Several people have commented that they see my Tweets (Twitter updates) pop up in Facebook, on my blog, or other places and they don’t have any idea what they mean. So, I thought I’d break it down a little to help you understand the anatomy of a Tweet.
To begin with, here are four Tweets that I shared in the last 12 hours…
great time with Carlyn and Jami Cole tonight and folks from old youth group. Thanks to Curt and Candice for hosting!
(http://twitter.com/jdblundell/status/6040511029)
I favorited a YouTube video — Advent Conspiracy – What is it? http://www.youtube.com/watc…
(http://twitter.com/jdblundell/status/6055794412)
Porcelain Dolls will b hosting a Thanksgiving meal 2nite w/Waco friends. Interested? Contact @shatterme or @karimcham http://bit.ly/4WNruj
(http://twitter.com/jdblundell/status/6051397118)
RT @stpetersbrew: Check out a sample chapter of the book :: http://wp.me/PHfgV-x // coming to Amazon’s Kindle on Dec 1
(http://twitter.com/jdblundell/status/6059863833)
As you can see, they very in style and content.
The first one is about as basic as they come, straight text or comment. Easy cheesy, right?
The second one is a little more difficult to interpret, but not much. This is actually an auto-tweet from YouTube. Whenever I do certain things on YouTube (or other sites), they automatically send a tweet letting everyone know what I’ve done. This particular tweet says that I favorite a YouTube video and gives the link to it at the end. (and yes I voluntarily signed up for that feature :-))
The third one isn’t that much different, except I did a little abbreviating (due to Twitters 140 character limit) added two user names in the tweet – as well as a funny looking URL (link). So lets break it down…
Porcelain Dolls will b hosting a Thanksgiving meal 2nite w/Waco friends. Interested? Contact @shatterme or @karimcham http://bit.ly/4WNruj
You can probably figure out the abbreviations. Essentially the first part says, “Porcelain Dolls will be hosting a Thanksgiving meal tonight with Waco friends. Interested? Contact…”
The next part might get a little confusing if you’re not familiar with Twitter. Whenever you see @something or @this or @that, you’re basically seeing another users Twitter name. So for example, my Twitter name is @jdblundell. Laurie’s is @girlblundy. The user name for encounter is @encounterthis.
So, I’m telling the end-reader to contact @shatterme (ShatterMe / Jana Vanderburg) or @karimcham (Kari McHam).
Finally, there’s a funny looking link (no obvious domain like you’re used to seeing). This is because I used a URL shortener. So instead of seeing: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Porcelain-Dolls/117740102275?v=wall, you see http://bit.ly/4WNruj. Both links go to the same place.
OK, so now that we’ve gotten the basics down, lets see if we can decode that final scary one. The one you passed over the first time you saw it and when you first saw it in this post.
RT @stpetersbrew: Check out a sample chapter of the book :: http://wp.me/PHfgV-x // coming to Amazon’s Kindle on Dec 1
Really, there’s nothing too different about this tweet than the last one, other than that scary looking RT. This stands for re-tweet. Which essentially means, I’m repeating something someone else tweeted. In his case, I’m retweeting what @stpetersbrew (St Peter’s Brewery) said.
You might also see this as retweet, re-tweet or at the end of a tweet as (via @username).
There’s also another way for people to give credit (which I use often on my blog) – HT. That stands for Hat Tip. So I might say, “HT to @headphonaught for the link.” or “HT to Stewart for the idea.”
So after all the RT business, you move on to the meat of the tweet, which is “Check out a sample chapter of the book :: http://wp.me/PHfgV-x // coming to Amazon’s Kindle on Dec 1″
You may have noticed the :: and // in the tweet. Those really mean nothing, but they’re my ways of trying to help break up the content. I usually use :: to distinguish between information and a link and use // to add any additional comments to a RT.
So there you have it. Any questions?
As a pop quiz, anyone want to tell me what this tweet from my friend @headphonaught (Thomas) is saying? 🙂
Here’s my pic (http://flic.kr/p/7ih25a) for @jeffreywith2fs‘ polaroid giveaway thingymajig. “Welcome to Glasgow, Jeff” … Tx
(http://twitter.com/headphonaught/statuses/6059447739)
