To be totally unable to understand how Twitter works

[Catnao]

even though lots of old people, including my father, apparently are?

Hopefully - For keeping up with published news (rather than tweets and rumours) I use www.NewsNow.co.uk. It scans pver 30,000 web sites and updates headline information every 5 minutes. It has many topic areas, from UK politics and sport through to technology, and then offers further sub-divisions.

I use it for IT / domains / web hosting / telecomms topics mostly. It does include items from blogs but any specific source can be highlighted, or, if one so chooses, ignored for that particular viewer.

The bulk of headlines are in English, but some items are found from German and French language sources, so can be filtered out... I also filter out some specific country newspapers as I am mostly interested in UK/ Europeean/ N American developments.

forgot to add - while some headlines are repeated when a story is updated, there's no need for repeats in the way people have mentioned for re-tweets, because most headlines are available on the NewsNow site for 7 days, and one can go back to previous days and see the chronologic order of news items, and how they have spread from country to country.

So nothing need be missed if you are away from your PC for 6 hours - handy for the odd few hours when I do have a nap!

Right, have jumped in as others have suggested! Anyone want to follow/be followed - send me a message and I will reveal all

Have PM'd you!

Glamour - what do you want to get out of it?

For me, it's primary fun and amusing. Chat/banter with people I 'know' from MN, and then from people you get to 'know' on Twitter. Mostly inconsequential but often very funny. I've also got to know my MN friends a bit better, in a funny kind of way, because you're talking directly to each other, not just reading a long thread that loads of other people are posting on.

I follow a fair few journalists and political bloggers, and they provide new and information, as well as links to other interesting sites.

I follow various news sites, so it's a great source of news and breaking news. Again, they often post links to other stories/sites.

I follow some celebs (although I'm going to cull many of them). Some of them are entertaining. If you follow celebs who also follow each other, some of their banter can be funny. @caitlinmoran is funny, as well as @victoriapeckham, and @indiaknight. They are also likely to reply to you, which most celebs don't bother to do. For most of them it's pure self-promotion - perhaps not surprisingly!

For work, I have a company a/c, and use it to promote my company (although not very assiduously it has to be said!), and I also follow some of our clients and competitors, so it's helping me keep abreast of changes in the industry.

You can get anything out of it that you wish, IMO - but only if you're on there.

Give it a whirl! It took me a while to really 'get it', and you do have to have a certain number of followers as well as follow the right people before it gains any kind of critical mass.

Oh dear - far to many typos in that post - sorry!

too, of course

coinoperatedgirl - did you use the hashtag?

so - when you receive tweets where do they come to? your phone or your email? because I tend to get quite excited when I get a text message and I truly believe that if it was a tweet I would be quite genuinely crushed!

It depends how you set it up. I don't get an email when someone tweets me because I would be inundated with emails some days. I check twitter when I have time. This is one of the advantages of twitter, that you can dip in and out.

Unlike MN where it takes a while to get "established" as a known poster, pretty soon you are chatting away like an old timer. I do find that I notice those I know from twitter on MN threads and am more likely to respond to them.

Adair
Can you follow me. I cannot find the message poster on mobile MN Website @Mmelindor

I use Twitter often, most days I am on there, though not necessarily tweeting that much. I joined last August.

I absolutely love it, and I have had the best fun on there. I don't personally know any of the people I follow, but what the hell, I'm having a great time! And actually I would rather people in real life did not follow me!! Means I don't feel people are monitoring my tweets.

You have to follow other people, and engage in conversations with them to really get into it. I follow some celebs and news feeds like everyone else, but they don't read your tweets and won't reply to you (unless you are really lucky - I got a reply back from Steve Martin once!!)

Have tweeted this thread

Okay, I've found Cathy77 [and I loved your tweet]
But I don't get this thread at all and I've read it very. very. carefully...
But I've promised myself I'll understand it before I DIE

What's your twitter name, sakura?

Best to just jump in and use it, that way you will find out how to use it and it will be less 'academic'

you must be thick not to get it.

watch otu for Mmelindt though ;)
she is rather partial to a blog pimp.

a lot partial

i met someoene in rl last night who said "is she the one with The Blog"

Nah - still no good. I tried, people, I tried.

oops. Sorry. But it does increase traffic to blog and there is no point in writing it if only my mum reads it.

aw! she reads it
i dare you to do a racey post

twitter is for divs

Am working up the nerve to do a Mooncup post. That would freak her out.

Thanks BecauseImWorthIt.
One question, if people can link your twitter name to your MN name doesn't that mean everyone IRL can know who you are??? Or do you hide your real name on twitter?

Hello div ;)

If you are following me on twitter, you will have heard about the John Lewis Partnership Bond along with links to the associated website and bond invitation document.

Whilst news about that is available elsewhere, I heard about it on Twitter... and other people have now heard about it on Twitter.

News spreads fast on Twitter. Have to take it all with a large pinch of salt though, as unlike other news forms you can't trust everything you read.