Slides for a presentation about Twitter to the Association of Women in Technology in Austin, Texas, on 10/14/2008. Slides for a diverse audience familiar with technology in general, but not necessarily with social technology or, specifically, Twitter.

3. Social Networks aren’t new – what’s new is the technology giving our social networks visibility, platforms through which we can identify, build and extend our tribes, and sustain ongoing casual communication with friends and acquaintances. Twitter has emerged from within this new technical and social framework.

4. Online social networks: Six Degrees Ryze Friendster Tribe Orkut Myspace LinkedIn Flickr Facebook Twitter Myspace 73 million Facebook 36 million Twitter 2 million Source: Wikipedia

5. Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

6. Some things to know about Twitter

7. Follow someone – get their Twitter updates – and maybe they’ll follow you!

8. Twitter was originally thought of as a microblogging platform, where you make short posts, 140 characters or less.

9. Turns out Twitter is actually a messaging system, rather than a system for blogging. On the web, it looks a lot like a chat environment.

10. So Twitter’s kind of like instant messaging and kind of like chat and kind of like blogging.

11. And kind of a killer app? If we didn’t already have computers and cellphones, is Twitter so compelling that we would buy them, just so we could have the Twitter experience?

12. How do people use Twitter? Source: Lee Odden, Online Marketing Blog, http://www.toprankblog.com/2008/03/reader-poll-how-do-you-use-twitter/

13. Word of mouth marketing, promoting companies, products, events and people.

14. Breaking and finding news (or spreading the word in an emergency). http://www.zoliblog.com/2008/03/20/twitter-beats-news-services-earthquake-in-china/ http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92177969 [Biz] Stone tells the story of an early Twitter user who hated the service. The New York City venture capitalist complained that the updates amounted to nothing more than ridiculous minutiae that no one wanted to read. He turned his account into a diary of his trips to the bathroom — "just to put a fine point on 'this is how I believe this service is useful,' " Stone says. Then, in mid-July, a steam pipe exploded in Midtown Manhattan. As so many Twitter users have done at disaster scenes, he posted an update noting the explosion and asking whether anyone else had heard it and knew what it was. His Twitter friends (or "followers") quickly replied with their own updates. "His first reaction, even though he claimed he didn't like it, was to reach for Twitter in an emergency and just, don't even think about, just use it."

15. The microblogging thing: it’s so easy to post 140-character goodies.

16. Professional networking or just hanging out.

17. Replacement for email/IM.

18. Getting answers, crowdsourcing.

19. Getting out of jail.

20. Here’s a bit of crowdsourcing…

21. Tools Twubble (http://crazybob.org/twubble/) looks at who you're following and suggests others to follow. Twits Like Me (http://www.chrisfinke.com/twitslikeme/) analyzes your updates to find others with similar interests. Twitterholic (http://twitterholic.com/) shows the top 100 Twitter users based on followers. Combine tools: add your posts to Pownce, add Pownce (http://pownce.com/) to Tumblr (http://www.tumblr.com/), then use Twitterfeed (http://www.twitterfeed.com/) to add to TWitter! (Or just add your blog feed via Twitterfeed.) Add TwitThis (http://twitthis.com/) to your blog or website so that others will spread your words. Use third party software like Twhirl (Windows, http://www.twhirl.org/) of TWitterific (Mac, http://iconfactory.com/software/twitterrific) to interact with Twitter.

22. Jon Lebkowsky Social Web Strategies http://socialwebstrategies.com http://weblogsky.com http://twitter.com/jonl 512 762-6547