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What is Twitter? At its most fundamental level, Twitter is just a place where people answer the question, "What are you doing now?" Every time you answer that question in 140 characters or less via the Twitter website, SMS, email, IM, or other Twitter client, it posts to your Twitter account. Posts are publicly viewable on the Twitter time line or can be made viewable just to friends or individuals.
Twitter gives you the chance to publish your thoughts quickly or to tune into the thoughts and information streams of other users from around the world. Twitter posts are ideal for making single points or sharing a single piece of information, like a link, instantly. Think of the difference between an email and an SMS message, rather than a blog. Twitter is a microblog. Every time you post a new message, that message is relayed to all of the people in your friends list, published to your personal Twitter home page, and added to the public home page unless you tell it otherwise. Your tweets can also be posted to your blog, or other social networking sites to which you belong. In addition, Twitter offers the ability to send direct messages to any of those you follow, or who follow you, without their being part of the public Twitter stream.

There is a lot out there about Twitter. Here are some introductions to what Twitter is and how to use it:
Still not convinced or don't quite get it? Try these:
Here's a shorter but comprehensive overview from All Things Digital.
The Big Juicy Twitter Guide


How to do things with twitter
You can reply directly a specific post or message. The @ is a reply directed to a specific person or message sent by that person.
What is the fail Whale?: 
Sometimes Twitter gets overloaded or has problems, in which case you'll see the Fail Whale. They're usually pretty quick to fix things so don't get discouraged.
Other Twitter info you should look at:
So to summarize, Twitter is a microblogging tool, an alerting system, a type of IM, a social network, a status updating tool like IM away messages, a conversation, and more. For librarians, it appears destined to be an essential conference tool as well as a personal productivity tool that can be used for creating to-do lists, tracking bug fixes, brainstorming with colleagues, and generally keeping in touch with friends.

The Best Tweets Include:
- Recommended links.
- Images and videos to share.
- Something worth replying to and having a conversation over. ( see How to Use Replies above)
- Something worth retweeting. (Avoiding 1-sided conversations)
- Announcements about upcoming events.
- Valid sources of information.
Now it's time to Twitter.

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Comments (8)
Linda Wadman said
at 11:04 am on Mar 10, 2009
About Twitter and IM: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13846_3-10063991-62.html
You can get SMS from your phone if you set up the device, but IM is not coming back anytime soon.
Laura Miller said
at 10:06 pm on Feb 26, 2009
I went to the site http://www.ehow.com/how_2075922_use-twitter-instant-messaging.htm to learn how to post to Twitter via my IM account. I was able to view my settings in my Twitter account but I did not see any Phone & IM link where I could enter my Instant Messenger username. Is there something I'm missing here?
Elizabeth Anderson said
at 5:49 pm on Feb 22, 2009
Wow! so much information. Has anyone used TweetDeck? I now have a personal and library Twitter account.
Ruth Solie said
at 12:09 pm on Feb 17, 2009
Laura - if you go to http://www.ehow.com/how_2075922_use-twitter-instant-messaging.html you will find step-by-step instructions on how to post to Twitter from an AOL IM account. Hope this works for you. If not, do a Google search on Twitter AOL IM and you get lots of results that should help.
Laura Miller said
at 8:30 am on Feb 14, 2009
I'm trying to post to Twitter via my IM account but I am having problems. I use AOL IM.
Ruth Solie said
at 3:02 pm on Feb 3, 2009
click on the arrow (triangle) on the edit bar at the top of the page to enlarge the text box to fill the screen. The sidebar will disapper, and the text box will be larger. It is possible to click on the arrow again and reduce the text box/restore the sidebox when you want to see it again.
Shelf Elf said
at 10:54 am on Feb 3, 2009
Sorry I noticed the printable version button at the bottom and then when I clicked on it that is where all the information showed up.
Shelf Elf said
at 10:53 am on Feb 3, 2009
I have noticed that on a lot of the pages that the sentences are cut off so you can't read it very well.
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