Twitter, Status...

It's all about QUICKLY... CONCISELY... letting people know what you're up to... in just ONE sentence.

Admittedly, this may at first seeming ridiculously NON-useful and a total waste of time, right?  If you've already drawn that conclusion, read no further.  Exit.  Do not go beyond this point.

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Now, for the rest of you... let's look under the hood and collaborate about just how this quick/easy 'update' might serve some great purposes.  Especially those of you concerned with helping create an optimal new-media strategy for a citywide 'team'... consider how Twitter, Twitter-related functionalities, or Facebook Updates (or RSS feeds therefrom, perhaps aggregated strategically) might best be used.  Please add your thoughts down in the Discussion Thread, or in the body below as appropriate.

Ok, what is Twitter or Facebook's 'Updates'?

For instance, that might be just one sentence you post in a special way on your social-network... say on Facebook profile.  Updating your one-liner 'status' on your Facebook page would let all your 'friends' know what you're up to, today.  [And vice-versa.  Thus a quick check of your friends 'status' pretty much sums up what's going on with them that's important... and which you might want to know more about.]

Moreover, there are whole websites that ONLY focus on proliferating your one sentence update.  Twitter.com is the leading such site.  Here's a great overview of Twitter.

Why?

Here's an article with 9 useful benefits of Twitter. Here are some more helpful Twitter resources 

For 24 hours a day, you're doing something you believe is vitally IMPORTANT.  Right?  Do you hope to impact others as a result of what you're doing today?

Ok, what about this.... Would Peyton Manning want to know the status of Reggie Wayne as he's doing a fly-out?  That is... Does one TEAM-member care about what other team-members are doing or planning to do?

It seems the answer boils down to... Are you on a TEAM?  Committed to impact the world TOGETHER?  If so, quasi-Twitters are for you.

Personally... because I (Neil) believe that Facebook offers the best TEAM type of site, among all the social networks, I like Facebook STATUS updates the best.  But I may be changing my mind shortly...

• "Tweet Others.... as you'd like to be tweeted."

Discussion Thread.... How about you others -- what's YOUR experience so far?  Thoughts?

• Here's somebody's wiki, with everything about Twitter, including other Twitter-related functionalities that add value.
• Teamwork?  Importantly, how can Twitter (or related functionality) be used as a great new way to enhance our ability to communicate as a team driven by common purpose & principles... and perhaps location?
• #Hashtags can isolate related topics... think tagging.  Think how it might improve the signal-to-noise aspect of the stream of communications.  Example: All the tweets marked with #ICG (a generic IndyChristianGeeks thing).  (Ok, so think... how could THAT help?  Maybe a unique event tag... eg. IndyTweetup.
• [Hey Doc, Alx or Scott... heck, anyone.... How can we see combined hashtags?  Eg... #Indianapolis #Tweetup ???] I don't think that's possible YET!
• And how can we pull an RSS from say, #ICG ? TweetScan gave me this URL: http://tweetscan.com/rss.php?s=icg
• Here's a BLOG "Powered" by Twitter. The possibilities are FASCINATING!
• Twitter Pack (wiki) looks pretty interesting... (How might we apply that principle?)
• Here's a church using their Twitter feed.
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