The QnA session at the end is pretty interesting.
Posts Tagged: twitter
29
Jan 10
twtr.im – quickly post to Twitter from a GPRS mobile
I’ve often felt the need of a simple and fast application to let me Twitter from my mobile.
Most Twitter apps download all my tweets when the application starts, which turns out to be very expensive (and sometimes unnecessary) when I am connected on GPRS and all I wanna do is post a simple update to my followers. The same goes for Twitter’s own mobile site too.
You may find http://twtr.im useful incase you have come across a similar situation. twtr.im‘s homepage is only about 1 KB in size and posting a tweet would add another couple of KB’s to your bill. In short, it’s simple, fast and dirt cheap.
The app works on all GPRS enabled mobile phones.
19
Sep 09
Indian celebrities on Twitter
Indian celebrities usually leave no stone unturned to keep their popularity ranking high, whether it is by creating controversy, endorsing brands, appearing on TV shows or even owning an IPL cricket team.
I noticed that a few of them have also adopted Twitter, which upto now was only for the creme-de-la-creme of the tech community. The ones listed below are the “real” celebrities, since all of them have “Twitter Verified Accounts“, which I believe is trustworthy. Here’s the complete list-
Priyanka Chopra – @priyankachopra
Karan Johar – @kjohar25
Barkha Dutt – @BDUTT
Shashi Tharoor – @shashitharoor
Mallika Sherawat – @mallikala
Gul Panag – @gulpanag
For the sake of completeness, here are some Internationally known celebrities too:
Arnold Schwarzenegger – @Schwarzenegger
Britney Spears – @britneyspears
Oprah Winfrey – @Oprah
Janet Jackson – @JanetJackson
David Blaine – @davidblaine
Al Gore – @algore
Heidi Montag – @heidimontag
Richard Branson – @richardbranson
Pamela Anderson – @PamelaDAnderson
Serena Williams – @serenajwilliams
Venus Williams – @Venuseswilliams
Ricky Martin – @ricky_martin
Paris Hilton – @parishilton
If you come across anyone else who deserves a mention here, please leave a comment and help me keep the post updated.
15
Sep 09
Why most people don’t understand Twitter
Despite being well connected with a lot of my friends and colleagues online, only a handful of people I know use Twitter. Ask the others and I often get to hear “I just don’t get it!”. This got me thinking – I have never heard such a reply for any other website! Then what is it that people find so mysterious about Twitter?
The answer was right on Twitter’s homepage.
Check out Twitter.com. All I see is – “Share and discover what’s happening right now, anywhere in the world. Join the conversation. Sign up now”
There is not a single word on why and how you can start using Twitter. Anyone who comes to Twitter.com for the first time will most certainly have the following questions in mind -
- what is a tweet? How do I start twitter-ing?
- what does @someone mean?
- Why do people say “RT @someone” and what does it mean?
- Why do I need to “follow” someone and how is it different from adding a contact on a social network?
- What does a #tag do?
- What is twitter search and why is it useful to me? What exactly is a trending topic?
and none of them get answered. No wonder. In essence, Twitter needs it’s “missing manual”.
3
Sep 09
Why tweets are more social than Facebook updates
“Status updates”, though meant to share what one is doing, are not really taken by their literal meaning. People use status updates in a variety of ways, including sharing links, breaking news etc. However, I observed a fundamental difference between how Facebook and Twitter updates spread on the web. An interesting comparison can be drawn between the two:
1. On Facebook, the “Share” link is only present for status updates which include a sharable resource (say, a URL, video etc.) and not for simple text-only updates.
Why did Facebook choose to do this? Why isn’t there an option to “re-feed” someone else’s status update into your own feed? Comparing this with Twitter, quite a lot of re-tweets are not necessarily about sharing video, URL’s etc., implying that this use-case definitely exists.
2. I generally post a lot of interesting videos and URL’s into my Facebook feed, because I surf a lot and often come across interesting content which is worth sharing. But, anyone can “Share” my post with their own network, without giving me any credit as the original source of the content.
I feel hurt, I feel cheated… almost as if someone “stole” it from me. If I’ve posted something interesting, you’re supposed to “Like” it or post a comment on it. If you must steal, the least you can do is credit the source! If you can be a good boy on Twitter (by including “RT @gauravgupta” in the tweet), shouldn’t you be able to do this on Facebook too?
Comments and feedback welcome.
15
Apr 08
Explaining Twitter – My turn now!
Hmm… Let’s see. What is Twitter? (I am sure I’m going to find it real hard writing this post.) OK Let me try… if put simply, it’s about telling the world “what you are doing right now” in 140 characters or less. So, why would you want to tell the world what you are upto? And who has the time to update their “status message” anyway?
Now, think about it this way – will you be interested in knowing what your friend’s are upto right now? Yes, you will be! Real life happens between you do “meaningful things” and other people’s life (especially people whom we know) is interesting to us.
This video on YouTube probably explains the idea of Twitter better than anyone else can. So have a look before you continue reading this post:
Once you post regularly, you’ll find many people would start following your tweets. Likewise, you can decide to follow other people on Twitter whose messages you are interested in. The more your followers, the more popular you are. And the more people you follow, the more you get to hear from others! Twitter also lets you strike a conversation (often short and quick) with others.
To know what I’m upto, follow me on twitter!
5
Jan 08
Blogging is out. Microblogging is in.
Blogging is out. Microblogging is in. I used to find it a real pain to sit and type out chunks of text describing my thoughts a.k.a blogs, which I wanted to share with the world. I’ve recently started using Twitter for posting micro-blogs and SMS GupShup to post technology updates. And believe me bloggers, it’s really awesome.
You can check out my Twitter page and my TechAlerts group. Finally I am living my dream of blogging (now, microblogging) about technology and having people read (on their mobile!) and staying informed.