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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With

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Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello, everybody,

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Speaker 1: welcome to tech Stuff. My name is Chris Poulette, and

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Speaker 1: I'm an editor here at how stuff works dot com.

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Speaker 1: And with me as usual as the person for whom

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Speaker 1: I usually edit articles, that would be senior writer Jonathan Strickland.

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Speaker 1: I'm sorry the service is temporarily unavailable. Okay, say wale, Yes,

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Speaker 1: we're going to talk about everybody's favorite hundred and forty

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Speaker 1: character limited blogging service Twitter Twitter. We've talked about Twitter before,

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Speaker 1: but this time we're gonna talk about some cool stuff

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Speaker 1: you can do using Twitter. That because before we were

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Speaker 1: just kind of talking about what the service was, and

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Speaker 1: and you know, by now, pretty much everyone's heard of

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Speaker 1: it thanks to people like Oprun, Ashton Kutcher and really more.

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Speaker 1: They they they used Twitter well noticed ye Ashton could

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Speaker 1: could jump off the Twitter bandwagon at any minute, And

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Speaker 1: boy are we holding our breath for that announcement, because lord,

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Speaker 1: I don't know that I can sleep at night knowing

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Speaker 1: that Ashton isn't on Twitter has at least a million

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Speaker 1: more followers than I do. Sure, yeah, I mean the

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Speaker 1: guys got the guy's got plenty of followers. I'm not

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Speaker 1: one of them. I have a hundred and nine people

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Speaker 1: I'm following or thereabouts, and and strangely enough, he is

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Speaker 1: not among that that crew. Yeah, but I follow you, Chris. Okay. Twitter, Now,

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Speaker 1: just in case somehow you don't know what this is. Twitter?

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Speaker 1: Is this this messaging service. Really. It's used over the

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Speaker 1: web and you can access it either through a computer

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Speaker 1: or your cell phone, and you can send messages that

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Speaker 1: range up to a hundred and forty character at a time.

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Speaker 1: And people who first joined Twitter often get overwhelmed by it.

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Speaker 1: They don't necessarily see the value in it. And there

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Speaker 1: are a lot of people who they look at it,

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Speaker 1: they decide it's not for them and they leave, and

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Speaker 1: that that they don't look back, and that's it. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I think a lot of people who are just coming

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Speaker 1: to Twitter after being told, hey, you should check this out,

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Speaker 1: are kind of put off by the message on the

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Speaker 1: home page of Twitter, which is you know, what are

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Speaker 1: you doing right now? I have to be what you're doing. Yeah. See,

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Speaker 1: that's that's I think that's a big misstep. On Twitter's part,

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Speaker 1: because that question makes you think, oh, well, I just

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Speaker 1: tied my shoes, so I guess I should type that

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Speaker 1: in the type of I just tied my shoes, and

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Speaker 1: everyone who's following you, assuming that you have followers, looks

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Speaker 1: at that and thinks, I don't need to follow this person.

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Speaker 1: All they do is type about tying their shoes. It's

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Speaker 1: not interesting to me, it's not relevant, and it's not entertaining,

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Speaker 1: so there's no reason to follow them now. Um. However,

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Speaker 1: if you use Twitter to do things like share interesting

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Speaker 1: news stories or tell some jokes or or things like that,

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Speaker 1: if you're entertaining or informative, or if you're a famous person,

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Speaker 1: people will follow you and continue to follow you. Yep, yep,

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Speaker 1: And um, you know, that's one of the cooler things

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Speaker 1: to do with it. In my opinion, it's really sort

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Speaker 1: of mundane if you think about it, because it doesn't

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Speaker 1: sound sexy and exciting. But you know, make a new friend. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's really easy to do, and you kind of have

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Speaker 1: to get past the what the heck am I doing

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Speaker 1: with this thing? And I think everybody has that moment

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Speaker 1: of what the heck am I doing with this thing?

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Speaker 1: You know, you sign up, you throw a few comments

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Speaker 1: on there, you follow a few people, and nothing happens,

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Speaker 1: and you go, do I really want to keep going

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Speaker 1: with this? If you do, you know, there are some

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Speaker 1: simple things that you can do to kind of push that,

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Speaker 1: and you can start actually talking to people and having conversations,

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Speaker 1: and that's kind of a neat thing, right, Yeah, So

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Speaker 1: the first thing you would end up doing is um

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Speaker 1: probably trying to find a few people that you want

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Speaker 1: to follow. Whether these are people you know in real life,

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Speaker 1: like good friends or family and you just wanna keep

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Speaker 1: up with what they're doing on a daily basis, Well,

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Speaker 1: you can follow them. If there are any journalists that

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Speaker 1: you particularly admire, or news agencies that you know that

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Speaker 1: you think provide a valuable service, you can see if

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Speaker 1: they have a Twitter account and follow them. There are

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Speaker 1: a lot of news agencies that have Twitter accounts, Twitter feeds,

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Speaker 1: and you can keep up with breaking news that before

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Speaker 1: before it hits any major news source, you can find

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Speaker 1: out about it on Twitter, which can be very useful

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Speaker 1: if you happen to be heading in an area that,

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Speaker 1: let's say just is about to get hit by a tornado.

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Speaker 1: It's good to be able to see that before it happens.

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Speaker 1: That's true, providing you have time to actually check your Twitter,

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Speaker 1: and all depends on whether how you're receiving the messages

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Speaker 1: to um, but there are lots of Once you start

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Speaker 1: following people and you start seeing how this works, you

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Speaker 1: have to keep in mind people who follow you, they

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Speaker 1: are going to receive the messages that you send out

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Speaker 1: for the most part. There are a few exceptions. Will

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Speaker 1: get into those little bit a little bit later. And

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Speaker 1: then there's a public timeline that unless you change the

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Speaker 1: settings in your account, your messages will also appear on

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Speaker 1: that public timeline. So anyone looking at the public timeline

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Speaker 1: around the time you you post a message will be

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Speaker 1: able to see what you type. So it's not just

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Speaker 1: the people who are following you who see that, unless,

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Speaker 1: of course, you've, like I said, adjusted your settings so

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Speaker 1: that your messages do not appear on the public timeline. Now,

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Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that that the only people who will

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Speaker 1: ever see anything you write are either following you or

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Speaker 1: watching the public timeline. You can actually direct messages at people.

