Twitter and the Micro-Messaging Revolution: Communication, Connections, and Immediacy—140 Characters at a Time

14 : Twitter and the Micro-Messaging Revolution

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To get a feel for the thing, take a look at how people

in your network use Twitter.

2. Refine the information about you. To make your

account more useful and transparent to other people,

add some details about yourself. At the top of the

page, click Settings to go to a page that looks like this:

ii) Public replies or references to other users on

Twitter. To respond publicly to something somebody

else has said, or to shout out to them, preface your

message with @[their_username]. Whether they’re fol-

lowing you or not, they can get your post—and other

people can see it, too. Because @replies are public,

and because they automatically link to the recipient’s

3. Post your first messages. There are three basic kinds

of messages you can send on Twitter:

i) Plain old updates. Just type in a note about what

you’re doing; in the upper right corner of the update

box, check the counter to make sure you’re inside

140 characters; and then hit the “update” button.

Voila! You’ve Twittered.

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15 : Twitter and the Micro-Messaging Revolution

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account, they form a powerful ad hoc linking system in

Twitter, creating serendipity and helping users expand

their social networks.

For example, if you want to send Tim O’Reilly a reply

to something he’s just ...