Guest Post written by Ilan Peer

For the past two years I have been active on twitter and only recently (as of June 2008) my close friends and colleagues began to show up on twitter and therefore increased the amount of related and relevant content for me. twitter has become a daily tool of communication which I use via Web browser, additional applications and on my mobile device.
Unlike other social networks, twitter is about connecting people in a way that appeals to me the most. The lack of
approval needed to follow others enables mass networking. The many-to-many interaction is fascinating and the academic world is starting to study the social behavior on twitter and other mass networking platforms.

I think eventually twitter (and other communication services) will change the way we think, act, make friends, shop and of course consume media.

Here are my personal twitter ethics and morals I live by:

Be nice, be polite – leave your rants to your blog or anonymous comments. Due to the vast search capability, it is likely you will show up on someone’s radar even if it wasn’t your intention.

Watch your language – if you tweet in other languages rather than English, make sure not to swamp your English
readers feed with a language they cannot understand. If you want to target one specific audience who are non-English
speakers, think about creating a separate account.

Think of your copy writing – try and conserve characters (even though you have up to 140 characters to begin with) If you hope to get retweeted , do not use up all of the 140 characters. Leave room so that when a person retweets the message, there is enough space for their user-name and the complete original tweet. This is a thoughtful way to make sure the entirety of the message is redistributed to the retweeter’s stream.

It’s not about quantity, it’s about quality – For a personal account you don’t actually need 30 thousand followers, and if you do – chances are you will lose the human touch (hey, that’s why we’re here in the first place). Try to find followers and be followed in a natural and organic manner. Don’t feel like you are in a race for increasing numbers. Get to know your community and let them get to know you.

Choose whatever twitter application is right for you – in my opinion there is no top application or service that beats them all. I’ve been using the same ol’ twitterfox for months now. I did try other tools but I didn’t stick with them.  twitterfox is  the most convenient way for me to tweet, and that is why I still use it.  As far as mobile goes, I can’t let go of my symbian application called Gravity. I’m so happy with that it made me a paying costumer even though there are other free mobile clients and apps.

Use all different kinds of media – take pictures with your mobile and upload them to twitpic or other twitter photo services, shoot videos and use twitter to spread them. Technology is so handy and these extra and rich tools add a lot of personal touch.

Be coherent and relevant – if you reply a tweet use the little reply arrow, this way the back and forth conversation between two users allows bystanders to follow the conversation.

Find your own way – there is no right or wrong, good or bad (you can even dismiss this whole post) on twitter. twitter is a personal communication tool where people  decide for themselves what is the best way to use the service. Try and get the most out of it and if you don’t see the need (nor understand the hype) give it a rest.  Somewhere down the line another service will come along and fill the  need for a mass communication tool.

if you want to connect with me on twitter, i am @ilan_peer.
Good luck!

photo credit to: gesamtbild

To say that you really ‘get’ Twitter they say you need to do three things; 1) you need to get an @reply from someone you admire 2) you need to post a question and get loads of answers 3) you need to follow someone famous that you’re a fan of. I’m adding a number 4 -you need to access twitter from an external application. 

You won’t be alone, according to Twitter 70% of all tweets come from text messages or applications built on the Twitter API and good lordy there are a lot of applications out there. These apps go beyond just publishing tweets; many applications leverage the main database of Twitter for information about breaking news, stocks, emerging trends and even bacon recipes. 

According to Wikipedia there are over 100 Twitter clones out there and it seems that the Twitter team made a conscious decision to make it ludicrously easy to build a Twitter app. This has been a crucial part of Twitter wining the micro blogging wars (It was nice while it lasted Pownce and Jaiku).

Here are my 5 favorite Twitter apps:

Tweetdeck
17% of all tweets come from TweetDeck -way ahead of the rest so it’s pretty much the dominant Twitter desktop app. At the heart of TweetDeck is its ability to create groups of people together grouping friends or work colleagues separately means you have a window on all aspects of your twitter life. These additional columns automatically update, providing the user with a very effective dashboard of real-time information. Seesmic Desktop will offer similar functionality.

StockTwits
StockTwits.com is a Twitter powered financial bulletin board. The site skims Twitter for messages people tag with stock symbols – $GOOG for Google, for instance – and aggregates them on a Tumblr site with stock charts, tags, and comments. Great for real-time analysis.

Twitterfon
The problem with most of the Twitter iPhone apps is that they fail to capture the spirit of Twitter. Twitter is a service that allows you to send 140 character messages to other people and that simplicity is what the apps should capture, most of them have far too many bells and whistles. Twitterfon is simple and free. The others have a long way to compete.

Twistori
Twistori, according to the site, is the “first step in an ongoing social experiment.” The brainchild of Amy Hoy and Thomas Fuchs, Twistori pulls tweets from Twitter (via twitter search) containing specific keywords: i love, i hate, i think, i believe, i feel, and i wish. It then publishes the tweets it finds anonymously in a non-stop, auto-updating river of news. The effect is hypnotic. Put on some indie music and relax for a few minutes, totally worth it.

Twitpic
TwitPic is by far the easiest, best way to share pics on twitter

What is your favorite Twitter app?