I got my first actual PC in 1992 during my studies at Bradford University – as I recall, I spent my entire student loan on it. After using green screen VT100 terminals during my first year there, and part way through my second, upgrading to a colour Windows PC was a real step up in my technological abilities – although I didn’t have Internet, just Bulletin Boards and a 2600 baud modem that t took all day to download just a few hundred kilobytes over my dial-up, pay-per-minute phone-line narrow-band connection. Everything was still pretty much text-based – the WWW had yet to take hold.

In the computer centre at  University, I had access to Unix workstations that allowed me to telnet into text-based MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons) around the world. They were part of the first generation of multi-player internet based gaming that, in the 20 years since, has evolved beyond anything we imagined then – World of Warcraft was a long way from technologically possible back then, and 32 people all playing at once was considered a lot.

The came the rise of the web – another technological advance, that’s increasingly quickly become an integral part of life for myself and many millions (even billions) of users around the world. Ever faster computers and better internet connection speeds followed – exponentially larger than back in 92.

Inside computers, processing power becomes ever greater and ever smaller – The number of transistors that can fit on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every 2 years, according to  Moore’s Law, and has done since the 1960s, with the trend continuing today.

PCs in the home were almost unheard of in the early 90s, most of my friends have owned one less than 10 years – yet now, the majority of homes have computers and Internet access. In 2009, 18.3 million households – 70% of the British population – have Internet access (National Statistics Online). 90% of them have broadband access. A few years ago, it was rare to see a web address on an ad – now it seems stranger when there isn’t one there.

Why am I telling you all of this? Because things change with technology, really quickly and often in unexpected ways…

From my first encounter with Macs in the 90s, as a PC man through, I knew I hated them and their ‘overly smug owners’, and that continued for a couple of decades. Once the exclusive weapon of design houses and musicians, Apple have transformed a. their fortunes and b. the world around us. I have a couple of friends who can be described as Mac Fanbois (apparently this is the de rigeur spelling!), eschewing PCs as the evil spawn of Gates, a man guided by evil – as it turns out, Mr Gates is actually one heck of a Philanthropist, giving away 58% of the money his software has gifted him with to help others in less fortunate circumstances. As it also turns out, PCs are not evil either, so that’s 2 things that probably come as a relief to many of you.

As a die hard PC-to-the-core guy, never would I have seen a day when not one, not two, but three Apple devices are within reach (2 iPhones as of today, and one iPad I’ll talk about at great length given the chance!). I would have probably bet an awful lot of money on the fact that I would never own an Apple product, and if you had taken that bet… well, I wouldn’t have been able to afford to pay you the Gazillion pounds I would have bet… but I would have made that bet 100% confident I wouldn’t lose, at that time.

They invented iMac – ooo a coloured computer that’s all inside the monitor box… ummm yukk. “How are you meant to upgrade that with the latest graphics or sound card? What, you can’t?!? Well my PC…”, you know the story, if you’re a PC Guy you’ve probably told it to many a Mac user, and if you’re a Mac Man you’ve probably heard it as a rebuttal of your claims of technological superiority! I’ve stopped having the argument since they started building Macs using PC architectures (Take that, Mac boys!!!! Darn it’s hard to get out of the habit…), and Windows PC owners started running OS X in a desktop window, as their Mac counterparts did with Windows for many years as an indication of perceived superiority!

Then they invented the iPod – I never bought one, I’ve had a few different mp3 players (including a really cool waterproof one for swimming), but never gone so far as to ‘believe the hype’, as I said at the time, and buy an iPod.

Then they invented iPhone, and I bought a Blackberry Curve 2 months before they released it… so didn’t own one – for another 16 months, when I lost my bet, and bought my first Apple product – the 8GB iPhone 3G…

Why the change of heart? Apple created something that changed the game completely, and the Nokia-dominated UK mobile phone market soon evolved, with Apple stealing an ever-greater share of the market – and dominating the conversations about the smartphone market – which the iPhone evolved in such a way that the Nokias, Samsungs and Sonys aren’t yet caught up in tech terms. Another young pretender, Google, with its’ Android OS, has risen from nowhere to become the second most dominant. Analysts are divided over who will rule the smartphone market in a few years time, things have changed so much, so quickly. Most agree that Apple’s iOS, and Google’s Android, look like becoming the main 2 mobile phone operating systems.

Anyway, I digress… back to my change of heart! The iPhone offered one thing that for me has changed how we think of our mobile phones – the App Store. Now, what used to be a simple device for making calls has evolved to become an ever more flexible, multi-purpose electronic device that also makes phone calls. The Star Trek tricorder from our childhood has become reality! What fan of technology could resist this quantum leap in hand-held capability? Not this one, that’s for sure. Since the first day I got that iPhone, I knew that I had found one of the missing components in my technological journey through life. Since that day, I have integrated it completely into my work and personal life to the great benefit of both – I even set up a company to help other businesses benefit from this marvelous device

Such is my love of the iPhone that, after resisting the urge to queue ‘with all the nutters‘ yesterday on Launch Day, I found myself unable to sleep – and by 8am this morning had looked up all the remaining stock in the North of England and decided that I was going to drive to the only place in the North East of England that had any left, and see if I could get myself a nice new 16GB iPhone4. I gathered with other people as crazed as myself, and stood in queue for 3 hours outside the O2 store in the White Rose Shopping Centre in Leeds to get one of the last batch of iPhone4s available. Given my physical problems, it turned out to be a rather painful experience tempered by the knowledge a lovely new iPhone waited at the end. Now, I sit here with said device resplendent on the desk in front of me, immensely comforted in some strange way that I have one – now!

