Creating a microblog on Twitter


Twitter Android application for smartphone
Twitter is a commercial online social networking service and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based messages of up to 140 characters, known as "tweets"[1].

Twitter has become one of the ten most visited websites on the Internet, and can be described as "the SMS of the Internet."[2] Twitter is the one of the most popular microblogging services and is widely used by educators and learners worldwide.

Anyone can create a Twitter account for free.

On completion of this subsection you will:

  • Gain an overview of the Twitter microblogging service
  • Create a Twitter account
  • Customise your profile settings
  • Practice posting a Tweet including a hashtag.



Web Resources

The following videos provide an overview of Twitter:




Activity

#WEnotes microblog stream
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Step 1: Create and customise your Twitter account

  1. Create a Twitter account. Go to the Twitter signup page, follow the instructions on screen and create an account. If you're not sure what to do, you may find the following resources useful:
  2. Customise your homepage design. Go to your design settings, get creative and customise your home page.
  3. Review your account settings and preferences. Go to your account preferences and review your settings. We recommend that you don't protect your tweets because this will restrict your public microposts to your followers. In an open course, the idea is to share your learning experiences publicly. Should you wish to enable text messaging to your mobile phone, remember that your mobile service provider may apply charges for tweeting via SMS. Check with your mobile phone service provider.

Step 2: Test a Twitter post using the #WEnotes hashtag.

  1. Open a new window or tab in your browser, login to your Twitter account.
  2. Post a message and include the "#WEnotes" tag. (WEnotes stands for WikiEducator notes and is the tag we are using for learners to test a microblog post which will be aggregated to the feed displayed on the right.) Here is an example micropost you can post:
Just registered for <insert course name here> and testing a microblog post #WEnotes.

Note: If you've done everything correctly and assuming there are no network problems, your post should appear in the #WEnotes microblog stream displayed in this activity after a short while. Hovering over the timestamp will show the date of the post. Clicking the timestamp will take you to the original source.




Notes

  1. ↑ Twitter article on Wikipedia
  2. ↑ Twitter article on Wikipedia
Retrieved from "http://wikieducator.org/Microblogging/Creating_a_microblog_on_Twitter"