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In the two years since we first ran a feature on Twitter (“Your Mac: The Great Communicator,” Oct/07), the service’s popularity has exploded. If you joined the Twitter conga line long ago, its usefulness and flexibility are no news to you. But even if you’ve never Twittered in your life, the service still probably isn’t news to you--it seems you can’t turn around without a reporter, columnist, commentator, or comedian hauling out the tired old “What’s the deal with Twitter?” line.
We’re not going to bother rehashing the lame questions about whether Twitter is dumbing us all down 140 characters at a time, why so many people care what Ashton Kutcher thinks, whether members of Congress should tweet, or if the alleged egomaniacs who use Twitter were given enough attention as kids.
Instead we offer Twitter newbies some reasons to join the club, arm veterans with answers for those pesky newb questions, and give every user the skills to push Twitter to the max. It’s time to rise above the hype and wield Twitter like a 140-character katana sword. It’s time to become a Twitter ninja.
Twitter is incredibly useful, but it doesn’t hit you over the head with what you’re supposed to do with it. How you use it depends on your needs. But that flexibility also means that neophytes tend to have a lot of questions. Twitter has a great, detailed FAQ (help.twitter.com/forums/10711/entries/13920), so we won’t reinvent the wheel here. But this is how we at Mac|Life answer certain questions that just keep coming up.
What you're doing, in 140 characters. But it's more than just that...
A. It’s a microblogging service to which users post 140-character text blurbs, or tweets. Your feed, or timeline, shows the tweets of everyone you’re following, and everyone who’s following you sees your tweets in their timeline.
A. Most people start by finding people they already know. Click the Find People link (twitter.com/invitations/find_on_twitter) to search your IM and email contacts for people. If they post too much about their dietary habits, you can always unfollow them later. Click their names to check out their profiles, and you’ll see their following/followers numbers on the right side of the page. Click the following number to see the list of who that person follows--maybe you’ll be interested in those people too. Click their names to open those profiles and read their tweets, and if you like ’em, click the Follow link to add them to your list.
Sites like WhoShouldIFollow.com can suggest Twitter users to follow.
We're checking out who Ray (@raguilera) follows, to see if we should be following them too.
A. Yes. You can also read and post from a wide variety of Twitter clients, which are applications that run on your Mac, iPhone, iPod touch, or BlackBerry. (See our roundup of Twitter clients for Mac users at http://www.maclife.com/article/feature/8_essential_twitter_apps_mac_users.) And anyone can post to Twitter from a cell phone by texting their tweet to 40404. Just tell Twitter your phone number first in Settings > Devices. You can get notifications sent to your phone too.
TweetDeck is one of our favorite Twitter clients for the Mac and the iPhone.
NEXT: Q and A continued...
A. It can be, if you follow people who use it like Facebook to post status-y updates about everyday minutiae. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But Twitter can also be used to share links, track trends, follow breaking news, share images, get customer service, ask for advice, market yourself or your business, and a lot more. If all you’re getting is breakfast posts, you need to follow some more interesting users.
A. You’re not. Depending on how many people you follow and how often you check Twitter, your timeline could have hundreds of posts. Luckily, 140 characters don’t take long to read. And since the stream is active all the time, you can drop in and out at your leisure and not worry about what you missed. Don’t think of your Twitter timeline like an RSS reader or an email inbox, where items stack up in a pile until you get to them. Think of it as a stream that’s always flowing, and go sit by it when you get a minute.
A. If you want to find people talking about a specific topic right now, check out search.twitter.com, or use an application like TweetDeck to search for all new tweets on a keyword. If someone’s tweet catches your eye, click their name to read their other tweets and check out their profile. Or go to WeFollow.com to find people by topic or NearbyTweets.com to find people near your location.
TweetDeck can run a search on any keyword--great for finding new friends or tracking mentions of your brand.