What’s worse is that, on the 12th May, I pre-ordered an iPad before the UK release – yes I did! It arrived on the 8th June (some weeks after they came out in the shops, which is one reason I queued today!), and for 18 days I have been acclimatising to yet another quantum leap in the way technology influences my life. The iPad has freed me from my desk in so many additional ways to the freedom the iPhone gave me – it’s way easier to work on than the iPhone because of the larger screen, and its’ portability has already allowed me to work in my dream office every day this week, achieving as much as if I’d been sat behind my desk. I’ve seen all the naysayers dissing the iPad, and I disagree with all of you – I completely get the point of the iPad, it fits into my existing Tech infrastructure perfectly, and it has evolved the way I work as much, if not more than, it’s smaller cousin, the iPhone.

My dream office, by the way, is a hammock. This is said hammock, in my dream office out in my garden (pre-lawn grown days, just after I moved in) – pic taken on old iPhone using Hipstamatic – awesome camera  app The relaxed-looking wild-eyed dude laying in it is my brother!

When I was slaving away in offices throughout the 90s and early noughties, I used to dream of the day when I was able to escape from behind the desk, to get away from the unpleasantness of office politics and minimal intellectual stimulation – and to do something I loved, that gave me a sense of purpose. And what’s more I wanted to do it on my own terms, in a hammock if I so choose! Although I had an inkling I had a purpose for my life, even as a child – I didn’t know what that purpose was… I just knew it wasn’t yet possible at the time, and I’ve had to wait many years for it to become technologically possible, feasible, and affordable.

I always wanted to help people make their lives easier using technology, the way I’ve used it as an extension of myself throughout the years. I know so many people who would benefit in so many ways from embracing computers and technology, but they fear it – believing it to be far too complex for them. I have a good friend who is 71 and thought that he’d never understand computers – he has now written and published his own website for over 10 years (with some minor help here and there from yours truly), and still thinks he doesn’t understand them. He would be the first to say “If I can do it wi’ my bad eyes, any ald sod can” (he has a fine, broad, Yorkshire accent as you can see in the video!).

I don’t know any business that wouldn’t greatly benefit from better use of the Internet  and mobile devices, and I’ll happily prove it to anyone who cares to take me up on the challenge, as I have for many years already.

I hated Apple, as was traditional and almost compulsory in PC circles, until they changed the world around me – the world of Technology, not the World itself(!). When they gave power to developers to let their imagination run riot (within provided Apple boundaries!) and build applications for their device, they created more than a new type of phone – they created a device that’s shifted the way we think of, and use, our handheld devices. That, coupled with the ever improving hardware and software inside, is what made me stop hating Apple. I’m still no fanboi – I have no illusions that they do some things badly, but they do some things really well – and by taking advantage of those things, I have improved the way I interact with the World (the actual World this time).

That is why I will now admit to quite liking Apple – I love my iPhone and iPad – but to feel the same about the whole company will take time, especially given their propensity for massive hype – by the way, it’s not ‘magical’ – it doesn’t cut assistants into 3 or produce doves from its’ interface!Paul Daniels and David Blaine are magical, the iPad is ‘just’ plain awesome! Still, the hype is effective – despite myself, I found myself queuing to make sure I got one of the first iPhone4s, and I pre-ordered the Pad which is even more pre-meditated!

Keep impressing me with your evolving product line, Mr Jobs, and you could make a fanboi out of me yet – but I won’t go easily… I still bleed PC, and am not ready to embrace desktop Mac by a long way – but the way your wonderful gizmos work with my PCs, and in my environment, is perfectly fine for now – thank you. Your mobile devices have enabled ever-evolving enhancements to my work and personal life, and I am grateful for that.

Please don’t release anything else new this year though… I can’t afford it – time- or money- wise!

Rob Bell

What is Cloud Computing?

The Growth of Cloud Computing

What is Cloud Computing? It is a revolution that will change your business for the better, letting you work faster, cheaper and better…. and from anywhere, just about.

Cloud Computing is one term for Internet-based software and hardware platforms – basically, instead of installing programs on your own computer, you access them over the Internet – Gmail is cloud computing, in fact most of what Google offers is cloud computing – you access it via a web interface. Are you familiar with Hootsuite, the social networking client? That’s Cloud Computing – also known as a Web Application (Web App). Many of you probably already use Freshbooks (get it free from this link) – one of my favourite apps, that lets you track time and estimate & invoice easily.

It’s cool because it allows for a number of wonderful things – you can access your business information and applications from any internet connected device, so you’re no longer tied to one computer at your desk – PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad etc… You’ve got real-time business information always at your fingertips – which allows you to make decisions based on up-to-date, accurate company data.

Because it’s not tied to one computer, you’re in no danger of losing everything if that computer breaks – your data is stored securely in data centres with backup systems. Plus, you’ve always got your documents to hand, as long as there’s a device with an internet connection nearby.

Because you’re accessing the app over the web, the company that writes the app can quickly correct bugs and introduce new features – so you never have to buy new versions like you do with traditional software. New features to let you do things faster and better are added all the time. Web Apps companies are also very good at supporting their users, in my experience.

