This week’s tech tip will focus on twitter. What is twitter? I’m glad you asked. Twitter is one of those applications whose value proposition is hard to describe. In fact, once I tell you what it does you will probably scratch your head and say, “Why would anyone want to do that?” or “That sounds pretty useless”. Both reactions are normal and expected. In fact, that was my opinion in the beginning, and to some degree it still is. But being the early adopter that I am, I am giving it the old college try, and at the moment, it doesn’t suck.

Twitter is a social networking service that allows you to post personal messages about yourself. Think of it as a place to deposit the random thoughts you have during the course of a day while you are sitting in traffic, waiting for the bus, nailing that job interview, listening to the cell phone conversation of the jackass sitting next to you at the airport, etc. The idea is to keep you connected (in a disconnected world) with friends and family by sharing information that lets them know what you have been up to, even if you have not talked in a week, or a month, or a year. Of course this works best if you have someone to share your “tweets” with.

One caveat of this service is that the messages you post are limited to 140 characters. So your thoughts must be succinct. This limitation means that you can “tweet” (that’s what it is called when you post a message) via text message from your cell phone. That is where the service really shines because all my inspired thoughts come when I am away from my computer.

You can also integrate your tweets into your website or blog as I have done (see “Twitter Updates” on the left side of this page). Now you can all see what the gerbils in my brain are up to.

Previously I told you how Google was poised to take over the world. Today I am going to introduce you to one of their many “killer” applications, Google Alerts.

Google Alerts is a free tool that allows you to schedule searches. Why would you want to schedule a search? Say you wanted to know whenever your name was mentioned anywhere on the internet. A scheduled search allows you to automatically have a search performed weekly, daily, or as-it-happens. Results are emailed to you at those scheduled intervals. Google allows you to configure scores of these alerts so you can automate the process of searching for things you are interested in. So say you love a particular show, sports figure, actor, product, company, etc. You can get “timely” (and that is the operative key word here) updates relative to your search.

You might think that this is a tool for tech geeks but I assure you that it is not. I see professionals from all walks of life using this tool, and it is easy to figure out who they are. Take for example Jose Pino. A guy who I have never met but whom I appropriately gave props to in the “Paper Plate Speaker Project“. Within a few days he chimed in with a comment on Emma’s Web Page. Clearly a Google Alert user who has a rule configured to search the Internet and report back to him anytime his name appears somewhere. I do the same thing which is extremely convenient.

The Internet is full of cool and useful applications. It is my and Emma’s goal to introduce some of these tools that you may not otherwise learn about, so that you may leverage the full potential (or at least 5%) of the Internet.

So if you are feeling like a hero, go over to Google Alerts now and set up your first filter. If you found this information helpful feel free to leave a comment here to let us know. Feedback (especially positive) is always welcome.

http://www.google.com/alerts