Twitter for Dummies (19 page)

D dummies I am really enjoying Twitter For Dummies! Thanks for the help!

Many users opt to have direct messages sent straight to their cellphones via SMS and/or e-mail, so you can frequently use direct messages to reach someone instantly even if you don’t have a cell number or if you know that he’s an active Twitter user who may not be online at the moment. Some make heavy use of this while traveling and at events and find it much easier to coordinate on the fly.

F – follow

No matter what application or interface you use to tweet, you can quickly add a twitterer to your feed just by sending an update to Twitter. Say that you decide to follow the updates of Evan Williams (
@ev
), Twitter’s cofounder and CEO. Just send this message to Twitter:

F ev

Alternatively, you can type the word
follow
to do the exact same thing:

follow ev

When you add someone using the follow or f command, you both follow them and opt in to receive their individual device updates (only when your account is set to receive device updates). When you follow them using the Web site Follow button or most Twitter clients, you connect only via the Web site, not also via SMS device updates.

@ – reply

We cover how to reply to users in Chapters 3 and 5, but the @ symbol is really a shorthand for referencing another Twitter user. The difference between this command and all other commands is that there is
no
space between it and the username of the person you want to reach. Want to say something to Leslie? Write

@geechee_girl hiya!

Twitter makes sure that the message ends up in Leslie’s Mentions tab.

On/Off

The commands On and Off control whether or not your entire account will receive device updates (SMS texts on your phone). You can use the On command to turn device updates on for your account. To turn them Off, you can use the Off command twice:

To silence updates to your cellphone:
Send Twitter the update
off
.

To silence updates and direct messages to your cellphone:
Send the update
off
a second time. You will not receive any device updates until you turn them back on using On.

Fav – favorite a tweet

If something someone just tweeted made you laugh (say, our
@dummies
account), you can favorite that tweet by sending an update to Twitter:

fav dummies

If you’re receiving updates on your cellphone, sending
fav
by itself adds the last update you received to your Favorites tab on your Home screen.

Nudge

Do you have a friend who hasn’t updated in a while? Send her a message asking her to let everyone know what she’s doing:

nudge
username

Nudge is a funny little feature, in that it works only for people who receive their tweets as SMS updates, and quite possibly only for people who have specifically signed up for your device updates. Look at the Twitter Profile page for anyone that follows you. Sometimes message and nudge links are both visible; other times, only message. If you can’t see nudge, the person obviously can’t be nudged. But frequently you can see nudge and still nothing at all happens when you click it.

Plenty of active users of Twitter — probably most — have never used nudge. So, don’t sweat it if it doesn’t make sense to you.

Stats

If you ever want to know how many followers you have and how many users you’re following, send the update
stats.
If you’re online, Twitter displays a message at the top of the screen letting you know. If you sent
stats
from your cellphone, Twitter sends you a text message with your stats in it. Obviously this makes a lot more sense than viewing stats on the Web page, where they are, of course, already displayed. Stats was a little more meaningful with Track because it also reminded you what words you were tracking.

Get

The Get command allows you to quickly view the last update from a user. Want to see Michael’s latest tweet? Send to Twitter

get gruen

Leslie, Laura, and Michael had a particularly good laugh at this one — nobody really “gets” our dear
@gruen
, but we do love irony.

Whois

If you want to get someone’s profile information quickly (say, Laura’s), use the Whois command:

whois pistachio

Twitter sends you a message that contains the user’s proper name (Laura Fitton), how long she’s been on Twitter (since April 2007), and her current bio from her Profile page (
http://twitter.com/pistachio
).

Leave

Leave seems like it would be the opposite of follow, but it’s not. At least, not quite.
Leave username
simply turns off the individual’s device updates, those text messages that some Twitterers receive on their phones, it does not unfollow that person on Twitter.

On/Off username

Not to be confused with On/Off (see the earlier section),
On/Off username
turns device updates on and off for individual users. Like follow, On will also connect you to people on Twitter.com so that you’re following their updates. Like leave, the Off username command stops device updates, but it doesn’t unfollow the username account.

In other words,
On/Off username
has no unique functionality that is different from Follow/Leave.

Invite

Do you want to invite someone to Twitter? Send the Invite command, followed by her e-mail address or mobile phone number:

invite [email protected]

invite 212 555 1212

Twitter sends either an e-mail or SMS to that person to let her know that you’ve invited her to use Twitter.

