Twitter Wrap-up

Seeing as this is the last week for Twitter/microblogging as a topic, I thought a wrap up would be a good idea.

As I've previously shared, Twitter allows for subscribers to share thoughts, pictures, or links to other sites or information via short messages of 140 characters or less. These messages can be sent though the Twitter or other microblogging site, cell phone with SMS capabilities, or a variety of hand held devices such as any smartphone, PDA with internet capabilities, or even ipod itouch.

While Twitter is beneficial in allowing individuals to share with one another, since a lot of "tweets" or messages sent involve personal information, impersonation is also a concern, but Twitter has begun to make strides in account verification for larger named accounts such as celebrities, some politicians, and large organizations such as the CDC.

Twitter is a useful application in providing a short burst of information, but since it does not stand on it's own and provide a forum for longer messages, it lacks in that aspect. However, if Twitter could begin to provide a method for users to still use short SMS updates, but also house the longer messages on the same server, it would be far more beneficial and functional for those looking to educate others in a variety of subjects.

There are also other improvements that should be considered, including the option to create groups to send information to specific individuals, opposed to all of your "followers". Expanded profiles are also something that could potentially be worthwhile for users in assisting them help find other individuals to follow.

Though the typical user does not use Twitter or microblogging for education purposes, it's an avenue that should be looked into for teachers, or even classmates to communicate with one another. It is an application that has it's place and is useful, as long as indivilduals understand it's current limitations and how to use it best for their purposes.

Taking advantage of the power of Twitter

Since it seems that a lot of large organizations and notable individuals who are taking advantage of Twitter as a means of disseminating information, I thought it would be useful to put together a short list of Twitter accounts in hopes to inspire some of you to consider checking out what Twitter has to offer. If you're skeptical, you might want to see what these accounts have to offer, and maybe do some exploring of your own.

Each link is accompanied by the most recent tweet.

CNN
"Sheriff: Colorado 'balloon boy' incident 'hoax' and 'publicity stunt' http://bit.ly/3POY6u"

NPR Politics
"Outside Beltway, Health Care Debate Looks Different http://su.pr/2BpYpV"

NPR News
"1800s-Era Sea Logs Chart Course Of Climate Change http://su.pr/2uZdOq"

Center for Disease Control
"RT @CDCFlu 37 states are reporting widespread flu activity. Get the latest update on 2009 H1N1 flu: http://is.gd/4mGVs"

Barack Obama
"Health reform debate moving soon to the full Congress. It's time to be heard. Help OFA reach 100,000 calls on 10/20: http://bit.ly/10-20"

John McCain
"Federal deficit hits all-time high $1.42 trillion – and the pork barrel spending goes on… http://news.yahoo.com/"


And last but not least, even Syracuse University has a Twitter for information about speakers, events, or just small bits of news.

Syracuse University
"Noted communications strategist Eric Mower to speak at SU’s Newhouse School Oct. 20 http://bit.ly/YzzGk"

Is Twitter actually beneficial in an educational context?

Because of the technical limitations of Twitter, especially the 140 character limitation, it's reasonable to question how beneficial microblogging applications such as Twitter are.

The way Twitter is designed only provides you 140 characters to share information with an individual's followers. However, Twitter facilitates the use of URL shorteners. The most popular website to do that is Tiny URL . This site allows users to share websites, blogs, articles, or anything else they can think of that resides on another website, but with a much shorter URL.

However, this means that Twitter is only the vehicle to let others know about information. It's not actually providing the information that the user is trying to get to their followers. Despite that, it's still a useful piece of technology if others have the right hardware to access it. The main problem with using Twitter to convey web links is if a person receives Twitter updates via SMS text, they will not be able to access that link unless their mobile device is also internet compatible.

Not only that, but since Twitter relies on an outside source to provide shortened URLs, they run the risk of that website going down and losing functionality of all the updates that include those links. Center Networks has a short article that provides a decent solution that Twitter should consider to create a more self-sustaining site that becomes a more useful application for a larger variety of individuals.

Improvements to be made

Though Twitter provides a great service, there is always room for improvement. The two major improvements that I feel could be made are allowing to group your followers so you can tweet to specific groups of people. The second improvement would be an expanded profile so users can search for others with like interests.

By enabling users to group their followers, they could have the opportunity to tweet specifically to the groups created. Allowing this gives the user more control over their account and Twitter can act almost as a list-serv, quickly getting a short burst of information out to a specific group of people. It also helps to not clutter up other people's pages with unnecessary tweets from people that are not applicable to them.

Expanded profiles would also be a beneficial feature, especially if users had the ability to search other users based on specific profile criteria. By doing so, they can follow new people that they would have otherwise not come across- which as we all know is a perk of the internet, meeting new people. New ideas can be shared between individuals who have like interests, promoting conversation and friendship through the facilitation of the microblogging technology.

These ideas are of course not the end of the improvements that Twitter could make, but I do believe that these two ideas would help to significantly improve the user experience.