This link has been bookmarked by 36 people . It was first bookmarked on 27 Oct 2008, by raman srinivasan.
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03 Feb 09
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Yvette Ferry"Doctors are using Twitter to update patients about office hours. Local groups such as the Los Angeles Fire Department are using it to share details about service calls with interested residents, occasionally with graphic descriptions of the victims' cond
Comcast Dell eventpromotion firedepartments government legal LosAngeles LosAngelesFireDept medical mortgagebrokerage nationalnews PR realestate reputationmanagement socialmedia socialnetworking Twitter WSJ Zappos 2008
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08 Dec 08
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mary butlerMention of Zappos CEO using Twitter and now more than 450 employees are using the service to communicate with one another on topics ranging from politics to marketing plans. o help employees get the hang of the service, Zappos has begun offering classes.
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30 Oct 08
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koroghcm usWall Street Journal article about how Twitter is being used by a lot of people in a variety of ways. It is even infiltrating business. Does a good job providing examples and ideas of how Twitter could be used practically.
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28 Oct 08
Frank HammA lot more people -- and businesses -- are finding new ways to tweet
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hubert guillaudTwitter devrait-il une application grand public, s'interroge le Wall Street Journal ? C'est peut-être encore un peu tôt pour le prédire, avec seulement un million de visiteurs uniques en août 2008 (mais qui masque une grosse part d'usages mobiles). En tou
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Wanda NYTTwitter's user base is still relatively small, but it's growing very fast. The company says the number of active users rose sevenfold in the past year. Twitter wouldn't disclose the total number of users, but for a rough idea of the service's scope, consider this: Twitter.com had more than a million unique visitors from the U.S. in August 2008, up from just 282,000 in August 2007, according to research firm comScore Inc.
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When the service first appeared a couple of years ago, its appeal seemed largely limited to narcissists who wanted to let everybody know what they were doing in real time. But, like blogs and social-networking sites, Twitter is starting to cross into the mainstream, as a wide range of people find interesting uses for the brief notes.
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![[Twitter Goes Mainstream]](http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-CO545_twittf_DV_20081027144634.jpg)
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Kerry JohnsonTwitter's user base is still relatively small, but it's growing very fast. The company says the number of active users rose sevenfold in the past year. Twitter wouldn't disclose the total number of users, but for a rough idea of the service's scope, consi
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27 Oct 08
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Michel BauwensDoctors are using Twitter to update patients about office hours. Local groups such as the Los Angeles Fire Department are using it to share details about service calls with interested residents, occasionally with graphic descriptions of the victims' condi
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Rob ClockedileWSJ article about mainstream, practical uses of Twitter
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Howard RheingoldDoctors are using Twitter to update patients about office hours. Local groups such as the Los Angeles Fire Department are using it to share details about service calls with interested residents, occasionally with graphic descriptions of the victims' condi
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One of the hottest technologies in Silicon Valley is also one of the
simplest.The online service from Web start-up Twitter Inc. prompts users to do one
thing: answer the question, "What are you doing?" in 140 characters or less.
People type these brief updates, known as "tweets," into Twitter's site or send
them to Twitter as text messages. Friends and colleagues can then check the site
to monitor each other's updates -
Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, a San Francisco-based entrepreneur, says the
company is encouraged that businesses are starting to take to the service.
"Looking at the value commercial entities are getting out of Twitter could help
us build a sustainable company," he says, noting that Twitter might charge for
premium services in the future.All Atwitter
Twitter's user base is still relatively small, but it's growing very fast.
The company says the number of active users rose sevenfold in the past year.