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Speaker 1: In fact, it's using the at reply UH method, and

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Speaker 1: it's simply the AT symbol followed by the person's handle,

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Speaker 1: and that message will appear in that person's Twitter feed.

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Speaker 1: And if the person is getting tons and tons of

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Speaker 1: Twitter messages, they may not see it anyway. But if

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Speaker 1: they aren't getting tons, then there's a good chance they'll

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Speaker 1: see your message. So it might be someone that you

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Speaker 1: know who isn't aware that you're on Twitter, and you

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Speaker 1: can let them know and then maybe they'll follow you back.

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Speaker 1: If someone is following you and you're following them, you

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Speaker 1: can send a direct message, which is a private message

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Speaker 1: between the two of you and no one else can

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Speaker 1: see it. And it's much more likely that they're going

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Speaker 1: to see a direct message, and they would, you know,

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Speaker 1: with a simple at reply, right. Most Twitter clients have

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Speaker 1: some sort of special notification for things like at replies

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Speaker 1: and direct messages and uh. Those can be applications that

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Speaker 1: are either on computers or on your cell phone smartphone,

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Speaker 1: that kind of thing, UM and you can you can adjust.

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Speaker 1: Most of these have have sayings that you can adjust

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Speaker 1: so that it will alert you whenever there's either a

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Speaker 1: new tweet, which is of course the noun version of

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Speaker 1: the message UM or at least one of them. There

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Speaker 1: are also people who call them twitters uh or if

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Speaker 1: that's a little overwhelming, and it might be because, like

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Speaker 1: I follow a hundred and nine people, if I had

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Speaker 1: my phone and alert me every time there was a

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Speaker 1: new tweet, it would never stop vibrating. So in my case,

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Speaker 1: I just have it where it alerts me for replies

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Speaker 1: and direct messages. So that's the basics. Now let's get

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Speaker 1: down to some other kind of interesting things that you

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Speaker 1: can use Twitter for two to really get the most

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Speaker 1: of your experience. Okay, do you want me to start

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Speaker 1: or you want to you know, I could go either way.

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Speaker 1: Why don't you go ahead? All right? Sure? So hashtags?

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Speaker 1: Hashtags are good, that's appropriate. Right on the end of

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Speaker 1: the after so as Chris, as Chris goes on a

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Speaker 1: rampage through the studio, apparently hashtags or something. He feels

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Speaker 1: very passionately about hashtags. So hashtags, h you're using the

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Speaker 1: little hash symbol, which is the pound sign or the

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Speaker 1: nice the octathorp busting now the octathorm. So yeah, when

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Speaker 1: you're using you use that in front of uh, whatever

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Speaker 1: term that you are are talking about, like if you're

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Speaker 1: talking about a specific subject, and that allows people to

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Speaker 1: search for that term in a in a more effective way,

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Speaker 1: they can put the hashtag in front of it. They

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Speaker 1: put the term there, and then they you can use

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Speaker 1: a Twitter search engine to pull up all the tweets

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Speaker 1: that relate to that topic, so you can actually follow

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Speaker 1: group conversations about a subject. And the interesting thing is

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Speaker 1: about in the in these group conversations, you may only

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Speaker 1: see three or four the people in that discussion from

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Speaker 1: your Twitter feed, and you can even participate in that discussion.

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Speaker 1: When you do the search, you'll see everything, so you'll

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Speaker 1: suddenly get a bigger picture of the discussion that was

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Speaker 1: going on, and it actually becomes pretty interesting. There are

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Speaker 1: a few people within the Twitter verse who are probably

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Speaker 1: the lynch pins for these big discussions. These are usually

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Speaker 1: the people who have hundreds of thousands of followers and

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Speaker 1: so they kind of end up seeing everything anyway. But

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Speaker 1: I'm thinking of you guy, or Neil Gaiman. Neil Gaiman

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Speaker 1: is he's he's sort of the center of my Twitter verse.

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Speaker 1: Neil Gaiman and uh and Stephen Fry, the two of

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Speaker 1: them together pretty much like it's interesting. I can see

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Speaker 1: I can actually see messages from some of the people

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Speaker 1: I follow get responded to by other people I follow,

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Speaker 1: and I had no idea that there was any connection

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Speaker 1: between the two until that happened. So Twitter searches, like

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Speaker 1: I said, that has a lot that that ties back

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Speaker 1: into the hashtag thing. Those are very useful. You can

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Speaker 1: search for pretty much any term you want. I've done

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Speaker 1: it for how stuff works before, to see what people

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Speaker 1: are saying about us, and it's a it's it's pretty useful. Um.

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Speaker 1: The Twitter search function tool if you just if you

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Speaker 1: go to the regular Twitter search engine, it'll, uh, it'll

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Speaker 1: pull up all the most recent tweet and it will

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Speaker 1: even update as time goes on, so as people send

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Speaker 1: more messages, you'll be able to see them appear. Mm hmmm. Um.

