Rogue Media

For some Twitter is another way to connect with friends and loved ones in a faster and more accessible way, however for a growing number of people Twitter has become an invaluable networking and business tool.

It is not uncommon to see businesses like coffeehouses and even some take out restaurants offering the option to order via Twitter. Tweeting that you are craving a certain flavor of ice cream or maybe that you wanted to see a concert that sold out before you were able to get tickets may often yield a response from a business willing to help.

If you are a business owner Twitter has become a tool that enables you to keep in touch with your customers minute by minute in a way that has previously been nearly impossible. For example; Simon Cooper, President and COO of The Ritz Carlton Hotel Company, recently had a tweet sent to him about a disappointing experience at a Hotel in Florida. Within hours, though he was several states away, he was able to contact his staff who got in touch with the guest and rectified the situation during the same day. The guest was ‘wowed’ immediately instead of waiting for a comment card to take the same affect weeks later.

Why is Twitter so much faster? Mostly because the platform allows you to see who is talking about you and your business via your phone. One can choose to download an application with search options and ‘trending topics’ or receive notifications via text message. This means that, at your convenience, you can read messages intended for you and/or search for words related to what you do.

Another facet of the site is that you are able to accumulate followers whom you can reach with a simple 140 character message that reaches them during their day without spamming. Customers read your tweets to keep updated on what is going on and can help you spread the word by re-posting, or ReTweeting, your information.

With Twitter your business possibilities are endless. For more information or to better understand, the folks behind the phenomenon suggest you simply ‘Hang around the site and watch for your own Aha! moment’.

Although Twitter is a young company they seem to have grasped the important concept of constantly updating and recreating their site in ways that make users excited without over changing things to make people feel lost.

Recently the Twitter team has rolled out “New Twitter”. By moving your @mentions, retweets, searches, and lists above your normal timeline, they hope to make the users profile page a more efficient way to see important information. This way you see exactly what is pertinent to you specifically before browsing to see who Taylor Swift saw jogging today (which is, of course, also important).

They have also created a couple of brand new one-click options that will make information easier to come by. First, mini time lines will enable everyone to click on a users name and see a small version of their bio and profile page without navigating away from whatever page they are currently browsing. Second the Related Content option will create icons that will show additional related content to the user and/or the author of the tweet they are reading.

Although an exact date has not been given as of yet, the preview process has already begun. This means that any twitter user will be able to switch from the old Twitter to the new and back until they are used to the way the new Twitter will work. Eventually all profiles will be switched over and be able to use all of the new features.

Stay tuned for many more new and exciting changes that the Twitter Team will surely continue to wow the world with!

Twitter is a relatively new social media website that is quickly growing to be a must have for not only people, but businesses as well.

One of the most convenient ways to use Twitter is by downloading and authorizing one of the thousands of applications written to make using Twitter from your desktop or phone easier and more streamlined.

Recently the staff at Twitter have developed a way for users enjoying twitter through applications to feel more secure. They have named the feature OAuth.

In a nutshell OAuth will still allow users to download their favorite application but will not allow the application to store their password. For example, if you are an UberTwitter (for blackberry) user, you will be able to enter your password once and then continue to tweet and follow others even if you need to change your password. This greatly decreases the chances that a hacker will be able to find your password and ‘hijack’ your timeline.

Twitter has not as of yet rolled this feature out for every person but expects to do so by the end of the year.

Another way they have endeavored to make the Twitter experience a more enjoyable one, is by creating a link wrapping feature named t.co.

Link wrapping makes the 140 character limit of each tweet possible when adding a link. Generally a link added would be so many characters long that it takes the entire tweet and makes commenting or retweeting difficult. t. co will shorten each link and also display it in a way that shows where you are being directed.

Again an example, if you added a link to your online auction and it appeared like this: http://cgi.ebay.com/STAINLESS8_W0QQitemZ160478521656QQ categoryZ67681QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp3907.m263QQ_trkparmsZalgo%3DSIC%26itu%3DMRU-10968%252BUCI%252BIA%252BUA –  t. co would not only shorten it but it would appear as simply ebay.com or something similar so that you know where you are headed.

These two roll outs are exciting and looking forward it seems certain that the people at Twitter are sure to continue to wow users with future features.