[LINK] USDAFoodSafety is using Twitter.

[Crispin Harris]

Hi Marghanita,

On Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 10:56 AM, Marghanita da Cruz <
marghanita at ramin.com.au> wrote:

> Crispin Harris wrote:
>
>> On Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 8:03 AM, Stilgherrian <stil at stilgherrian.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> The thing about using Twitter is that by adding your links via a tweet
>>> into the one messaging system, you get a whole raft of access methods
>>> -- web, Twitter clients, RSS, API calls into the Twitter database, SMS
>>> and then through third-party add-ons email etc etc.
>>>
>>
>> From a government services delivery perspective, twitter has another
>>>
>> advantage for organisations like the USDA.
>> And that is that management of an RSS environment can be cumbersome,
>> complex and fraught with vulnerabilities.
>>
>
> Does Twitter allow you to provide a feed of data or does a human user have
> to
> type it in - if the latter, that would be problem for government agencies.
> What
> audit trails does Twitter provide?


In this instance twitter is like the RSS feed generation, but it is provided
in an external publisher model rather than internal feed. (In some ways you
could consider it similar to ha headings-onfy feedburner stream)

The way that was/is being considerred where I currently reside is to have an
automatic function (as part of the "Publish to Website" action) that
performs:
 - Header capture,
 - link shortenning,
 - twitter post (via API).

Twitter in this use has two stated purposes:
 - Provide an alternative access method to internally hosted RSS feed
 - Increase the potential distribution of messages/alerts/notifications
(It should be noted that the intention was/is to publish twitter's RSS feed
as well as the direct twitter link - answering both requirements with one
system)

>  I have recently done security application/code/service audits for a
>> number
>> of commercial web-site frameworks, and was particularly unimpressed with
>> the
>> capabilities of the RSS engines in most of them.
>>
> Did you look at Confluence?
> <<http://wiki.list.org/dashboard/configurerssfeed.action>
>
> The twitter.com environment also manages your historical data without any
>> input from you...
>>
>
> Do you mean like a mailman mailing list?


Similar, but as Stilgherrian noted the analogy breaks down very quickly.

In essence, twitter is an API-reachable micro-post blogging service.

An application posts to the twitter blog (to a limit of 130 characters per
entry), and then the twitter infrastructure stores that posting.

The twitter blog is available in multiple streams:
 - Web interface (just like Blogspot, Wordpress etc)
 - RSS interface (just like Blogspot, Wordpress etc)
 - ATOM interface (just like Blogspot, Wordpress etc)
 - SMS messages (unlike the others)

One thing that a lot of people confuse is:
 - the original purpose (and initial question) of twitter
 - the actual/potential use of twitter.

I am coming to believe that there are several "twitter-verse's".
 - Those who do answer the question: "What are you doing now?"
   (Mostly useless twaddle and uninteresting drivel)
 - Information/alerting services
   (Predominantly commercial services - Stock updates, bushfire warnings,
Anti-virus/malware updates, news headlines)
 - informed commentary & conversation
   (Short, interactive version of the blogosphere)

In many ways you can consider twitter to be a cross between mailing lists
and Instant Messaging. Some of the best of both, and also some of the worst.

As a messaging service though, it would be silly to write-off twitter just
because the original intended use is inconsequential, or because the
majority of users/traffic is content-free.

Cheers,
 Crispin

-- 
Crispin Harris
crispin.harris at gmail.com
"Well, you know... most Catholics are so boring, you kind of expect them to
be fairly reasonable and not, say, frothing papal fanboys with the IQ of a
turnip. So he had me fooled. Not any more, though."
Thanks to Eric The FruitBat (etfb.livejournal.com)