twitter

Yah, That happens. Try not to take it personal (even though it is).

What you tweet about might not be of interest to the person you followed. OR... You might not have enough tweets to even tell if you are of interest.

Take comfort in the fact that there are 10s (or hundreds) of thousands of tweeters out there. If you say something of interest you will find followers.

I still don't have followers!!!

If you've started to build up a large number of tweets, you've been following others and still you don't seems to be getting anyone to follow you, there are a couple of the possible reasons. Lets not rule out the obvious Your Weird!, Your tweets are weird!, No one else in the world shares your particular brand of weirdness! (it could happen :) ).

If you're pretty sure you can rule out the above problems than maybe this lens can help Why I'm not following you on twitter.

This lens seems to cover most of the other reasons why you might not be getting people to follow you.

With Twitter's breakthrough the world was given a new meaning of social networking. Unlike any other type of social networking application, Twitter is not limited to the web which is an advantage. An instance in Egypt when a student was arrested for capturing images during an anti-government protest was freed. By using Twitter through his phone, he was able to send updates to his friends that allowed them to get help from the right people and provide support for him. Isn't it amazing how a simple tool was able to save him?

Technology-savvy individuals have been looking for tools that they can use to stay connected. Twitter answered the call. What makes Twitter great? With Twitter's 140 character feature, enough room to inform others of what you're doing, a user can send and received updates or "tweets" to any other supported mediums such as mobile phones thus making it manageable. One good feature of Twitter is that users have the option of whom to give updates or allow people to follow them. Some politicians have been enjoying great publicity through the use of Twitter.

Portability and convenience:
Twitter offers portability. Third party applications are developed to add convenience to users and enhance user experience. It is not required to visit the web every time you want to update your tweets or do some changes. Twitter can now be integrated to your web browser, mobile phones or as an application to your computer. With an internet connection or mobile service you will be able to get updates for your Twitter. A third party application was designed to convert tweets to playable audio.

Endless promotion:
Need some promotions with your services? Twitter is a perfect tool for promotion. As millions of users are now getting their fingers on Twitter, you can post some tweets to promote your services or even blogs. Many great stories of success have been told acknowledging Twitter as part of their triumph. As Twitter users continue to increase, chances of advertising are endless. You can start promoting your products or services to a follower and be surprise of how rapidly it will get attention to other users.
Twitter is also being used to get updates with news and events. A user can jump in to conversation done from among other users and gather information. Other users are linking helpful sites to their tweets that you can follow. Among other usage, Twitter is also use to receive feedback or simply share ideas and experiences on a certain topic.

Stay Connected:
Keeping in touch is not that hard knowing that you have Twitter where ever you go.
Open a world! Twitter allows you to be in contact with other users who have the same interest as yours by following them. This is a great way for you to look for someone who can assist or share ideas with you on a particular thing. Try Twitter and see for your self how this can help you

Twitter is a unique type of social network that lets users send "tweets", little messages of up to 140 characters, to other users who have signed up to that person's profile, as well as post them on their profile page for all to see. In fact, these tweets are simple short messages to detail to friends, relatives or other connected persons, what the user is doing at a given time, as suggested by the website's catch phrase, "What are you doing?".

Twitter began in 2006 as a project by its owners' company, Obvious. It was an intra-company tool at first, but its potential was soon realized. In October, of that year, Twitter, as we know it, was launched to the world.

The motive behind Twitter was that in today's world, having an easy way to tell people who matter to you what you are doing can be vital. For example if you're supposed to pick up a friend and you're running late. A tweet can be sent to him/her so they know instantly not to worry. In a business sense, it can be used to let customers know of urgent matter, such as shipping trouble, so as to prevent angry calls.

Who Uses Twitter?
Although it is a fairly new enterprise, its key feature has already been employed even by large companies, such as Dell, to keep customers posted on their latest happenings. On the smaller, personal scale, it lets you keep in touch with those close to you in a new innovative way, different from the usual social networking sites.

The "tweets" can be received in a number of ways. Other than by viewing a user's profile, they can be received via SMS, RSS, email or even via Facebook. Users do, however, have the power to restrict ways in which the message is delivered and who it goes to.

Whether it's the ease of use, or the pretty website layout, or the fact that it's a new type of network in an internet supersaturated with generic networks, or whatever, Twitter has attracted a huge user fan base. Over two million accounts are currently registered and growing everyday.

Twitter making the news!
Twitter's goal of making it easy to keep in touch with friends through simple notes has been achieved easily. A surprising story is that of a young man and his translator who were arrested in Egypt for taking pictures of an anti-government protest. The local authorities didn't take kindly to it but, during his ride to the police station, the young man updated his tweet and in no time his network of friends was aware of his predicament. From this, the news spread like wildfire and he was released the following day. This news story alone caused a huge increase in Twitter's popularity. Who doesn't want to be part of a network that was on TV?

All in all, Twitter is a great new network, aimed at personal use for individuals, in my opinion, but worth a try for any person or public relations interested company.

As with any new technology, Twitter also has some problems. One that is often complained about is the frequency that twitter goes down. "No service" means no "tweets" and it would appear that some users go into tweet withdrawals during that time (they get a little cranky!).

As twitter has become more popular it has also started to become a target of hackers, a couple of the recent attacks are explained at Virus List.

Another vulnerability was described by ZD Net. This one allows for the abuse of the "Follow Me" system employed by Twitter. Profiles with a high number of followers usually get a higher PR in Google and so adds a little more strength to any website listed in the profile.

Even with the few glitches, Twitter serves a useful purpose to many and can be used for promotion of your company or website.

Twitter User interface (UI) changes
One update that I noticed was in the basic design. When you log in you now find your navigation links on the right side of the page. While most of the design changes were an attempt to make Twitter easier to use, one change should also affect the speed that the pages will refresh.

Twitter is now using a technology called Ajax. The advantage to this technology is that it is able to refresh portions of a page instead of making your browser download the entire page again. The less you download the faster the page refreshes.

One feature that was removed was the in the "Archive" tab. Useful, but redundant, you can view the same information by clicking on your profile page.

For those that want a more personalized tweeting experience, you can now edit your colors with their newly designed "Design Customizer".

Twitter and SEO
Another change will likely affect those that use Twitter to promote their websites. Twitter now uses the NoFollow attribute on more of the links to other sites. Notably one of the places is in the Bio section.

For those unaware of what that means. When you link to a site you are in effect giving a vote of confidence to the site you are linking to. Google promoted the NoFollow attribute as a way to link to a site without, in Google view, giving that vote of confidence. So if you are linking to sites on Twitter, they no longer give value to the site other than any traffic that follows that link.

While this doesn't really affect the recreational user of Twitter, this does have an effect on those using it for business purposes (and of course spammers).