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Speaker 1: One of the the things that I like about Twitter

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Speaker 1: is it's great for finding quick answers to questions. Um, crowdsourcing, Yes, crowdsourcing,

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Speaker 1: and it's it's um really simple to you know, just

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Speaker 1: throw up a question on your Twitter feed, especially if

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Speaker 1: you have a reasonable number of followers, and get a

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Speaker 1: reasonably quick answer as a result. Uh. Famous people have

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Speaker 1: no trouble finding answers to anything on Twitter because hundreds

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Speaker 1: of thousands of followers. Yes, and and it invariably happens

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Speaker 1: when somebody will uh post a question and I will

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Speaker 1: race to answer it because I like knowing answers and

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Speaker 1: and you know, surprising someone and going, hey, I know

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Speaker 1: the answer to that, and uh, usually within seconds of

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Speaker 1: my trying to type that in and at reply to

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Speaker 1: this person, um, I'll get four tweets from the original

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Speaker 1: person saying thank you the sixteen people and thank you

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Speaker 1: these twenty four people. I'm going, wow, I slightly beaten

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Speaker 1: to the punch there. Yeah, but it's it's very easy

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Speaker 1: if you uh, you know, even people where you say,

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Speaker 1: I've seen people who are teaching classes say I'm going

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Speaker 1: to talk about this in my class. Can any of

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Speaker 1: you tell me why something something happens? And then uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, they get the answers they want immediately, you know,

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Speaker 1: just in the process of demonstrating Twitter. I've used that

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Speaker 1: same method when I was visiting different cities and I

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Speaker 1: would send out a Twitter message just saying, hey, any

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Speaker 1: of my Twitter followers happened to live in and say, Austin, Texas,

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Speaker 1: where's a good place for me to grab now a

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Speaker 1: really good taco? Stuff like that. You're gonna get responses

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Speaker 1: the sort of thing. Now. Now, granted, if you have

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Speaker 1: five followers, then your your responses will be somewhat limited.

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Speaker 1: Um and the way you get more followers usually happens

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Speaker 1: fair organically, unless you're a celebrity, in which case you

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Speaker 1: know people already are interested in you, so they're following

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Speaker 1: you anyway. But if you get mentioned by other folks,

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Speaker 1: like if you are contributing to discussions in a helpful way,

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Speaker 1: they will likely reply to you in such a way

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Speaker 1: that there are other followers can see that you know,

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Speaker 1: what you're saying is interesting, and then they their followers

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Speaker 1: may say, hey, let me check out this other guy

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Speaker 1: because apparently he knows what he's talking about, and then

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Speaker 1: you might end up with followers that way. I've I've

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Speaker 1: had that happen a few times, usually whenever I chat

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Speaker 1: with anyone, you know, a pretty significant stature in the

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Speaker 1: Twitter verse. There's also a thing called follow Friday, which

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Speaker 1: is really a meme on Twitter. It's a meme that

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Speaker 1: uses the hashtag that that Jonathan was talking about earlier.

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Speaker 1: And usually what what follow Friday does is the people

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Speaker 1: who participate in it, they just list some of the

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Speaker 1: folks they follow that they think are pretty cool and

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Speaker 1: that you know, people and more people should follow those people,

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Speaker 1: and I've been on a couple of those lists, So, um,

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Speaker 1: now I'm still a small fry. I mean I'm talking

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Speaker 1: major small fry in the Twitter verse. I have three

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Speaker 1: hundred and eighty or so followers right now. But when

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Speaker 1: you're looking at people like Ashton Kutcher who have over

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Speaker 1: a million, and then you have lots of other folks

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Speaker 1: who are in the six hundred thousand, five hundred thousand range,

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Speaker 1: three is tiny. Yeah, but uh, I have great followers,

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Speaker 1: So I don't mind the fact that I don't have that,

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Speaker 1: MANI because the ones I have are awesome, excellent. Um,

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Speaker 1: you know, I was gonna mention before we get away

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Speaker 1: from the using the crowdsourcing aspects of Twitter, A cool

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Speaker 1: website that I found that that works for this is

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Speaker 1: straw pole now dot com. And you can sign up

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Speaker 1: and basically create your own poll and you can ask people, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, and log in and give you a graphical

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Speaker 1: representation of your you know, it's a two question pole,

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Speaker 1: which is better red or blue? Or you know what,

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Speaker 1: what do you prefer? Ice creamer cake? You know you

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Speaker 1: do do those kinds of either oars but pretty neat,

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Speaker 1: little neat, little website and and sticking with the crowdsourcing thing.

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Speaker 1: Information on Twitter tends to spread viral e because people

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Speaker 1: retweet it exactly retweets. Another important part of Twitter. A

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Speaker 1: retweet is when someone takes the message that another person

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Speaker 1: is sent and then posts it. And the general format

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Speaker 1: is you type in our T meaning retweet uh at

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Speaker 1: and the original person's name, and then the message. And

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Speaker 1: this way you you hit a larger audience because theoretically

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Speaker 1: the second person who retweets the the first person's message

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Speaker 1: is going to have different followers or at least a

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Speaker 1: few different followers than the first person, and it will

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Speaker 1: spread that way now greatly when when something gets retweeted

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Speaker 1: by a big name, uh, I mean, you can still

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Speaker 1: retweet it, but here's a good chance that everyone following

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Speaker 1: you is seeing it somewhere else already. Because when you're

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Speaker 1: talking about the big big names, they're just there's so

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Speaker 1: many people following them that you know, it's it's kind

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Speaker 1: of a silly thing to retweet something that maybe Stephen Fryer,

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Speaker 1: Neil Gaiman or Ashton Kutcher or any of those big

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Speaker 1: names have said, because chances are it's gotten around already.

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Speaker 1: You can still do it. There's nothing wrong with it,

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Speaker 1: and um, so that's a good way to to learn

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Speaker 1: about what's going on in the world. And if you're

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Speaker 1: interested in a very specific subset of information. Um, I

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Speaker 1: find it incredibly useful to follow tech news that way.

