This week’s word(s) of the week are related to Twitter.
Twitter- Twitter in Plain English from Common Craft explains what Twitter is all about with helpful paper cutouts. cnet’s Newbie’s Guide to Twitter may also be useful for those who want more detail or prefer a printed explanation.
Tweets- posts to Twitter. You only have 140 characters, so use them wisely.
DM- Direct Message. This is for when you want to send a message to one Twitter user privately. Use as appropriate, and double check to be sure you’re using the DM function when you mean to be!
Hashtags: According to hashtags.org, “Hashtags are a community-driven convention for adding additional context and metadata to your tweets. They’re like tags on Flickr, only added inline to your post. You create a hashtag simply by prefixing a word with a hash symbol: #hashtag.” And who among us can resist metadata? So for instance if I were tweeting about LEEP, I might write a tweet like “Anyone looking for roommates for on-campus? #LEEP” or “Teaching an online workshop on Zotero #LEEP”. Hashtags can also be useful in identifying tweets about something like a conference, even from people you aren’t personally following on Twitter. Could be handy for keeping an eye on discussions about ALA this summer!
Trending Topics- Popular topics being discussed on Twitter. Popularity is based on frequently used hashtags. #ALA may well become a trending topic during the conference, for instance. You can search for trending topics at search.twitter.com And here is a less reverent look at trending topics.
Tweeple A silly word for people who are on Twitter.
See Emilyn’s Fail Whale post for another important Twitter concept.
