The front page has, as you can see, a rotating list of example "tweets." Let's sign in.
As you can see, this page does have a lot of options on it. I have not yet entered a tweet (as of when this screenshot was taken, anyway), but let's consider some of the other options. Direct messages allow one to send a "private" tweet to another address; retweets help you by propagating links and other comments. Let's add a friend, so I have something to re-tweet.
I reached this screen by clicking on "following." Now, let's add, for instance, Roger Ebert's Twitter.
Of course I don't have Roger Ebert on my mailing list. However, it's possible to have Twitter search for contacts you already have, for you to look for suggested additional contacts, or to give you a form to invite someone - for instance, your students - to sign up for Twitter. But we'll skip past that for now, and use...
... the "find account" tool. Since we know Roger Ebert, we simply put in his name. You could look for other groups, such as "the University of Houston," "Barack Obama," "the Trilateral Commission," or whatever you might like.
As you can see we have several options here. You may have to look for the "real" version in some cases with independent sources; I know Roger Ebert's website and this is his Twitter page linked from that same website, which gives me great confidence that "ebertchicago," as opposed to the other ones, are in fact him. (As you can see from the last entry, it's possible to have simple mistakes; in a nation of three hundred million people, and a world of six billion and counting, some names will simply occur more than once.)
There are three buttons next to his twitter account information on this page. The first button will add him to your list of people whom you follow, which is straightforward and what we are setting out to do. The second lets you alter what lists you have in which he appears, which can be useful if you have a great many lists and want to adjust in which one he is kept - or remove him from some but not others.
The third contains four options; the first allows you to "mention" him in a tweet without needing to type in his name (which is not so urgent for "ebertchicago" but can matter for longer, more arcane Twitter names), follow him (a repeat), block his account or report him as a spammer.
The interface works another way as well. Say I click through to Mr. Ebert's Twitter.
As you can see he has a variety of things set up, which you can use as well. For instance, he has a variety of lists - one's lists can also be displayed to the public - and most importantly for our purposes, a big button that says Follow. Let us add ourselves to the storied ranks of his followers.
Now we're following him! Hurray! (You may notice that he has set a custom background image for his Twitter page; you can do that as well, but we shall leave that aside for the moment.)
Now we go back to our homepage, and we find that there is a great deal of Roger Ebert. This is because Roger Ebert is our only Twitter account being followed, and we are thus seeing everything he has said (down to a certain point, anyway). As you can see his Tweets have a variety of natures, and you also see an assortment of shortened links.
There is also a pop-up from Twitter, explaining that one of the tweets in Mr. Ebert's twitter feed is a re-tweet, and giving the gist of what a re-tweet is. Twitter in general has had a great deal of these "user friendly" features self integrated; I recommend you set a few hours aside to explore the tool and add people to your list. If you're concerned about presenting a professional image, make a small "personal" twitter and then go and create a proper one as Professor Soandso later.
Now then, retweeting. As you see when we mouse over this tweet we see an option to reply or to retweet. When clicked you gain the option to confirm your desire to retweet; click yes, then go to your own twitter page - like so, at http://twitter.com/tompile -
And there it is. It tells you who you retweeted from, informs you helpfully of various other facts (such as that this is your page, which can be a concern...) and other matters. For instance, 22 others have re-tweeted this, and I have not yet uploaded an image.
Tweeting oneself is quite easy - indeed self explanatory; type in the letters and hit "tweet." Let's try sending a message to Roger Ebert himself --
one can click "Reply" on any tweet someone has said in order to have their "twitter handle" pop up as we see here, which can be important for people with complex or easilly mispelled handles. Then type in your message, using the remaining characters...
As you can see, Twitter helpfully gives you a character count, allowing you to moderate your words and engage in judicious Tweeting. And when you're done, just hit "Tweet" - and you've sent a message to the world! Mr. Ebert can find this, if he cares to, by pressing the "@ebertchicago" option. Here's the equivalent for this account.
Not much going on. But this account is mere hours old, so it's not too surprising. Feel free to add it and communicate with me, if you care to!
And as a reward for bearing with me through all that - here's the picture Mr. Ebert linked to in that re-tweet:
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