A few more Twitter tips

For many, myself included, getting started on twitter involved a bit of a learning curve. So, when a friend told me the other day that he was going to get started on twitter, I found myself writing a long response, as if to preemptively get him over the learning curve "hump." Below are highlights from the email, just in case you too are giving Twitter a try (or another try).

For me, the value of Twitter increased as I identified what, how, and who I found most useful on Twitter.

1) What style of updates I find most useful:

People use Twitter in a variety of ways. Some (such as DC Concierge) offer a blend of personal and "informational" tweets, whereas others, say politico or Washingtonian, send out solely informational tweets. On both accounts, its a matter of taste and what type of info you enjoy consuming. I love people watching, so I enjoy the more personal updates as well informational ones.

2) How best to receive updates:

Twitter can be used as just a web based platform, or you can have upates sent direclty to your phone. In my opinion, Twitter is relatively useless and overwhelming if you use it just on its own platform, but web based gadgets like Twitter Gadget, or desktop software like tweetdeck and twhirl help make twitter useful, if the idea of more crap on your phone scares you ;-)

3) Finding and following the right folks:

Like the two points above, this is an iterative process, an definitely a matter of personal taste. Here are some of my personal favorites:

• Fred Wilson: Fred is my favorite VC and blogger. I find him incredibly forward thinking, compassionate, and with his finger on the pulse of trends in tech and finance. He blogs at www.avc.com

Local DCers:

• Washingtonian
• DC Concierge
• Peter Corbett
  
• Technotheory
• Matt Stempeck
  

Tech Mavens:

• Loic Le Muer
• Tech Crunch
  
• Venture Beat
• JeanLucr
• Guy Kawasaki
• mavindigital
  

Finance:

• Mark Reiboldt
• Howard Lindzon (founder of stocktwits, an example of a very cool use of twitter!)
  

Raw Foodism/ general wisdom:

• Dhrumil

Finally, a few random notes:

1) Twitter has its own language that takes some getting used to # is an aggregator, @username is how you refer to other users (so that they are tagged in the tweet), d username is how you send a message directly to a user, and rt or retweet is how you can forward along tweets of others you find interesting.

2) I recomend using bit.ly or tinyurl, so that you can refer to links in your tweets

3) Check out twitdom for a database of twitter related applications

4) For further resources, check out:

• a quick blog post I wrote on twitter (includes some useful links)
  
• TwitTip (highly recommend)

Do you have any other tips or guidance for new twitter users? Who are your favorite folks to follow?