Comments on: Elements Of Twitter Style

By: Anita

Anita — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 17:27:49 +0000

For some time now I’ve been contemplating whether to create a Twitter account. I haven’t been able to get past my concern over the time drain aspect or the inanity that seems so much a part of it. And, geez, what the heck do I want to add to the already clogged twittersphere? Here it comes . . . but, I’m an instructional technologist at a small liberal arts college. As we explore ways to incorporate social media into the learning environment I sorta kinda need to experience these things myself if I’m to be worth my salt. So this is a roundabout way of saying thank you! This is very helpful information to have and, in addition to the “best practices” aspect, it gives me a better sense of how Twitter can be useful.

By: Jackson

Jackson — Fri, 14 May 2010 12:10:22 +0000

Even if your Twitter client doesn’t directly support direct messages you can still send them with the following syntax: d username tweet. http://help.twitter.com/forums/10711/entries/14606

By: Austin Grigg

Austin Grigg — Sat, 01 May 2010 03:46:15 +0000

I wish I had this article when I got into twitter. Most of these things are common sense, but I couldn’t find a well laid out guide to the twitter lingo and best-practices. I think this will be really helpful as people join twitter.

By: LPC

LPC — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 14:45:49 +0000

I found you via @communicatrix. Wonderful post and very helpful. I only wanted to say thank you.

By: Byron Edwards

Byron Edwards — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 23:10:39 +0000

Next week – How to tie your shoelaces…

By: Allen

Allen — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 17:45:24 +0000

Wonderful guide Daniel.

I would expand on what Max said about hashtags being unnecessary. In general, the more links, mentions and hashtags there are in your tweets, the harder it is to read and process them. Each time you link, tag, or mention something, it should be done with care.

For example: http://www.unladenfollow.com/anatomy/

By: twerp

twerp — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 17:01:02 +0000

It’s a social medium……..people’s tweets are a reflection of how they are in society, imperfect. Personally i think twitter is a massive waste of time, but i do appreciate it’s rawness of it. Users won’t follow convention unless it’s enforced by the app so you are out of luck.

By: Tyler Hayes

Tyler Hayes — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 16:37:55 +0000

Simply spot-on.

By: Andreas

Andreas — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 16:15:31 +0000

Good overview, good summary, good advice – but one thing I completely disagree with: I cannot see any added value in putting acknowledgements or any other elements of microsyntax into parentheses.

Slashtags are perfectly fine to make both people and machines understand that the unique content of a tweet is to be followed by some contextual stuff.

Additional parentheses don’t add any value, only noise and inconvenience, as far as I can see. The idea of introducing slashtags was to make tweets more readable, I think Chriss Messina called it the separation of meta and meat.

Or am I overlooking something?

By: Gemma

Gemma — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 10:16:59 +0000

Awesome post, plenty of detail (which is often lacking in fluffy blog content)
Keep it coming!