Anyways, I attended a monthly meetup of the Dallas/Fort Worth WordPress group last weekend. While the usual format of the meetings consists of a speaker or some other type of presentation, this meetup was all about networking. It was a great opportunity to chat with seasoned users of WordPress as well as people considering or just getting started with WordPress. A hot topic that was discussed in many small circles was the mainstream rise of Twitter as well as the reason people use Twitter.

[smartads]

Here’s a great video made during the meeting  called “Why I / You / We  Tweet” that @socialnerdia posted on his site. Enjoy!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBaf0dF6HtE[/youtube]

“putting ordinary people on the trail of celebrities in a revolutionary competitive format”.

This, to me, sounds like a stalking TV format which would probably appeal to a certain amount of viewers but could actually hurt Twitter in the long run, in my opinion. This production, if successful, would undoubtedly cause another boom in Twitter’s increasing popularity for a company that doesn’t even make any income on the service yet.

[smartads]

Twitter’s overwhelming increase in subscribers over the last year (up 1382% according to Nielsen) has led to people  musing if Twitter’s infrastructure  can handle the traffic. Since Twitter hasn’t announced how they will make any money, it’s hard to see what the future might hold for the micro-blogging service. I do forsee some type of paid subscription service based on tweet usage or an ad-based platform to supplant the service or even a total buyout by Google or other conglomerate. Anyways, I digress.

Back to the story…

Later in the day, I saw that Ashton Kutcher had referenced the Variety.com article in his Twitter stream and stated “”Wow, I hope this isn’t true. I really don’t like being sold out. May have to take a twitter hiatus.”  Demi Moore, also agreed with her husband’s sentiments and tweeted “I hope this isn’t true — if it is, our Twitter time may come to a quick and sad end!”  These statements come from the pair who are 4th and 6th, respectively, on the list of the Top 20 Influential Twitters.

Luckily, Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter, quelled the rumors on his blog by writing  “[t]here is no official Twitter TV show—although if there were it would be fun to cast!”

Personally, I’m happy about this statement for a couple of reasons: 1) I don’t want to see Twitter fail just because it couldn’t aptly handle its popularity and 2) I don’t see the need to increase the amount of papparazzi that already stalks celebrities just for the sake of another reality show.

What do you think?

Would you like to see this show come to life (Biz Stone didn’t say it wouldn’t happen)?

Or are you content with one less pointless reality show?

[smartads]

Some Twitter Lingo

Twitterverse/TwitterLand – the virtual cyberspace of everything Twitter

#Hashtag – a word or group of words (no spaces!) preceded with the # sign which is used to signify an event, group, thought, etc… Hashtags are mostly used to give people the ability to keep tweets grouped together. For example, #wcdfw09 is the hashtag we are using for all tweets concerning our upcoming WordCamp Dallas 2009.

Retweet – if you see a particular tweet that you like and want to promote, you can “retweet” it by rebroadcasting it to your followers. Accepted syntax is to place “RT” (no quotes) at the front of the tweet. You should also give credit to the original poster by placing @user (replace user with their user name). Since this might push your tweet over 140 chars, it’s acceptable to make slight modifications, just try to keep the original idea intact.

These are just a few bits of lingo I wanted to share. I’ll cover more in the future as well as go more into depth on certain ones.

What exactly is Twitter?

Wikipedia defines Twitter as:

“a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users’ updates known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length which are displayed on the user’s profile page and delivered to other users who have subscribed to them (known as followers)”

If that doesn’t explain it well, think of it as a short note you used to secretly pass along to a friends in school, or as a quick text message from your cell phone. The main difference in these examples is your message goes to everyone who subscribes to your Twitter updates.

Why should I use it?

The possibilites are endless but they include such ideas as:

• Communicate with friends, family, and co-workers when long emails aren’t necessary
• Get quick answers to questions you might ask from multiple sources
• Catch up on breaking news stories or just find out what’s going on in the world
• Promote ideas or events that are important to you
• Promote your blog posts

Ok, I think I understand. Now, how do I start using it?

You will need to create an account at http://twitter.com/signup (by the way,  Twitter is FREE.)  You will pick a user name, enter some information and you’re ready to tweet! I also suggest using Twitter’s “Find People” tool to see which of your friends and family are on Twitter so you can connect with them and start tweeting right away!

[smartads]

Where do I go to access Twitter?

Once you have signed up, there are several ways you can access the service; on the web at  http://twitter.com, thru a mobile phone device, and even instant messaging platforms. There are also quite a few third-party programs that you can download and use such as Tweetdeck (my favorite), Twhirl, Tweetr and others. If you have an iPhone, there also many free and paid apps available in the iTunes App Store. I am currently comparing Twitterific, Tweetie, and TwitterFon. Lastly, on the IM platforms, I like to use Digsby. I combine all my Twitter accounts, IM accounts, my Facebook account and my email accounts into Digsby and can just use one program to access them all.

Will I be spammed? What about my privacy?

These are questions that come up when I discuss Twitter with friends or family. Twitter is unique in the fact that YOU, the user, control what people may or may not see. If you subscribe to someone’s updates and they aren’t appropriate for you, just un-follow them. Easy!

On the issue of privacy, if you want to use Twitter between a select group of friends and you prefer that no one else see what you discuss, you can hide your updates in the settings so only people you follow and that follow you can see them. If you don’t want to be this extreme, you can also send direct messages to people who follow you and they are hidden from the public.

There’s quite a bit of information here but I hope it helped you feel more comfortable in the Twitter world. Try it out! I’ll be posting plenty of information here on TwitZig so check back often or just subscribe to my feed to get updates as they’re posted.