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Speaker 1: I followed tons of tech journalists and and tech news

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Speaker 1: sources and even users. I've I've received some really cool

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Speaker 1: information from users that lead to fantastic blog posts. I

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Speaker 1: can think of one in particular that is still going

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Speaker 1: strong two months after I wrote it. And um, you

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Speaker 1: know that's the thing is that that, like I said,

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Speaker 1: the information spreads virally. So if you are an information

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Speaker 1: junkie like I am, Twitter is awesome. Hey, we'll also

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Speaker 1: gradually suck your life away, but in a good way. Yes. Um.

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Speaker 1: Something else that's cool to do with Twitter, um, surprisingly

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Speaker 1: enough is to promote yourself. Uh. And I you know,

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Speaker 1: most of the time shameless self marketing is sort of

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Speaker 1: you know, frowned upon because it's you know, shameless, but

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Speaker 1: you look at it, and uh, you know, that's that's

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Speaker 1: what a lot of people do on Twitter, sort of

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Speaker 1: expected depends on on who you're twittering or I'm following. Actually,

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Speaker 1: and especially with somebody like, uh, you know, famous famous people,

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Speaker 1: famous authors or actors. Um, you're following them probably because

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Speaker 1: you want to find out when their next you know,

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Speaker 1: big project is coming out, how that's going, or you

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Speaker 1: want to find out what's going on behind the scenes.

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Speaker 1: So people say, oh, you know, I I uh, it's

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Speaker 1: ten minutes to the show. Little anxious, you know, people go, oh,

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Speaker 1: that's kind of that's kind of cool information. It's definitely

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Speaker 1: a little bit more interesting than tying your shoes. And

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Speaker 1: a lot of people follow uh. I think a lot

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Speaker 1: of people follow Jonathan's feed because he regularly posts when

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Speaker 1: he's got a new blog post up. Um, so you know,

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Speaker 1: when people who are interested in reading the tech stuff blog, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, read his Twitter feed to go, oh, hey,

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Speaker 1: there's new blog post. And then I've seen lots of

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Speaker 1: people do that, you know, So that's uh, it's it's

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Speaker 1: not a bad thing to do, and people don't get

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Speaker 1: all bent out of shape because you're promoting your latest project.

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Speaker 1: Speaking of self promotion, if you want to follow me,

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Speaker 1: my handle is John Strickland j O N S t

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Speaker 1: R I C K L A N D. Moving on. Um, yeah,

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Speaker 1: self promotion is a big part of Twitter. Um. One

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Speaker 1: of the people I follow Jonathan Colton, the musician. Yes,

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Speaker 1: he uses Twitter to not only announce when he's going

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Speaker 1: to have a new tour date or a new song

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Speaker 1: is out, he even uses it to ask his followers

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Speaker 1: for uh, song requests when he comes to their town.

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Speaker 1: So come to He came to Atlanta not that long ago,

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Speaker 1: and he sent out a Twitter message saying, all right,

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Speaker 1: give me your song requests, and people will send in

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Speaker 1: their messages and he played those songs and uh. I mean.

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Speaker 1: That's another great thing about Twitter is that it's this

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Speaker 1: interactive medium and you get to have some sort of

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Speaker 1: interaction with people that you really admire or you just

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Speaker 1: you know, your gaga over that particular celebrity. There is

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Speaker 1: a chance that you have that little bit of a connection,

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Speaker 1: and that's a very enticing thing. You also get to

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Speaker 1: see some really cool conversations between different celebrities, Like if

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Speaker 1: you follow both parties, you get to see both ends

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Speaker 1: of the conversation, assuming they're not speaking in direct messages

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Speaker 1: that is. And it's fun. It's like you're at a

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Speaker 1: Hollywood party and you're in the corner and you're watching

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Speaker 1: two celebrities just kind of gossip and chat and joke around.

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Speaker 1: It's awesome. It's so much fun. And that you know,

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Speaker 1: social nervousness that comes from being in a big Hollywood party. Right.

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Speaker 1: They don't they don't even notice my my profuse sweating

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Speaker 1: or my uh habit of cursing at inappropriate moments. Um.

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Speaker 1: You know, I have another one that's sort of related

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Speaker 1: to that, to the cursing. Networking, it's great to to

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Speaker 1: meet people. UM. Directory that's become popular, at least one

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Speaker 1: of them is that we follow dot com and um,

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Speaker 1: you could go on there and basically tag yourself up

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Speaker 1: to three tags, isn't it so it was when I

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Speaker 1: when I started, when I joined, it was three. I'm

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Speaker 1: assuming it hasn't changed. Um, And you know, for example,

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Speaker 1: I have myself tagged as an editor and writer on there,

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Speaker 1: and you can you can go on there to find people.

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Speaker 1: But you know, if you can, you can start to

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Speaker 1: find other people who do what you do and add

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Speaker 1: them and start conversations with them, you know, retreat, retweet

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Speaker 1: some of their their messages and and uh you know,

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Speaker 1: mention them and get ato hashtag conversations with them. You

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Speaker 1: can actually you can actually network and make new friends

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Speaker 1: and and sort of build a community around yourself and

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Speaker 1: join in existing communities, which is, you know, pretty neat. Yeah. Actually,

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Speaker 1: when I was while I was at the UH the

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Speaker 1: Electronic Entertainment Expo E three. While I was there, UH,

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Speaker 1: a fellow tech journalist tracked me down via Twitter, followed

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Speaker 1: me on Twitter, sent me a direct message, and asked

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Speaker 1: me for a favor. Unfortunately, I was unable to help

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Speaker 1: Miss Natalie dell Conti of c net. And although she's

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Speaker 1: dreamy and a fantastic tech journalist, I had a flight

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Speaker 1: I had to catch, so I couldn't help her out.

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Speaker 1: But that's a cool opportunity that I never would have

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Speaker 1: had at all if I didn't have Twitter. You know.

