Slashdot Mirror
The Twitter Book
stoolpigeon writes "Microblogging service Twitter has undeniably been a hit, with growth rates that were at times in excess of 1400%. The growth was rapid enough that the site became well known for its periodic, and, at times, extensive downtime. Even with these issues, the service continued to grow rapidly, and with celebrities getting into the mix Twitter was quickly on the radar of mainstream media. The ubiquity of Twitter and ever-increasing coverage of 'tweets' has also brought the inevitable backlash. As with anything that gains high-profile popularity, there are plenty of Twitter haters out there, though the role Twitter has played in the recent Iranian elections seems to have brought more legitimacy to Twitter in the eyes of many. With popularity come books, and quite a few are already out there about and for Twitter, but my favorite so far is The Twitter Book by Tim O'Reilly and Sarah Milstein." Read below for the rest of JR's review.
The Twitter Book
author
Tim O'Reilly and Sarah Milstein
pages
234
publisher
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
rating
9/10
reviewer
JR Peck
ISBN
978-0-598-80281-3
summary
If you want to learn how to use Twitter like a pro, The Twitter Book will quickly get you up to speed.
What makes The Twitter Book work so well is that it functions in a manner very similar to the service it describes. The book itself is small, 8x5.9x0.7 inches, and the font is a bit larger than most tech books. This means the most text dense pages probably contain the same content as one third of a page in a traditional O'Reilly book. Most pages aren't text though, there is a liberal use of color, bold text and graphics. When a page is relatively heavy on text, the facing page will be equally focused on graphics with pictures, graphs or large colored bubbles around text.
All this combines to make The Twitter Book contain many of the same elements that create such a passionate response, positive or negative, to Twitter itself. This means if someone absolutely hates twitter, can't think of a single reason it should exist and wishes it would go away; they are probably not going to like this book. On the other hand anyone that loves Twitter and wants to learn all the ins and outs of the service, there is a high likelihood they are really going to take to this guide. It's format is one of those genius moves that seems incredibly obvious in hind sight. When I've shown it to other fans of Twitter, the usual initial response has been, "A twitter book, really?" and they are not all that enthusiastic. But once I start flipping through it and letting them see the way it is formatted, the reception becomes much warmer and quite a few have quickly flipped from skepticism to a desire to take my copy.
O'Reilly and Milstein both have been using the Twitter platform extensively and speak from experience and data that backs up their assertions. The format may make the whole thing look rather simple, but there is a lot going on here and one can very easily find a lot of bad advice out there on how to get the most out of Twitter. The Twitter Book leaves the reader in good hands that have already tread the paths they lead one down.
Of course this does raise and important question, is a guide to microblogging really necessary? All one does with twitter after all, is post 140 word updates. If kids can text vociferously, who needs how to do the equivalent to a web site? Well, there are two things in play that I think make this worth having. The first, and I think possibly the more important, is that Twitter is a social service. Beyond the simple technical aspects of the various clients, and technologies supported for the sending and receiving of tweets, there are the mores and customs of what has already become an established community. O'Reilly and Milstein aren't just guiding the reader through a simple how to, they are giving an introduction to a massive community that can save the reader from making more than a few mistakes that could really make getting going with microblogging a rough start.
The second reason is that while basic twitter functionality is drop dead easy, some of the more powerful or useful features are not built into twitter itself. They are methods and tools that have come up from the user base itself. Some of them require a little thinking outside the box as it were and are not immediately obvious. Others do seem incredibly simple once they've been implemented but their simplicity belies their usefulness. The book gives solid information on third party clients and tools. Tips on use are backed up with statistics on existing use within twitter.
As this is The Twitter Book, I have been talking about Twitter quite a bit. I'm sure the name is going to help the book sell but much of the information is just as valuable in the context of microblogging in general as opposed to just Twitter. The only real exception may be the clients and tools mentioned previously. Some of them have been slow to support other platforms. I think this book is just as useful still, to anyone microblogging with another service such as idenit.ca. Identi.ca is built on the free and open Laconica software. I personally base all my microblogging from identi.ca and forward things over to twitter. I still interact on twitter because at this point is where the majority of the players are at. But the social guidelines and strategies laid out in The Twitter Book carry over directly to identi.ca.
