Whither Twitter?

Technological changes are coming at us quickly these days, and communication technology is no exception. One relatively recent phenomenon is Twitter, the self described social messaging utility that allows users to share short (140 characters) messages with friends, colleagues, or other associates. Messages can be read as text sent to a mobile phone, updates at a social networking site like Facebook, or a number of other ways as well. Why would you care about this development? Well, there are over 700,000 registered users now, including President Obama, and a long list of companies and media agencies. But I want to suggest two articles that might help you understand how Twitter might be useful. First, from the New York Times' tech writer, David Pogue, on how he found Twitter useful. Second, a blog post on emergency response that points out how first responders have used Twitter to respond to disasters. Am I suggesting you jump right in to this new arena? No, but you should be aware of it.

Here's a fun history of Twitter. Here's Guy Kawasaki on how to create good Twitter content.

Writing Guidelines - some things are universal

Problogger is a well established site for bloggers who hope to make a living blogging. Granted, there are relatively few people who are successful enough to give up day jobs to do this, but this site has great suggestions and ideas about how you might pursue making money with a blog. As you might imagine, good blog writing isn't that different from any other good writing. Here's a post from that site with five rules for good writing. The first two shouldn't surprise anyone: revise and proofread.

On a related note, here's a persuasive piece that suggests that even if your writing isn't perfect, the key to getting readers is providing great content. After all, the Federal Tax Code probably doesn't have a lot of grammatical errors, but for most of us, it's hardly scintillating reading.