UK Government Writes a Twitter Guide … in 20 Pages

[anyuser]

A tweet can have a maximum of 140 characters. A guide on how to use Twitter, well, that’s another matter. The UK government has one, and it took its author, Neil Williams, 20 pages and 36,215 characters to create it.

The guide, embedded below, is actually quite an interesting read. Besides giving a clear cut explanation of what Twitter (Twitter) is and how (and why) the UK government should go about using it, it enumerates a number of third party tools (for example, bit.ly (bit.ly) is to be used for links because it offers traffic analysis), talks about risks of using Twitter (for example, publishing embargoed news too early), and discusses the value of retweeting. Unlike some other Twitter guides, like the one from Wall Street Journal, it’s not focused on forbidding things and telling employees what NOT to do, which is a good example of how these types of guides should be done.

While we’re at on the subject of very long Twitter guides, you might want to check Mashable’s Twitter Guide Book, a collection of resources which helps you understand what Twitter is and how to make the best of it. '
Cont: UK Government Writes a Twitter Guide … in 20 Pages (http://mashable.com/2009/07/28/uk-government-twitter-guide/)
update: http://bt.io/2Xv

[anyuser]

How much damage can a Tweet do? According to property management company Horizon Realty, $50,000 worth.

That’s the size of the lawsuit waged against one of its former tenants on Monday, in response to a Tweet about one of their Chicago apartments. Amanda Bonnen was staying an apartment at 4242 N. Sheridan, one of over 1,500 apartments owned by the company. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Bonnen’s Tweet on May 12 read, in part:

“Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it’s okay.”

http://ec.mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/realtytweet.gif

cont: Woman Sued $50K Over Tweet (http://mashable.com/2009/07/28/woman-sued-tweet/)

[thetonic]

Is this a joke right?...

anybody?

[angelx666]

im hearing about this twitter more and more, what this twitter is and why so many use this site?

[anyuser]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author's profile page and delivered to the author's subscribers who are known as followers. Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default, allow open access. Users can send and receive tweets via the Twitter website, Short Message Service (SMS) or external applications. While the service costs nothing to use, accessing it through SMS may incur phone service provider fees.

Since its creation in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Twitter has gained notability and popularity worldwide. It is sometimes described as the "SMS of the Internet"[3] since the use of Twitter's application programming interface for sending and receiving short text messages by other applications often eclipses the direct use of Twitter.

Twitter is ranked as one of the 50 most popular websites worldwide by Alexa's web traffic analysis.[4] Although estimates of the number of daily users vary because the company does not release the number of active accounts, a February 2009 Compete.com blog entry ranked Twitter as the third most used social network[5] based on their count of 6 million unique monthly visitors and 55 million monthly visits.[5] In March 2009, a Nielsen.com blog ranked Twitter as the fastest-growing site in the Member Communities category for February 2009. Twitter had a monthly growth of 1,382 percent, Zimbio of 240 percent, followed by Facebook with an increase of 228 percent.[6] However, only 40 percent of Twitter's users are retained.[7]

no joke dear, its real

[Ian2day]

Twitter is for twits! In that it is all about instant gratification. It appeals to the id, the part that advertisers exploit. So if you hate twitts its probabley because you're in posession of a more developed mind.

[anyuser]

So if you hate twitts its probabley because you're in posession of a more developed mind.

Not exactly true. Quite the opposite. With Twitter, you get the news faster depending on who you are connected to. There is no bottleneck such as queue or press time or time to get published/printed/etc.

More often than not, the news comes before the news such as before the msm or whomever post it, its already been tweeted due to the instant link 140 characters or less.

[diaphos]

It should be renamed twatter coz it’s mainly used by mindless twats

[drhemp]

Darn, you beat me to it. Bah!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01420/meeting_1420163c.jpg
The biggest collection of twats in the UK.

[diaphos]

Darn, you beat me to it. Bah!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01420/meeting_1420163c.jpg
The biggest collection of twats in the UK.

lol very good

[fekalist]

I dont know about this twitter stuff... Seeing how much politicians use this, i think its a trick to get the old mainstream media lies into your livingroom again. With the decline of traditional media they now are trying with a new 'hip' (so many people seem to use it) internet service. Thats what i think...

[apekteina lordosis]

here's a website that follows uk members of parliament who use twitter-
http://tweetminster.co.uk/

...and a site that follows usa politicans who tweet-
http://tweetcongress.org/

and finally one that follows twittering swedish politicians-
http://twixdagen.se/

[orbit]

lol :)

David Cameron Asked whether he used Twitter, Mr Cameron said: "The trouble with Twitter, the instantness of it - too many twits might make a twat."

The remark was greeted with laughter in the studio, with host Christian O'Connell saying: "That's fantastic."

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20090729/tuk-tory-leader-turns-the-airwaves-blue-6323e80.html