Week4

= ****Eight Weeks to Web 2.0**** ** - Week 4 **=

 Get a Twitter Account
A what?

Twitter is a "micro-blogging" social networking tool. The premise is extremely simple. You create an account and then there's a text entry box where you are invited to tell "What are you doing?" Just like text messaging on your phone, you are limited to 140 characters.

That's all there is to it. So, why is it so powerful?

Believe it or not, there are people that care about "what you are doing". You might be discovering a new exciting website, you might be reading an insightful blog and want to share it, you might have discovered a new recipe for cherry pie, you might have read a good book, you might have attended a great PD event, ... you get the idea.

Here's what's up with me right now.

[|follow dougpete at][|http://twitter.com] developed by [|korelab]

On Twitter, there's the public timeline. Everyone who does a public posting has it go there. Worldwide. The public timeline is amazing. But, it's also so busy to be useful.

Instead, just like your Del.icio.us account, you are going to find people to follow and hopefully people will follow you. When you follow interesting people, you start to build your own network of people to collaborate with. As they find interesting resources or insights, they'll post about them and you'll be among the first to know.

How do you get started?

First, create yourself a Twitter Account and enter your first update. Don't wait for an immediate response - it won't happen. Instead, start searching for people that you know and suspect might have a Twitter account. Add them as someone that you would like to follow. They will get an email message indicating that you are now following them. That may, in fact, start to follow you.

Then, when you get adventurous and have started following someone, find out who THEY follow by clicking on their icon. Then, find out who THEY follow and so on and so on. If you find someone who looks interesting, follow them for a while. If they bore you, then drop them. Grow and refine your list of people that you follow. Before long, you'll have developed your own network.

You can start by following me. http://twitter.com/dougpete/. Hope I'm interesting enough for you to continue to follow.

If you get into this, you'll find that a web browser approach doesn't follow your network closely enough. You're going to want to have a desktop tool that automatically pulls in your own updates. Personally, I use [|Twhirl]. It does a great job of tracking my network and letting me know when anyone has an update.

A BIG list of Twitter resources is available [|here.]. Thanks to [|Mashable] for the resource list to get this started.

Check in
Who is in your list of people that you follow? Who is following you? Have you learned anything from anyone that you follow?