Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send “updates” (or “tweets”; text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) to the Twitter website, via short message service, instant messaging, or a third-party application such as Twitterrific.

Updates are displayed on the user’s profile page and instantly delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them. The sender can restrict delivery to those in his or her circle of friends (delivery to everyone is the default). Users can receive updates via the Twitter website, instant messaging, SMS, RSS, email or through an application. For SMS, four gateway numbers are currently available: short codes for the USA, Canada, and India, as well as a UK number for international use. Several third parties offer posting and receiving updates via email.

I used to be a passive Twitter user. More of a troll than anything reading other peoples tweets and occasionally updating what I was doing. Between my cell phone and the website I gave random updates like “Getting groceries” and “Bored at the office” but I knew there had to be more to it than that.

Integrating Twitter with your online life.

The simple use of Twitter is sending a quick sms or message on the website of an update but you won’t have the impact of reaching the mass of your network. Integrating the service with the rest of your online life makes Twitter that much better. Facebook allows you to add a Twitter app on your profile so every update is logged in Facebook for that specific network to see.

Using Twitterfeed you can have blog posts and any other RSS feed generating site you use to create a new update. As a blogger I can attest to the fact that this functionality brings new readers.

The other side of the coin is being able to have your tweets added to your WordPress blog like a condensed microblog.

Ways to use twitter

Other than personal updates and alerting your followers to new blog posts, there are many other users for it.

1. Announcements: Either personal or for business you can build a network of interested followers that you can target with special updates.

2. Tracking: Twitter allows you to track specific keywords which lets you stay in the loop. I have a tracker setup for my name, any referance to the company I work for as well as a few others. Doing this I have been able to make new contacts and see what is being talked about.

3. Organize meetings: Twitter can let you send meeting invitations and updates to a mass group all at once and since Twitter sends to cell phones you don’t have to worry about the people reading their emails if they are on the way.

All in all Twitter is a wonderful tool for many aspects of personal and business life. Are any of you using Twitter?

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