Web apps companies also tend to be much friendlier to each other than traditional software companies, even building their systems so your applications can talk to each other, your contact lists are linked to your customer management system, which links to your project system, which also links to your invoicing system which is linked to your accounting system – so you can automate many of your time-consuming tasks, and get a lot more done.

If you have a company, perhaps staff are located in several different locations. Web Apps are great for teams like this, because they easily allow you to collaborate with team members and share documents – you can even work on them in real-time together, despite being miles apart. You can set up and work on projects together, see what’s in the sales funnel, track customer interactions, arrange conferences, training, customer presentations, seminars… in fact any sort of meeting, online. Cloud computing is letting people work together better, faster, cheaper and more profitably.

My company, Ex Ignibus, specialises in web apps (cloud computing) for small businesses – we install Google Apps Premier Edition (GAPE) as the interface, linked with applications for accounting, invoicing, email marketing, customer relationship management, project management, word processing, spreadsheets – and lots more – for single person businesses up to large, geographically-separate, teams. Web Apps are inexpensive, and can be afforded by any business – it currently costs around $50 per user per year to buy GAPE, and many of the additional Web Apps offered are free as long as they’re integrated with the GAPE solution. Others cost between $10-$25 per month, usually increasing as your requirements increase – so you, as a small business owner, can get a pretty awesome business system for less than $50 per user per month – in comparison to regularly spending hundreds of pounds or dollars buying new software licenses for installable computer-based software. Many Web Apps are also free for micro-businesses (single employee or small team).

So, as you can see, cloud computing offers a new way of working which breaks free of traditional single-computer information and restrictive private networks, offering a secure, simple way for small businesses and teams to enjoy the kind of software that only large corporations could afford previously. The only software tied to my computer these days is Expression Web, Visual Basic and Photoshop – development tools I build sites with that demand higher processing power than most business apps and usually involve large filesizes. To try Web Apps out requires little or no investment, and could have massive positive effects on your business, so why don’t you give ‘em  a try? If you need a bit of help, drop me a line via the contact form at Ex Ignibus.

Take care and have fun out there,

Rob Bell

I pride myself on my knowledge of computers and the Internet – I’m the ‘go-to guy’ for my friends when it comes to PCs and technology in general. That is why I feel so sheepish while writing this. I overreached my technological abilities over the weekend, and my wallet has suffered as a result! I’ll tell you the whole story…..

Last week, I dropped my iPhone, face down, flat onto the hard, cold bathroom floor just as I was making my way sleepily to my bed, via toothbrush and toilet… Needless to say, the iPhone screen smashed – see exhibit one! I am somewhat disappointed, having previously thought it to be quite sturdy – but never having actually tested its’ strength!

Next day I was looking to see how much it would cost for the repair – finding out it’s £139.99 at the Apple Store via my local O2 shop. “£140 be damned” the tight Yorkshireman within me thought, “I bet I can fix it cheaper myself”. Some more research provided me with the information I needed – I could get a new ‘digitiser’ – which is what the iPhone glass screen is called – for £22 inc p&p from Amazon, with instructions. So I ordered it and patiently waited for the screen to arrive. When it did, I watched the instruction video a number of times to familiarise myself with the process before opening the case and getting stuck in to the process.

As it happens, at one point in the video it refers to a white clip with a black connector that has to be clicked up to release connector no 3 – however, since the video was made Apple have swapped the colours and the catch is black with a white connector. I tried to flick up the white connector which turned out to be a very delicate connector that I’d inadvertently destroyed in one foul flick! This made it really difficult to reinsert the lead into connector 3… and after considerable difficulty, when I put the phone together again and switched it on, something didn’t look right…. see exhibit two! And on top of that, the earpiece was no longer working – I could make calls but only hear them if I turned the speaker on or wore headphones…

What I hadn’t considered was that the LCD underneath was also damaged and needed replacing – plus my savaging of connector 3 meant the lead was no longer able to connect properly – so the earpiece no longer worked.

Defeated by my apparent clumsiness and ignorance, I resigned myself to finding a local iPhone  repair outlet, and took the iPhone there earlier today, where the LCD was replaced and the screen returned to normal. Unfortunately, my destruction of the connector meant that Andy (the skilled repairer who did an amazing job of fixing it while I waited) was unable to get the earpiece working as I need to get the connector replaced on the PCB (Circuit Board).

However, the phone is now in working condition once again, and looks as good as it did before I dropped it (except for a small crack in the new screen I made trying to pry it out before discovering the real purpose of suction cups!

Having paid for the repair, I’ve almost spent as much as taking it to the Apple Store would have cost. If I’d taken it straight to Andy, it would have been fixed at a lot less than the Apple store – and I wouldn’t have broken the earpiece connector!

So the moral of this tale is that you shouldn’t try to be an expert in everything (the old phrase being “Jack of All Trades, Master of None”) – my clumsiness and not-so-delicate fingers are not factors that make me an awesome technician, but quite the opposite.

My skills lay elsewhere, and it took a hit to my wallet to remind me of this. In future, I shall focus on things I am good at and rely on the expertise of others in areas where I have less ability. Learn from my mistake and you too can reduce the chance of disaster, in whatever you do. Thus endeth the iPhone-delivered lesson!

Rob Bell

p.s. The first thing I did when I got the repaired phone was to go to a phone shop and get a hard case with a front cover! Only a fool doesn’t learn from his mistakes…

Sorry for getting you all excited about my return to writing today (I’m being sarcastic, not conceited!) – my regular readers know of my ongoing health problems, but for those of you who don’t – I broke my back twice falling out of the sky awkwardly in a couple of extreme sports accidents. I’ve damaged vertebrae, discs, nerves, my hip, sacroiliac joint and various other bodyparts, resulting in my walking with a stick these days…

Anyway today is what I have come to call a ‘Pain Day’ – when my back is incredibly painful leaving me almost incapable of achieving much that particular day, and confined to my bed, blitzed my an enormous array of pain killers. I’ve managed to get onto the computer for a little while as pain killers have temporarily improved the situation, but this will have to be a pretty brief post today.

Have you come across a site called Picnik yet? It’s a very useful image editing web application – it’s easy to upload your photos, edit them and add effects then share them among your friends and social networks. It costs nothing to use – although there is a pro option if you want extra filters and the ability to upload infinite pictures. If you don’t have Photoshop, or Gimp, you’ll find this a very useful site when you have photos you want to edit eg to get rid of red-eye, or you just want to make an existing photo more fun with special effects -

Check out vampire Rob…

So get yourselves over to Picnik – you don’t need to have a Photoshop-sized budget to do great work on your photos!

Hopefully, tomorrow will be a far less pain day – I have a meal out in the evening so it better be!

Rob Bell

What do you know about Net Neutrality?

Chances are, you haven’t heard of it,or you’ve heard it but don’t really know what it is – and you know what the scary thing is? If Net Neutrality is ended, the Internet as you know it is gone forever, split into a fast lane for companies with money and a slow lane for small businesses, individuals, clubs and societies – in fact, anyone who can’t afford to pay ISPs to have their site in the fast lane. ISPs may even completely block access to sites who aren’t able to pay them.

e.g with net neutrality, Small Biz A and Large Corp B can be accessed by anyone using ISP C, at the same speed as each other.

If there were no net neutrality, Large Corp B would be able to afford to pay ISP C – so that ISP C’s customers could access Corp B’s website at the highest possible speed.

Because Small Biz A cannot afford to pay ISP C, users are not given the same high speed access to the website of Biz A, so it takes longer for users to load the page and access Small Biz A’s site – giving Large Corp B a massive advantage. Maybe Small Biz A’s website couldn’t even be accessed by users of certain ISPs.

This reduces the ability of Small to Medium Size Enterprises to compete online with larger businesses, turning the Internet into a fast lane for those sites who can afford to pay, and a slow lane for those who can’t.

Barack Obama Recognises the Importance of Net Neutrality

In November 2007, before he became President, Barack Obama gave an important speech to Google about Net Neutrality – it’s 51 seconds, so have a quick watch before you read on -

Barack Obama also spoke of his support for Net Neutrality when he appeared on MTV:

Small Businesses won’t be able to compete online anymore, Clubs and Individuals will lose traffic, members and new visitors, and You and I will have to surf an Internet dominated exclusively by massive international brands. You won’t see Blogs that are self-hosted, no uploading your pics to a site that’s currently free. It will be a bleak and frankly rubbish place to be.

It will add an additional cost to businesses, which they’ll no doubt pass on to you, so you will end up paying more to stop small businesses, not-for-profits and individuals from having an effective presence online.

It will ruin online innovation – startups often bootstrap initially, flying by the seat of their financial pants until they achieve profitability. The additional costs to be given access by ISPs and get on the fast lane would often be prohibitive – if we didn’t have Net Neutrality, today’s online success stories might never have happened. The likes of Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, Google and many many more might never have existed if they’d had to pay out massive amounts of money, just so users could access their sites. Imagine if you’d never been able to access Facebook, Yahoo mail or Gmail or been able to buy books. Imagine if you’d never had access to Google, or Yahoo…

Virgin Media in UK are Against Net Neutrality

Over here in the UK in April 2008, the CEO of Virgin media stated that he is against neutrality as it’s ‘a load of bollocks’, and wants to charge people for enhanced speed access to Virgin’s internet customers – in fact they are ALREADY doing deals with media companies. If Virgin are your ISP they could already be limiting your access or speeding it up to certain companies – does that concern you? I think it should.

In my opinion he has undone years of Virgin’s branding work, where they aim to be perceived as slightly rebellious and maverick, but always on the side of the customer. By coming out against net neutrality, he has shown his company to be anti-user as far as I’m concerned.They also seem to be at odds with the overall feling towards Net Neutrality – and in that way, are acting against the interests of their customers by applying speed variations – if indeed they are, as chatter on forums would suggest – do a search on ‘virgin media limiting speed’ for yourself!

It’s the one thing that’s put me right off Virgin, and I find myself surprised that any company Richard Branson’s involved with would act with such anti-progress ridiculousness!

Virgin Media’s position on Net Neutrality -

I have boycotted Virgin products since last year as a result and will continue to do so until they publically agree that Net Neutrality is the right way forward for the whole world.

I get my Broadband from BT – who say, according to the Stop Virgin website:

“… Unlike Virgin, we think the bandwidth we provide our users should be equal for all services and if services like the BBC iPlayer put too much strain on the bandwidth, both ISP’s and content providers should educate the users on that issue so that users know when and why they may have to upgrade their account for more bandwidth if it exceeds ‘fair use’ terms. We always bear the consumer in mind first and have no plans to prioritize traffic from third party companies. We welcome all the Virgin customers who left because of the net neutrality issue and offer ‘neutral’ bandwidth.”

It’s not too often I say it, but ‘good on ya, BT!’

