? For the past few months I’ve been on the fence about Twitter – lurking but minimally engaged. Like all new technologies as people play with it they are discovering what it is best for. Recently I’ve watched as my friend Charlene Blohm has begun leveraging it to help drive her business.
Twitter seems to be following a similar path to other new technologies. The enthusiasm of early adopters misrepresents what the technology is really capable of. Think LaserWriters/Postcript and flyers with 23 different fonts on them (circa 1986) or web pages cluttered with frames (circa 1998). Once the dust settled and a “grammar” of usage emerged we all benefited. But every new technology has to pass through a stage of wild and random experimentation to get there.
Twitter is passing out of this stage right now so it is a good time for the rest of us to engage with it.
I was picking Charlene’s brain yesterday about Twitter commands and resources (the company’s web support sucks) and she gave me this list of articles and resources that can help you get started.
Getting Started With Twitter (by a teacher)
Twitter Tools for Community and Communications Professionals
How to Use Hastags [to track topics and events]
Coming Attractions
In the next couple of weeks I’ll do a post on What Twitter Does Well and another on How to Abuse Twitter. In the meantime you can start following me by tracking Embir.
Other Education Publishing related twitterers that I know if (there are 10’s of thousands out there).
Please add others in comments. If you are new to Twitter – welcome to the conversation.