What is this Twitter?

If you read my post a couple weeks ago, you saw that I am now on twitter.  yep – @JohnnyOptimist 

I delayed my decision to join because I could not figure out what it was used for.  I am not a pushcart vendor in NY that can tweet my location so fans of my sandwiches can come find me, I have never been to any of the affiliate conventions, so I don’t really have anything to report on those, nor did I attend the inauguration, I lead a generally mundane daily routine.  I saw how many of the top bloggers were running contests to increase their twitter followers.  Zac Johnson also did a post about how John Chow used a twitter to mention a footer ad and lots of followers went to see it and some clicked thus generating some cash for him.  That is all fine and dandy if you have 10,000 followers or more on your blog that all started following you on Twitter as well.  There have been write ups about Twitter in the Wall Street Journal, CNET, and most likely most of the other newspapers around.  It is just a huge thing at the moment.  I had always thought of Twitter as something like this video that MarketLeverage Tweeted about (thanks) – they directed me to Web-Strategist.

So what would I be twittering about?  Then one of the contributor’s on Speak Without Interruption (one of the sites I consult for) mentioned that he twitters each blog posting.  Ah, a good use of the system, and one that I could do.  So that is what I have been doing for the last two weeks or so.  There are a ton of plug-ins for the Twitter now, so if you are lacking for ideas, just go browse the Twitter plug-ins and try and figure out what one would use them for. 

As one of my colleagues at work mentioned, Twitter is another point-to-multi-point media solution.  Like a conference call, but anyone can listen.  It is a networking solution that lets you follow people in your industry, hobby, interest area.  But there are so many other uses.  Since you can control who can receive your tweets (you can block people from following you), you could set it up and only allow your friends to follow you then send tweets to each other instead of 10 text messages – one to each.  It can also increase interaction between traditional media and their readers.  That is one of the issues with regular delivered to your doorstep newspapers – there is no interaction, so all the writers just write what they feel is the best story and are off to the next article.  With these new media tools, the writers can get immediate input and if they publish online they can make corrections, additions or changes. 

The point of the post is that any application can be used for so many things, you just have to brainstorm a little to come up with ways to use some services sometimes.  I have already downloaded a plug-in for one of my other sites, and hope to give it a good test here soon.  I will let you know how it turns out.

Johnny Optimist -

The Other Half is Full of Opportunity