Quit and Stop

Quit and Stop discontinue all service between Twitter and your cellphone. They opt your cellphone number out of Twitter altogether. If used, you’ll literally have to log into your Twitter account and redo the steps to add your cellphone to your account.

These commands are probably not the best options to quiet your phone. They’re handy though if you accidentally lock your phone into a separate account by sending
join
to 40404 after you already have an account.

Codes may come, and codes may go . . .

Because Twitter is a living application, it has commands that come and go. Of note, you may still see some older Twitter users lamenting the loss of the Track feature.

For a recent list of Twitter commands, browse to Twitter’s Help forums by clicking the help link at the top of every Twitter page. At time of print,
http://help.twitter.com/forums/10711/entries/14020
has the most accurate list of Twitter commands.

The Track series of commands enabled users to receive updates containing a keyword the user was tracking, even if they didn’t follow the person posting the update. For example, if you were a
Battlestar Galactica
fan, you’d send the update
track Battlestar Galactica
to get every mention of that show, no matter who mentioned it, sent to your Twitter Home screen.

Unfortunately, Twitter removed the Track feature, but you can still get the scoop by using search in a similar way:

1. Browse to Twitter Search.

You can scroll to the bottom of any Twitter page and click the Search link or just go to
http://search.twitter.com
.

2. Enter the search term you want to track in the text box and click Search.

A screen appears, showing the results for all mentions of the term you want to track. You have the option of subscribing to an RSS feed for the search terms — a great idea if you’re a business user and want to monitor mentions of your name, products, brands, or categories.

Remember, search offers advanced features to fine-tune what you want to keep track of. From the Search home page, click Advanced Search and add parameters like sender, recipient, optional keywords, required keywords, timeframes, and even “emotional sentiment” of the tweets you want to see.

Chapter 8

Twitter Minus Twitter.com

In This Chapter

Taking Twitter on the go

Sending your tweets through e-mail and to RSS

Using third-party Twitter applications

Sharing tweets on social networks and blogs

Tweeting even when you’re unavailable by using auto-tweets

You can easily get attached to Twitter simply because once you really get started, you’re bound to discover many interesting and useful things it can do for you. You can literally take Twitter — and the information, ideas, and friends you connect with on Twitter — everywhere. Mobile applications and text messages give on-the-go users the ability to update their timeline and access their network. E-mail and RSS feeds also allow you to pipe your Twitter stream into your favorite RSS reader or e-mail, or onto your mobile device. Because the Twitter platform is so flexible, you can almost do everything you want with Twitter without needing to visit Twitter.com.

Look around the Web, and you’ll see Twitter has become a staple on popular social-networking sites and a standard sidebar feature on many blogs. Because of the many ways that users can access and share Twitter on the Web, you can discover it in all sorts of useful places, from tweets about specific neighborhoods on RentWiki (
www.rentwiki.com
) to live widgets on major media sites like ABC.com during President Obama’s 2009 State of the Union address.

In this chapter, we show you how you can use Twitter without having to browse to Twitter.com. When you realize how you can access Twitter from anywhere, you’re bound to discover ways to make it even more useful to you.

Tweeting with Your Cellphone

Many twitterers use the service almost exclusively on their mobile phones. You can use Twitter on your mobile device in three ways:

SMS (text messages) to and from 40404 (or your country’s short code)

Twitter’s mobile Web site (
http://m.twitter.com
) if you have a Web browser on your cellphone

Downloadable applications for smartphones such as the BlackBerry or iPhone

Literally dozens of applications come out for Twitter every couple of months. For more information, and to find the latest Twitter tools, check out Laura’s startup Twitter directory and marketplace oneforty (
www.oneforty.com
).

Via text messaging

Although text messaging (or SMS) is the most basic way to access Twitter via your cellphone, you need to first make sure that your cellphone plan encompasses unlimited texting. Otherwise, your monthly bill may end up skyrocketing. Check before you enable SMS updates!

After you make sure that you can afford your mobile texting plan, you can easily use SMS to update Twitter on the go. (Turn to Chapter 2 for instructions on how to associate your cellphone with your Twitter account.)

One caveat: The maximum length for a standard text message is 160 characters, but Twitter’s maximum is 140 characters. You have to manually verify that you aren’t going over the Twitter limit because otherwise, Twitter cuts off your SMS tweet at 140 characters.

