How Do You Twitter?

By Avishay Artsy on Thursday, October 2, 2008.

Monday on Word of Mouth, we'll discuss how the online social networking tool Twitter is changing our political landscape.

The purpose of Twitter is to answer the simple question, "What are you doing?" With only 140 characters to work with, people all around the world share their answers. And with the election looming, politics is foremost on many peoples' minds.

One listener has already responded, saying he loves having the Twitter Election site open during debates – “as if I’m in a room with many others, but you can hear their thoughts.”

During the first presidential debate in Oxford, Mississippi and each subsequent debate leading up to and beyond Election Day, Twitter is performing real-time algorithmic analysis on millions of unedited public reactions. A live ticker of continuously fresh opinions are available at the Twitter Election site.

Are you using Twitter to weigh in on the election? Or do you use Twitter in a different way? Post your comments here, and we'll be sure to use them in our show on Monday!

UPDATE: Word of Mouth launched its own Twitter stream today. Click here to visit.

(Photo by mallix)

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I use Twitter under the radar for my work. My work blocks twitter from our network. I just figured that people should be able to read advisories anyway possible. Just don't use my name or my department. Although, since no one can check Twitter at work, no one can know that I am doing that.

Submitted by Under the radar on Thu, 10/02/2008 - 19:21.

I've been using twitter for a while.

It has evolved for me from a cell phone txt messaging tool allowing me to coordinate with, and stay connected with friends on the go to be a constant conversation with a growing circle of friends about life in general.

For the election, Election.twitter.com is almost as much fun as http://election.twittervision.com/ and having my group of friends, who both agree and disagree with me politically post links often back to main stream media and share info helps me stay better informed.

Twitter is all about situational awareness. And as such I feel much more aware during this election cycle.

-Chris

Submitted by Christopher Bergeron on Fri, 10/03/2008 - 12:18.

Since school began a few weeks ago, we've been using Twitter to get news and announcements out to our community of students, faculty, staff, alumni and other friends. We've put our Twitter stream up on our home page under the title "Now @ Pierce Law." It also shows up on display screens inside the school.

With Twitter, we can quickly share what's going on in a timely way and it doesn't take a lot of time for us to manage it.

We're also starting to Twitter about Intellectual Property Law (one of our big specialties) through a separate Twitter account at twitter.com/ip_at_piercelaw

A lot of folks seem to think Twitter is just a way to share mundane details about what one is doing, but there are so many ways to send messages that add value to one's followers beyond telling them you're going to yoga or eating bologna sandwich.

Submitted by John McCrory on Mon, 10/06/2008 - 11:02.

Idea Smackdown: Round III

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