There are lots of resources you can see via SaveTheInternet.com , YouTube and via the search engines. This 3 minute video explains Net Neutrality in some detail:

Even Ninjas recognise the importance of Net Neutrality!

That’s why it’s so important you support Net Neutrality – Net Neutrality is what makes the Internet the massively useful global phenomenon it is today. Without Net Neutrality, the Internet would suck!

On September 21st, the FCC (Federal Communications Commission in the US) Chief ‘Boldly’ Committed to Net Neutrality. In a speech at the Brookings Institution, Genachowski said the FCC must be a “smart cop on the beat preserving Net Neutrality against increased efforts by providers to block services and applications over both wired and wireless connections.

Visit Savetheinternet.com to find out more, and see how you can help make sure the Internet of tomorrow still gives you the freedom to choose what you access.

Rob Bell

New February 28th – You can now download my Ultimate Guide to Twitter as an Ebook

1.0 February 2009

Please don’t be confused – this is definitely not a guide to making bird noises, in fact it’s not anything bird-related at all.

Twitter is the web’s fastest growing, hottest social media property right now, and you need to know about it because it has the potential to be as big as/bigger than Facebook and MySpace and even takes on Yahoo and Google for news.

You probably have friends who are tweeting right now, in the comfort of their homes or out and about in the big wide world, and you don’t even know it.

Chances are, you’ve already heard of Twitter but you may not be completely sure about what it is… Twitter seems to be everywhere at the moment – most of the Internet Marketers suggest you use it, Barack Obama famously used it to great effect, and luminaries and celebrities like Stephen Fry, Bill Gates, Shaquille O’Neal, Britney Spears, Chris Moyles and many more can be found ‘tweeting’ away to their enormous bands of followers. News stories often break, and unfold, via Tweets, and Twitter is even considered to be faster than Yahoo or Google for breaking news, as it can come from journalists and independent Twitterers at the scene.

Are you using it yet?

You can Join Twitter and follow me at http://www.Twitter.com/robbell

What is Twitter?

In layman’s terms, Twitter can be thought of as being very much like text messaging, but over the Internet – you compose messages of 140 characters or less as updates. The biggest difference is that Twitter lets you text everyone on Twitter, all at once, rather than texting to an individual!

The official description of Twitter is as follows:

Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent messages.  People write short updates, often called “tweets”  of 140 characters or fewer.  These messages are posted to your profile or your blog, sent to your followers, and are searchable on Twitter search.

Although you can only post text on Twitter, services are available to let you tweet links to other content – photos, music, video etc…

Twitter and sites like it are known as ‘micro-blogs’ – similar to blogs, except your character limit is rather limited, hence the micro- prefix. Micro-blogs tend to have character limits of around 140, although this differs between different services. This article provides a little help to maximise your use of the 140 characters.

By default, Twitter shows you the updates for your friends only, but you can view all tweets via the public timeline. Twitter is not the place to be sharing secrets, as everyone can see everything you tweet, unless you send a direct message. Everyone can see your @replies – don’t make the mistake of thinking these are private too!

Twitter does not cost any money to use.

Some analysts find Twitter’s apparent lack of a revenue-model difficult to understand, but others do not see this as a problem. Last Friday, Feb 13th, investors showed Twitter some early Valentine’s Day Love by investing a further $35m of venture capital (plus another undisclosed sum from existing investors) in the service. Lots of people have ideas how Twitter can start to make money, but I doubt anyone can tell you for sure how they are going to when they do.

How can I access Twitter?

1. Over the Internet at http://www.Twitter.com
2. Via your mobile phone – you can text in updates, or access the mobile website at m.twitter.com
3. Via a Third-Party Client – Many applications have been developed that integrate with Twitter – I use Twhirl to access Twitter, but I’ll talk more about clients and applications later in this guide.

How Do I Get Started on Twitter?

1. Create an Account
2. Go to the Settings, write a short bio, and upload a picture – people don’t like to follow people who don’t have one
3. Go to ‘Find People’ and find friends who are already on Twitter via one of the provided tools:
   Invite friends who aren’t already on – automatically using the email tool if you have Yahoo, GMail, Hotmail, AOL or MSN
4. Follow the users you’re interested in on the ‘Suggested Users’ tab
5. Write and post your first Tweet

That’s it – you’re now a Twitterer, welcome to the Twitterverse! It’s sometimes peculiar, oft more exciting than you’d expect, and always interesting – you’ll like it here!

How Do I Get Followers on Twitter?

There are schools of thought that say the more followers you have, the more popular that makes you and the greater coverage you have – so get as many as you can as quick as you can. I’m not going to cover that strategy in any details, because I don’t believe that to be the best long-term approach to life in the Twitterverse. You could use the recently controversial Twittergetter from Gary McCaffrey or Tim Linden’s Twitter Me Fun (excellent targeted source of Traffic Exchange users on Twitter) to get your Follower list started.

My belief is that people will follow you on Twitter if you are interesting and offer worthwhile tweets.Many people will follow you back when you follow them (especially if they use an auto-follower!) If you contribute to the community rather than taking from it, you’ll build followers who like and trust your posts, and see you as a great source of information.

Be creative, be unique, be an expert on your chosen topic, just don’t be a spammer – nobody likes a spammer.

Mr Tweet may help you find relevant users and followers

The Language of Twitter – Tweet me This!

