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We’ve been incorporating Twitter more with our local news coverage. We are posting story updates,breaking news, advisories and in general using it to communicate with the public. During the recent snowstorm we even posted Twitter updates generated by local folks.
I’ve posted here in the past about Twitter. It’s a “micro-blogging” platform. Which means you publish 140-character-long posts.
Although Twitter saw significant growth in 2008 with numerous media companies including newspapers using the service it is still not a “mainstream” product like Facebook or MySpace. The Twitter community in the Walla Walla Valley has grown significantly since I first started searching for local Twitterers. One of my hopes for 2009 is to expand the local Twitter community (and online community in general.) To do this I will post a series of tutorials for those people in the community that aren’t as technically versed as some other people. This first one is to walk you through a Twitter account set-up. Instead of re-inventing the wheel I will be using a great and easy Twitter “how-to” produced by Stephanie Romanski who is the web editor at The Grand Island Independent.
1. Go to http://www.twitter.com and click on the green ‘Get Started – Join!’ button.
2. On the signup form, pick a username. Try to keep it fairly short.
3. Choose a password. Something you will remember.
4. Enter your email address (Twitter never spams, never sells your address)
5. Type in the code words in the ‘Captcha’ box (this is a measure that prevents spammers from creating fake twitter accounts.)
6. Click ‘I accept. Create my Account.’ – You’re all done!
Twitter may ask if you want to email invites to people, but you can skip that step.
Once you’re set up, you can play around with your settings, change the design of your Twitter profile page, add a short bio and upload an image that represents you. But if you want to start tweeting right away, all you need to do is type your tweet in the box that asks “What are you doing?”
It’s that easy. Now there are ways to dig deeper into the Twitter platform by using it as a way to publish updates directly from your blog, to send and receive updates via text message, to post photos/video/polls, etc. But this will get you started. Be forewarned, you will end up refreshing your Twitter home page often to see what your network is up to. It can become addictive.
And remember, as I’ve mentioned before, it is all about the network. Twitter and all the other web services like Facebook become a wonderful tool if you build a strong network of like-minded, interesting people. Or not. There’s nothing wrong with using Twitter to tell your friends that your are at Colvile St. Patisserie sipping a latte.
If any of you out there are already using Twitter let us know how you use it. Post a comment below or better yet post a video comment using Seesmic. It’s that little raccoon thing below the comment box.
business. Who can’t use a good discount coupon during this economic downturn? Currently you will find discounts for Gilbert Auto service, $2 off a sandwich at the Cookie Tree, $1 off any coffee drink at Heidi’s Grind and even discounts to advertise in the Union-Bulletin. Check the site often as it will grow. Hopefully we’ll get the position where we will be able to categorize the coupons.
World war blog
So the gloves are off. Jeremy Gonzalez over at It’s Probably Not This Simple But… has challenged Sheila Hagar and her From The Storage Room to a blog duel. They are calling it Everyday in May. The idea being that each one of them will post to their blog every single day of the month. Who ever draws the most traffic will win lunch paid by the losing blogger. I’ll tell you up front, Jeremy is at quite a disadvantage traffic-wise but it will be fun to see what they come up with each and every day of the month. Here is Jeremy’s challenge:
And here is Sheila’s response: