Here are a few more tips and tricks that I’ve come across in the Twitter microblogging community:

Twemes: First introduced at DemoCamp by Rochelle Grayson, Twemes is a website that comprehensively sorts and categorizes the things people Twitter about as long as they put a hashtag in front of it. Example, those currently at DrupalCamp Vancouver will be Twittering and including #DCV08 in their updates. If I go to Twemes, or the DrupalCamp website that is aggregating the Tweme, I can see filtered updates specifically pertaining to #DCV08 because of that tag.

Hashtags: I discovered this months after Twemes was released and it follows the same concept although you need to add a “bot” to your account to use it. For Twemes, you don’t need to do anything except start using a hashtag in your keywords/updates.

TwitBin: An alternative to Twitterfox, this slips your Twitter steam into your Firefox sidebar.

Twidget: Add a Twitter widget to your Mac’s dashboard.

Twitter Local: Hat tip to Jeremy Latham for Twittering about this earlier. You can filter updates to only view those from people within your geographical vicinity

Twinkle: Hat tip to Jenn Loether and John Biehler: “A location aware Twitter client. It features a slick presentation not unlike the web version of PocketTweats but also locates you and enables you to see who else is using Twinkle near you.” - [JohnBiehler.com]

Twitter Tweet Sheet: “There’s one things that annoys me about Twitter. Okay, there are two things: 1. They are always down. 2. There doesn’t seem to be one official place (including their own site) to get a complete list of mobile and IM commands.” - [Jason Theodor.com] Jason compiled an “easy to print” card that you can take with you for on-the-go Twittering.

From TweetClouds

And just for kicks you can read more about “Top Twitter Apps” on these lovely sites:

If you haven’t got your head around the concept of blogging, your mind might be blown with the latest term: microblogging. To those on Facebook, think “status updates”. Sites like Twitter, Jaiku and Pownce (just to name a few and not including all the video ones out there) allow folks to update their contacts or followers using brief 140 character max. messages. To better explain it, here’s another great video from CommonCraft.

The “power of Twitter” is pretty vast. Last night we were out having dinner and John put a call out on Twitter for people to join us, a short time later we were graced with Tanya’s presence, which was super fun.

When I was recording my bit for the Lab with Leo I Twittered that I was “backstage” and within 45 seconds Leo came out from the studio to meet me and shake my hand.

Most recently, Nadia from Meme Labs Twittered this news story… about Twitter.

Buck, a graduate student from the University of California-Berkeley, was in Mahalla, Egypt, covering an anti-government protest when he and his translator, Mohammed Maree, were arrested April 10.

On his way to the police station, Buck took out his cell phone and sent a message to his friends and contacts using the micro-blogging site Twitter.

The message only had one word. “Arrested.”

Within seconds, colleagues in the United States and his blogger-friends in Egypt — the same ones who had taught him the tool only a week earlier — were alerted that he was being held. [CNN]

People have various reasons for using Twitter, whether they want to meet up with other folks in the area, share a news story, use it to syndicate their blog posts, do a poll, have pointless battles, ask questions, or share what they ate for lunch that afternoon. Though sometimes I get a bit of a “chat room” feel when I see people sending endless messages back and forth, I certainly value having this tool at my disposal.

Two things of note: You can get intuitive clients that will bring in your Twitter feed so you don’t have to update from the website ie. Twhirl (for PC) or Twitterific (for Mac). Also, if your updates aren’t locked or “private” they are fully available in a Google search, meaning anything you say in Twitter, doesn’t stay in Twitter.

A while back anyone using the popular microblogging tool Twitter may have noticed that their contact’s avatars sported some peas. This was in support of the Susan Reynolds and the Frozen Pea Fund, and was actually for a good cause. Now a new trend has surfaced in recent days that has Twitter users pitted against each other in mini gangs, showing their colours.

What exactly is the war over or about? That’s yet to be determined. The very green team seems to be in the lead with a pretty extensive cast list thus far. I was tempted to join them too.. but I figured if we all joined their team, then there really wouldn’t be any competition! [iJustine]

iJustine also created team #FF1CAE, and her helpful template for anyone else wishing to join team pink was quickly overthrown by someone from team “Dodger Blue”.

So far this morning I’ve seen the rise of team “Red and White”, and Aqua Team, and also SheGeeks have an entire breakdown of each team’s manpower: red, green, yellow, blue, orange, pink, gold, off-white, and plaid.

Meanwhile over at Tech Moz, the have a detailed graph showing the support for each colour team to date.

It seems all you need to do to join a team is change your avatar to include your chosen colour in the background or under your image, across the bottom. The sentiment around the web so far seems to be that Tweeps or Twitterers (those on Twitter) have a lot of time on their hands, are bored, and must have nothing better to do. Quick! Time for a Steve Jobs keynote… or another Zuckerberg interview.

I was reading Airdrie’s blog post about not joining Twitter [wiki], where she links to a Rocketboom video about how annoyingly addictive the service can be.

I decided to start Googling around found a couple funny Twitter spoofs. Now I’ve never been a huge Star Wars [wiki] fan, and I have been blogging all night doing a live blog my other site, but I found this pretty freakin funny.

Recent updates from Darth Vader’s Twitter.

* Just used the Force to scratch that itch that’s been bothering me inside my helmet. Its good to be a Sith Lord.
* Met some new people today. My kind of scum for the most part. Except for one… IG-88. Call me old fashion, but I just don’t trust robots.
* Finding that dust and fingerprints show up too easily on gloss black. I should have opted for the Solar Yellow or Sedona Mist helmet color.
* Memo to self: Sell my shares in the Tibanna Gas Mine on Bespin. I have a feeling prices are about to plunge. [Chatterwocky]

Once you recover from that (and the realization about how dorky I am), a few website notes for Miss604.com.

I just upgraded to Wordpress 2.1.2, and it’s pretty neat. There are still a couple things to get used to e.g. there is no longer a preview button that will jump you down the page to view your post before publishing, but the auto-save makes up for it. We’re still working out some kinks - like getting my blogroll to display by rating and not alphabetically, and sorting my categories in that drop down menu on the sidebar. If you notice anything isn’t working normally, please contact me.