Twittering Twitter

I am enjoying using Twitter.

For those of you unfamiliar with Twitter its a quick blogging service where each blog article has a limit of 140 characters, including spaces. 

Its a novel idea for us to be able to check out what our pals and network are doing and using it with the discipline of saying what we want to say in a short byte.

In recent years short byte communication has become the shangri-la of communication for many. I have concerned opinions about this trend as I already see damage, but I will leave that discussion for another blog another day.

Twitter seems to be a service more designed for interactive and volume text messaging. It is certainly a wonderful tool for mobiles/cell phones and has gained wonderful publicity from its use that has saved lives.

As a PC/Laptop utility it has some wonderful cross-social-network utilities too. My own Tweets, which is what Twitter short blogs are called, instantly appear on this blog page, and instantly on on other social sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Plaxo and Zimbio.

For my own use, I find Twitter has the potential to be one step more than clicking my browser's “favourites” and recording notes. With Twitter I can do both plus broadcast my observations, finds and quick thoughts.

My own valued use of Twitter, though, maybe a bit selfish. I find it is the perfect tool for instantly archiving my discoveries and thoughts throughout the day. I can then go back to my Tweets later as a foundation for creating blogs, writing articles, adding to web pages, discussions through social sites, ideas for tour itineraries and sharing through my newsletters.

While I archive my Tweets are also broadcasting to those of similar interests due to the intant viral propogation my Tweets have into major social networks. I think this is wonderful networking without intrusion. 

You can read my most recent Tweets on the right navigation column here and go to my Twitter Tweets at

http://twitter.com/celticways/

Unfortunately, Twitter does have a little Twitch, but its not a major problem.

Each Twitter page features up to 20 Tweets.

I found that when I had published more than 20 Tweets the “Older” button did not activate until I had posted another 21 Tweets and filled another Twitter page. Likewise, the “Older” button will not activate on my second page of Tweets until I have published another 21 Tweets, i.e. 61 Tweets total. Interestingly, this does mean that once your very first Tweet has left the first page nobody will ever read it again.

For your most enthusiastic fans, and for you to refer back to your oldest Tweets there is a back door.

http://summize.com/  type your user name as your keyword, mine being celticways, and then click search.

You’ll be able to access all of your Twitter Tweets as the “Older” button appears and works well.

This backdoor does have a downside that is the reverse of the Twitter gliche. You’ll find that the Summize search will also includes Tweets you have deleted. If you click a title and it says it is not available it just means that Tweet has been deleted so try other Tweets until you find Tweets that work.

I look forward to Twitter tuning up their service to resolve this matter so that the Summize back door is no longer needed.

Despite this temporary gliche I highly recommend you join Twitter yourself and do let me know so that I may click the option to follow your Tweets too. Of course, if you are already using Twitter let me know so I may follow you too.