Microblogging: Using Twitter To Share Your Ideas

Tomorrow we will discuss how to "microblog" using Twitter. Microblogging is exactly what it sounds like—a way to share your thoughts and media with others in a short form (in this case, only 140 characters).

Microblogging isn't a waste of time. It can be a great way to share quick ideas, to let people know what you're doing, and to find out about breaking news. During the so-called Green Revolution that erupted after Iran's recent election scandal, the Iranian government blocked social networking websites to prevent its citizens from communicating with each other. However, many students continued to use Twitter to organize, evade arrest, and speak with the media.

Here's a 9-minute basic Twitter tutorial about setting up your profile, finding people to follow, and directing messages to other. If you wanna put a link in your tweets, you can shorten long web addresses with a URL shortener like bit.ly. If you want to attach images to your tweets, sign up for a free account at TwitPic and upload your images there. And to learn more about retweeting and replying to other people's messages as well as adding hashtags to join in larger conversations, read this quick article.

And for advanced Twitter users:

Learn how to search for popular terms and breaking news using Twitter Search. You can publish your Blogger blog to Twitter using Twitfeed here.

Also, Tweetdeck is a wonderful and free program that will help you keep on top of what topics are hottest on Twitter, sorting the people you follow into different categories, and helping you update and edit your tweets. Learn more about it here. It even has Facebook integration and other tools to help you stay on top of breaking news.

Lastly, a quick Facebook tip. Did you know you can actually make RSS feeds of your friend's activity in Facebook so you can stay updated via Google Reader? It's true!