how i’m discovering

if you would like to try social|median, use the invite code “iVenus”. Still have a few left.

I’ve met some amazing people on Twitter and from each person I have listened, learned, discovered equally as much about them, world events, possibilities and myself. According to Robert Scoble I’m discovering the secret to Twitter 😉

I have, in particular, learned to appreciate the Twitterers who live in different time zones. I’m sure you too have had the great experience of waking up and reading tweets over coffee and learning about many things to which, generally, you wouldn’t be privy were it not for Twitter. Let me give you a few examples. 

• The morning of March 6 last I woke up and read a recent post by @Frenz advising that CommonCraft had released their why Twitter video within hours of its release.
• Weeks ago, @pandemia advised on April 29 that www.socialmedia.com was providing open code to test it in private invite-only alpha. So, I took advantage of it and signed up.

I’m really social|median & how easy it is to clip and share personalized news and information…not everything updated by RSS feeds. Every morning, I get an email telling me what’s new…people from around the globe, who have been up for hours already, clip news & other info that they found worth sharing. What has been truly wonderful about this is that I get a chuckle out of tweets saying “read this” and linking to an article that was clipped on social|median days earlier. It is always nice to know that sometimes I can be ahead of the game.

If you want to try social|median, send them a tweet, requesting an invite and tell them @iVenus sent you (for the week of May 12, the valid code was “London”… so if you are reading this Fri, Sat or Sun, May 16-18, it may just work)

• And of course, the tragic news of the earthquake in Sichuan China…yes, I learned of that from @scobleizer’s early morning tweets, retweeting tweets on GoogleTalk posted by people in China about an earthquake happening right then and there. I won’t even continue about this…

What does all this mean? Other than, like many others I am a Twitter addict, I am also learning so much from so many interesting and informative Twitterers locally and from around the world (and how many continue to make me smile hourly daily). Still learning how to juggle a growing following and increasing the peeps I follow. Just the same, I strongly urge everyone to test the Twitter air…get out there are fly!

kickass twitter posts…do’s and don’ts

experimenting with twitter in the classroom has had me conduct research on a different level–not peer-reviewed journals as is always the case in academia but rather blogs on twitter and qualitative analysis of what people say and do with Twitter (basically, I am conducting two different research projects simultaneously).

this morning I came across a post B.L. Ochman’s what’snextblog and discovered this list applicable to all Twitterers, I suppose. I have interspersed my comments amongst his her points, so feel free to oppose, support or just comment…

 
1. Don’t be pedantic. We don’t care what you’re eating for lunch, or that you just woke up. Actually, the culture value of these types of tweets is phenomenal for a language learning. Language doesn’t happen in a vacuum. See my first post Twitter’s “what are you doing?”
2. Don’t use Twitter just to pimp your blog posts. I’m not guilty of this, am I? Actually, maybe a little.
3. Don’t rant (unless you are Vaspers.) Occasional venting isn’t a problem. We are “family”, after all.
4. Don’t pimp your clients all day or friends, for that matter
5. Don’t over-tweet. If you need half a dozen tweets to make your point, do one that points to a blog post. Amen to that! It’s only 140 characters…
6. Don’t share breaking news that you can’t confirm. Learned my lesson, never again.
7. Do link to interesting articles, sites, blog posts. Doesn’t always have to be about “me”?
8. Do continue your conversation with another tweetie offline after a couple of @someone tweets Being voyeuristic is one thing, but as stefanomainardi said, out of respect for others, some information/conversations should be personal.
9. Do include links in as many of your posts as possible.
10. Don’t be dull.
11. Do pick up the phone and call tweeties with whom you interact often. Actual conversation, what a novel idea!
12. Answer and ask questions. Why follow twitterers otherwise?
13. Be polite. i.e., again, why follow people or have a following? We don’t need to engage in uncivilized tweeting.
14. Don’t be boring. Hmmm, what do you consider boring? Our concepts differ.
15. Don’t be overly critical of other people’s points of view.
16. Don’t be promiscuous with the “Follow” button. There are only so many hours in a day. Exceptions to the rule: Barack Obama, Scobleizer, etc., of course.
17. Don’t feel bad about blocking people. You don’t have to let everyone and his dog follow you. Twitter is a network, the benefit should be two-way. Also, like all forms of communication, there are junk-micro-blogging twitterers, spam twitterers, etc. Caveat emptor!