A. That lets you mark the tweet as one of your favorites. Star a funny or poignant tweet to remember it later, or star a tweet containing a link that you don’t have time to read at the moment.
Click Favorites in your sidebar to see all the tweets you've starred.
A. RT means retweet, so RT @MacLife signals that someone’s reposting a tweet originally made by MacLife. If you see @MacLife at the beginning of a tweet, it’s probably a reply to a tweet from MacLife. If @MacLife is in the middle of a tweet, that’s usually a mention, like a shout-out. Twitter.com and Twitter apps let users see their replies and mentions, so it’s an easy way to have a conversation or find out when people are talking about you. The # is a hashtag, used for trends or memes like #followfriday (when users suggest other users for people to follow, every Friday). You can click a word that starts with a hashtag to see all the tweets that include it.
San Diego Comic-Con attendees used the #sdcc hashtag.
A. Not anymore. You’ll see replies (posts starting with @username) to you from your followers in your main timeline. If someone you don’t follow replies to one of your tweets, it shows up in the @username tab of your sidebar on Twitter.com and in Twitter apps. If someone you follow replies to a tweet by another person you follow, you’ll see that reply in your timeline. But if they reply to a tweet by someone you don’t follow, Twitter assumes you’re not interested, and you won’t see that. (You used to be able to see all replies by anyone you’re following with an option in Settings > Notices, but that option was disabled in May.)
So to summarize, your timeline will contain replies to you from those you’re following and replies to others, if you’re following both people.
A. You can just type links into a new post, but you’ll need to include the full URL (including html://) for it to be clickable. Since Twitter caps updates at 140 characters, most people use a service like Bit.ly or TinyURL.com to shorten long links. Each of those sites offers a “bookmarklet” you can drag to your browser’s bookmarks toolbar for one-click shortening. Then when the page you want to share is open in your browser, just click the bookmarklet to launch a new tab containing your shortened link, which you can copy and paste into your Twitter update.
Upload an image to TwitPic.com, and you'll get a link you can post to Twitter.
Photos aren’t supported directly by Twitter, but you can upload them to a site like TwitPic.com or YFrog.com and post links to them directly to Twitter. Most Twitter apps include a way to upload pictures via TwitPic or YFrog, saving you the step of needing to visit one of those sites.
NEXT: Unlock Twitter's Hidden Powers and Uses
True ninjas make Twitter tackle extra duties! Indeed, it turns out that firing off a quick tweet is a great way to use a variety of online services without logging in to their websites. Even better, you can tweet from any cell phone that can send text messages.
To use these services from your cell phone, first you need to pair your phone and your Twitter account. Log in to Twitter.com, then click Settings, and add your phone number under the Devices tab. Then you can text-message any tweet to 40404, and it’ll be posted to your account. A lot of the services mentioned here reply to you via direct message, so it’s helpful to have Twitter send those to your phone too--under the dropdown for Device Updates, select Direct Messages.
Tell Twitter your phone number.
The state of Florida set up a service called Qwitter to help citizens quit smoking, and you can interact with it via its Twitter account @iquit. You post updates containing @iquit and the number of cigarettes you just smoked. (If you protect your Twitter updates, you have to follow @iquit first, so it can follow you back and see your tweets.) All the numbers you tweet to @iquit are added up, and your daily total is graphed at qwitter.tobaccofreeflorida.com/qwitters/Twitter-name, where Twitter-name is your own Twitter user name. Anything else you tweet to @iquit--like “Wow, this is hard”--is added to the same page for an automatic “Qwitter journal” that will hopefully motivate you to stick with it.
Graphing our Diet Coke habit...we're trying to stop, we swear!
Pro tip: You don’t have to be quitting cigarettes to use this service. Smokeless tobacco, Diet Cokes, donuts, using the F word…everyone’s got a bad habit to shake.
