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Twittering TAM7

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is not a radish
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Oct 23, 2005
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Prior to TAM6 I started a thread looking for a techy way for people to easily keep up with what was going on outside the regularly scheduled conference. Specifically, what would be the best way to let a group of people know that you're gathering in the lobby in five minutes for a road trip to Chuck E. Cheese? There wasn't, however, anything that was quick and easy for everyone to use, so most people stuck to watching for the herds of badge-wearers and following them.

WARNING: From this point forward I make a lot of references to Twitter. The truth is, I don't really know that much about Twitter and have barely used it outside of this experiment. As such, I am not your best source for information about how to set it up and use it. If you're interested in all this, please go to twitter.com and read through their help screens to figure out how to get things working on your end. It's pretty easy.​


I started looking into things again, and it appears there is now a Twitter add-on that might do the trick for us. GroupTweet provides a much-needed Twitter function that allows you to send messages to a defined group. Here's how it works:

1. I've already created a Twitter account called TAM7.

2. Set up your own Twitter account to follow TAM7. In turn, I'll tell TAM7 to follow you.

3. To send a message to just our group, you send a direct message to TAM7. It would look something like this:

d tam7 Meet in the lobby at 6:00 for a run to the liquor store​

4. The message goes to the TAM7 account, where it is picked up by GroupTweet and then sent back out to everyone following TAM.

I've been playing with this for a couple weeks and it seems to work pretty well. There is, however, about a five minute lag from when you send the message to when it is rebroadcast. Please keep in mind that this is not intended to be a substitute for the physical bulletin board, but rather just a way to let people know about semi-spontaneous things that are happening. Nor is this intended to be a way to disseminate ongoing information about the conference itself... I'll let someone else worry about doing that.

If anyone would like to play around with this now so we can figure out whether or not it will be useful, go ahead and start following TAM7. I'll try to check that account at least once a day to set TAM7 to follow those who sign up.
 
Cool. Am following TAM7. I'm flopearedmule on Twitter. In my experience it appears immediately, with no lag like 5 min. Although it you are using Twitterific or some third party client to read your Tweets, rather than the website, maybe there's a lag.

Anyho, in my experience Twitter is a really good tool for this kind of thing.

Is it July YET?????? :confused:
 
nettiemoore said:
In my experience it appears immediately, with no lag like 5 min. Although it you are using Twitterific or some third party client to read your Tweets, rather than the website, maybe there's a lag.
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Yes, I believe the lag is due completely to GroupTweet being a separate service. For all I know, it's running on a single server in some guy's bedroom.

I just sent the first test message to our new little group two minutes ago... let's see when it arrives.


The Central Scrutinizer said:
Is there a way to block Rebecca?
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If a message comes through from Rebecca, just put your fingers in your ears and yell "lalalalalalaICan'tHearYoulalalalala".
 
Okay, I think I am set up. I could not decide if I should post a picture of me or a picture of my avatar? I finally decided to use the same name on Twitter (sgf8) but use a real picture of me. I suppose if you are in the lobby looking for me then you will want to see what I actually look like.

I hope I did this correct.

Susan
 
Thanks for being guinea pigs, everyone! This system seems to work pretty well, so I'll resurrect this topic prior to TAM7 and try to get loads-o-people to sign on. In the meantime, anyone who wants to start following the TAM7 group is welcome to do so, but I don't think there will be any worthwhile traffic on it until we all meet up in July.
 
Okay let me see if this is correct.

I type "D TAM7" then write something and it goes out to everyone who is following TAM7. Right?

Now if I type just a message with no "D" it will just go out into the twitter world and anyone who might be following me will get the message?

I don't mind pretending I have an interesting life and send messages to the world that I am doing something right now, just don't want to send that message to everyone following TAM7, I think you would be plenty bored with me by June if you just learned that I am at the dentist office or shopping.

Susan
 
Wouldn't it be more efficient just to make following TAM7 invite-only and we ask for invites by private messaging Desktop Icon?
 
Aerik said:
Is it ok to listen in even if I'm not at tam 7/
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Sure, but it will probably be rather boring. As I mentioned before, this will not be for reporting what's going on at the conference (e.g. "phil plait just came on stage and tripped on some wires") but rather what's happening outside of the conference (e.g. "several of us are heading to the bowling alley at 6:30").

