tinustuff/twitter

"Can you imagine Edward Bulwer-Lytton's reaction to Twitter? Credited with the phrase "the pen is mightier than the sword" in 1839, he might have chosen a different metaphor if he'd lived long enough to see what you could do in Twitter's microblogging microverse with 140 characters. And who those characters can reach. And how far they can travel."

From the page: "I totally agree. While the company still struggles with its identity (a service provider or a platform?), the Twitter API has some serious developer mindshare. On an almost daily basis I am contacted by developers who are doing interesting things with it (though admittedly the API has some serious challenges)."

Marketers and free media are drawn to each other, even if the results aren't always very good. Until marketers get off the greed train, though, it's going to be a long time between pots of gold.

"8. Whatâ€s rude in life is rude on Twitter.
Passive-aggressive tweets are never as inscrutable as the sender thinks. When youâ€re being mean, even covertly, eventually everyone figures out the target. And then they start firing the arrows back your way."

OK, just because they can't see you doesn't mean they can't read.

From the page: "There are a lot of articles out there on how to use twitter as a tool, whether it be a marketing tool or networking tool. That's all well and good, but what those people don't understand is that twitter has become a communicating tool, and simply pimping your product/service/site and doing nothing else is not communication."

I disagree with her about Guy, I know him and conversed with him and met him on Twitter. But here's some more good advice.

"My advice, if you are using twitter to gain anything, be it readers, users or whatnot, is to be yourself and to pay attention to the people you follow. Talk to them, reply to them, converse. I joined twitter to plug my writing. I did that. I met a lot of other writers on twitter and we've helped each other out in many ways. I gained some readers for my blogs and found a lot of interesting blogs to read. But in between the links to what I write, twitter has become my playground; to me, it's not a marketing opportunity as much as it is a place to tell dick and fart jokes and gain a few friends, followers and readers while I do that."

I don't really consider Twitter a microblogging tool, but this article had a lot of great points. So many that I wish it was three articles.

Fave section: "Serial Entrepreneurs Are Dangerous. Learn From Them

One serial entrepreneur that has caught my attention and who I personally believe is pressing all the right social marketing buttons is Guy Kawasaki. I mean, the man is a marketing legend in his own right. He literally invented tech evangelism even before evangelism had any inkling that it could be associated with tech."

Could we be in Joel Comm's next book? "I have been asked to write the definitive guide to Twitter for Business by a major publisher, and I'd like to provide you with an opportunity to help with my research. "

If you don't get Twitter, listen to this weekly show on Friday nights about how to use Twitter for business -- in a totally non-spammy fashion.