How Twitter won me over
When I first heard about Twitter, I wondered why anyone would want to know what I was doing in 140 characters or less. People posting comments about their breakfast choices or what they're watching on TV? Who cares about that? My first impression was that it was nothing more than a fad waiting to die a quick death.
When I delved into the world of Twittering, though, I discovered that some of my favorite newspapers were using it to great effect. I was receiving "Tweets" throughout the day from these publications - headlines of top stories, updates of breaking news and more. It's fast, informative and useful.
My Twitter app has quickly become my favorite tool on my iPhone. I use it to collect and browse headlines from newspapers around the globe. It's a great way to get quick updates on breaking news and topics.
I've also noticed that Twitter has revived the art of headline writing. In a print newspaper, you have to fit a headline in a confined space. If you're writing a 48-point headline over four columns, your headline has to be accurate, concise and eye-catching. In the online world, those restrictions don't exist; on a newspaper's Web site, you can use as many words as you'd like to write a headline. As a result, headline writing is becoming a dying art.
With Twitter, though, the catchy headline is making a return. With the 140-character limit, the headline once again has to be appealing and concise. A well-crafted Twitter headline can really pull in readers and direct them to the Web site, and I've seen some great ones.
Are you worried that you haven't been able to jump aboard the Twitter bandwagon? Rest easy. At this spring's WoodWing Publishing Conference in Greece, we set up our Enterprise solution as an event publishing system and
demonstrated the seamless integration with Twitter.. We put on a real-time demonstration of how easily this works, as headlines and comments from Enterprise were broadcast out to Twitter.
Those attending the conference joined in the buzz with follow-up comments and observations. People who weren't able to attend were monitoring the Twitter channel and participating in the buzz, as well.
Check out Twitter. You'll see that it can be a killer application that will help drive traffic to your Web site.




