I teach a class at 7:30 am every Monday and I am on the road to school around 6:30 am.  I live 35 miles away from school and part of my commute spans a stretch of highway that is prone to gridlock at all hours of the day and night.  I am always concerned about being late to class with no good way to communicate with my students.  Then I heard about Jott and how I could use Jott to post a message to Twitter. 

• Jott is a free voice-to-text application.  You call Jott and dictate a short message.  The short message is transcribed to a text message which is sent to you, specific online folders, individuals, groups, or to links, such as Twitter, via SMS or email.  In essence, Jott is the convenience of text messaging without the hassle of keying in the message on a cellphone keyboard.
• Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows you to post text-based messages of up to 140 characters to a Twitter website via instant messenger, email, text message or a third-party desktop application.  Twitter posts are referred to as "tweets" and are displayed on your user profile page and instantly delivered to your "followers" (other users who subscribe to your Twitter account) via instant message, SMS, RSS feeds or email.  "Friends" are followers that you are also following.  You can also place a widget or badge on your personal blog or website that will automatically display your Tweets.

Overcoming Initial Perceptions

When I first heard about Twitter, I didn't understand what the big deal was.  Most of the Twitter hoopla I've read about has been focused on the social networking aspects of Twitter, which did not interest me much.  Reading through Twitter's Public Timeline, you'll see numerous disjointed postings about entirely inane and uninteresting topics.  But the idea of using Jott to post to Twitter intrigued me, so I decided to take Twitter out for a spin.  Surprisingly I've found Twitter to be quite useful.

I don't use Twitter much as a social networking tool, but instead I use it as a way to broadcast announcements to a large audience.  I created Twitter accounts for each of my course websites and posted Twitter widgets to each website.  I configured Jott so I can post announcements to my 7:30 am course website, simply by calling Jott and leaving a verbal message.  Now if I run late to class, I can call Jott, direct a verbal message to Twitter, and within minutes a Tweet is posted to my course website (I have instructed my students to check the course website for a message if I am ever late to class). Now I make all announcements to my classes by posting quick tweets that are posted automatically to my course websites.  Using Twitter has saved me quite a lot of time because I don't have to update and republish my websites every time I post an announcement and I've greatly reduced the number of emails I send out to students.  This has worked so well that I've created another Twitter account and posted a Twitter widget to the blog here (see the "What's Up" box in the sidebar to the left).

Twitter Tools

Some tools I've explored that make twittering more convenient and fun include:

Twitter Gadget allows you to post Tweets from your iGoogle homepage.  Twitter Gadget works pretty well, and I use it to post tweets to my accounts.

Snitter is a an Adobe AIR-powered application that looks a lot like an instant messaging application.  Snitter lets you post tweets directly from your desktop and includes a drop down menu that makes it easy to view archived tweets, replies, friends, and followers lists.  Snitter runs on both Windows and Mac machines.

Twitterfeed allows you to add your blog feed to Twitter so whenever you post a new blog entry, a new Tweet is automatically posted to your Twitter account that includes a link to the blog entry.

Twype is a small windows tray program that checks for new Tweets every 5 minutes and posts the latest Tweet to your Skype Mood.  All you need to do to get this application running is download the .exe file and select it (there is no installation)  The first time you run it, you'll need to input your Twitter User Name, but then the application runs, minimized, in your system tray.

TwitterGram allows you to post Tweets that include links to small audio files and/or digital photographs.

• Audio files:  You can post small mp3 files, or sound bites, either by uploading an mp3 file from your computer to the TwitterGram server or by phoning in a 30 second audio TwitterGram directly from your phone.
• Photographs: If you have a Flickr account, you can Twitter some of your Flickr photos.  If you have a camera/phone, you can take pictures on your phone, send them directly to Flickr as MMS messages and Flickr will upload them automatically to your Twitter account.  See the article, "Twittering Photos," for more detailed directions on how to use this feature.  

Twessenger is a Windows Live Messenger add-in that updates your personal message in regular intervals with your most recent Tweet.  Setting up Windows Live Messenger to use Twessenger was a bit complicated and confusing, so I've posted detailed instructions here:

1. Download the Twessenger.zip file to your computer.  The zip file contains three files:  enable_wlm_addins.reg, README.txt, and TwessengerSetup.msi.  Be sure to review the README file after you unzip the zip file.
2. Enable Live Messenger's Add-in option.  Enabling this option involves changing a registry setting on your computer, which can be done manually or you can use the "enable_wlm_addins.reg" file that is packaged in the Twessenger.zip file.
3. Close Windows Messenger application if it is running and install Twessenger by running the TwessengerSetup.msi file
4. Go to the Twitter website and find your Twitter ID number.  I spent a lot of time hunting for my Twitter ID number, but this is how I was finally able to find it:
   • Go to the Twitter website and login to Twitter
   • Scroll down to the bottom of the recent messages page and select the hyperlink, "Care to Share, Grab a Badge"
   • Select the Other option
   • Select one of the Flash options and review the code.  Your Twitter ID is a six or seven digit number to the right of the equals sign in the user&ID= string
   • Write down your Twitter ID
5. Input your Twitter ID into Windows Live Messenger: 
   • Open up the messenger application on your computer, select Tools > Options > Addins (if you have not performed step 2, you will not see an Addins option) 
   • Tap the down arrow to the left of the Manage Add-ins window and select Twessenger 
   • Select the Options button.  Now here's the stupid, tricky part....selecting the Options button brings up a small screen where you need to input your Twitter ID.  But you may not see this screen because it is behind the main Addin screen.  So before you select the Options button, move the Addin screen away from the center of your computer screen or else you won't be able to see the small screen where you need to input your Twitter ID
   • Input your Twitter ID and select OK
   • Select the box next to "Automatically turn on this Addin...."  Select Apply > Ok to exit the Options screen and return to the Windows Live Messenger main window
   • Select the down arrow next to your picture and status and select "Turn on Twessenger"
   • Your most recent Tweet should now appear in the personal message field  

