A few questions about Twitter?

[Tom]

1. What are the differences between Tweets and @Replies?
2. I just started Twitter and none of my friends play. Who should I begin following?
3. How do I get followers?

[Alexis C]

1. Tweets is the common name of the updates that users do in Twitter, replying the general question "What are you doing?". All of the messages in twitter are tweets. An @Reply is a special tweet that is considered public message sent from one person to another, and it is distinguished from normal tweets by @username prefix. If a message begins with @username, it will appear both in the public time line and also in the replies tab of that username. This is the way to maintain an open conversation in Twitter, you can reply any tweet in a user's time line @Replies. Some twitter clients can even display threaded history of the @Replies to a tweet. Please note that this is different from Direct messages, which are only viewable by the receiver and which you can only send to people that follows you.

2. There are a lot of interesting people and news sources to follow in Twitter. I'll start by adding a couple of news feeds (the usual suspects are @cnn and @nytimes), check around you might find that your local news channel or paper is twittering. Then it's great to follow prominent figures in your area of interest, who are actually behind the keyboard answering their @Replies and posting interesting things, someone like Guy Kawasaki (@guykawasaki) or Tim O'Reilly (@timoreilly) for example, they might follow you back if you have something interesting to say. Beware of the thousands of supposed-to-be celebrities in twitter, most are fake. Twitter offers a way of looking possible people to follow in your email accounts, you have to give them your password to access the account, but they seem trustworthy and they promise to never store your personal data. When you start following people, check out a service called Twubble which lists the friends of your friends to make it easier for you to find people to follow. Finally feel free to follow me: @alexisc

3. Getting followers can bi tricky. I think that the most important part is tweeting something interesting every now and then. I know that the "What Are You Doing" question is tempting, but answering only what you are having for lunch might not get the masses attention. Many people follows you by default if you follow them, and then if they don't find your time line interesting they drop you later. Seize that opportunity to let the world know about any of your interest or local day by day that might be of interest. Get on the mobile twittering, since that is the best way to share something out right when it strikes you, in a couple of weeks you'll be amazed of how much stuff happens in your every-day life that is interesting to others.