Decoding Twitter
Decoding Much-Hyped Web Technologies, and How They Actually Help You: Twitter
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Over the coming weeks, we’ll be touching on a number of technologies that have sprung to life—largely over the past 5 years—as part of the phenomenon known as Web 2.0. We’re starting today with the most popular micro-blogging social network around: Twitter.
For the uninitiated to these fairly new terms, here’s a quick primer:
Web 2.0: The current state of affairs online, Web 2.0 is what you see all around you, from Facebook to Twitter, to web-based applications and Wikipedia, Web 2.0 hinges on interactivity—the social networking inherent in Facebook friends and Twitter followers, the user-generated and user-edited content of wikis and blogs, even the utilization of reader polls on news sites are all examples of the ways in which the web, in the last decade, has shifted from an entity mainly for the people to one also by the people.
Blogs: Short for “web log,” a blog is at its simplest an online log of something. Micro-blogging, in this country, almost always refers to the blurbs shared on social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook on a regular basis. The allowed characters per each entry are often limiting, although “limitation” and “restraint” aren’t synonymous.
Social Network: LinkedIn, Orkut, and Facebook are 3 major, non-themed social networks (with the exception that LinkedIn is intended to be business-oriented, but isn’t always), and there are hundreds—if not thousands—more social networks designed for specific groups of people or those coming together around specific causes. They are exactly what they sound like: networks which encourage social activity, from commenting to sharing of media and text, to forming of subgroups. I’ll speak more to these types of technologies in an upcoming article.
I’ve barely made a dent in the lexicon of hip internet terminology, but you should have enough information to understand the basics.
The Anatomy of a Tweet
On to Twitter then. First, the most often-asked question in any conversation with nonusers: What is it? Twitter is a service which allows the user to publish short messages (140 characters) containing only text—that text can contain, depending on the wit and creativity of the publisher, a substantial amount of information. Let’s look at an example:
Hashtags: Those pound-sign marks in #Baltimore and #CME let the platform know they’re a key to the tweet’s meaning. Clicking them allows a reader to see an index of the most recently posted tweets containing that hashtag, in effect providing an index of an item’s popularity. Popular hashtags are known to be “trending.” Trending topics are often featured in tech-centric news reports, and are a sort of indicator of what the web’s abuzz with in a given day. There’s no regulation of hashtags so, unless they’re quite unique, it’s entirely possible that an index of #Baltimore will include not only our tweets on CME activities there, but lots more on totally unrelated topics. One caveat: Twitter is a fairly open service. This is great for free speech, but it also means it’s not too difficult to stumble upon content that’s wholly inappropriate for work. As with all other parts of the internet: browse sensibly.
Mention: The symbol used in @briankoffman refers the reader to Dr. Koffman’s Twitter stream. The same method can be used to respond to a certain user’s tweet; Dr. Koffman will receive a notification from Twitter that has been referenced in our tweet, so a conversation of sorts can be had, albeit publicly.
Hyperlink: Due in part to the brevity of tweets, a number of services have seen success in shortening web addresses for use on Twitter and elsewhere. Our bit.ly link directs you to the primary issues article in question, without the need for a longer, less-friendly URL. Still more services exist for hosting videos, images, and running discussions with shortened addresses for easy integration. While none of these are yet built into Twitter itself, they’re often built into the various services and applications that help you tweet anywhere, any time.
Clients: One last thing to notice in this tweet is the timestamp and “via Twitterrific” below it. This signifies the use of a particular service or application to push information to Twitter—in this case, the iPhone application, Twitterrific. A number of similar apps exist across multiple platforms; if you’ve got an iPhone, a Palm Pre or Pixi, an Android device, a BlackBerry, or any device that accesses the web in some form, there’s at least a handful of ways you can publish tweets. There are even services for scheduling tweets in the future if you are sticking to a set marketing strategy.
There are a number of hashtag and mention combinations in use that more advanced users have already integrated—to see some of them in use, you can follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/primaryissues or by clicking the “Follow Us” icon on our home page.
Architecture
Also worth mentioning, but perhaps more intuitive, are the basic facts of the architecture of the service:
- If you haven’t picked up on it already, every “tweet” you create makes up your “stream” or “feed.
- You may follow other users, and they may follow you.
- Lists can be created to group users together for your recommendations or simply to organize a large number of followers/following.
- Privacy controls let you determine who can follow you, who can see your tweets or your personal information, and how others can find you on Twitter.
Why Twitter?
Let’s move on to the second question I’m always asked: why on earth do I need it? You may not, although it’s such a flexible platform that you’d be hard-pressed to say it doesn’t fit your needs in at least one way. For those looking to stay in touch, to stay informed, or to get the word out on anything from a family vacation to patient education initiatives to clinic news, it’s an easy-to-learn and highly popular platform.
Want to have up-to-the-minute news from a number of trusted medical news sources (like @primaryissues) to review each morning upon arrival at the office, but don’t have hours to surf through websites and publications? Follow the users who publish that content, and you’ll be greeted by a nice tidy stream of short bits of news each time you log on.
Want to keep extended family members abreast of your vacation in Philadelphia without stopping every hour to send a dozen text messages, emails, and phone messages around the globe? Create a private stream of tweets, allow Aunt Freda, Uncle Charlie, and all 10 of your siblings to follow you, and tweet the occasional photo, video, or “wish you were here!” to keep them all informed according to their own schedules and tolerances.
Trying to do crucial patient education in the digital age, but can’t always keep your patients’ attention long enough or just don’t have the time in the exam room? If your patients follow you, a tweet, or even just a “Re-Tweet” from a major community based organization, can be a great (and affordable) addition to your overall education strategy. Imagine even one patient’s parent viewing American Heart Association’s tweet about the childhood obesity epidemic and making a commitment to help his child see positive change.
Twitter isn’t the only technology out there, but it’s one you might benefit greatly from, and it’s free for most uses (there are some business tools coming that might have a cost associated with their unique functions).
Of course, if you’re still not sure how it all works, you can keep an eye on our stream for examples: http://twitter.com/#!/primaryissues
Published on June 29, 2010
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