Day Three: From I'm a dodo to have a go-go

In Disney's universe, friendly bluebirds are ubiquitous; they accompany Brer Rabbit on his woodland walks, dress Cinderella in couture and tidy up after the slatternly Snow White and Sleeping Beauty in their respective cottages. Hardly surprising then that twitter.com uses this iconic bird to give form to its version of instant messaging. Twitter seems to be all the rage. You're either in the know, or you're not. Devotees even seem to have their own cozy lingo, but it's not as scary as all that...




Twitter is sometimes called a "micro-blog". It provides a forum for you to air your views and share your opinions. The difference is that you have a scant 140 words in which to get your point across. We've all heard the PR stories surrounding Ashton Kutcher and his cult band of twitter "followers" - an understandable phenomenon for celebrity gossip is addictive (People magazine has some 3.75m readers). But what of business users? Is it just twenty-somethings tracking celebs or are grown-ups tweeting too?

Twitter.com does a great job explaining how to test your wings. Check out their kindly tutorial on Twitter101. Here you'll find the insider's guide to the jargon, best practice and a rocking case study on the Geek Squad at BestBuy and how they are using twitter to get closer to their customers Twelp (Twitter Help) case study

Blogging On The Fly.....

One intrepid reader, shortly departing for South Africa, asked us about blogging from afar using a PDA. So we asked our tech support guy (and babysitter's boyfriend) who responded thus:

"Quick answer is yes, but I would need to know more information on a few things.

What kind of device?
Is there a stable connection to the Internet?
What blogging software (e.g., Blogger) is being used?

A modern PDA (which have mostly been replaced by Blackberries, iPhones, etc.) would be able to blog if it has an internet connection and the software being used can be accessed from any kind of device."

We also found you a resource for mobile blogging. Hope this helps you live happily ever after......

We did not, however, live happily ever after with our attempt to post audio today. We tried and failed, with Hypster, Last.fm and ITunes. (We won't trouble you with the links as they were singularly un-useful.)

Any suggestions for future success are welcome.

Posted by: Claire