Learning the finer points of Twitter...

I am gaining a much better understanding of the value of twitter, which at first glance seemed to me like a hopeless distraction. The value it delivers is entirely your own personal responsibility. In other words, garbage in = garbage out. If you have intelligent things to tweet about, you will probably start to attract a following of other intelligent persons with equally valuable tweets. So, lately I started to cultivate my twitter connections. This recent tweet...

UstreamTV Twitter show just started - http://www.ustream.tv/chann... about 3 hours ago from web

...points to a very information-laden show that was just starting a live broadcast on the UStream network, all about Twitter. It was hosted by BlogCatalog.com. Not only did I just learn about a social network for bloggers and one of the largest blog directories on the Internet, but I also had an extensive live lecture featuring embedded chat for simultaneous live Q&A with Erica O'Grady, the teacher and other "students." Erica talks about twhirl, a desktop client for twitter, her current favorite among the 48 different clients you can use to track tweets. Twitterholic.com ranks the top 100 Twitterholics based on Followers (don't your thumbs hurt yet?).

Watch the episode and learn more with Erica live every other Monday...
Video clips hosted by Ustream


Her five key values to social networking are the same as the Quaker key values: simplicity, equality, integrity, community and peace. She likes Flock - the browser for people who like to be connected; uses Summize to search Twitter in realtime and Twitzu to blast out event invites to Twitter followers. More Erica O'Grady shows here.

Recommended reading: Tara Hunt on Tweeting for Companies 101