OMG, I Have Done The Unthinkable!!

[Engage]

This is so embarrassing. I have done the unthinkable. The unspeakable. I have brazenly broken my life long moral code of conduct. I have committed the ultimate sin, and become an apostate blasphemer. I have trashed whatever tiny fragment of credibility I might once have had.

I have become a mere follower of the group consensus rat race. When Lynn finds out I'll have to erase about 162 posts from this forum and her blog. Angie is gonna put a big BOZO icon next to my screen name here on the forum. Mike is gonna automate all his communications with me for sure.

Yes, it's done now, too late to take it back.

I've become a member of the 21st century.

I have a Twitter page!

http://twitter.com/naturetalknews

And now, it's YOUR job my friends, to make sure I don't make a big mess of it. Yes, you! You got me in to all this trouble after all.

If you shy from this responsibility, go ahead, make my day, I'll create a FaceBook fan page. You've been warned!!

[retta719]

Welcome to the wonderful world of twittering! :) Glad you joined us.

[angienewton]

HA HA! So glad to see you on Twitter. And I followed ya'll!

The only thing I might recommend is that you also get a bit personal in your tweets rather than just posting links to things. Just a thought. Looking forward to checking everything out.

And remember you don't have to follow everyone back that follows you!

[Engage]

Thank you guys. And Angie, where's my darn BOZO icon? C'mon, be fair, I've earned it! :)

Thanks for the suggestion Angie, good idea. I basically just tossed the links up there today to get started.

Ok, on to following questions.

I want my Twitter page to be all nature all the time. I can of course find and follow many other nature publishers on Twitter, which will enrich my feed with much variety.

However, if I do this, then my own tweets will quickly be shoved out of view.

This seems like a very basic question that every Twitter user with marketing goals must have faced, so I pose it now to you.

And remember, if you don't comply with my demands, the threat of me starting a Facebook fan page is still hanging over your heads. :)

[angienewton]

Oh you must start a Facebook page! I prefer FB much more than Twitter.

[Engage]

Ha! That's it, you asked for it, I warned you.

You didn't answer my question, so now I'm going to create a FaceBook page too. I'm sorry it's come to this. :-)

[MikeF421]

I look at it as a necessary evil.

Still can't believe people actually like Twitter.

[Engage]

Ok, due to my expert marketing skills, I now have two followers on Twitter, which surely must be some kind of record.

Anyway, I just tweeted again. I don't see this new tweet on my followers Twitter pages. Does it take awhile? Or am I'm misunderstanding something?

Thank you!

[Engage]

Still can't believe people actually like Twitter.

It seems to me that when we visit the typical Twitter page, we find a series of different random conversations we don't understand taking place between people we know nothing about. No so inviting...

But I guess Twitter is a very big place, and there could be other ways to do it. For now, I have in mind to use it kind of like a nature headlines service. If I can find other Tweeters with the same mission, perhaps something useful can be created?

[MikeF421]

Ok, due to my expert marketing skills, I now have two followers on Twitter, which surely must be some kind of record.

Anyway, I just tweeted again. I don't see this new tweet on my followers Twitter pages. Does it take awhile? Or am I'm misunderstanding something?

Thank you!

When you visit one of your followers pages you will not see what they see. You will only see their recent tweets.

[cindybidar]

I thought for sure you were going to say you'd installed WordPress. :P

Maybe next week. :D

[nar321]

I second Cindy's suggestion, start a WordPress site.

[Engage]

I thought for sure you were going to say you'd installed WordPress. :P

Maybe next week. :D

HA, HA!!! LOL! Good one. Yes, now that would have been REAL news for sure.

But, but, why spend minute after minute after minute installing WP, when you could code your own in just a few months?? :-)

[Engage]

Hmm, I'm now following a couple of nature publishers on Twitter. I can see they've posted new tweets since I began following them. Their new tweets don't show up on my Twitter page. Any ideas why?

http://twitter.com/naturetalknews

It looks like Twitter's search feature is pretty much worthless for finding nature publishers to follow. However I've had some luck doing Google searches such as "wildlife twitter".

I must admit, Twitter is very interesting as a marketing study.

I am positive that if I had coded Twitter and come to any webmaster forum to promote it, you guys would have yawned, ignored me, or filed a long thread with all the reasons why the project was too flawed to bother with.

And yet, millions of people use Twitter.

It reminds me of Microsoft Windows. The least secure operating system on the planet, that seems to generate a new wave of complaints with each version release, and yet, almost everybody uses Windows.

Perhaps the lesson is that you can sell anything if you understand marketing well enough?

Dunno. Mysterious.

[Engage]

Ok, sorry for the clueless newbie questions. Starting to get it, maybe.

So only my tweets will appear on my twitter page, right?

But if I go to HOME, or twitter.com, then I see the tweets from everybody I'm following.

If other people want to see all the tweets I'm reading, they have to follow the same people I'm following? Thus I can't really create a "nature news feed" because everybody creates their own.

Sorta.

Probably.

Maybe.

Or not.

Could be.

Who knows.

:-)

[angienewton]

Yes, you are correct but I'm not sure what you mean about nature news feed.

[MikeF421]

Engage,

You could sort of accomplish what you are trying to do as far as creating a "nature news feed" by retweeting interesting posts of the people you are following. Then their tweet shows up with your tweets.

Once again, I hate Twitter for making me use the words "tweet" and "tweets".

[Engage]

Ah, thanks guys, grandpa is slowing catching on here, with your help. I had a misconception about how Twitter works, cleared up now.

So far it looks like the best feature of Twitter, for my purposes, is that it can feed me lots of content ideas. I already have a pile of nature stories coming in, but can't hurt to have more, especially from these sources.

Thanks for the retweet idea Mike. I'm sorry I made you say tweet! If you reply here again, just call it creep and crap, and I'll know what you mean. :-)

Ok, next question. I'd like to use my timeline like a to do list. Examine each item, and then cross it off the list, get rid of it.

Is there some secret super nifty way to remove tweets from my timeline one at a time? Or maybe some third party service that would email them to me one at a time? Suggestions welcome and appreciated.

I've been on Twitter almost a week now. I'm pretty sure I'll be rich beyond my wildest dreams in another few days. If anybody needs a new house or anything, just let me know. :-)