Wouldn't it be more efficient just to make following TAM7 invite-only and we ask for invites by private messaging Desktop Icon?
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The problem with that is that I wouldn't see the PM until I logged onto the forum, so there could be times when a few days elapse before I'd be able to update the TAM7 account to follow you. As it is now, when someone signs up to follow TAM7 I immediately get a notification email and I can quickly take care of it. Can do it all from my BlackBerry, too.

The thing to remember is that this isn't just a lot of people following the TAM7tweets. By using GroupTweet, people can send a direct message to TAM7 and all the people following TAM7 will receive it. It essentially uses Twitter to create a temporary, semi-real-time chat space for a specific audience. Plus, when someone direct messages TAM7, only the people following TAM7 will see it... that keeps all the "I'm heading to the bar now" tweets from going out to their regular followers.
 
sgf8 said:
Okay let me see if this is correct.

I type "D TAM7" then write something and it goes out to everyone who is following TAM7. Right?

Now if I type just a message with no "D" it will just go out into the twitter world and anyone who might be following me will get the message?
Click to expand...


That is correct! And that's the whole point of using the GroupTweet service, it allows us to keep the TAM7 messages confined to that space, separate from the details of your dentist appointment. Likewise, if you don't send the direct message to TAM7, only those people who are specifically following you will see it.

Now, if you happen to go to the dentist during TAM7... well, you're just going to have to work that one out for yourself.
 
Well you can set Twitter to alert you of invite requests, I believe, and that would reach you via blackberry. So, really not a problem with an invite-only twitter account, by that argument.
 
I set up a Twitter account a while back, but I never worked out how it worked or how to use it. I'll have to do some more research before I can contribute.
 
Desktop Icon said:
Sure, but it will probably be rather boring. As I mentioned before, this will not be for reporting what's going on at the conference (e.g. "phil plait just came on stage and tripped on some wires") but rather what's happening outside of the conference (e.g. "several of us are heading to the bowling alley at 6:30")..
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Or "Phil Plait was seen running naked through the lobby following the forum party, screaming 'I'm looking for Uranus!'"
 
Thanks for taking lead on this Desktop Icon!

There's another thing that Twitterers can do for messages that don't need to be rebroadcast. This is to use a "hashtag" in any regular messages while they are at the show. This is the twitter equivalent of a "tag" or "category" in a blog post. An obvious value for the TAM7 hash tag would be #tam7.

It works like this: just like you would use @ followed by a word to refer to a person, you use # followed by a word to refer to a tag. So something like this:

krelnik: really likes that point that Phil Plait just made about local activism. #tam7
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The nice thing about this is you can get an idea of the overall scope of what is going on at the show without everyone having to rebroadcast every little thought.

There are at least two sites that specialize in searching & aggregating messages by hashtag.. One is hashtags.org and the other is twemes.com. The latter also pulls in Flickr photos with the same tag.

Or you can simply use twitter search. Here's people tweeting about the current situation in Mumbai that way.
 
Can we going to have a twitter class? Or can I have some private lessons. I barely understand that to send a message to the group you type D TAM7 then your message. Don't understand at all about the category.

I want to understand!

Susan
 
There's not much to know, really. Twitter is a service that is basically halfway between an online chat and having a blog. You type short messages (140 bytes) that either stand on their own or reply to someone else. These messages are public, and are often about what you are doing at the moment but can also be like short blog posts. Often people post links to interesting things they find on the net like YouTube videos or comment on news stories.

You find other people on Twitter that you know or are interested in, and click FOLLOW to indicate you are interested in their updates. Your home page on Twitter will then show a summary of what they are all saying, in chronological order. Hopefully they will then follow you and you now have someone to talk to.

If you have a cell phone, you can register your number with Twitter and receive updates via SMS (aka "text messages") at any time, even when you don't have a computer available.
 
Hey! I got my first follower today!

I am one of 771 he follows but I know I am the most important.

Pizzaconnection

Watch out Rebecca, I´m going to hit that thousand fan mark yet! (she will probably be at 10K by then, oh well)

Susan
 
I signed up Friday or Saturday. I may not follow it until closer to TAM, however. I get a lot of email on my phone, all day long, that are work related and don't need any more volume.
 
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