Twitter? What is Twitter? I was talking with a co-worker, Joe, (another Software Engineer), at work and one of the Technical Writers stopped us and asked, “What is Twitter, and why should I care?”

This is an interesting question, and I find it a bit hard to explain. First, it is a social networking tool. Second, it is a micro-blogging tool. I know that did not quite explain it in layman terms.

Twitter was created to answer this simple question, “What are you doing?”. It began with people sending “tweets”, (the message), either from a text message from your phone or from your computer. A Tweet like,  “I’m eating a Yate’s Cafe” or “I got a flat tire on the 14 fwy”. Interesting, but not for every long.

If you do not have an account, it’s free at www.twitter.com and you begin by following someone and then others follow you. When you send a message or tweet, it is sent to those who follow you. When you follow people, you get their tweets. It is a one to many metaphor.

Twitter micro-blogging platform is limited to 140 characters or less. Trying to say something with a palette of 140 characters can be difficult. If you want to reply to a tweets use the “@” symbol, to send a direct message, “d tweeter-name”, to Tag “#some-term”, and retweeting “RT @original-tweeter-name” or, in other words you are forwarding tweets.

So, how would a technical communicator use Twitter?

It is really about being in the now. Email sits and waits for you to read and answer it. Tweets, being short, (less than 140 characters), and to the point and in the now. Think of it as sitting at your desk, and you shout out over the cube wall, Joe, “How do I get perl, not to be so greedy on this substitution”. Joe is not over the cube wall. He could be anywhere else in the city or some where else in the world for that matter. Doing a shout out on twitter allows many “Joe’s” to read your question and, hopefully, someone tweets you back with a reply, “Have you tried, (.*?) … “.

I follow several technical people and, increasingly, I am seeing like minded individuals  using this tool to connect to one another. I follow people, for example, who use S1000D. Some are part of the development committees or trainers. I even follow some vendors. Therefore, if I have a question, I can ask whomever with a tweet or search past tweets for the answer.

Being a tool of social networking, tweets can update other social media like Facebook’s status or be captured on your blog’s sidebar.

Technology, in the past, has been accused of isolating people from one another. Social tools, like Twitter are answering those social shout outs and other things we humans do, using newer technology. Have all the tools “arrived”, no, but for now Twitter is helping. However, each year the tools are increasinly getting better. I want to believe that the tools are making us more social, and we are better for it.

My experience with structured tools started with Arbortext Editor now with PTC, Oxygen XML Editor, and some work with XMLspy. Mostly I use Arbortext Editor, it has been a tool that my employer purchased. We have been using it for over 10 years, (even on Unix). I have used Adobe’s Framemaker, but found that it could not do Mil-Spec like work, so I drop it. If you get to define your own output, it is a wonderful tool.

What tools are you using?

Douglas