In addition to sending tweets as SMS messages from your phone, you can receive your contacts’ tweets on your phone via SMS. Setting this up takes a little more work. First, think long and hard about how noisy you want your phone to be each day. Most Twitter users find that they can handle between 10 and 20 peoples’ tweets being sent to their phone before the constant incoming text stream becomes overwhelming. Luckily, even power users like iJustine (
@iJustine
) have discovered that they can take advantage of SMS tweets to their phone by being really selective about whose actual tweets they get via SMS. It’s not all-or-nothing.

To receive tweets from your contacts on your cellphone:

1. Open your own Home screen and, under Device Updates on the right sidebar, click phone to activate your phone notifications.

Now you can subscribe to receive SMS tweets from any or all of the people that you already follow on Twitter.

Don’t confuse
notifications
with following, though.
Following
means you follow their updates generally via Twitter. Notifications are a more intimate connection where you get their every tweet as an SMS text on your phone. With notifications ON, you also get all your DMs via SMS.

2. Make a list of people whose tweets you really want to receive directly as SMS messages on your phone.

These people can be anyone — friends, family, influencers, clients — whatever works for you.

3. Go to each of those Twitter users’ profiles and select (toggle) the updates on or updates off radio buttons to turn their notifications on or off.

You can also send a tweet to turn individuals’ message notifications on or off (see Chapter 7).

Via smartphones or PDAs

If you have a smartphone, BlackBerry, or PDA that has Web capabilities, you can use Twitter’s mobile Web site,
http://m.twitter.com
, or a number of other third-party mobile Web sites like Hahlo, pretty much the way you use Twitter.com on your computer. You can also download applications that allow you to use Twitter as an application on your phone. You can find several popular applications — these are just a sampling of what’s available for various devices:

For iPhone:
Tweetie (
www.atebits.com/tweetie-iphone
), Twittelator (
www.stone.com/Twittelator
), TwitterFon (
http://twitterfon.net
), Twitterrific (
http://iconfactory.com/software/twitterrific
).

For BlackBerry:
Blackbird (
http://dossy.org/twitter/blackbird
), TinyTwitter (
http://tinytwitter.com
), TwitterBerry (
www.orangatame.com/products/twitterberry
). Considering how popular BlackBerry phones are for tweeting, it’s disappointing how weak the apps are. Laura uses a combination of TwitterBerry (for her read-only account), texting (to send most of her tweets),
http://m.Twitter.com
(to drop by friends’ pages or check replies), and
http://search.twitter.com
(to check trends, do searches, and so on).

For Windows Mobile:
PocketTwit (
http://code.google.com/p/pocketwit
), TinyTwitter (
www.tinytwitter.com
), TwitToday (
http://dalelane.co.uk/page.php?id=1047
), Twitula (
http://cid-eda3c1275909727a.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Public/MobileApps/Twitula35.CAB
), Twobile (
www.infinitumsoftware.com/twobile
).

Play around with the applications’ options a bit until you find one you like best. They’re all a little bit different, and they have varying advantages based on how you use Twitter, how often you tweet, how big your network is, and so forth.

Using Twitter through Your E-Mail

When someone new starts following you, Twitter sends you an e-mail that contains a link so that you can check out that user’s profile right away to see whether you want to follow him back. These e-mails save quite a bit of time and hassle — you don’t have to try to remember who followed you and when.

If you don’t have the time or the need to follow back your new followers right away, use whatever options your e-mail client (or Web service) provides to search, file, or tag certain messages received. Setting up a mail filter to segment those notifications outside of your normal e-mail inbox can be really useful. Those e-mails then wait for you to process more efficiently in
batches,
many at a time, when it’s convenient for you.

You can also set up your Twitter account so that direct messages are sent to your e-mail inbox:

1. On your Home page, click Settings at the top of the screen.

The Settings screen appears.

2. Select the Notices tab.

3. Next to Direct Text Emails, check the Email When I Receive a New Direct Message check box.

Even if you’re receiving direct notifications through Twitter and your mobile phone, you may also want to get them by e-mail. Most modern e-mail applications, including Webmail software, allow you to search through your mail. By always having a copy in your e-mail inbox, you can much more easily retrieve and find a direct message that you receive. Otherwise there is no way to search your direct messages, which can be a problem.