This is a godsend on cell phones with no Web access. You have to be following @myflightinfo (just type follow myflightinfo as a tweet to do this from any client, or cell phone). The account will automatically follow you back, and now you can direct-message (DM or just d) each other. Type d myflightinfo, the word status, and the flight number (sw 208 for Southwest flight 208, for example), and the service will direct-message you back with the flight’s on-time status and other details.
This direct message was also texted to our phone.
TweetWhatYouSpend.com is an easy place to keep a spending journal powered by Twitter. Just follow @twys (type follow twys), which will auto-follow you back. Then send a direct message with where you dropped cash and how much you spent, for example: d twys Taco Bell $9.44. The listing is added to your journal and time-stamped automatically. When you’re back at your computer, just log in to TweetWhatYouSpend.com, where you can categorize your entries, add new ones, and export the list as a comma-separated file (CSV) for using with other financial software.
You journal, built via tweets, is kept at TweetWhatYouSpend.com.
No timer on that clunky cell phone of yours? No problem. Follow @timer on Twitter and it’ll follow you back. Then direct-message it a number of minutes (minimum 5) and a reminder message, for example d timer 30 Feed the parking meter. It’ll direct-message you the reminder when the time is up. In our tests, it was never to the second--don’t use this to time a soft-boiled egg!--but always hit us back within 2 minutes of our requested time.
Popular to-do services Remember the Milk (see our review here) and Toodledo both let you update them via Twitter. Pro or free Remember the Milk users can log on to RemembertheMilk.com and connect a Twitter account. Then follow @rtm and you can direct-message the service a number of commands. For a new task, simply type d rtm Pick up the milk, but you can also get a list of tasks due, delegate tasks to other Twitter/RTM users, and more. The full list of commands is at rememberthemilk.com/services/twitter.
Toodledo's symbols give you lots of control when adding new to-dos.
If you use Toodledo, you can connect it to your Twitter account by logging in at Toodledo.com, then clicking Import/Export/Sync in the sidebar and clicking Twitter. (Or go to www.toodledo.com/connect_twitter.php.) Follow @toodledo on Twitter, and you can DM it new tasks, fetch tasks, and set up reminders, with a robust system of codes to denote your to-do list’s folders, contexts, due dates, priorities, and tags. A simple tweet like d toodledo Pick up the milk adds the task with normal priority and no context, due date, or tags, to your Inbox folder. But a tweet like d toodledo Pick up birthday cake !! #tomorrow =6pm *Party @Car would add the high-priority (!!) task to your Party folder (*Party) with a due date of tomorrow at 6pm (# for date and = for time) with the context of Car (@Car). Find a full list of commands at www.toodledo.com/info/help_twitter.php.
TrackThis (www.usetrackthis.com) lets you enter your package’s tracking number and get updates by email, SMS, or RSS. But you can also use the service with Twitter. Follow @trackthis and it’ll follow you back. Then direct-message it a UPS, FedEx, DHL, or USPS tracking number and a nickname for the package, for example: d trackthis 1ZFAKE440351490210 Celia’s gift. You’ll get a direct message back every time the package changes locations.
We had Twitter send TrackThis's messages to our phone as SMS texts.
If more of your friends use Facebook than Twitter, it’s easy to keep everyone updated at once. We prefer using a Facebook app called Selective Twitter Status, because sending all your Twitter updates to Facebook (retweets and replies and all) can be annoying. Search Facebook for Selective Twitter Status, install the app to your Facebook page, tell it your Twitter name, and you’re all set. Then just end any tweet with #fb to send it to Facebook as well as Twitter. (The #fb part doesn’t show up on Facebook, by the way.)
End a tweet with #fb and Selective Twitter Status will update your Facebook page too.
If you’re retweeting a link, it’s because you like it. Might as well send it to note-taking wonder service Evernote, too. (See “Digitize Your Mental Notes with Evernote,” Jul/09) You’ll need a free or Pro account at Evernote.com, then follow @myen on Twitter. It’ll follow you back and direct-message you a link. Click it and log in to Evernote to link the two accounts. Then you can add @myen to any tweet you want to send to Evernote. Or direct-message (d myen) the service any notes you want to keep private.