I don't really have any issues with the book. The scope is purposefully narrow and within the defined limits the authors have covered everything very well. I'd have loved to see something on identi.ca or Laconica but that would have widened the scope quite a bit and I think we can all relate to hating scope creep in a project. SlideShare has a nice preview of the book. Of course this format is not suited to every purpose. Any in depth study of just what makes twitter so popular and the impact it is or is not having on society will need to take place in a manner more suited to such topics. This is simply a case of using the right tool for the job. But dismissing this format as useless would be a mistake it is uniquely appropriate to the job at hand. I think this book is a lot like a screw driver. When used in the manner intended, no tool is better at the job. The only way to break a screw driver is to use it in an unintended way. In that case it isn't the tool's fault. Looking for a meaty discourse on the pros and cons of twitter? Do not look here. But if getting the most out of the service is the goal this may just be the best tool available.
You can purchase The Twitter Book from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
All this combines to make The Twitter Book contain many of the same elements that create such a passionate response, positive or negative, to Twitter itself. This means if someone absolutely hates twitter, can't think of a single reason it should exist and wishes it would go away; they are probably not going to like this book. On the other hand anyone that loves Twitter and wants to learn all the ins and outs of the service, there is a high likelihood they are really going to take to this guide. It's format is one of those genius moves that seems incredibly obvious in hind sight. When I've shown it to other fans of Twitter, the usual initial response has been, "A twitter book, really?" and they are not all that enthusiastic. But once I start flipping through it and letting them see the way it is formatted, the reception becomes much warmer and quite a few have quickly flipped from skepticism to a desire to take my copy.
O'Reilly and Milstein both have been using the Twitter platform extensively and speak from experience and data that backs up their assertions. The format may make the whole thing look rather simple, but there is a lot going on here and one can very easily find a lot of bad advice out there on how to get the most out of Twitter. The Twitter Book leaves the reader in good hands that have already tread the paths they lead one down.
Of course this does raise and important question, is a guide to microblogging really necessary? All one does with twitter after all, is post 140 word updates. If kids can text vociferously, who needs how to do the equivalent to a web site? Well, there are two things in play that I think make this worth having. The first, and I think possibly the more important, is that Twitter is a social service. Beyond the simple technical aspects of the various clients, and technologies supported for the sending and receiving of tweets, there are the mores and customs of what has already become an established community. O'Reilly and Milstein aren't just guiding the reader through a simple how to, they are giving an introduction to a massive community that can save the reader from making more than a few mistakes that could really make getting going with microblogging a rough start.
The second reason is that while basic twitter functionality is drop dead easy, some of the more powerful or useful features are not built into twitter itself. They are methods and tools that have come up from the user base itself. Some of them require a little thinking outside the box as it were and are not immediately obvious. Others do seem incredibly simple once they've been implemented but their simplicity belies their usefulness. The book gives solid information on third party clients and tools. Tips on use are backed up with statistics on existing use within twitter.
As this is The Twitter Book, I have been talking about Twitter quite a bit. I'm sure the name is going to help the book sell but much of the information is just as valuable in the context of microblogging in general as opposed to just Twitter. The only real exception may be the clients and tools mentioned previously. Some of them have been slow to support other platforms. I think this book is just as useful still, to anyone microblogging with another service such as idenit.ca. Identi.ca is built on the free and open Laconica software. I personally base all my microblogging from identi.ca and forward things over to twitter. I still interact on twitter because at this point is where the majority of the players are at. But the social guidelines and strategies laid out in The Twitter Book carry over directly to identi.ca.
I don't really have any issues with the book. The scope is purposefully narrow and within the defined limits the authors have covered everything very well. I'd have loved to see something on identi.ca or Laconica but that would have widened the scope quite a bit and I think we can all relate to hating scope creep in a project. SlideShare has a nice preview of the book. Of course this format is not suited to every purpose. Any in depth study of just what makes twitter so popular and the impact it is or is not having on society will need to take place in a manner more suited to such topics. This is simply a case of using the right tool for the job. But dismissing this format as useless would be a mistake it is uniquely appropriate to the job at hand. I think this book is a lot like a screw driver. When used in the manner intended, no tool is better at the job. The only way to break a screw driver is to use it in an unintended way. In that case it isn't the tool's fault. Looking for a meaty discourse on the pros and cons of twitter? Do not look here. But if getting the most out of the service is the goal this may just be the best tool available.
