Ultimate Gadgetry: Let’s Talk About Twitter
Friday, February 6, 2009 - John Greene
If you’re on the internet regularly, you’ve heard about Twitter, the microblogging service that lets you and your friends stay in touch. I’m on Twitter (I lock my updates and I won’t give out my ID here – more on that in a bit,) Wil Wheaton is on Twitter, MC Hammer is on Twitter, and most importantly, UltimateBet is on Twitter. Right now, we’re primarily using it to notify our followers of events that are coming up and blog entries, but don’t be surprised if it become more active as more people follow us.
I use Twitter in a very specific way – I use it to update my friends about what I’m doing, not just broadcast to the general public. I don’t have the thousands of followers that the former Wesley Crusher has, nor do I want to. I like that Twitter gives you flexibility like that, letting you have a circle of friends that keep tabs on each other, or a global network that allows your lunch updates (tomato soup, cheese sandwich, bottle of Sam Adams) to appear on anyone’s screen, anywhere. There’s also Twitter feeds from Amazon and other outlets, letting you know of deals, concerts, showtimes, and more. It’s a fantastic way to use the web, even if the vast majority of people limit it to using it as I do.
On my Blackberry, I use the Twitterberry application, and friends of mine swear by the ThinCloud Twitter for iPhone interface, which resizes the site for the iPhone really nicely and lets you get access to pretty much anything with a couple of taps. You can also (at least in the US) text updates to Twitter directly from any phone with SMS capabilities, which would be pretty much any phone out there at this point.
Of course, one day, they’re going to have to figure out how they’re going to pay for all this neat technology, but until then, start using Twitter and get the most out of the time you spend online. It’s pretty much replaced Facebook for me on that “great ways to waste time online” list I’ve had in my head.
Tags: blackberry, iphone, Twitter
