Twitter

Twitter Dictionary

%A %B %e%q, %Y // 2 Comentários » // Articles, Twitter

Many new users take some time to fully understand the already stablished language codes on Twitter. In order to help, we prepared a micro-dictionary for better comprehension:

API:

Application Programming Interface, a series of functions Twitter sets available for anyone to access the system resources. There are limitations to this access for security reasons.

Avatar:

The picture exibited in each profile that uses to be square shaped and supports JPG, GIF and PNG files.

bit.ly:

A URL shortener service thar integrates with the Twitter API to filter the amount of clicks your links have and from which location were they accessed.

Block:

twitter_1250476023263

Blocking someone on Twitter will exclude you from list of followers of that person, exclude your weets from the person’s home and forbid the blocked one from following you.

DM:

Direct Messages are messages sent directly to a certain person in a private way. You can only send DMs to those who follow you.

Favorite:

Favorites are the tweets you mark with a star on the oficial site and are stored in a Favorites Page so you can find content moe easily.

Follow:

follow

Following a person on Twitter is like a subscription service. You’ll receive the person’s updates on your Home.

Follow Friday:

A Twitter meme in which, at Fridays, people indicate other interesting people to their readers so they can also follow those. The meme is identified by the tags #ff or #followfriday and variations.

Followers:

Followers are the people who read your content.

migre.me:

Brazillian URL shorttener service which also integrates with the Twitter API to count the number of cliks and Retweets of the links.

Unfollow:

unfollow

It is the action of not following a specific user any longer. It is like cancelling a subscription.

Profile:

It is your personal page on Twitter, where all your Tweets are shown.

Reply:

Replies are identified by the sign of @, are those teets preceded by @nameofuser. The content of replies is public, every one with access to Twitter can see it.

Retweet:

It is the act of citing the autor of a certain Tweet, it is normally identified by the abbreviation RT. Ex.: RT @sbvirtual (SB Virtual’s message).

Trending Topics:

Most spoken topics on Twitter recently.

Tweet:

Name given to each 140 character post published on Twitter.

Twitter:

The name of the service refers to the way birds sing with a tremulous sound.

What other terms should be added to this micro-dictionary?

Twitter Best Practices

%A %B %e%q, %Y // Não há Comentários » // Articles, Twitter

Since January of this year, we’ve noticed an exponencial growth of Twitter in our region, that was one if the reasons which made us develop the project Belém-Te-Vi, a place to filter real-time tweets written by Belém residents. However, aside this high rates of Twitter usage we noticed a certain misunderstanding on how to use it and so we prepared a few orientations.

@sbvirtual

twitter.com/sbvirtual

How to use Twitter:

  • Twitter is above all, a tool for communications, therefore what you write is being read by other people;
  • Twitter must not be used for mass marketing, people will only read your texts if it is interesting for them;
  • Titter is not a chat, if intend to talk a private subject with someone via Twitter instead of instant messengers like MSN Messenger, then use Direct Messages, nobody is obliged to read your private conversations;
  • “What are you doing” is not an  order, few people want to know what you had for breakfast, but many would love that you indicated the link of the site you’re currently reading;
  • Networking: answer to your collegues question and make new contacts, all of this is possible through Twitter;

Twitter Best Practices:

  • Use URL shorteners to suggest links like the brazilian migre.me or bit.ly;
  • Use RT to Retweet other users Ex.: RT @sbvirtual etc
  • Make use of hashtags for a better classification of your texts. Hashtags are like keywords we can create and indicate trough the symbol #. A hashtag about SB Virtual would be #sbvirtual;
  • If your Twitter account is for corporative usage, then listen to what your followers say about you, answer and engage with them;
  • Avoid using scripts to adding more followers. This is a practice not very well seen by the community;
  • Describe yourself through the Bio and the avatar too;
  • Twitter is not limited to its own website, explore other softwares like TweetDeck, Twhirl, TwitterFox or other sites like Twitzap, Belém-te-vi, Blablabra.

Chris Brogan also wrote a etiquette guide for Twitter that is worhty checking.

And you, how do you use Twitter? What other practices do you suggest or disagree?

Twitter will have a new home

%A %B %e%q, %Y // 8 Comentários » // Articles, Twitter

After launching a guide for business should use the service, Twitter also anounced that on the next days it will have a new home. The features to be added intend to let more clear to new users what twitter is for through tutorials and a demonstration of real time tweets around the world.

However, it would be interesting if Twitter would listen better to its users and added other functionalities. Those are a few:

  • Built-in URL shortener;
  • Mark tweets as seen;
  • Group Tweets /Followers;
  • Dinamic reload of homepage;
  • Notify of new Tweets

Can we only wait for what Twitter is about to deliver us? Comment: what other nice feature you think twitter should add?