Twitter Basics
“The Twitter Book” covers the basic mechanics and conventions of Twitter from signing up and setting up a profile. It explains what is meant to “follow” someone. Then it talks about the # hash tag, the use of the @ at-symbol for replies. It explains how to re-tweet using both the “RT” and the “via” conventions. It covers Twitter jargon as to what is a “failed whale” and “tweetup”.
Although all messages in Twitter is public by default, it is possible to send private direct messages to someone. The book explains how as well as how to bookmark your favorite messages.
For those new to Twitter, they may have trouble getting their message to fit within Twitter’s 140-character limit. That where 140it.com and bit.ly comes in handy.
Twitter Searches
Next, the book looks at Twitter searches. search.twitter.com is where the power of Twitter comes into play because you can see what are the hot social topics and what people are talking about at the moment. Other examples are hashtags.org and whatthetrend.com which are two places that can show you what topics are being most talked about on Twitter.
In fact, there is a page in the book that has the question “What’s Twitter good for?” and its answer is “Mind reading”. Quoting from the book: “search service is an amazing mind-reading tool, letting you see not just what individuals are thinking about, but what groups are focusing on, too.”
Twitter Tools
Now that you know how to use Twitter, the next part of the book explores the use of third party tools that makes your Tweeting more convenient and efficient.
Because of Twitter’s open Application Programming Interface (API), there are many third-party websites that have developed Twitter related tools and services that harnesses the power of Twitter. The book points a couple of these websites out. For example, TweetDeck.com, Monitter.com, and TweetGrid.com.