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Speaker 1: But she knew she knew me, she just didn't follow

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Speaker 1: me on Twitter at that point. She's still following me

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Speaker 1: as of the recording of this podcast. That could change

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Speaker 1: by the time this goes live. She might be like,

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Speaker 1: totally don't need this, dude, X. But um, right now

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Speaker 1: she's still following me. Ye, So uh should I give

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Speaker 1: you another one? Yeah? Go ahead? Um? You could uh

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Speaker 1: you could start a revolution. Oh, I say you want

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Speaker 1: a revolution. We all want to change the world. You know,

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Speaker 1: it wasn't that long ago. We were talking about the

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Speaker 1: Twitter and uh I mentioned the UH this sort of

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Speaker 1: protest going on in Moldova where people were using Facebook

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Speaker 1: and Twitter to coordinate their activities using hashtags and some

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Speaker 1: of the other messaging UH to sort of stay one

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Speaker 1: step ahead of the authorities because they would you know,

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Speaker 1: message where they were going to be at what time,

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Speaker 1: and people would start showing up. Um. However, since that

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Speaker 1: podcast went we recorded it before, you know, a ways

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Speaker 1: off before one live. Since that time, UH, there has

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Speaker 1: been a very major media event that in which people

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Speaker 1: use Twitter and not they're not nearly as peaceful, and

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Speaker 1: that would be the recent protests in Iran following the elections, Right,

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Speaker 1: so we're talking about a a massive chaotic situation in Iran. Uh.

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Speaker 1: We're actually recording this podcast just a couple of days

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Speaker 1: after the election. So when this goes live, this this

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Speaker 1: is gonna be you know, old news, but at the

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Speaker 1: moment it's very fresh in our minds. And part of

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Speaker 1: the issue was that Iran government officials had started to

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Speaker 1: restrict internet access, started to throttle the broadband connections, really

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Speaker 1: limiting what people could access and what they could do.

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Speaker 1: But Twitter uses a hundred forty characters. It is not

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Speaker 1: it doesn't put a huge demand on broadband. It's easy

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Speaker 1: to get messages through if you can find a connection

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Speaker 1: to the internet. And so a lot of people involved

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Speaker 1: in this conflict have been using Twitter to broadcast information

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Speaker 1: about what is going on to the general public, who

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Speaker 1: otherwise may not ever be aware of the situation. Now.

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Speaker 1: To do that, they've had to do things like find

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Speaker 1: proxy servers so that they could access sites that were

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Speaker 1: not being blocked by the government and UM. But that's

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Speaker 1: exactly what's happening right now over in Iran, right now

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Speaker 1: being at the time of recording. Yeah, As a matter

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Speaker 1: of fact, in a show of solidarity, people UH in

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Speaker 1: the United States, at least some that I follow UM

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Speaker 1: have been tinting their profile pictures green as a show

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Speaker 1: of support and retweeting UH messages sent by protesters in Iran,

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Speaker 1: basically talking about what events are going on in the street, UM,

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Speaker 1: which at the time of this recording, again is forbidden.

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Speaker 1: You're not supposed to be reporting from what you know,

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Speaker 1: what's going on in the street, that what happens. Foreign

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Speaker 1: journalists are barred from reporting. So what's going on there

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Speaker 1: so people are sharing things and not using their names

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Speaker 1: unlike norm when you would typically use an apt sign

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Speaker 1: with a person's handle on Twitter, they're not doing that now,

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Speaker 1: They're just using certain hashtags. Yeah, and there's a point

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Speaker 1: out that it's because they don't want anybody to get

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Speaker 1: in trouble, right. And there's been other changes as well

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Speaker 1: in normal behavior. For example, for a while you were

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Speaker 1: seeing people tweet proxy sites, but now there have been

427
00:24:23,600 --> 00:24:27,359
Speaker 1: tweets coming out and saying that the officials are monitoring

428
00:24:27,400 --> 00:24:30,320
Speaker 1: Twitter and looking for these sort of things. And so

429
00:24:30,600 --> 00:24:34,480
Speaker 1: if you were to publicize the proxy site, then it

430
00:24:34,520 --> 00:24:37,960
Speaker 1: would just speed up the the response from the government

431
00:24:38,000 --> 00:24:41,840
Speaker 1: and have that shut down. So it's interesting there's actually

432
00:24:41,880 --> 00:24:44,920
Speaker 1: like their manifestos out there that explained the right way

433
00:24:44,960 --> 00:24:47,320
Speaker 1: to use Twitter in this kind of situation. It's really

434
00:24:47,359 --> 00:24:52,159
Speaker 1: a cyber war situation. Yep. And uh in a in

435
00:24:52,240 --> 00:24:55,600
Speaker 1: a a move that sort of surprises me. Twitter has

436
00:24:55,640 --> 00:24:58,760
Speaker 1: been planning on some updates to the site, and they

437
00:24:58,760 --> 00:25:00,800
Speaker 1: were going to do some site maintenance and take the

438
00:25:00,840 --> 00:25:05,960
Speaker 1: site down. Because people are using the site for this purpose,

439
00:25:06,720 --> 00:25:10,159
Speaker 1: they're putting off the maintenance. Originally was going to be

440
00:25:10,200 --> 00:25:14,160
Speaker 1: scheduled for June fift but because there were so many

441
00:25:14,160 --> 00:25:17,840
Speaker 1: people depending upon Twitter to get information out from Iran,

442
00:25:18,320 --> 00:25:20,600
Speaker 1: Twitter said, you know what, we're going to delay this,

443
00:25:21,200 --> 00:25:23,920
Speaker 1: and uh, it's an interesting move on Twitter's part, very

444
00:25:24,320 --> 00:25:27,680
Speaker 1: you know, because it is a business after all, get

445
00:25:27,720 --> 00:25:29,760
Speaker 1: one without a business plan. Another cool thing you can

446
00:25:29,840 --> 00:25:33,680
Speaker 1: use Twitter to do? Get out of jail. Oh yeah,

447
00:25:33,720 --> 00:25:37,480
Speaker 1: I mean not really, but one guy did it. That