You can purchase The Twitter Book from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Why didn't they just send this review in a twitter, if it's so popular?
I thought this was going to be about the death of Twitter.
:)
I'm soooo disappointed!
Is it really necessary to write a 200+ page book on how to write 140-character "microblog" posts?
I have a bad feeling about this...
Following Iranian elections on Twitter was amazing, but from what I can see 99% of Twitter traffic boils down to "I had a bagel for lunch" and "I'm going poo-poo and Twittering it on my iPhone."
I still think Twitter is grossly overrated and expect that it has already peaked big time.
Three Squirrels
I feel the need for this book about as much as a book on using toilet paper, which oddly enough, has something in common with Twitter. They're both used to collect shit. That's about it.
"Tweet" what you're thinking about. Reply to other people's tweets. Follow interesting people. Don't be a douche.
(Wait, scratch that. Obviously "don't be a douche" has no place in social networks.)
The funniest (or perhaps most depressing) part of Twitter is the apparent rise of Twitter-based protocols. It's funny, because various applications have started to train humans to write things that are transparent in other protocols. Just look at these hash tags, or whatever they're called, the @ symbol, and the control text used for the 200,000 different "apps" controlled by Twitter. Between that and the horrible contortions people subject their messages to in order to fit in 140 characters, Twitter can look like a Wireshark session. And it's all manually written by humans. Ah, progress.
At first, I thought it was a waste of time and was kind of waiting for it to disappear. It was only after I attended many networking events that I realized how ingenious the idea really is.
Think about it: Everybody asks each other how they're doing. It's even customary business etiquette; even if the two parties could care less how they're doing, they ask each other anyway to relieve tension and make small talk. Sometimes, it remains just that, but there are other, much rarer, times where someone's day actually is quite interesting.
Maybe that person had some life-changing experience that could change one's life upon hearing about it. Maybe they learned of critical news that could change one's life for the better. If one never asks, one will never know. Hence the premise of Twitter.
For most people, Twitter is pretty useless; George Carlin put it best, "People are fucking boring." However, it's those other people that make it the amazing and highly informative service that it is. I've found out about exclusive parties, specials and news that can only be found through the agility and brevity offered by Twitter.
So if you don't see the value in it, make a couple of friends and try to find it. At worst, I can see it being bought out by a bigger Internet presence, like Google.
Anyone who is familiar with bitter cynical social commentator Charlie Brooker might of already seen this:
http://twitter.com/charltonbrooker/status/1603115783
"HarperCollins just asked to use one of my msgs in a book called 'Twitter Wit'. They can use this one for free: "HarperCollins R cunts LOL"."
... when it was called finger.
Blogs were better when they were called 'homepages'
Now get off my lawn.
Posting to undo moderation...sorry. Slipped. I wanted to mod you funny not overrated...
"I've just been Diagnosed with Hepatitis C (AIDS,Clamydia, etc)"
"I just found out I'm pregnant"
"My (insert favorite relative) just died"
"My birthday is tomorrow"
"I just got in a car accident"
"I'm choking (seizing, having a heart attack/stroke, killing myself) send help"
"Has anyone seen my purse (keys/dog/kid/spouse etc)"
Those are all some pretty significant frickin things to find out about, and lemme tell ya, I guarantee someone has found out they need to be STD tested via a tweet, or found out they need to have a paternity test done, etc via tweet
Not that those things are "good" or "moral" or "intelligent", but take any random sampling of 20 people you find on the street and find more than 30% of those people that ARE good or moral or intelligent......your average Joe is an unconcerned, uncompassionate, stupid douche bag.....thus is life
"This is the value of a summer spent and a winter earned"
FTFY.
No existe.
Following Iranian elections on Twitter was amazing, but from what I can see 99% of Twitter traffic boils down to "I had a bagel for lunch" and "I'm going poo-poo and Twittering it on my iPhone."
Thats not true at all. I follow a lot of people on twitter and though there are frequent poo messages, people actually eat a lot of different things for lunch. Bagels aren't nearly as common as you think.