Twessenger has not worked reliably for me, but I really like the idea of having an up-to-date personal message posted automatically to my Windows Live Messenger account.  So I continue to plod along with this application in the hopes that the developer will continue to tweak it and improve it. 

Twitbox allows easy access to Twitter accounts without having to use the Twitter website.  Twitbox runs on XP and Vista machines, and requires that the .Net 2.0 Framework be installed to your computer.  I like Twitbox because it has a really pretty interface that is easy to navigate and allows me to manage my multiple Twitter accounts without having to login and logout from each account, but I find it to be quite buggy.  I can live with some of the bugs, but because Twitbox did not show tweets in chronological order, I stopped using it and uninstalled it from my computer.  The developer continues to tweak it to make it better, so I will try it out again after it is updated with the hopes that the bugginess will eventually be addressed. (If the link does not open in Internet Explorer, try opening it in Firefox)

Twittering on my Pocket PC 

You can post to Twitter via SMS and some instant messaging applications.  I've found a few Pocket PC applications that can act as Twitter clients:

• Fring includes a Twitter client that allows you to post from and receive tweets to your WM5.0 or WM6.0 Pocket PC whenever you have an active internet connection, either through WIFI or GPRS connection.  You can avoid posting Tweets via text message.  Unfortunately, Fring stopped working on my hw6925 after I removed the battery for a few second and I have not been able to get it working properly again  (I think I'll need to perform a clean reset of the hw6925 to get it working again). 
• SQIJ fetch is an application that includes an RSS News Reader, a push email notifier, Traffic Incident Alerts, Weather, Cheap Fuel locations, Theater information, MSN and Yahoo Instant Messenger and a Twitter client.  After you install this application to your Pocket PC, you'll
• Sign In to SQIJ (you will have to create a user id and password). 
• Then you will select "Add a SQIJ" and you can select the Twitter applet > Okay, tap Add this to My SQILs > Back > Exit
• Tap the Twitter icon > then tap Setup
• Tap "Set" next to username and enter your Twitter username > Tap the enter key on keyboard > Back;
• Tap "Set" next to password and enter your password > Tap the enter key on the keyboard) > Back

SQIJ fetch, as a Twitter client, works well sometimes but other times does not recognize my username/password combination.  Furthermore, some of the messages I posted through SQIJ fetch never showed up on my Twitter account.   

You can also use  Twitter's mobile website instead of SMS to post tweets from a Pocket PC or cellphone.  (Save the following mobile website address as a favorite in your Pocket PC's browser: http://m.twitter.com/home)  The mobile browser link works quite well and provides access to your profile, your friends and the public timeline. 

Practical Uses for Twitter

In addition to my use of Twitter to broadcast announcements to my students, I can think of several other great practical uses for Twitter.  Twitter could be used :

• To break important news stories:  Twitter was used extensively by local agencies, newsrooms and citizens to track the recent California fires
• As an electronic bulletin board for conferences, trade shows, and other events such as weddings, births, family reunions, competitions, class reunions, sporting events. 
• To keep project teams up-to-date on project status and potential issues, client concerns, etc. 
• By office work groups to be kept up-to-date on office happenings
• As a mini-CRM tool to keep the operations, marketing and sales force personnel up-to-speed on prospect development, client proposals, and customer issues.

The strength of Twitter over conventional RSS feeds is that when Twitter is working as expected Tweets are posted almost instantaneously.  With RSS feeds there can be a significant lag between the time the information is posted and the time the RSS feed is updated. 

Twitter is still under development as are many of the tools I've listed here, and Twitter does experience performance issues from time-to-time, probably caused by its own success and its exponential growth, but I have seen noticeable performance improvements just in the short time that I have used it.

Interesting Sites

I've discovered some interesting Twitter sites:

• CNN Breaking News
• BBC News
• Engadget
• Hurricanes
• New York Times
• New York Times Movies
• New York Times Books
• New York Times Science
• New York Times Business
• USAToday
• Wall Street Journal
• Weather
• World Earthquake
• ZDNetBlogs

If you are using Twitter, how are you using it?  What tools can you recommend?  How do you think it could evolve from a superficial, inane social networking toy to a useful and productive means of communication?  

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