Twitter has given rise to a number of terms previously unknown. You’ll come across these when you enter the Twitterverse! Here’s an explanation of a few of them you may need for the rest of this guide! It should be noted that Twitter users like to ‘twitterise’ real words to make them into ‘twitterisms’ e.g. twitterrific, tweekend, politweets (political tweets). This appears to be done, for the most part, by substituting ‘tw’ for the initial letters of the word…

This makes Twitter a little bit like Yorkshire people – we use t’ instead of ‘the’ e.g. t’weekend, t’internet t’weather etc… Twittering in Yorkshire could be confusing!

Frequently Used Twitterisms

The Twitterverse, or the Twitosphere - the community of Twitter users

Tweeter, or Twitterer - a Twitter user

Tweeple - Twitter Users

Tweet - a post on Twitter. Tweets - the updates you, and everyone else, post

Followers - people who have chosen to receive updates for a particular Twitterer

Twitterati - the members of the Twitter A-list that everyone wants to follow.

Twitterstream – the public, or friend, timeline – the posts on Twitter are chronologically listed

Mistweet - an accidentally posted tweet – may have errors or be incomplete  ie a mistake

Retweet - the action of reposting another user’s post, crediting them for it

Retweeter, or Retweetist - someone who retweets

Twisticuffs - the posts when 2 or more twitterers have a disagreement

Twetiquette ( or Twitetiquette) – the right way to behave on Twitter

You can find more comprehensive lists of definitions at Twictionary, Twittonary, and Twitter Fan Wiki

Twitter Shorthand

Because each post can only contain 140 characters, shorthand is used lots when tweeting:

RT = Retweet, followed by @ then the person you’re retweeting’s username e.g. RT@robbell  indicates you are retweeting one of my posts

OH – Overheard

DM – Direct Message

@ – Send/Reply to e.g. @robbell – sends a message to me on the public timeline

BTW – By The Way

JV – Joint Venture

IRL – In Real Life

LOL – Laugh out Loud, or Lots of Laughter depending on who you ask!

FTF – Face to Face

IMHO – In My Honest Opinion

b/c – because

abt – about

Find more Twitter shorthand (Tworthand?!?) here

TheNextWeb produce a tool, called Twitterkeys, that allows you to insert graphics like ♥ and ✈ into your tweets easily, so you can be a ★ and use them instead of words or phrases that use more characters.

ReTweeting

ReTweeting is the act of posting another person’s tweet, but still giving the original poster credit. This is popular because twitterers don’t all have the same followers so, by retweeting a post, your followers can see a tweet they otherwise might not have.

Retweets may include useful links, notable information, or things you think are funny e.g. pure_ROKER RT @guykawasaki: @robbell There’s only one problem. Rich Dad, Poor Dad is Robert Kiyosaki. I’m Guy Kawasaki. (LMAO) – I have a feeling it may be some days before I live that little error down – sometimes you just want a Retweet to lay down and die!

Read a Beginner’s Guide to Retweeting at Retweetist

The Top 10 Twitterers by Number of Followers

For the majority of people, 100 might be a lot of followers, but to others 100,000 is a milestone they’ve already long passed.

Top 10, according to stats at Twitterholic on Feb 16th 2009

1. Barack Obama – 278,444 followers
2. CNN Breaking News – 195, 320 followers
3. Stephen Fry – 193,117 followers
4. Twitter - 139,466 followers
5. Kevin Rose (founder of Digg)- 134,382 followers
6. Britney Spears – 118,368 followers
7. The New York Times – 113, 658 followers
8. Lance Armstrong – 105,274 followers
9. Evan Williams (founder of Twitter, invented ‘Blogger’)- 104,810 followers
10. Al Gore – 101,641 followers

See the rest of the top 1000 Twitter Users at Twitterholic

BEWARE – there are lots of fake profiles set up by people pretending to be a celebrity or person. I suppose the name for it is probably Twijacking! AFP famously announced the arrival of the Dalai Lama on Twitter, only to retract it later when the fake was exposed.

What is Twitter Used For?

There are a myriad of people using Twitter for any number of reasons. Here are just 25:

1. Sharing links to sites of interest to your followers
2. Fun – to stay in touch with friends and make new ones
3. Group communications – the public nature of updates means you can update whole groups with one message
   
4. Networking to get new contacts
5. Communicating with your network
6. Promoting your products/services/content
7. Crowdsourcing – getting answers to your questions, about anything
8. Influencing your network
9. Customer Service – communicating with customers and sending service updates e.g. we have x back in stock, your vehicle is ready for collection.
10. Sending updates from your websites/blogs/social networks
11. Newsgathering and reporting – the BBC came under criticism recently for using unverified Tweets as sources for reports during the Mumbai terrorist attacks in India. News often breaks on Twitter due to its’ real-time nature. Twitterers and Journalists on the scene often provide near real-time news.
12. Redistributing existing content
13. Project collaboration
14. Try out new ideas, and get near-instant feedback
15. Live updates from events and conferences
    
16. Seeking new staff – Businesses may tweet their latest vacancies
17. Looking for a job – jobs are often advertised by companies and recruiters
18. Political Dissent – the US Army recently identified Twitter as a potential terrorist tool
19. Replacement for Facebook status updates
20. Flight information and updates e.g. for delays
21. Complaining – people like to complain, and Twitter gives them a platform for this (aka Twhiners!)
22. Discussing (Arguing about) Sports
23. Charm (or repel!) people with your online personality
24. Distribute a book, 140 characters at a time
25. Learn another language – by following foreign language speakers, or via a language micro-provider

This page features a list of the ten most creative uses for Twitter – ‘to water the plants’ is number one!!!

