Lara Kulpa
@larakulpa

Poll & Discussion: Is Twitter Still Awesome?

Is Twitter still as interesting and useful as it used to be for you?

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Just curious – I’m wondering how many of you still find Twitter to be as interesting and awesome as you used to find it.

For newer Twits, it may very well be. For those of us who were “early adopters”, we’ve got clearly different experiences. I remember Twitter before every television show and celebrity and news station had a Twitter account. Before every business went to crazy lengths to get followers. And before it became a place over-run with teenagers Tweeting about crazy sexual stuff. I remember when it was truly a networking place between colleagues, old and new. It was fun to go and see what some of the people I look up to in my field were reading or writing or talking about.

My personal feeling? There’s lots of clutter in Twitter these days. People who follow you in hopes of you following them back so they can increase their follower count, only to unfollow you if you don’t reciprocate, or once they’ve got you following them.

What do you think? Vote, and then discuss your answer in the comments!

Guest Poster

Twitter Can SAVE Your Job & Maybe Get You A Promotion!

by Aaron Zitzer of Tweamer – Follow him @azitzer

Dozens of articles have been written on how to use Twitter to find a job. A few entertaining articles (The Top 10 Tweets To Get You Fired) have covered how to lose a job with Twitter. But what if you have a job (like most of us) that you like (hopefully like most of us) and you just want to protect it and get ahead? Yes, Twitter can help us too.

What Needs Fixing?

The best place to begin your plan to ‘get better at my job by using Twitter’ is to look at your past employee reviews. These will highlight your strengths and the areas where your manager would like to see improvement.

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Guest Poster

How To Avoid Making Twitter A Procrastination Tool

by Dan Miranda – Follow him @timecommander

Description: Twitter has become a common part of today’s online society. The problem with it however, is that we end up spending much too much time on the site and it takes away from other aspects of our life.

Twitter is an excellent site. In fact, it may just be too excellent.

The success of Twitter could possibly end up being it’s downfall. We, as a Twitter nation, have become so obsessed with “tweeting,” “retweeting,” and “direct messaging” that we fail to acknowledge any other part of our lives. Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a little bit, but even so, the popular micro-blogging website has only increased in traffic over the past three months and it’s not going to stop there. We’ll only see bigger – or smaller – and bolder ideas from the expanding company, but what does that mean for the user?

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Darren Rowse
@problogger

8 Ways that Twitter Can Grow Your Freelance Business

Are you a Freelancer? Today Jenny Cromie, editor of The Golden Pencil, (follow her at @JennyCromie) talks about how Twitter can help grow a Freelance Business.

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When I first read about Twitter in a Wired magazine article a little more than a year ago, I thought: What a waste of cyberspace! Why on earth would anyone waste their time trading banal “news” items like: Wearing pink slippers and eating a PBJ. Or, Cleaned toilet. Now for the sink.

Even productivity guru Tim Ferriss called Twitter “pointless e-mail on steroids.” At the time, I couldn’t have agreed more.

But what a difference a year makes! Like me, Tim Ferriss has now joined Twitterville. Of course, he follows no one and has about 10,720 followers. But that’s beside the point.

What I’m trying to say is that if you’re not orbiting in the Twitterverse, you might as well be living on Mars.

Everyone is all atwitter about Twitter now. It’s the THING. It’s the new pet rock of the worldwide cyber village. But I also don’t think it’s a fad. Twitter and other social networking tools are changing the way companies and individuals do business, get information, and communicate.

And the Twitterverse is getting more crowded by the day because late-adopter dolts like me finally get it. We’re all doing the “I-coulda-had-a-V8” head thump: Duh! Twitter is great for growing your business.

If you own a business of any size and you’re still not Twittering, you’re missing out on what amounts to a worldwide virtual chamber of commerce networking event that’s at your fingertips 24/7. Only on Twitter, you don’t press flesh or swap business cards—you exchange links to your Web site, blog, e-books, and online résumé. And you build relationships 140 characters at a time.

Still not convinced that Twitter can help your freelance business? Maybe my list will change your mind. As a business tool, Twitter can help you:

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Darren Rowse
@problogger

Top Ten Must Follows – Writers, GTD/Productivity and Moms

With millions of Twitter users out there – it can at times be challenging to find those in your niche and with shared interests. So last weekend I challenged readers of TwiTip to come up with their own ‘Top 10 Twitter Users’ in different topics.

What followed was quite extraordinary with 147 people submitting their own lists – each on different topics. I actually was quite inspired by the variety of topics mentioned as I watched the lists come in over the last week.

There are topics being written about that I didn’t even imagine that there would be present on Twitter (although I should have).

Over the coming weeks I’m going to feature some of these ‘Top 10 Lists’. I’m doing it in the hope that it’ll highlight the variety of what Twitter is being used for, in the hope that it’ll help people to find others with common interests and to hopefully give you all a little inspiration to come up with your own Top 10 list for a topic that you are passionate about (submit it in the comments on this post).

Here are just 3 of the lists submitted so far.

10 Must Follows on Twitter for Writers

@mikecane submitted these people all writers should Follow:

10 GTD Productivity Twitter Users

@edragonu suggested 10 people and services to follow on twitter for those interested in GTD (getting things done) or productivity

10 Women/Mom Bloggers who Twitter

@sarahsingforhim suggested 10 Twitter users in the Women/Mom blogging world to follow

Of course these kinds of lists can be debated on and one – but if you’re not in complete agreement with them – feel free to come up with your own and submit it here.