Sunday, April 19, 2009

Twitter is Cool!

I have become a big fan of Twitter. For those of you unfamiliar, Twitter is best described as a 140 character "microblog" that anyone can use via the internet, or better yet through direct texting.

My son turned me on to Twitter about 5 months ago. I actually first heard about it when multiple news outlets reported how Twitter became one of the primary places to get first hand reports during the Mumbai, India bombings last November. http://digg.com/d1exia

I don't think anyone should depend on Twitter to get their news, however what has become very cool is that multiple legitimate news outlets are now using Twitter to send out short, quick burst of news in real-time. Check your local newspaper (i.e. Cincinnati Enquirer, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, even USA Today among many others) to see if they have this service. Also, you can find ESPN, CNN and many other media outlets using Twitter to send out news updates.

There are multiple companies, local and national who are using the service to get information out on their products. It is also great to find Celebrities and Sport Figures regularly updating via the service. Check this article for some great recommendations: http://www.blogtrepreneur.com/2009/04/15/45-pros-you-should-be-following-on-twitter/

I like watching trends on Twitter. Next time you are watching TV, especially some of the more popular shows like American Idol, Lost etc. Bring up Tweetgrid, and click on trending topics. You can watch in real time the reactions of people watching the shows-very entertaining! http://tweetgrid.com/ You can also use tools like this to search keywords for subjects you may be interested in.

However, the best part of Twitter is finding people who are just plain funny. I follow over 70 people, companies, news outlets etc. By far my favorite-obxlaw.

So check it out: http://www.twitter.com And check me out: http://twitter.com/jiresell

By the way, this is an independent opinion. No one from Twitter.com or it's affiliates asked or paid me for this endorsement...LOL

Signing off for now.......Jiresell

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