Use Twitter creatively – enhance your communications, broaden your interests and join discussions. Add value to your existing activities and bring  joy to people.

Are there any Limits on my Twittering?

Twitter do impose some basic limits, and say they may introduce others in time. Here’s their official statement on limits:

Twitter currently applies limits to any person who reaches:

• 1,000 total updates per day, on any and all devices (web, mobile web, phone, API, etc. )
  
• 1,000 total direct messages per day, on any and all devices
  
• 100 API requests per hour
  

We’ve also placed limits on the number of people you can follow. The number is different for everyone, and is based on a ratio that changes as the account changes. If you hit a follow limit, you must balance your follower/following ratio in order to follow more people- basically, you can’t follow 50,000 people if only 23 people follow you. Based on current behavior in the Twitter community, we’ve concluded that this is both fair and reasonable.

Fairly self-explanatory I think.

What the Devil is a Hashtag?!?!?

Hashtags, where a ‘#‘ precedes a keyword or phrase, e.g. #valentines-day, #JV, #marketing, help to organise content on Twitter into groups that share the same tag.

Services like hashtags can bring together all the posts with the same tag allowing you to read tweets related to the keyword that share the same hashtag.

Find out more about Hashtags here

Twitter Applications and Resources

The Twitter community has taken advantage of Twitter’s open API to come up with an ever-increasing selection of tools, clients and sites that use Twitter data to do something interesting, useful, ground-breaking, or just plain odd! None of the applications below actually belong to Twitter – they’re all developed by third parties.

My Favourite 5 Twitter Apps
(as at today Feb 17 – I reserve the right to change my mind at any point in the near future!)

1. Twhirl – the client I mostly access Twitter through. It makes Twitter more like an IM client, and changed my use of the service completely – I feel much more a part of the Twitterverse because of it.

2.Twitterhawk -monitors the Twitterverse for terms you provide then can add people who use them and/or  send them a message from a selection of 5 you pre-write. The business possibilities for this application are immense – it’s highly targeted messaging. I use it to follow people who talk about certain terms.

3. Is.gd – URL shortening service. Pronounced “eees gooood”, like Manuel from Fawlty Towers! Reduces urls to a reasonable number of characters.

4. Twitter Grader – grades your twitter account giving you a % score. More usefully, suggests good follows for you and lets you find the ‘Twitter Elite’ in your area (I’m in the top 3 for West Yorkshire, exciting…)

5. Twitscoop – find out what’s hot on Twitter right now, track conversations, topics or conferences using the search function.

Special Award for being Mightily Useful, but potentially dangerous

Tweetlater provides a number of tools – track keywords, schedule tweets, automatically follow people who follow you and send them an automated  thank you note, even publish your own personal ‘tweetstream’.

Unfortunately some people’s thank you notes can be a bit spammy – which never goes down well, and can even lose you followers. Some also think it’s good to publish a list of their latest followers via an automated message, I find this particularly impersonal – I’m an individual to communicate with, not just part of a list!

Use this application with care, and it will enhance your Twitter experience. Misuse it at your own peril.

Twitter Clients

Clients provide you with an interface through which to use Twitter – the basic Twitter web page feels somewhat limited, mainly because it doesn’t refresh automatically – you have to do it manually to refresh your timelines and get the latest tweets.

According to Twitstat (via Mashable), after Twitter’s built-in web posting tool, the five most popular Twitter clients are:

1. Tweetdeck
2. Twitterfeed
3. Twhirl
4. Twitterrific
5. Tweetie

Updates from text messages are the next most popular way to send tweets.

I use Twhirl, mainly because I like the way it displays tweets in an opaque sidebar – it’s relatively unobtrusive, and means I don’t need a separate browser tab always open for Twitter, that I have to manually refresh to see the latest Tweets. It also has built-in url shorteners, and notifies me with a sound on arrival of DMs and @s. I don’t have an opinion on the other clients because I haven’t tried any of them for very long. Mashable has a great article on Twhirl vs Tweetdeck you may like to read.

I also have TwitterBerry installed on my Blackberry, but I am rarely mobile for long in the cold months, so haven’t used it much.

Short URL Services

The 140 character limit makes urls that link to pages other than a site’s homepage undesirable because they can easily eat up a quarter or more of your character limit. Short url services allow you to use a far shorter url to save you precious characters.

e.g. the very character-rich link http://www.robbellblog.com/personal/theres-snow-way-of-stopping-a-committed-entrepreneur-even-an-idiot-like-rob-bell shortens to the much-briefer http://is.gd/jLA3 allowing me to include the link in a relevant tweet without wasting all my characters.

Is.gd

TinyURL

Bit.ly

Snurl /Sn.im

Twurl/Tweetburner

Search Apps

These applications wade through Twitter data to find you information on the people, topics, discussions and subjects you want to know about. There are those that state that Twitter has the edge over Google when it comes to real-time searching, and the real value of Twitter might even lie in its’ search results. Twitter themselves acquired Summize, a Twitter search engine, last year. You can use their search engine here

Twellow – Twellow analyses all posts on the public timeline to categorise Twitter users into a number of categories. This makes it easier for you to find people talking about the subjects that interest you.

TwitterSearch – simple interface for searching keywords in Tweets

TwitStat – real-time Twitter analytics

TwitterTroll – real time search, shows most popular search terms

Measure Your Influence on Twitter

There are a number of apps that analyse Twitter data, your tweets, and your followers and followees, to provide you with information about your coverage, influence and performance on Twitter.

