Huh? That may be your response to the question posed in this article’s title. But for those of you familiar with the concept, ‘tweet’ will immediately elicit the thought that I must be talking about Twitter. And you would be correct! More specifically, FedSmith is now posting to Twitter as another means of sharing information with our readers.
What is Twitter?
Don’t feel bad if you are unfamiliar with the Web site Twitter – I was too until fairly recently. It is probably best described as a “microblogging” site – users publish short posts to the site (140 characters or less) and other users can choose to “follow” those users to read their posts. It’s a way of sharing information over the Web, and the sky is the limit as to how Twitter’s users share information. Among other things, posts could describe what one user is doing at that very moment (hanging out at Starbucks, shopping, working, etc.), relay news and information, or document a user’s vacation day by day. Due to the pithy nature of the posts, the design lends itself to making more frequent updates than one would on, say, a blog. Twitter founder Jack Dorsey stated that he originally got the idea for the site by wanting to know what his friends were doing. And presto, a wildly popular Web site was born around the concept.
I’ll use what FedSmith.com is doing to provide further illustration: we are posting news snippets to Twitter.com. Our readers can choose to “follow” us on the Twitter Web site to receive our posts and stay up to date on the latest Federal employee news you have come to expect from us. It’s just one more way we are bringing our news to you.
How do I receive the posts?
Posts are received over the Internet or via text messages (SMS) on a cell phone. You have to sign up for a free account on Twitter.com to begin following FedSmith or any other user’s posts. Once you do, you can see the posts on the Twitter.com site, subscribe to an RSS feed of the posts, or get text messages sent to your phone. The choice is yours!
What else should I know?
Use of the Twitter site is free, and there is no charge for following FedSmith.com on Twitter either. However, you may incur costs if you choose to receive updates via SMS on your cell phone. That will depend on the plan you have with your provider.
To begin following FedSmith.com, visit our Twitter page!