448
00:25:37,520 --> 00:25:41,199
Speaker 1: would be James Carl Buck, who was a student. He

449
00:25:41,280 --> 00:25:45,399
Speaker 1: was in Egypt and Egyptian officials detained him and he

450
00:25:45,480 --> 00:25:49,720
Speaker 1: tweeted the word arrested, and some of his colleagues were

451
00:25:49,760 --> 00:25:51,879
Speaker 1: following him on Twitter read it and they got in

452
00:25:51,920 --> 00:25:54,679
Speaker 1: touch with some authorities who got in touch with people

453
00:25:54,680 --> 00:25:59,199
Speaker 1: in Egypt, and eventually that led to Buck being freed

454
00:25:59,280 --> 00:26:02,840
Speaker 1: by the official So, I mean there are some I

455
00:26:02,840 --> 00:26:05,399
Speaker 1: mean it's kind of hard to argue usefulness of Twitter

456
00:26:05,480 --> 00:26:07,160
Speaker 1: when you're like, well, I got got a guy out

457
00:26:07,160 --> 00:26:12,040
Speaker 1: of a foreign prison. Well that's that's pretty useful. Um.

458
00:26:12,080 --> 00:26:13,639
Speaker 1: And yeah, it's one of those things where it might

459
00:26:13,680 --> 00:26:16,120
Speaker 1: have taken days or weeks to get them out through

460
00:26:16,160 --> 00:26:18,439
Speaker 1: normal channels, because it would just take that long for

461
00:26:18,440 --> 00:26:20,359
Speaker 1: the information to get back to anyone who could do

462
00:26:20,400 --> 00:26:23,399
Speaker 1: anything about it. Uh, there are other cool things you

463
00:26:23,400 --> 00:26:25,240
Speaker 1: can do too. Like one of the things I like

464
00:26:25,320 --> 00:26:27,439
Speaker 1: to do, I like to follow various folks over at

465
00:26:27,520 --> 00:26:30,320
Speaker 1: NASA to keep up with what's going on the Space program.

466
00:26:30,359 --> 00:26:33,560
Speaker 1: You can follow astronauts, and the astronauts are sending messages

467
00:26:33,760 --> 00:26:36,280
Speaker 1: while they're in space down to NASA, who in turn

468
00:26:36,320 --> 00:26:39,200
Speaker 1: are posting it to the astronauts Twitter accounts. So you're

469
00:26:39,200 --> 00:26:43,600
Speaker 1: not actually reading tweets sent by you know, an astronaut

470
00:26:43,640 --> 00:26:46,160
Speaker 1: typing on his iPhone up in orbit, but you are

471
00:26:46,280 --> 00:26:49,719
Speaker 1: reading real time information about what's going on during the mission,

472
00:26:49,720 --> 00:26:52,439
Speaker 1: which is pretty cool. Some of the uh, some of

473
00:26:52,440 --> 00:26:55,920
Speaker 1: the equipment even has its own Twitter feed. Sure. One

474
00:26:55,920 --> 00:26:58,119
Speaker 1: of the Mars rovers had one of the most famous,

475
00:26:58,240 --> 00:27:01,680
Speaker 1: the Phoenix Lander, had one most famous Twitter accounts early

476
00:27:01,720 --> 00:27:06,120
Speaker 1: on and had devoted fans following. And when the Phoenix

477
00:27:06,160 --> 00:27:10,280
Speaker 1: Twitter Twitter account had the last message from the Phoenix Lander,

478
00:27:10,480 --> 00:27:13,440
Speaker 1: there are people who are crying because they had an

479
00:27:13,440 --> 00:27:18,119
Speaker 1: emotional attachment to this artificial construct that had kind of

480
00:27:18,160 --> 00:27:21,159
Speaker 1: a humanizing effect because of the tweet. The tweets, and

481
00:27:21,200 --> 00:27:23,120
Speaker 1: I mean the same thing is true just about any

482
00:27:23,200 --> 00:27:26,080
Speaker 1: Twitter account. If you're following someone from Twitter, you start

483
00:27:26,160 --> 00:27:28,600
Speaker 1: to feel like you get to know this person, and

484
00:27:28,760 --> 00:27:31,679
Speaker 1: even if you have no other connection other than through Twitter,

485
00:27:32,160 --> 00:27:34,080
Speaker 1: you might get upset if you find out something has

486
00:27:34,119 --> 00:27:36,240
Speaker 1: happened to this person. We're seeing that with the Iran

487
00:27:36,320 --> 00:27:38,959
Speaker 1: issue as well. People are starting to get emotionally attached

488
00:27:39,000 --> 00:27:41,679
Speaker 1: to these names and there's no real name attached to

489
00:27:41,720 --> 00:27:45,200
Speaker 1: these these handles, but they're getting attached to these personalities

490
00:27:45,560 --> 00:27:49,240
Speaker 1: and there's genuine concern about what's going to happen to

491
00:27:49,280 --> 00:27:52,000
Speaker 1: these people. It really puts a humanizing effect on on

492
00:27:52,040 --> 00:27:55,520
Speaker 1: situations around the world and in space. Actually, I guess

493
00:27:55,760 --> 00:27:58,639
Speaker 1: it's not just around the world. You know, I have

494
00:27:58,720 --> 00:28:01,440
Speaker 1: one that's much eight er in mood. What's that? No

495
00:28:01,560 --> 00:28:07,520
Speaker 1: crying involved? Shameless corporate promotion, but not on not on

496
00:28:08,040 --> 00:28:11,480
Speaker 1: the part of the UM, you know follower, because a

497
00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:14,560
Speaker 1: lot of companies now are starting to offer coupons to

498
00:28:15,080 --> 00:28:18,800
Speaker 1: follow their company UM and they'll they like doing stuff

499
00:28:18,800 --> 00:28:22,800
Speaker 1: that's timely, I guess, because it's cool to be, you know,