Twitter Grader – Provides you with a % grade of your reach and authority (my grade)

Twinfluence – Measure your influence on Twitter (my influence)

Mr Tweet – follow Mr Tweet and he’ll suggest relevant people and provide several usage stats via DM when he updates your data

Tweet Stats – Graphs and Charts from your Twitter usage stats (my graphs and charts)

Great Twitter Resources

I couldn’t hope to provide a comprehensive list of all the Twitter resources and applications available – the number of apps grows at a fair pace, and others have the ability to devote more time and resources to tracking new Twitter apps – they are listed below, along with some other notable applications.

I’ve started bookmarking all the Twitter apps I come across, and like, here (this site is still in private beta, so a bit of a secret, except to you – it’s my favourite social bookmarking site by far!)

Magpie – ‘convert your Tweets to bling-bling’ – Magpie is an advertising provider offering to pay you to allow promotional tweets on occasion with your other tweets. If you visit their site, they provide you with an estimated monthly income to give you an indication of what you might earn from the service. The feature that convinced me to use this was the one that lets you select how often Magpie Tweets are sent e.g. once every 5,10 or 20 tweets. You control the frequency – nice option.

The official Twitter applications page

Mashable has to be my favourite spot for all things Twitter

Twittervision – shows Tweets on a world map, indicating a specified location or where their Twitterer is located

Twitter Applications Database (Twitdom) is an ever-growing list of Twitapps (is that a new tword?!?)

Twitter Apps

Twitter Fan Wiki – Extensive list of apps for Windows, Mac, Linux and Multi-platforms

31 Power Tools for Twitter Lovers – from SmashingApps

140+ More Twitter Tools – more from Mashable

101 Twitter Resources – Traffikd.com

60+ Useful Twitter Resources – Webgeek

Twitter Resources – Wiredpen

Tools, Apps and Bots to Improve your Twitter Experience – MakeUseOf.com

About this Guide

This is v1.0 of my Ultimate Guide to Twitter, which will doubtlessly grow and grow and grow some more over the coming weeks and months. Suggestions, criticisms, contributions and comments are always welcomed. If you’ve enjoyed the guide and found it useful, please leave me a comment and share it on your favourite bookmarking sites using one of the tools below.

All images are either my own, or believed to be in the public domain as they were sourced there. Please contact me in the unlikely event you find an image of yours which is not meant to be in the public domain.

You can subscribe to my ‘ Top 40 Applications to Build Your List Online Faster than Ever’ at Rob-Bell.com

Your friend,

Rob

Rob Bell, Marketing Boffin

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p.s. if you’ve enjoyed this guide, please bookmark it at your favourite sites using the icons below(Digg, Mixx, Del.icio.us, Reddit etc) and tweet this message (select the message, copy it, then paste it into Twitter and submit – you have 55 chars left in the message for your own comments):

I just read @robbell’s Ultimate Guide to Twitter at http://bit.ly/12JLvD – brilliant!

Cheers, Rob

I’ve recently been playing about with the Google Connect and Facebook Connect applications – that let you implement social features on your site/blog. You’ll notice the new Facebook connect login section top left – it works fine for me, but I’d like some feedback – is it working okay for my readers?

Drop me a comment and let me know a. If you’re interested in using it, and b. How you found it if you have used it

I’m curious as to whether people see social features like this as something desirable or undesirable. Obviously from my point of view, I’d love to have some social functions beyond commenting on the site – and I’d be happy to see a ‘Tribe’ form here, as I believe my best writing is done when someone gives me a purpose to write for.

Went out for a delicious lunch today with my Mum – I haven’t been on an office Xmas lunch for years as I’ve not worked for anyone but myself for some years, so it was nice to try out Rustica, a new restaurant in Wakefield centre. Yea verily it was good! I particularly enjoyed the orange sorbet, although it was more like orange ice cream!

Adventures in North Yorkshire tomorrow, should be fun. I haven’t left West Yorkshire for months!!! One tends to get quite insular when winter brings additional back/hip pain, so a trip out will do me good, might take the camera too…

It’s taken Five Cold Weeks, Four Engineers, three French Hens, two Totalled Hubs and a Partridge in a Pear Tree but I finally have a stable Internet connection once again – although it’s not quite 8Mb anymore which is strange considering I live less than half a mile from the nearest exchange. Still, considering it got as bad as 8Kb while I’ve been having trouble I’m not going to complain too loudly about having 7.9Mb! Turned out to be a problem with my phone line rather than just the Internet, but how it came about is still a mystery!

One of my hard drives decided to corrupt the day I got my connection back ironically, so that’s taken 3 days to recover all the data on and will take several more to get everything back into the right directories. No indication what caused that, so that’s another mystery.

So I’m now in the World of catch-up, working feverishly to get back up-to-date with projects. A few good solid days at the keyboard have helped, although it was difficult to get back into the swing after a few weeks of very little work or effort. I fell back into my historical role as a PC gamer and part-time couch potato rather too easily. For some reason it’s not as easy to fall back out of that state!

Unfortunately the lack of Internet put my book plans on the backburner until after Christmas when it will once again become my main project. It also wrecked my participation in the £100m Challenge, although I’m still intent on watching all the training once I’m caught up.

Anyway, back to work now – normal service will be resumed shortly!

Rob