The Independent Blog

Posted by The Independent on September 23rd, 2008 in How-To

The Independent began sending out our latest headlines via a little thing called Twitter almost a year ago. We used to have it set up so that our headlines were sent automatically, but perhaps that was too impersonal. Either way, We are still going strong and gaining followers every day. So thank you Twitterers!

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Twitter, I’m going to give you what we call a ‘monkey sheet’ (we make it so easy, a monkey could do it ;)) on how to get started with Twitter and how you can start getting our updates and breaking news through this awesome tool.

Here we go!

1. Go to http://www.twitter.com and click on the green ‘Get Started - Join!’ button.

2. On the signup form, pick a username. Try to keep it fairly short.

3. Choose a password. Something you will remember.

4. Enter your email address (Twitter never spams, never sells your address)

5. Type in the code words in the ‘Captcha’ box (this is a measure that prevents spammers from creating fake twitter accounts.)

6. Click ‘I accept. Create my Account.’ - You’re all done!

Twitter may ask if you want to email invites to people, but you can skip that step.

Once you’re set up, you can play around with your settings, change the design of your Twitter profile page, add a short bio and upload an image that represents you. But if you want to start tweeting right away, all you need to do is type your tweet in the box that asks “What are you doing?”

That’s what Twitter is. It lets you tell people what you’re doing. From the mundane to the important. From fun stuff, to sad. It lets you vent when you’re angry, or spread good news. You can share links with your followers (more on that in a minute) or find out what your friends, families, and favourite people are doing. It sounds silly, but it’s endlessly fascinating.

A bit of Twitter trivia - did you know that the founder of Twitter is a Nebraska native? Yep! According to his bio, Evan Williams is “originally a farm boy from Nebraska.” He also created the wildly popular blogging software, Blogger, which is now owned by Google. So by joining Twitter, you’re supporting a Nebraska boy

Now, about followers. Here is how you can follow The Independent’s twitter updates:

1. Click this address: http://twitter.com/theindependent

2. Click the grey ‘Follow’ button underneath our logo at the top. - You’re done! You will now see our updates appear underneath your ‘What are you doing’ box. Cool eh?

If you want to follow more people, or you have some friends or family already on Twitter, you can go to http://search.twitter.com and search by location or name, and then follow. Or you can look at other who other people follow and see if there’s anyone you want to add to your follower list.

Here’s a list of followers that might be of interest (click their twitter name to go to their page)

Famous Folk:

• Wil Wheaton (@wilw) - If you’ve ever seen “Stand By Me” or “Star Trek: TNG” you know who Wil is. He is all grown up now and turned out to be a fantastic writer, blogger and Twitterer.
• John Cleese (@JohnCleese) - Yes, he of Monty Python fame Twitters. Fun!
• MarsPhoenix (@MarsPhoenix) - If you’re an astronomy buff, you might be interested in following messages from the Mars Phoenix probe that is currently on Mars collecting data.
• Barack Obama (@BarackObama) - Yep - Presidential candidate Barack Obama tweets from the campaign trail.
• McCain Voters (@twaboutMCCAIN) - I can’t find McCain himself tweeting, but here’s a Twitter stream put out by some of his voters.

Local Twitterers:

• The Independent (@theindependent) -
• George Ayoub (@georgeayoub) - Senior writer George Ayoub tweets and posts his latest blog posts.
• Scott Kingsley (@skingsley) - Award-winning Independent photographer Scott Kingsley also tweets.
• Denton Cushing (@dcushing) - Denton is our staff videographer. If you’re looking for our latest vids, check his tweets to see what he’s working on.
• Steve White (@stevewhitenews) - NTV reporter Steve White tweets!

This should be enough to get you on your way! I should mention that there are many ways to access Twitter - you don’t have to use the website. Here are some other options:

• Use a desktop client called Twhirl (www.twhirl.org) - Twhirl runs in the background and automatically refreshes periodically, and lets you know when you have messages sent directly to you. It works on PCs and Macs and is FREE. But there are many options for desktop Twitter clients. Just hit Google up for more info
• Tweet from your cell phone! In your settings you can set up Twitter to accepts text messages, so you can tell the world what you’re doing no matter where you are!

So these are the Twitter basics which should be enough to get you on your way. If you would like to explore Twitter a little further, you can check out Twitter’s FAQ pages at http://help.twitter.com. And please feel free to contact me as well. I would be happy to help.

Happy tweeting!