A Twitter Primer

Twitter is a micro-blogging service that you can use for free. You can visit Twitter.com to sign up and get your own account, it only takes a few minutes. Once you have an account you can use the search tool available on the Twitter main page to find people with interests similar to yours. When you find someone that you are interested in you can "follow" them so you can see the updates they post. You can get these updates many ways. You can use the Twitter web page that is created just for you (after you have an account that is), you can get an application for your computer or your mobile phone or you can have the messages sent to your phone as an SMS message. There are so many options that you are bound to find something that works for your situation. You can read more about what Twitter is by reading the About page at Twitter.com. 

Using the Club Twitter Account

There are several ways that you can send updates to the club Twitter account. Before you can use any of the methods listed below, you must contact Mark Kirkoff to get the credentials for the account. 

Mobile Phone with Data Plan

If you have a data plan on your phone you can probably get an application for your phone for using Twitter. Finding the application on your phone may just be a matter of looking in an applications folder (as with a BlackBerry) or installing it from iTunes (as with an iPhone). Once you have the application on your phone you can use the username and password provided by Mark to send updates to this website. 

Mobile Phone with SMS (text) Plan

Only one phone number can be associated with any single Twitter account. If you are the person chosen to use this account, you will be contacted and given specific directions on how the service works with your phone. When it is set-up, all you will have to do is send a text message to a single entry in your contacts list that you will create for the Twitter account. 

Anyone else that must use SMS texting to send messages to the club Twitter account will be given an email address that you can send your text to. You may not realize it but you can send a plain text message to any email address. You will just create a special entry in your contacts on your phone and fill in only the email address to make this work. This special email address cannot be listed here as control must be exercised regarding who knows this secret address so that not just anyone can send email to it. The messages appear on the front page of this website after all. 

What Now?

Contact Mark. Mark will put you in touch with someone that can help you set this up if you need assistance. If you do not need any assistance with setting up Twitter he will provide you with the details you need to get started. 

If you're not going to be updating the club account why not think about getting a Twitter account of your own so you can get the updates as they happen? This way you won't have to wait until you can check the club website or Facebook page to find out how the trails are.