Tweetering the Truth

I know I said I would talk about web browsers for Android in my last post, but I just wrapped up a sales training session and the trainer made a comment about being unfamiliar with Twitter and given her position I felt this could be a great addition to her communication toolbox. (Maybe it’s for my mom too. Maybe she’ll read this and try something new on her Blackberry).

Twitter Primer

When it comes to Twitter, there are two distinct groups. Those that get it and those who do not. Celebrities, athletes, marketing professionals, customer focused companies, social influencers (the list goes on) have figured out how to make twitter work for them. I’m not here to tell you how to become a social influencer on Twitter or how to use it to brand your company. I’m here to encourage you to create an account, give it a shot, and find out what all the tweeting is about.

140 Characters of Magic

When I first saw Twitter, I was like you. I thought Twitter was stupid and I didn’t get it. I thought it was just Facebook’s status update system on steroids. It’s not. In its simplest form, Twitter is about communicating and sharing with people you know or people you want to get information from in short, concentrated messages known as Tweets. Tweets are composed of 140 characters including punctuation and spaces.

Meet @ and #

These two characters make Tweets go round the world. In order to “tweet” at someone, type “@” and the account name. So, if you want to tweet at Barack Obama, or at least the public Twitter account for the POTUS, you would type @Barackobama. Once you hit the send button, Mr. President’s account receives a notification and all your followers see your tweet show up in their news feeds.



Hash tags, also known at “#”, allow you to become part of a conversation. If I wanted to see what people were saying about Peyton Manning following the announcement the Colts were releasing him, I could search for #Manning or #Colts. Likewise, if I wanted to take part in the national conversation I could include #Peyton in a tweet. Huh,, go figure. The first tweet for #Peyton was for the television show One Tree Hill.

Now Trending on Twitter

Trending topics are the most popular items being discussed or mentioned on Twitter at a given time. Twitter’s software searches for frequently used words, names, terms. Topics do not necessarily need to be attached to a hash tag to trend, however. Users can search for trending topics across the world, nationally, by city, or locally using a GPS enabled device. I looked (March 6, 10pm EST) to see what was trending in the United States and got the following results.

• Game of Thrones
• #themainetour
• #ThingsThatMakeMeLOL
• #stopkony
• Kony
• Rick Santorum
• Peyton Manning
• Ohio
• Colts
• Draw Something

Some of the topics were to be expected given that it was Super Tuesday of the Republican Primary. The two Kony topics referred to a militant African man named James Kony, infamous for kidnapping children. Politics, Manning, Kony, HBO’s fantasy drama, and a cell phone game were all trending. This is Twitter in action. Mainstream news topics were rubbing shoulders with grass roots efforts like the efforts to increase the notoriety of James Kony. Thanks to Twitter I know a little more than I did when I started writing this.

Getting Started

One of these easiest ways to get going on Twitter is use it as a news feed. Start following your local paper’s account (@phillyinquirer – Philadelphia Inquirer) and its journalists (@Jeff_McLane – Eagles beat reporter). Add in a national account or two (@ccnbrk CNN Breaking News and @nytimes – NY Times). Do you belong to an organization (@phikappapsi – national fraternity)? Have a favorite sport (@mlb) See where this is going? See how easy this can be?

Following and Followers

You can follow any account you choose. Accounts will generally fall into the following categories – friends, news outlets, celebrities, journalists, and organizations.

If you go into Settings you can limit your tweets to only those who follow you. Additionally, you can block individual accounts from following if you so choose.

The Big Finish

Hopefully this pulls the curtain back on Twitter for you and demystifies the website with cute little blue bird as a mascot. Twitter isn’t a thing for college kids or Kardashian sisters or geeks. It’s a doorway. It doesn’t matter if the door is one you’re familiar with or one you never knew existed. Just turn the handle and see what’s on the other side.

Starting up on Android

So you’ve made the jump to an Android smartphone. If you purchased your device from your carrier or a big box retailer like Best Buy, hopefully your sales rep went over some of these things. This will be a good primer for new users as they get settled into a new device.

Start Me Up

As your phone starts up for the first time, it will require you to set up a Gmail account through Google. If Gmail isn’t your main account, don’t fret, you’ll be able to add other email addresses later. Setting up a Gmail account serves several purposes. Gmail will synchronize your contacts and calendar and will serve as your login for a variety of Google’s applications including the Android Market, YouTube, and Google+. The Market is where you can download games and applications, purchase movies and books, and rent movies.



Many devices will also give you the option to add additional accounts to your device (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn). Adding these accounts will import your contacts into your address book. On the upside, it synchronizes information you might not have had into your address book (Uncle Larry’s email, birthday, and profile picture for Caller ID). Its counterpart is whether or not you want every one of your Facebook and Twitter contacts in your address book. You can adjust your address book settings by entering your contact list, hitting the menu key, and selecting “Display Options.” This is beneficial if you want to use your Facebook contact profile pictures for caller ID pictures but don’t want everyone in your address book.

With great power, comes shorter battery life.

Moving from one of these to one of these is a big upgrade in functionality. The best advice I can give is use what you need. On your home screen you will want to add a power widget. To do this, find a clear row on your desktop, then press and hold this area on the desktop. A menu should appear, select “Widgets,” and search for power control. These steps can vary by device and software version, but will get you close enough. This will allow you to easily control whether Bluetooth, GPS, and Wi-Fi are on. Lastly if you have a 4G device, you should be able to download a 4G widget through the Market. Turning off 4G can also help out battery life when you don’t need the dramatic speed boost.

Ok, so I’m set up. Now what?

My goal is to put together articles featuring apps that focus on specific areas. The great people at Gizmodo maintain a monthly article and an all-time best apps list. Their most recent update can be found here.

Lastly, do yourself a favor and download the Amazon App Store. App developers will partner with Amazon to give away their app for free or a reduced price. Each day, Amazon will give a different paid application away for free.



1) Go to Settings and click “Applications”
2) Click “Unknown Applications” and select “Yes” when a pop-up menu appears
3) Click this link and enter your email address
4) You will receive an email from Amazon, open it and click the first link in the email
5) The Amazon App Store will download. You will be notified when it is complete.
6) Go to the notification and install the program
7) You will need an Amazon account set up with 1-Click purchasing to download apps

That’ll be it for this week. Stop back in next week when I talk about the native web browser for Android devices and what you can do to get a better experience while on the web.