Twitter goes mainstream

I have been read quite a few articles lately about Twitter, its success, its drawbacks, and more.  But more important, I have been looking at different Twitter users, what they post about, communicate about, or even advertise on their account.  Some of the content is odd; some of it unintelligible.  Some of it is even useful.  If you look at the public stream, I believe there are some obvious trends:

 1. There are many Twitter users who use the service to spam other folks. Yep, Twitter spam and it’s really annoying. Nothing like getting a new follower and though it may look legit, one look at their Tweets or link to their website tells you it’s all about the spammage.

2. There are many users who use Twitter as their “blog”. Yes, Twitter is classified as a blog-type system.

3. There are many folks who use Twitter to connect to their client base. Yes, an extension of their own company sites/blogs

4. There are many people who use Twitter simply to connect to friends or to other folks to help them in their jobs, etc.

We even integrate Twitter here on Our Geek Life. So, during the day or evening as we post to Twitter, you’ll see this on our blog. As we work toward the redesign of our company website, Design by Geeks, you’ll see Twitter integrated there as well. Of note, there are several WordPress theme developers who integrate Twitter into their sites now. In particular, WooThemes has their own Twitter feed. They created the WordPress theme we use here on Our Geek Life, outside of some additional graphical edits I’ve made as well.

Interestingly enough, Twitter has many uses for many reasons by their users. As I use the service more and come across other sites/blogs that incorporate Twitter, I will give a few more thoughts on this.

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Twitter

Why do so many people seem to like Twitter?

Simplicity has played an important role in Twitter’s success. People are eager to connect with other people and Twitter makes that simple. Twitter asks one question, “What are you doing?” Answers must be under 140 characters in length and can be sent via mobile texting, instant message, or the web.

Twitter’s core technology is a device agnostic message routing system with rudimentary social networking features. By accepting messages from sms, web, mobile web, instant message, or from third party API projects, Twitter makes it easy for folks to stay connected.

In particular, we are using the NewsTweet plugin by Tim Resudek. We’ve customized the Twitter feeds coming into two sites we have just launched. Speaking of which, here they are.

Coffee Tweet – coffee.twitterize.net

Coffee Tweet is powered by WordPress and integrates a Twitter feed via a search term. In this case for Coffee Tweet, it’s “coffee”. The latest 10 tweets are displayed on the homepage and as the feed updates itself every several seconds, all newer Twitter feeds with the word “coffee” will show up. This site/page can become quite addicting due to the popularity of coffee across the blogosphere. As you see the different Twitter feeds show up, you can click over and check out the diverse group of people microblogging about coffee within their own spaces.

Geek Tweet – geektweet.net

Powered by WordPress as well, Geek Tweet integrates a Twitter feed via two search terms, “geek” and “geeks”. Any person using Twitter who enters “geek” or “geeks” in their microblog will show up on the Geek Tweet homepage. Though not as popular in terms of the amount of tweets coming in, it’s easy to see how mainstream the term “Geek” has become.

So, if you have some time to spare, check out these two sites. Better yet, sign up on Twitter and start microblogging. If you use the word coffee, geek or geeks, you will show up on our two sites. Coolness.

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