When New York Times technology writer David Pogue writes about a particular technology, you can be pretty sure that the technology is about to go mainstream. This week, Pogue wrote a favorable piece about Twitter called ‘Twittering Tips for Beginners‘.
Twitter has been steadily (and sometimes rapidly) growing in popularity since it made a big splash at South by Southwest in 2007. Ever since then, most folks have been trying to figure out just what it does, and what makes it so special. Pitched as a sort of cross between a social network, a messaging service, and a ‘micro’blogging site, Twitter allows users to post within 140 character limits. Users can post personal updates (reactions to the Twitter posed question ‘what are you doing?’) – but more often people use Twitter to update others on news, research, and internet-related randomness, in addition to posing questions for others.
Though Pogue (https://twitter.com/DavidPogue) does a great job getting at the heart of what makes Twitter so powerful in his article (providing one specific example of Twitter being more immediate and useful than email, IM, blogs, etc), it might also be helpful to point out a few other resources for those interested.
-CNET’s (old -but still useful) ‘Newbie’s Guide to Twitter‘.
-The Twitter Fan Wiki – is a collaborative effort to collect and document all things ‘Twitter’. Besides having a growing collection of academic papers/sites about Twitter, the wiki is also a great example of a well put together PB Wiki page.
-David Perry’s Academhack blog includes a great series of posts about Perry’s exploration of Twitter as a possible teaching tool.
Here at CIT, we also have a page about Twitter, and often blog about it (see this, this, or this for examples).