Twitter wouldn't disclose the total number of users, but for a rough idea of the
service's scope, consider this: Twitter.com had more than a million unique visitors from the
U.S. in August 2008, up from just 282,000 in August 2007, according to research
firm comScore Inc. Those numbers are likely to underestimate overall usage, much
of which happens on mobile phones.Part of what lures people to the service is ease of use. Users sign up for an
account on Twitter.com by creating a user name. Then they can start posting
updates through the Web or via text message. The updates appear on Twitter.com
or other sites that users connect to their Twitter accounts, such as
social-network pages. Users can keep their entries public or visible only to
people whom they've approved to see them, such as family or friends.To get the most out of the service, users not only can post updates but can
choose to follow others' Twitter entries as well. To do so, a user -- call him
Bob -- can sign up to follow another user -- Mary -- by going to her account
page and clicking a "follow" button. Then Mary's updates will appear on Bob's
home screen when he logs into the service, along with updates from the other
feeds that Bob chooses to follow. Bob can also see the updates on his cellphone,
using Twitter's mobile Web page or a third-party service.Twitter can be useful for keeping up with friends, but businesses are also
finding ways to employ it. Daniel Rothamel, a real-estate agent from Palmyra,
Va., follows feeds from more than 1,000 people, including neighbors and fellow
real-estate professionals. The 27-year-old searches the site for people who
indicate that they are seeking real-estate help in his area; once he used the
service to exchange messages with a potential customer, who later changed his
plans.Mr. Rothamel also uses the site regularly as an instant advice hotline. He
recently used the service to pose a question about whether a client could
qualify for a particular type of mortgage for a property where the well hadn't
received a safety test. A fellow Twitter user, a mortgage broker in Denver whose
updates Mr. Rothamel had been following, quickly responded, "Yes." The client
got the mortgage and closed on the house a week later.Mr. Rothamel doesn't just seek out professional advice, though. He once used
the service to help identity some flowers growing in his front yard. He snapped
a photo of them, uploaded the image to a Web site, posted a link to the site
through Twitter and asked for help. Someone quickly responded, warning him not
to pull the flowers up -- they were daylilies and would bloom soon enough.Part of the Crowd
Professionals such as Mr. Rothamel often start using Twitter during
conferences, where there is a steady stream of news to share and people are
eager to know what's going on around them. Mr. Stone, the Twitter co-founder,
notes that the service typically gains a bunch of new users around big and small
events, everything from political debates and concerts to hurricanes. As a
result, Twitter is looking at ways to allow people to indicate that they are
attending a particular event, so they can more easily share updates with others
who are there.Other users are flocking to Twitter as an easy self-publishing and
promotional tool. People are using it to build up their professional reputation
by sharing updates about their work in a less time-intensive way than starting a
blog. Andrew Flusche, an attorney in Fredericksburg, Va., recently used Twitter
to promote a webinar he was holding on trademark registration. The session got
15 attendees, compared with seven for a subsequent seminar he didn't promote on
the service. - 1 more annotations...
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Mr. Flusche, 26, has also found the service handy for referring cases to
experts in other areas, as well as keeping up with professional contacts he
doesn't see often. "You get interesting glimpses of them," he says. "It's a
different way to network with people and get to know them."Still, using Twitter can be frustrating if others aren't playing along.
Earlier this year, Oliver Bogler, an associate professor in the department of
neurosurgery at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, tried to
use Twitter to communicate with his lab. He felt it would be handy for sharing
updates about meetings or interesting research.But his team didn't take to the service and never really began checking it.
He suspects they didn't spend enough time at their desks to check Twitter
online, and they failed to activate the service on their mobile phones.Dr. Bogler also found the performance of the service a bit finicky; sometimes
it took a while for updates to post. "I am not sure Twitter is ready for the
professional scene yet," he says. "The barriers to entry are enormous."Twitter's Mr. Stone says the company "has made great advances in reliability
and performance" in recent months and will continue to improve. "We still have
work to do," he says.Twitter is already spreading quickly at several companies, however. Online
shoe retailer Zappos.com Inc., of Henderson, Nev., has more than 450 employees
using the service to communicate with one another on topics ranging from
politics to marketing plans. Zappos Chief Executive Tony Hsieh kicked off the
trend by launching his own personal Twitter account, and continues to blast out
updates about his activities to his more than 14,000 followers.To help employees get the hang of the service, Zappos has begun offering
classes. They range from teaching basics like how to follow a friend's updates
to "advanced" topics like using third-party services for fancier tasks, such as
adding images to one's Twitter stream.Some companies are using the service as a way to reach out to customers.
Frank Eliason, director of digital care for Comcast Corp.,
often resolves dozens of customer-service issues a day over Twitter. Several
months ago, employees of the cable operator started mining public Twitter
accounts to detect issues people were having with their service, from faulty
DVRs to troubled Internet connections.The Philadelphia-based cable giant now has a seven-person team that works to
help resolve those issues over Twitter or by looking up customers' contact
information and calling them at home. "Now we can search for what people are
saying [about us] and utilize it," says Mr. Eliason.
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