Twitter – A Real Time MicroBlog

www.Twitter.com is a new player in the field of blogging. But it is unique because it can provide you with information from any of the people that are engaged in the blogging operation. This is not your typical blog. This can be real time. Like text messaging, but with a push towards building a community of text messagers all in real time. When you make a “tweet” You are limited to make an entry of 140 characters at a time.

How it works

Once you register, which is free, you can begin to make remarks about what you are doing. This can be trivial information, like eating breakfast…to providing information about what may be important news.

With Twitter you can send and receive updates (also called tweets) from a variety of forums; your browser, through email, through instant messaging clients, and even through SMS. There is an option to link Twitter to your mobile phone. This will allow you to stay connected and in touch wherever you are.

There are direct messaging systems and broadcast systems. Examples of direct messaging systems include email, Instant Messaging and SMS. In each case you find the person to communicate with and you send them a direct message. On the other hand blogs operate more like broadcasting systems. When you publish a blog post, there are two types of people it will go to. First it will go directly to those people that have RSS feed but secondly it is also available on the public Internet. If you have an RSS feed and a blog you have Twitter .

How is it Useful?

One such testament came in recently by a twitter blogger. She made the comment that for her Twitter was a waste of time. She didn’t care to read about what someone was going to do for dinner. But she blogged about how her brother who was moving across the country, from San Diego to Rhode Island, lived in an area that was near the fires that were sweeping Southern California. It turns out that there had been several people that were twitters, and were posting up to the minute information about what was happening in the fire areas. This was information that was not yet being reported in the news.

Business and Marketing Tool

As it turns out, Twitter can be an important marketing tool if used properly and creatively. Twitter will provide you with business value if you have something that you want to promote. Consider a company that has just introduced a new product. By having a twitter connection, consumers can interact with the technical or sales staff about the product. Other consumers can be brought in to make comments on the product, how it works, what works well, and what doesn’t.

Another way to use Twitter is with the soft sale approach. The conventional wisdom is well known that if you are in front of your customer or stay in contact you are more likely to make a sale. Twitter is a way of selling by not selling. You can stay in contact with people and chat in a friendly way often times about your products or services.

A Research Tool

Another use of Twitter can be that customers or consumers can comment on and make recommendations about what to add or change in the product line. Depending on how technical the product is, this can drive the development in ways that will make it more appealing.

An Engineering Tool

Another way that it can be used is for an ongoing online conference. Engineers in product development can keep abreast of how the product may be developing and what can problems are encountered. By having only certain Twitter members to participate you can have a working group.

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