500
00:28:22,920 --> 00:28:27,160
Speaker 1: social media oriented. Now he'll see, you know, hey, come

501
00:28:27,240 --> 00:28:30,240
Speaker 1: in between three and four and get off or get

502
00:28:30,240 --> 00:28:33,360
Speaker 1: a free something donut or you know, cup of coffee

503
00:28:33,480 --> 00:28:36,040
Speaker 1: or something, and people show up. I thought you were

504
00:28:36,040 --> 00:28:39,920
Speaker 1: going to go with Skittles. I wasn't aware of the

505
00:28:40,000 --> 00:28:41,960
Speaker 1: Skittles I wasn't aware of the Skittles thing. There's the

506
00:28:41,960 --> 00:28:44,840
Speaker 1: Skittles thing. You haven't heard about this. So what Skills

507
00:28:44,920 --> 00:28:49,880
Speaker 1: did was they they they change their wealths different now,

508
00:28:50,000 --> 00:28:53,080
Speaker 1: but they change their website so that their website was

509
00:28:53,200 --> 00:28:57,160
Speaker 1: publishing tweets that had the words Skittles in them. So

510
00:28:57,200 --> 00:28:59,200
Speaker 1: if you went to the website, all it was was

511
00:28:59,320 --> 00:29:03,440
Speaker 1: a Twitter fee of various people that said something about now,

512
00:29:03,480 --> 00:29:07,600
Speaker 1: and then people began to post ridiculous or rude or

513
00:29:07,680 --> 00:29:10,560
Speaker 1: obnoxious things that had the word Skittles in it, just

514
00:29:10,760 --> 00:29:14,040
Speaker 1: to troll the Skittles website, which, come on, you had

515
00:29:14,080 --> 00:29:17,360
Speaker 1: to expect that. How could you not know that was

516
00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:21,360
Speaker 1: gonna happen. It's the Internet. I mean, I'm a decent person,

517
00:29:21,680 --> 00:29:24,400
Speaker 1: but even I would find it difficult to resist not

518
00:29:24,560 --> 00:29:27,040
Speaker 1: putting some goofy joke that has nothing to do with

519
00:29:27,040 --> 00:29:29,200
Speaker 1: Skittles and then just add the Skittles tag at the end,

520
00:29:29,240 --> 00:29:31,200
Speaker 1: just so it goes up on the site. You know.

521
00:29:31,280 --> 00:29:34,239
Speaker 1: It reminds me of the General Motors promotion that they

522
00:29:34,240 --> 00:29:35,800
Speaker 1: did a couple of years ago, where they would let

523
00:29:35,800 --> 00:29:38,680
Speaker 1: you do. Put whatever messaging you wanted to on an

524
00:29:38,680 --> 00:29:42,080
Speaker 1: ad and put it online, and people started talking about

525
00:29:42,280 --> 00:29:46,280
Speaker 1: gas guzzlers and environmental stuff and all sorts of profane things.

526
00:29:46,320 --> 00:29:52,000
Speaker 1: Sad trombone. Yeah, that's sort of opens yourself up for

527
00:29:52,000 --> 00:29:54,680
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. I got one more before we Uh, okay,

528
00:29:54,680 --> 00:29:56,640
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to start. We can wrapping this up

529
00:29:56,680 --> 00:30:00,840
Speaker 1: because it's this is a long one. So m you

530
00:30:00,840 --> 00:30:05,680
Speaker 1: can complain about stuff. Oh yeah, you can get responses. Yeah,

531
00:30:05,720 --> 00:30:07,800
Speaker 1: so Chris and I have both had this happen where

532
00:30:08,560 --> 00:30:11,280
Speaker 1: and it wasn't our intent to get a response from

533
00:30:11,320 --> 00:30:14,080
Speaker 1: anyone based upon what we were talking about, but we would.

534
00:30:14,560 --> 00:30:17,920
Speaker 1: You know, you you something not work, that isn't working

535
00:30:17,960 --> 00:30:20,560
Speaker 1: the way you expected it to. You might you feel

536
00:30:20,600 --> 00:30:22,760
Speaker 1: like you said nolla tweet about you know, you have

537
00:30:22,880 --> 00:30:24,800
Speaker 1: this thought, Hey I really wish this would work the

538
00:30:24,840 --> 00:30:27,400
Speaker 1: way it was advertised, you said alla tweets saying hey

539
00:30:27,480 --> 00:30:31,000
Speaker 1: I really wish blah blah blah would work properly. And

540
00:30:31,040 --> 00:30:33,600
Speaker 1: then before you know it, you have an executive right

541
00:30:33,640 --> 00:30:35,800
Speaker 1: to you and say, hey, I work for such and such,

542
00:30:35,840 --> 00:30:38,800
Speaker 1: how can I you know, help this? What's what's going on?

543
00:30:39,640 --> 00:30:44,760
Speaker 1: And then suddenly you've got very personalized customer service. It

544
00:30:44,840 --> 00:30:47,880
Speaker 1: doesn't always work out the way you might want to to,

545
00:30:48,280 --> 00:30:51,400
Speaker 1: but and not everyone has it. I mean, you shouldn't

546
00:30:51,440 --> 00:30:53,880
Speaker 1: go on Twitter and just start complaining about every major

547
00:30:53,920 --> 00:30:57,040
Speaker 1: company you can think of, because that's not really you know,

548
00:30:57,040 --> 00:31:00,160
Speaker 1: first of all, people are gonna notice it. Yeah, but

549
00:31:00,200 --> 00:31:02,560
Speaker 1: second well that's not what Twitter is for. But it

550
00:31:02,600 --> 00:31:07,760
Speaker 1: can happen. I mean I've I've had it happen, so um,

551
00:31:07,920 --> 00:31:11,000
Speaker 1: you know I've got more. But we're thirty minutes into

552
00:31:11,040 --> 00:31:13,720
Speaker 1: this already, So why don't we just go on to

553
00:31:15,400 --> 00:31:22,640
Speaker 1: listener mail? I don't know about that. So this is

554
00:31:22,680 --> 00:31:27,520
Speaker 1: from Ben from London, Ontario. Hey guys, just listening to

555
00:31:27,560 --> 00:31:30,360
Speaker 1: your podcast on Vince Surf and the listener mail you answered.