Adding @myen to a tweet sends a copy to evernote.
NEXT: Ninja Stars: Quick Tips
>> SNOOZE a verbose follower temporarily at TwitterSnooze.com. Great for someone who's at Comic-Con or WWDC and posting way, way, way too much about it.
Shhh, quiet you.
>> MEET Twitter users in real life! Head to search.twitter.com and search for tweetup near:"Your City" within:15mi to find tweets about meet-ups happening near you.
Ron Jeremy, really? Wow.
>> LOVE music-streaming site Last.fm? Link up your Twitter account at lastfmlovetweet.com to automatically tweet a link to any song you mark as loved on Last.fm.
Share the love.
NEXT: How to Post to Twitter by Voice
If you’re already using super-versatile reminder service reQall for to-dos, your shopping list, or other reminders, having it post to your Twitter account is a bad idea. But if you’re not using the service at all, here’s how to set up a reQall account to transcribe your voice memos into tweets.
1. SIGN UP FOR REQALL
Go to www.reqall.com and sign up for a free account. Click Settings in the upper-right. Click Phone Access in the sidebar. Enter your phone number and click Save.
2. TURN ON YOUR RSS FEED
Click Feed in the sidebar, and check the box to enable an RSS feed of your reQall items. Then click the RSS button to open a window of the RSS feed. Save the URL of this feed; we’ll need it in step 3.
3. GO TO TWITTERFEED.COM
Sign up for a free account. Follow the prompts to set up a new feed to Twitter and link your Twitter account. Enter the URL from step 2 into the RSS Feed URL box. Under Advanced Settings, change the update frequency to 30 minutes--your tweets should be up within the hour. For post content, include the title only, and uncheck the box for Post Link. Click the Save Feed button.
4. ENTER REQALL AS A CONTACT
Enter reQall on your phone with these two numbers, if you’re in the United States: 888-9-REQALL (888-973-7255) is the toll-free option, and 408-715-7572 is the backup. (Look up numbers for the U.K. and Canada at www.reqall.com/about/faq.)
5. CALL REQALL
When prompted, say, “Add.” Then say something, pause for acknowledgement, and hang up. reQall will transcribe your speech and add the new item to your reQall list, which posts it to the RSS feed, which is pushed to Twitter by Twitterfeed.com. Some of your messages might be a bit garbled, but it’s a free no-hands tweet. Not bad.
@rainnwilson (Rainn Wilson of The Office)
@ThatKevinSmith (director Kevin Smith)
@alyankovic ("Weird Al" Yankovic)
@donttrythis (Adam Savage, co-host of Mythbusters)
@wilw (author, blogger, actor Wil Wheaton)
@hodgman (author, humorist, and "PC" John Hodgman)
@JetBlueCheeps (posts links to crazy-low--$9?!--fares every Monday)
@Zappos (written by CEO, Tony Hseih)
@comcastcares (Frank Eliason, Director of Digital Care, provides actual customer service)
@southwestair (answers questions and tweets about deals)
@hrblock (trolls Twitter offering help to people tweeting their tax freakouts)
@amazonmp3 (offers daily deals and sales from the Amazon MP3 store)
@stevewoz (Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak)
@pogue (David Pogue of the New York Times)
@ginatrapani (Lifehacker founder Gina Trapani)
@Inhatko (tech journalist Andy Ihnatko)
@gruber (Daring Fireball's John Gruber)
@hotdogsladies (Merlin Mann of 43folders.com)
@MacLife (us, of course!)
@MacFormat (our sister magazine in the UK, MacFormat)
@engadget (gadget gurus Engadget.com)
@macrumors (rumor site extraordinaire MacRumors.com)
@BoingBoing (posts links to its "directory of wonderful things")
@cnnbrk (CNN's breaking news feed)