556
00:31:30,440 --> 00:31:33,960
Speaker 1: By the way, I can't help sheldy listener mail along

557
00:31:34,000 --> 00:31:36,760
Speaker 1: with you, even when at work when there's people around.

558
00:31:36,920 --> 00:31:39,560
Speaker 1: I bet you're going to get that one. And you

559
00:31:39,640 --> 00:31:42,280
Speaker 1: equated an IP address to a street address. However, I

560
00:31:42,280 --> 00:31:45,680
Speaker 1: think this is analogy is not right. I've worked tech

561
00:31:45,680 --> 00:31:48,120
Speaker 1: support for several US Internet companies and I found a

562
00:31:48,160 --> 00:31:51,320
Speaker 1: better One way to talk about this is say the

563
00:31:51,360 --> 00:31:54,840
Speaker 1: IP addresses like a phone number. The number can change,

564
00:31:54,880 --> 00:31:58,280
Speaker 1: however the physical equipment will not. What I would say

565
00:31:58,520 --> 00:32:01,640
Speaker 1: is more like a street address, the MAC address associated

566
00:32:01,680 --> 00:32:05,640
Speaker 1: with the Ethernet card slash modem slash router. Each street

567
00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:11,160
Speaker 1: address MAC address is assigned a phone number I p address,

568
00:32:11,400 --> 00:32:15,400
Speaker 1: but that phone number can change even if the street

569
00:32:15,440 --> 00:32:18,400
Speaker 1: address is the same. That That was all air quotes.

570
00:32:19,200 --> 00:32:21,480
Speaker 1: The best response I got to that analogy was a

571
00:32:21,560 --> 00:32:23,720
Speaker 1: customer that said, well, wouldn't that be confusing if the

572
00:32:23,760 --> 00:32:26,040
Speaker 1: phone company kept changing my phone number all the time?

573
00:32:26,200 --> 00:32:29,400
Speaker 1: And I replied with, well, that's why you and your

574
00:32:29,440 --> 00:32:31,920
Speaker 1: friends would get speed dial. Then all you do is

575
00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:34,480
Speaker 1: dial my friend John dot com and you can talk

576
00:32:34,560 --> 00:32:37,520
Speaker 1: with John. Suddenly, this older man understood how the Internet

577
00:32:37,600 --> 00:32:39,840
Speaker 1: works and was overjoyed with how simple it is when

578
00:32:39,880 --> 00:32:42,520
Speaker 1: you strip away the more complex stuff. Sure it's not

579
00:32:42,680 --> 00:32:45,120
Speaker 1: exactly how it all works, but it's enough to get

580
00:32:45,200 --> 00:32:48,080
Speaker 1: someone who's completely lost get a general idea of how

581
00:32:48,120 --> 00:32:50,720
Speaker 1: the internet works. Thanks for the great podcast, and please

582
00:32:50,800 --> 00:32:56,840
Speaker 1: keep up with the listener mail. Then you're I'm just

583
00:32:56,920 --> 00:32:59,400
Speaker 1: gonna sit here and say thank you. Um. Also, I

584
00:32:59,720 --> 00:33:01,840
Speaker 1: will deal with all the email I get for saying

585
00:33:01,920 --> 00:33:06,360
Speaker 1: listener mail like that so many times in one address.

586
00:33:07,920 --> 00:33:10,240
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's a that's a great point. Um, it

587
00:33:10,400 --> 00:33:12,840
Speaker 1: is more like a phone number than a street address.

588
00:33:12,920 --> 00:33:14,440
Speaker 1: I was trying to think of it in a sense of,

589
00:33:14,560 --> 00:33:17,400
Speaker 1: you know, delivering mail, the way you deliver packets of

590
00:33:17,520 --> 00:33:21,000
Speaker 1: information across the Internet. But you're right, when it doesn't

591
00:33:21,200 --> 00:33:23,560
Speaker 1: have to relate to a physical location, it does tend

592
00:33:23,640 --> 00:33:28,080
Speaker 1: to confuse things a little more. I guess I'm sorry.

593
00:33:28,120 --> 00:33:31,600
Speaker 1: I was checking my Twitter feed all right, So if

594
00:33:31,680 --> 00:33:33,560
Speaker 1: you want to learn more about Twitter, you can go

595
00:33:33,680 --> 00:33:35,400
Speaker 1: to how stuff Works dot com, where we have a

596
00:33:35,480 --> 00:33:41,960
Speaker 1: great article written by who's that hack? Uh? Oh right, Strickland,

597
00:33:42,120 --> 00:33:44,520
Speaker 1: that guy. Um, if you want to follow that guy,

598
00:33:44,960 --> 00:33:48,520
Speaker 1: remember John Strickland over on Twitter. I expect to see

599
00:33:48,560 --> 00:33:51,520
Speaker 1: lots and lots of followers after this, and we will

600
00:33:51,600 --> 00:33:56,520
Speaker 1: talk to you again really soon for more on this

601
00:33:56,720 --> 00:33:59,200
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff works

602
00:33:59,240 --> 00:34:01,280
Speaker 1: dot com and be sure to check out the new

603
00:34:01,360 --> 00:34:03,920
Speaker 1: tech stuff blog. Now on the house stuff What's homepage

604
00:34:08,920 --> 00:34:11,480
Speaker 1: brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

605
00:34:11,800 --> 00:34:12,840
Speaker 1: It's ready, are you